lay off, McWhorter
If D. H. Lawrence doesn’t convince you that John McWhorter is wrong about Shakespeare, let me chime in. I could list about a dozen false or at least questionable assumptions McWhorter makes in his post, but let me confine myself to two. First, he assumes that difficulty in drama is bad. Second, he assumes that difficulty is a function of linguistic change — of course, he knows that there are other reasons why plays and stories and poems are difficult, but he doesn’t mention any of them. This is a great flaw.
Let’s remember that Shakspeare could write as staightforwardly as anyone when he chose to. Consider this wonderful little moment from Act V of Henry V, when the young victorious king is wooing the daughter of the King of France, encumbered by certain linguistic barriers on both sides:
HENRY. But, Kate, dost thou understand thus much English, canst thou love me?
KATHARINE. I cannot tell.
HENRY. Can any of your neighbours tell, Kate? I’ll ask them.
But then consider this passage from Act II of Troilus and Cressida, in which the woman referred to is Helen:
HECTOR. Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost
The keeping.TROILUS. What’s aught but as ‘tis valued?
HECTOR. But value dwells not in particular will:
It holds his estimate and dignity
As well wherein ‘tis precious of itself
As in the prizer. ‘Tis mad idolatry
To make the service greater than the god,
And the will dotes that is attributive
To what infectiously itself affects,
Without some image of th’ affected merit.
This is not difficult because it is old; it’s difficult because it’s difficult. That is, Troilus and Hector are engaged in a serious philosophical debate about what constitutes worth — it’s a word that turns up repeatedly in the scene — and that’s an extremely complex topic. Shakespeare doesn’t try to simplify it in the least. Does anyone think that the average playgoer in 1601 understood the argument that Hector is making here?
So, McWhorter wants “richly considered [translations], executed by artists equipped to channel Shakespeare to the modern listener with passion, respect and care.” I’d be happy to turn that scene from Troilus over to any poet who thinks he or she can “channel Shakespeare” and see what comes out. I don’t think it’ll be pretty.
Of course, Troilus is a uniquely thorny play, so let’s take something more famous — clichéd, even:
To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
You think you can improve on that? Great. Knock yourself out. McWhorter thinks that someone reading that speech in modern French understands more of it than you or I do. Which means that to him the poetry is nothing. Not my view.
So right, Dr. jacobs….I love the way it sounds. Don’t you have to hear it spoken to appreciate it?
I love the way its….sticky….the way quotes stick in your brain (mine at least) and bloom in circumstance.
I love the imagery…the soundvision, the meter and cadence.
O she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
As some rich jewel in Ethiops ear
Beauty too rich for use
For earth too dear
— matoko_chan · May 23, 02:41 AM · #
Um . . . I agree with Matoko.
I thank Shakespeare for this moment of blogospheric grace.
— Kate Marie · May 23, 03:05 AM · #
I’m glad I was here for this Kumbaya moment.
— Matt Frost · May 23, 03:27 AM · #
A relatively minor Shakespeare sonnet has more art than August Wilson’s entire canon:
*****************************
When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutor’d youth,
Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppress’d.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love’s best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told:
Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatter’d be. **********************
Four hundred years old and every single nuance still relevant today.
I used to like McWhorter. I can’t think what happened to that guy.
— Cal · May 23, 03:43 AM · #
Well … it’s a dilemma, really. He’s certainly correct that there are many instances where the difficulty is a function of language change. And it’s hard for me to see how that particular kind of difficulty could be anything but a bad thing in a dramatic performance.
But of course you’re also right about the impossibility of doing Shakespeare justice in the kind of translation that McWorter proposes.
Mind you, I agree with your conclusion. But perhaps it’s just a sad truth that many of Shakespeare’s plays simply can’t be fully appreciated by most audiences (i.e., people who are not already intimately familiar with the plays), largely because of the language problem.
Parenthetically, your “clichéd” example is a little unfair, for reasons which should be pretty obvious. Certainly I doubt very much that McWorter would claim that that “someone reading that [particular] speech in modern French understands more of it than you or I do.”
— LarryM · May 23, 04:02 AM · #
Alan,
To play devil’s advocate for just a second (not that McWhorter is the devil or anything), wouldn’t we say that Shakespeare’s plays are “difficult” (to the degree that they are) for at least the following reasons: (1) they use intricate language to convey complex ideas; (2) they use “antique” language (in the sense that words have meanings that are different from our common contemporary usage); and (3) they rely on historical contexts and allusions likely to be unfamiliar to even reasonably educated audiences. Problem (1) isn’t, of course, a problem at all, as some things should be difficult to understand. Shakespeare shouldn’t be reduced to Looney Tunes. Problem (3) is a bit of a problem, given that one’s ignorance reduces the richness of appreciation, but that can be remedied reasonably easily with a bit of study before seeing a play. Problem (2) is the problem McWhorter wants to focus on and it seems to me that he has a point, at least in this: we don’t read (or at least those outside of college English classes don’t read) Chaucer in the original nor Beowulf. So why not update Shakespeare likewise? Is it because the particular words themselves are, in some sense, “sacred”?
To play devil’s advocate with myself, let me suggest two answers. (1) Yes, the words themselves do matter, for the reason you suggest. They are beautifully put together just as they are. I spent a summer in Yellowstone and took all of the plays with me to read. I had just met my future wife back in college and spent the summer writing her letters, no doubt influenced by my reading material. It nearly goes without saying that it wasn’t my good looks that won her over – some credit must go to Will. And (2) since McWhorter is so hot to rework Shakespeare, someone should thank him for volunteering and tell him to get to work. We expect to see the modern translation of, oh, Hamlet next summer; I’m sure it will be fantastic!
So just two questions remain: where is TAS’s resident Shakespeare reviewer (Noah Millman) in all this?; And what about that BBQ….
— Bryan · May 23, 01:21 PM · #
This is old-fashioned curmudgeonry. Shakespeare’s language is antiquated and this is a fact. Because of this, he was far more understandable to his contemporary audience than to the modern one. Of course translation would alter many aspects of his poetry, but this is true of any translation. The argument in this post would deny Russian readers Pasternak’s translations of Shakespeare and Mr. Jacobs Tolstoy or Murakami. Shakespeare can be made accessible to more people in translation, and that’s a good thing.
— phasearth · May 23, 03:38 PM · #
Bryan, first things first: BBQ this week, I hope and trust. More later. Next: I think the problem is that in practice it can be surprisingly hard to distinguish among your 1, 2, and 3. “Translators” would need to face this all the time.
What differentiates Shakespeare from Chaucer is that Shakespeare is still very recognizably Modern English. There have been incremental changes in English in the past five hundred years, but nothing like what happened between Chaucer and Shakespeare. John Dryden in the late 17th century could scarcely make sense of Chaucer’s language because he didn’t understand the vast linguistic changes that had occurred in the previous three centuries; whereas Shakespeare still makes a lot of sense to a lot of people. It’s worth the labor to keep the music of the language.
Glad to hear that the Bard still serves young lovers. It would warm his heart, I’m sure.
And phasearth, I didn’t realize that when I said “let’s don’t translate Shakespeare” I really meant “let’s don’t translate anything.” Thanks for pointing that out.
— Alan Jacobs · May 23, 04:42 PM · #
Let me offer a comparable situation. About 20 years ago I was looking for something to do and chose to attend the opera with the intention of saying that I had attended “the opera”. I attended a performance that included supertitles and was derided at the time by some traditionalists who were saying that “It is not opera”. Needless to say I am now a regular and ,even if there were no titles, am able to follow the story from my own work.
Would I have become a fan without the titles? Perhaps, perhaps not. Do I have an appreciation for opera that someone who understands the language, including the music, that is was written in? No! But over the years I have increased “my appreciation” for opera and for that I see no downside.
I just wanted to add my penny to the pot.
— Frank g · May 23, 07:13 PM · #
I’m also pissed about the whole “frivolous characters” schitck.
Dude, McWhorter never read Titus Andronicus ?
— matoko_chan · May 24, 12:13 AM · #
Alan: You are welcome. The argument in your post would apply to any translation, so you are saying don’t translate anything. Again, understanding Shakespeare’s language is far more difficult for the modern audience than it was for his contemporary audience, as a function of the antiquated language, not because it is “just difficult.” Every translation changes the original work to make it more accessible.
— phasearth · May 24, 11:23 AM · #
The argument in your post would apply to any translation.
Would it? Show me how. Quote me, if possible.
— Alan Jacobs · May 24, 04:01 PM · #
Alan,
I think that you are missing phasearth’s point – but that’s probably because his point is pretty banal. Obviously, ANY translation indeed would suffer from the problems that you identify. But if (for example) a native speaker of French, who doesn’t speak any English, is to experience Shakespeare at all, it can only be experienced in translation – so we tranlate it, despite the necessarly loss that that entails.
But a native English speaker CAN experience and enjoy Shakespeare in the original – there is no need to translate it. Or, at least, that is your argument, and one that I agree with. So while phasearth is correct in a literal sense (at least the first part of his post), his point is non-responsive to your argument.
Where he and you really differ is his statement that “understanding Shakespeare’s language is far more difficult for the modern audience than it was for his contemporary audience, as a function of the antiquated language.” I take it that you disagree with that statement. Moreover, even were that statment true, there is a difference between “far more difficult” and “impossible.”
— LarryM · May 24, 04:42 PM · #
To what degree is the medium the message?
— Julana · May 26, 08:46 PM · #
The irksome thing about McWhorter is not his quixotic plea for productions of “translated” Shakespeare at a time when audiences for the real thing are growing (making Alan’s defense of Shakespeare entertaining but superfluous).
The irksome thing is his condescending, “All these people seeing Shakespeare’s plays don’t really understand what they’re hearing. They’re not really enjoying it.” He can tell by the set of our jaws and the politeness of our grins that we just don’t get it, that we’re only pretending to enjoy the play.
I’ll bet his next essay is a shocking expose about how people who live in suburbs are joyless and dead inside. He can tell by the perfunctory neatness of their lawns and the quiet desperation with which they grill their meat on a Saturday afternoon.
— Michael Straight · May 27, 06:28 PM · #