Being in the web business, I get excited when I see headlines go by like “Shakespeare and the Invention of Web 3.0” and other topics that look like they’d tie my two loves together. Imagine how disappointed and frustrated I get when I skim said article and discover that the closest they get to Shakespeare is one “A rose by any other name….” message thrown into the mix. (I saw this one just this morning, as a matter of fact).
So when I saw Print, Real People, and Shakespeare : A Content Strategy I thought I was again in for disappointment. In fact on first skim of the article I saw no Shakespeare mention at all, and dreamed up this ranting blog post.
Wrong!

The answer can be found, as usual, in Shakespeare. I don’t mean that there’s a line from Hamlet that we can lazily interpret to impress the audience. I’m talking about the plays themselves — the performances. Will a video of actors on the live stage ever replace the experience of being in the theater? Not likely. I think most will agree that seeing a live play will always provide a different experience than watching it on a screen — and that it will always be a valued experience.

The article goes on to argue that it is that “real” content of a print publication, something you can hold in your hands, that will forever give it a premium value over and above purely online content. It’s an interesting argument, and I can see his point. Not sure I agree with it, but that’s a different story. I just wanted to credit them with actually using Shakespeare meaningfully in their article. Thanks!

This article is almost certainly exactly what it says it is : Shakespeare words you didn’t know. Not words you didn’t know Shakespeare invented, or cliches that came from Shakespeare that have changed over the years (I’m looking at you, glister/glisten).
Nope, this is words that you almost certainly never saw before. That is, unless you’ve played one of these parts or, you know, study this stuff for a living.
How about Gongarian? Or maybe crants, or tranect?
I’m sure I’ve skimmed over all of them (crants is apparently in Hamlet) and never really thought much about it. But I’ve certainly never heard of any of the ones listed. Your mileage may vary (hence, “almost exactly what it says”, since I’m sure a number of you have in fact seen at least some of these words).

Something occurred to me this weekend, while mowing the lawn.

How come when a movie actor wants to portray his project as having quality, he’ll say that it’s like Shakespeare (I’m thinking of the Spiderman reboot, although there are other examples)… but if you went up to the average moviegoer and said “Hey, you want to go see a Shakespeare movie?” most of them would look at you like you were crazy? It’s as if “like Shakespeare” means “very good”, but “actual Shakespeare” means “I won’t like it.”
My theory is that it has to do with our own lack of confidence in ourselves. We’ve all been taught that Shakespeare is the pinnacle of literature. The best of the best. So to compare yourself to such a high standard inherently puts you up there near it, at least. And that’s pretty good.
But, at the same time, we also think that Shakespeare is therefore out of our own reach. That it is too difficult for us to understand. We fear that we will not be able to appreciate it, to discuss it and offer our opinions afterward. So pre-emptively we decide that just wouldn’t like it to begin with.
That makes me sad. People want “like Shakespeare”. But they’re afraid of actual Shakespeare, because they don’t think they can handle it. I wonder how to bridge that gap?

This article is little more than the announcement of a particular show, but I like the way they spun it. This particular interpretation will focus on the Macbeths as one of Shakespeare’s great romantic couples.

“Our director Iam Coulter kept telling us she wanted Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to light up every room when they walk in. They’re dynamic, they’re sexual and they’re very much in love,” says Konchak.

What do you think? I know we’ve discussed Shakespeare’s best couples in the past, but sometimes it’s fun to revisit topics for the new geeks.
Are the Macbeths an example of a wonderful couple, or are they incredibly dysfunctional?