Word: shakespeareã
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...Wiggleworth suite. One night, an amorous interlude in one of the bedrooms was interrupted by a voice from outside. Jon, the aspiring creative writer, had climbed up a tree next to our Wigglesworth suite and in the midst of a full moon, three stories high, he recited lines from Shakespeare??s As You Like It. Clearly, Harvard Yard had pearls of wisdom beyond the classroom...
...literary world that it is difficult to view his story lines in new ways. However, one member of the freshman class, Jeremy R. Funke ’03, has attempted and achieved just that. His new play, A Counterfeit Presentment, challenges the traditional interpretation of one of Shakespeare??s most famous plays, Hamlet. Funke’s play is a blend of Hamlet’s original text (as well as Othello and King Lear) and his own semi-Elizabethan prose. Although it would seem like a tall order to even attempt to change Shakespeare?...
...altered version of the scene where Claudius is praying and confessing his sins and Hamlet is trying to decide whether to kill him then or wait. In Funke’s adaptation, both Horatio and Claudius are praying, confessing to similar sins. Though the text is very close to Shakespeare??s, Horatio and Claudius alternate lines and occasionally speak at the same time. The effect is both interesting and powerful...
...often risky to attempt to change and alter a famous piece of literary work, especially Shakespeare??s, and the results are hit or miss. But if taking risks will result in plays like A Counterfeit Presentment then one can only hope that more people will take the chance...
Admittedly, not all of these problems are new and some of them seem legitimately unavoidable. Certain lines of Shakespeare??s are dead and gone forever. According to Harold Bloom, there were lines from the Ur-Hamlet, the play (probably by Thomas Kyd) on which Shakespeare??s Hamlet was most immediately based, which remained a source of mockery for years in the world of Elizabethan theatrics due to their utter ridiculousness. (The ghosts overemphatic and rather simple cry of “Hamlet, revenge!” was among the most common targets.) Now, what Shakespeare undid...