I have now completed my first “trial” and found it to be “error”.
As one of my first outside sources to try using in my study of Hamlet, I decided to watch the famed video, “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”. I was interested in seeing it, not only because it had been mentioned in class, but because ever since Junior High (ish), I have heard it mentioned by my dad. My dad is something of a Renaissance man and a certifiable closet English nerd. He's described it as a hilarious little spoof. Naturally, I was curious about it, and, as we are now reading Hamlet, I thought this would be a good time to satisfy my curiosity.
Now why, you may be asking yourself, was this “trial” an “error”? First I’d like to put forth my disclaimer; the film was in fact pretty darn funny, and I did enjoy watching it. But watching it made me realize something; funny is just not what gets me excited about Shakespeare.
It sometimes seems to me that there is almost a fad in the world of taking anything well known, be it literature, art, people, or what have you, and “spoofing” it, or making a joke of it. Now, I do enjoy those, especially the ones that can maintain the intelligent side of the humor; it's entertaining and fun. But for me, too much of that kind of that sarcastic interpretation style becomes very draining, and kind of dulls the shine of the sincerity in which a work was originally put forth. I think the thing that really makes literature fascinating to me is when I can delve into the true, sincere emotion of the work, and connect to something I find there on a deep level. (How cool is it that I’m learning about myself and not just Shakespeare here? J)
So, from this my first trial and error, I have decided that for my own personal exploration of Shakespeare this semester, I am going to try and veer away from the “spoof” route, and try to focus more on studying the more emotional and serious aspects. I think that, as I mentioned in my first post, looking at various kinds of art expressions of Shakespeare will be where I explore next.
