If Shakespeare wrote for the masses, why is his work now an intellectual preserve? John Silvester, Sleaford
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Readers reply
Shakespearean “masses” were theatregoers. Nowadays, people are inundated with choices of sights to see and entertainments to hear: TV, billboards, movies, the internet, radio. Insofar as Shakespeare is studied as texts, his works require attentive readers who can concentrate; such readers are fewer than masses. Diane Hunter
The masses did not read Shakespeare’s plays, but enjoyed them in the theatre, which was affordable. Even today, the best view of the action at the Globe is from the courtyard, which has the cheapest seats. Unfortunately, Shakespeare has been sucked into an examination system in which pupils are graded according to what they write and are rarely taken to see an examination text on stage. In most schools, the only plays that they encounter are exam set texts and teachers stick to the same plays year after year. It used to be the practice to encounter a different play in each school year. Now, to know three plays is the experience of only those studying literature exams to A-level. Viv Graver
Shakespeare wrote for the Elizabethan masses, who spoke the language he wrote and would have understood his plays in a linguistic and cultural context without need for explanations or endless footnotes. People nowadays are highly unlikely to “get it” first time round and are, understandably, often loathe to try again. couldBworse
I cannot agree with the notion that he is now for an intellectual preserve. Many, many years ago, at four, I was taken to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream in an outdoors performance in Bury St Edmunds, in the rain, and laughed and laughed more than anything has made me laugh since. My younger daughter was brought up in a community on the Hudson Valley in New York, which had Shakespeare performances in a beautiful park, with the result that for every year of her childhood her eyes glistened with delight when she heard it was Shakespeare again. We were both enraptured by what we experienced; no intellectual thoughts here. As a young teen, my daughter came to the UK and said on coming back from her new school one day: “I don’t get these kids. They don’t know Shakespeare.” I should say no more. Hector McDonnell
It isn’t; the works of Shakespeare continue to be widely popular, but the form has changed. Theatre is no longer the space in which popular entertainment takes place – now it is on the big or small screen. As such, Shakespeare has moved to those media: a notable example is the film Romeo + Juliet, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, which was a phenomenal success – and a direct adaptation of a work of Shakespeare on the big screen.
But beyond direct adaptations are new works based on his material – The Lion King, West Side Story, 10 Things I Hate About You and The King are all adaptations of Shakespeare plays created for a modern, popular audience. These new works allow audiences to appreciate these works in the popular media of today and in the language and context that is relevant or interesting to them. Why is the study of the texts an “intellectual preserve”? To the extent that it is, it is only because studying any kind of literature is an intellectual preserve – most people just want to appreciate, not study, and they want to appreciate it in a medium that they enjoy. Matt1200
I just don’t believe in the difference between high and low brow, between aristocracy and working class, between fine art and fine engineering
I’m pretty much of Ian Nairn’s view, confirmed when I took my then seven-year-old to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He laughed all through it and loved Pyramus and Thisbe more than anyone should really. “Do you get it?” I asked. “The language is a bit strange isn’t it?” “Yeah, but it’s funny. That lion …” he said.
Fifteen years into reviewing Shakey and Chekhov and Lorca and pantos, I still apply his metric: “Is it funny/moving/entertaining?” If schools must teach Shakespeare (and I’m not sure they should – teach narrative, character and language through more accessible stuff, pace Nairn above), then treat it as entertainment. Get that and the poetry, psychology and drama will follow. And never give the phrase “iambic pentameter” house room. MouthoftheMersey
I’m not certain that it is solely an intellectual pursuit. Only last week we saw a matinee performance of Julius Caesar. Sitting behind us was a party of junior schoolchildren. They seemed to enjoy the show. MrCassandra
Yes, but would they have chosen to come of their own accord? Bluegum
Depends if it was Class 2B, or not 2B … Micktrick
The language was different when he wrote. You have to learn that language – all the little tricks, like what “wherefore” actually means. It takes a good teacher. Most people don’t have access to a good teacher or are too lazy to learn. Gloria Johnson
Shakespeare didn’t speak modern English, but a mixture of late Middle English and modern English. Which, by the way, he pronounced totally differently from that of English speakers today, because he lived during the Great Vowel Shift, when a vast number of words changed their pronunciation. A more relevant question is: why is it that the English-speaking world has yet to produce a better playwright than Shakespeare in more than four centuries? Surely someone must have been able to improve on his achievements. But, according to the “experts” in such matters, no, they cannot. Perhaps there is some problem with the way we teach English. Allan Doodes
Shakespeare’s plays were for the masses – and so are good productions of Shakespeare today. Because the language has changed over 400 years, his words are perhaps not as accessible as in the 16th century. Shakespeare appears not to have been interested in the written texts of his plays; the scripts were tools for working actors. It is only the written Shakespeare that has become the intellectuals’ playground. On the stage, Shakespeare still works! Ted Witham
I suggest Lilian Winstanley (1875-1960) had it right. In her works on Shakespeare, she posited these plays as media, specifically the communication of news. She wrote this in 1921-23, when news was communicated via newspapers and radio. Three hundred years before TV and radio, plays could get around star chamber censorship by using symbolic mythology. A 16th-century author would not want to lose one’s head for performing current events. Sander Fredman
Modern scholarship suggests that “Shakespeare writing for the masses” has been overstated in the past, probably because we like to think of the Bard and his culture as being inclusive and democratic. It really wasn’t. It’s true that entry to the “yard” of a public theatre cost a penny, but given that an artisan’s wage was perhaps 6s, this was still a significant outlay. It’s probable that the public theatres’ audience went down as far as the middling sort, but that’s not really “the masses”. In addition, there were private theatres such as Blackfriars, entry to which cost a great deal more, and of course Shakespeare’s company (Lord Chamberlain’s/King’s Men) played many times at court. Macbeth even has a dumbshow featuring a mirror to show the king’s face, who was present at the first performance.
Readers have often wrongly thought that the bawdy bits of his plays were for the lower classes, which is ridiculous when you think about it; posh people like smut as much as poor people. Sorry if all this is disappointing, but Shakespeare’s society was riven with class divides and conflicts, as reflected in his plays. Dr Peter Howell
Shakespeare wrote for audiences encompassing a wide range of people: intellectuals, uneducated, educated and all. He played with the ambiguities of language, and his many, many themes can generate endless meaning, stimulating much thought – funny, scurrilous and also serious – which appeals to our human minds simply because it’s interesting. He also generates powerful dramatic emotions, of pathos and of tragedy. Shakespeare included allusions to contemporary and classical texts, so more than one intertextual discussion is going on at once. The issues this raised are of timeless human interest, eg “necessity” in King Lear: what do we really need to survive? What is a necessity and what can we do without? Thus issues of poverty and luxury were “played” with in his “plays”, while simultaneously invoking such texts as Boethius’ On the Consolation of Philosophy, “making a virtue of necessity”, along with biblical allusions, eg naked we enter this world:
Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! Come, unbutton here. (King Lear, Act 3, Scene 4)
Answering your question requires the volumes of material on Shakespeare (and more) which can be found in any university library. Shakespeare is one of the joys of life. Mary Davies
Shakespeare’s vocabulary, idioms and language construction are endlessly inventive and fascinating: difficult to deconstruct, sometimes shocking, sometimes hilarious. However, it is beyond question that many speeches in the plays are incomprehensible for a modern audience. The key to answering this question, though, is whether we are meant to read Shakespeare at all. I have been an English teacher for more than 30 years and it constantly surprises me when teachers introduce a play by reading it, when the first port of call should always be a good production. This is really what Shakespeare is about: the visual spectacle, the emotional inner thoughts, the funny asides, the action! With a thoughtful director and good actors, anyone can access the stories that he tells, even if they can’t decipher every single word or scene.
Nowadays, we approach Shakespeare as something to analyse; in his own time, he was revered as a master storyteller. The truth is that Shakespeare wrote for the general public and the intellectual elite; we need to adjust our approach to him in secondary education and reclaim him for the masses. Dave Fouracre
The fundamental concern of literature is in creating a greater understanding of the human condition. From this, we can evolve. The trouble is, there’s no need for evolution if you are born to be a cog in a machine: the proles need not concern themselves with efforts of such thoughtfulness! For as long as the elite dictate cultural opportunity, they’ll try to keep the best bits for themselves. Jayne Hill
