Well, one side effect of having to shut down all my reading groups is that now I have to time to renew my random little iReadShakespeare short newsletter. :-) Those of you who have been on this list for a while are aware that I am the worst blogger ever. But I’m excited to send this to you!
I’ve lately been reading the works of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536, lived to be 70 years old) lately because I like to read things that we know influenced Shakespeare. I discovered I love reading Erasmus’ work, and I can certainly see that it is one of the sources from which the playwright studied the art of rhetoric.
In his work called, On Copia of Words and Ideas, in which copia means “a plentiful supply,” I was particularly struck with the one-paragraph chapter in which he discusses allegory and the use of proverbs such as, “Saleable wine has no need of ivy trimmings.” Apparently taverns would hang ivy on their doors to indicate they had wine for sale, but if the wine is good, there is no need to advertise because the quality will speak for itself. We see this particular proverb in use in As You Like It when Rosalind says, “If it be true that good wine needs no bush, ’tis true that a good play needs no epilogue.”
Although it was interesting to see the connection of the line from Erasmus to As You Like It, I was even more intrigued with this thought of Erasmus’:
“In proverbs of this sort, allegory sometimes results in enigma. Nor is that bad, if you are talking to the learned, or writing; indeed, in the latter case, not even if for the general reader. For things should not be written in such a way that everyone understands everything, but so that they are forced to investigate certain things, and learn.”
That last line, so we are forced to investigate certain things, and learn, I find quite profound and enlightening. I come from twenty-five years of writing computer books—I write really good directions, and I developed my own techniques for making sure everything was crystal clear. So the idea that it is a positive feature (not a bug) for writing to be enigmatic was eye-opening to me. (I realize poets already know this, but I’m not a poet!)
Knowing Shakespeare read Erasmus, the idea that maybe Shakespeare intentionally wrote so we—you and I, Dear Reader—are forced to investigate and learn gives me more patience with particularly knotty passages. And then I find I feel complicit with the playwright in puzzling out the various potential meanings, like I’m finally getting the inside joke and working with it and winking along with the author.
And of course, as Readers, the satisfaction of eventually reading that knotty passage and being able to hold the various layers of meaning within it is so delicious!
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Each newsletter now comes with a Shakespeare quiz in which to test your knowledge and maybe learn new things. Click on the link below to open the PDF quiz in your browser. From there you can print it or download it to your device. Feel free to share the quiz as much as you want!
with a smile,
Robin
Click here to download Shakespeare Pictionary! This is an easy one. ;-)