Does anyone think it's sacrilege to re-write Shakespeare?

In the 1970s I re-wrote Romeo and Juliet to prove to my English teacher...I was paying attention. I made them hippies. The teacher gave me a B+.

I believe...we as writers learn from everything we read and experience. Writing was a tree planted at the dawn of mankind....we will always be seeds dropped on the ground from an older tree.

Given that most of Shakespeare's plays were re-writes of earlier plays, I don't think Shakespeare would have minded.

I don't think it's sacrilege so much as it is a waste of time.

Totally in agreement with Larkin and Terrence but a bit thrown by Harry. I think you're getting at the fact that why should you bother re-writing something that's pretty perfect anyway? I see that, but why not use the history and vicarious glory to lend gravity to something important in contemprary society?

If you could do it as well as Laurents and Bernstein, (who did not do it for "vicarious glory") I would agree with you.

Richard, I could never get my round Shakey either, purchased the complete works a few years ago and gave him another go. I was pleasantly surprised. Of course, reading him is not the same as seeing the work performed where it comes alive and is easy to appreciate, no matter what modern twist the production company puts on it. However, one of my favourites was indeed a rewrite. It was on at Edinburgh Festival a number of years ago. The name: Bill Shakespeare's Italian Job. Very funny. I know they wanted to get a run in London's West End but couldn't get the funding. Since seeing that I've often wondered what other combinations might work. How about Wullie Shakespeare's Trainspotting, or Irvine Welsh's MacBeth, or Quentin Tarantino's Merchant of Venice?

I think it's important to learn from writers of the past and let it influence your own work. After all, the more you read and the more you write, arguably the better you get at both. I don't think it's right to 're-write' Shakespeare, so to speak, but I think it's valuable to enjoy his work and learn what we can from his stories and his style.

Though I never did like his work, could never make head or tails of whatever the hell he was on about, haha.

-Jason Purdy (MM)

It's not sacrilege but I don't think that Shakespeare needs to be updated; I think Shakespeare needs to be understood.

The first time I heard the language of Shakespeare and the King James bible I knew that a writer was a person who worked magic; that a writer was something I really wanted to be and to me plays like Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, The Tempest, Romeo & Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Nights Dream and Anthony and Cleopatra are timeless classics; their poetry as beautiful today as when it was first spoken.

It's bit like updating the Sistine Chapel Ceiling
or Beethovens Ode to Joy. It's not sacrilege but I don't see the point in bothering.

Also, updating Shakespeare has been done so many times before. Why not be original and pick another author to update?

Why not rewrite a bad piece of writing? Turn one of the works of McGonagall or Jeffrey Archer into a masterpiece? No one ever thinks to update (and improve on) bad writing; they're always messing with the much loved classics.

JoHn -

"Ex amore victoria". ("From love comes victory".)

Good points raised there about re writing bad stuff! I suppose you run the risk of doing a George Lucas and ruining a classic!

I remember when Robbie Williams sampled the opening of "You Only Live Twice" for the song Millennium. I thought, "Like sticking a nugget of gold ontop of a pile of manure. It only makes more apparent that everything but the golden nugget is a heap of sh*t".

JoHn -

"Ex amore victoria". ("From love comes victory".)

Nice analogy well wisher! A great range of responses on here. I must admit to a personal interest as I'm trying to re write the hamlet soliloquy into 'to strike or not to strike' but unsure if the subject matter is important enough. Stuck on line three anyways!

Shakespeare was big during my high school days, and his phraseology is delicious. Re the question on this post---I believe in the adage I once read many years ago---"there is nothing new under the sun, only words and images to be re-created."

As my Gran always used to say "There is nothing new under the Sun!

Under the Sun? Author in stolen story shocker

So many phrases in common usage are derived from Shakespeare's writings - high time, lie low, I haven't slept a wink, love is blind, wears his heart on his sleeve, fancy free, to be or not to be... hundreds , more than any other individual. Contemporise to your heart's content (probably one of his too)- I'm sure the original will long outlast the facsimile.

'...Why not rewrite a bad piece of writing? Turn one of the works of McGonagall or Jeffrey Archer into a masterpiece?...'

I once wrote a bit o' doggerel dedicated to McGonagall. It went thusly:

MCGONAGALL

The worst poet in the world ‘tis said,
His rhymes are deemed atrocious.
But just been sold for lots of bread
So who’s having the last laugh now, eh?
(even tho’ he’s dead)

http://www.ukauthors.com

To be updated or not to be ... Isn't language a living thing? And if people do updates would the work still be Shakespeare or Shakespearesque? I was probably only one of 3 children in my whole class at school who enjoyed reading the Bard but the only one who would admit to it in class. He at least acknowledged the presence of Moors, whereas others tried to write them out of history.

No, of course not.

While the original text might have some sacrality to it, which by the way we should ask what does that mean, I think that the rewriting of a tragedy or comedy must be seen, first and foremost, as a kind of hommage.

I am acquainted with some rewritings of Romeo & Juliet and I am sure they have seduced newer audiences and readers.

Is it not the West side story a newer version of R&J?

Excelsior!

Oh Blighters Rock :) I am so glad you mentioned not never fully getting your head round shakespear, I thought it must be only me in the world lol.

I like brilliance but brilliance I can understand first time lol so feel happy I am not alone not quite getting William :))))

I hope your well :)

Keep Writing
Keep Smiling :))))

I grew up on a diet of Shakespeare - my father was a classical theatrical producer - and I find myself agreeing with Well-wisher - it is the beauty of the words and their arrangement that makes him the giant that he remains in English literature.
I was involved in a production of an Afrikaans version of King Lear many years ago in Cape Town which turned out to be more of a farce than a tragedy. It made me realize then that the content of Shakespeare's plays was not where the magic lay.
He fed my creative imagination with the extraordinary power of the English language.
We can rework his ideas and his plots -many of which he too took from elsewhere - but we can never hope to recreate his genius.

Bit of a bind if you're an atheist.

http://www.ukauthors.com

Au contraire, makes life a lot less complicated imo, Blighters. Only my opinion, natch :)

http://www.ukauthors.com

Shakespeare took other peoples work and con temporised it so he can't complain if it's done to him. in fact he can't complain anyway - he's dead. Rewrite away to your heart's content, that's what I say.

It depends what you mean by a re-write. West Side Story takes the tale of Romeo and Juliet and puts it in a new context (with songs and almost completely new words) - is it a re-write?

I think you can take any of Shakespeare's stories and re-write them in any way you like but I'm not sure that you can take his language and improve it. I have heard 'modernised' versions but they are just horrible.

But as time passes and language changes from one culture to another, we often embarrass ourselves when, as Romeo lifts his eyes to Heaven after accidently slaying Mercutio ... and shouts,"O! I am fortune's fool!"

Did anyone see David Tennant in Hamlet? Love DT, brilliant actor, but sorry to say I switched it off after about 15 mins despite the fact that it's 'highly acclaimed'. Hated the modern spin (but then I'm a traditionalist :))

http://www.ukauthors.com

Very edgy wasn't he? He didn't appear to be, ("Of the manner born") but it's a bitch of a part no matter how you look at it..

Wow this has taken off a bit! Guess that's what I get for putting the word 'Shakespeare' in a writers' forum. I personally love the bard. I went through the whole, 'I hate Shakespeare' phase and went down the Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe route but after seeing Lear in Stratford I was hooked again. I teach it to death but the kids just come up with awesome and at times mental interpretations.
I've shelved my idea for re-writing the soliloquy but mostly because I've answered my own question and chosen not to strike.

I saw a weird Ukranian version of Midsummer nights dream once in cardiff castle, which consisted of people wandering around in white sheets. I had absolutely no idea what was going on, despite having seen the play twice before. There's re-writing shakespeare and then there's wandering around in sheets gibbering Ukranian nonsense for two hours.

The performance would probably make even less sense to a Ukranian.

I don't speak a word of Ukranian but this doesn't stop me singing along to ukranian folk music. Peter Solawka, Len Liggins, I am truly sorry.

I'm not sure if the Elizabethan magic expressed in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" can be translated. It's hard enough to do it in English. I remember the Hollywood attempt back in the thirties with Mickey Rooney and Dick Powell.

I've just seen that the Globe programme for 2012 includes all 37 Shakespeare plays performed by 37 overseas companies in 37 different languages. Book your tickets now (I am genuinely excited)

THE WEIGHT-WATCHER’S SOLILOQUY
…with apologies to Will Shakespeare!

Tubby, or not tubby: fat is the question:
whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to consume
the sweets and mallows of outrageous feeding,
or to take arms against a sea of cellulite,
and by abstaining lose it. To diet? To slim?
No more! (and by slimming to say we end
the gut ache and the thousand caramel chocs
the flesh will sag to!) ‘Tis a consummation
devoutly to be wished?

To diet. To slim.
To slim - perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,
for as we starve to death what creams may come
when we have shuffled off this mortal flab,
must give us pause? There’s the dessert
that makes calamity of so long abstinence:
for who would bear the nips and chews of lettuce,
the depressing crispbread, the gourmet’s contempt,
the pangs of eternal hunger, the jaw’s decay,
the indolence of orifice, and the churns
that vacant corners of the stomach make
when you yourself might your quietus make
with a bare gherkin? Who could even bear
to shrink and sag under a boring diet,
but that the thought of something after dinner…
the undiscovered pantry, to whose shelves
all serious eaters return, unmuzzles the gob,
and makes us hap’ly scoff those things we want,
then sample others that we know not of.
Thus, chocolate does make cowards of us all,
and thus the native hue of resolution
is sicklied o’er with the tempting whiff of chips,
and sticky buns of great size and density,
with this regard their currants multiply,
and lose the name ‘forbidden’.

And to think you wrote this over the holiday season STM. I have been thinking about real apple pie and cream for the past week and I feel gob smacked after reading your enormous offering. Totally. When I should be thinking solely of lettuce ...

Romeo and Juliet was a re-working of a story already in existence several times over. Of course, back then, copyright didn't come into it!

One of my favourite lessons involves getting my students to rewrite the Balcony Scene in modern teen-speak! I agree with whoever said it depends what your purpose is...

J x

Stan, your 'THE WEIGHT-WATCHER’S SOLILOQUY' is deserving of a bunch of cherries.

This is very well written. Congratulations! Richard LP
AND I'M HAVIN' THE LAST LAUGH NOW, EH? is a small suggestion for your last (fourth line). Richard LP

What they're saying is, you are the man Stan. Applause!!!

Well... thank you, all. I'll post it then! I wrote it years ago, actually, for a slam. It seemed to go down well with a certain section of the audience, who wanted copies to stick on their fridges!