Pynchon/Shakespeare

[Parke Muth]

>A glance at the summer issue of "Transition":
>Shakespeare in popular culture
>
>Nicholas Moschovakis, who teaches English at the University of
>the South, ponders the trendiness of Shakespeare. From Baz
>Luhrmann's "MTV-style" 1996 adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet" to
>the smattering of out-of-context Shakespearean quotations
>appearing as sound bites in political speeches, Shakespeare --
>once the epitome of high-brow culture -- is being diminished,
in
>some ways, to a low-brow icon. Mr. Moschovakis notes that many
>well-educated Americans -- including some professors and
>teachers of Shakespeare -- spend a disproportionate amount of
>time listening to the buzz and fashionable scholarship
>concerning the Bard, while rarely reading and thinking about
>Shakespearean texts, or attending performances of his plays.
"It
>would be easy to call such a situation inevitable, an aspect of
>our postmodern condition," Mr. Moschovakis writes, yet "the
>growing fascination of critics with 'Big-Time Shakespeare' ...
>poses a challenge to widely received notions about the value of
>art and tradition." Mr. Moschovakis proceeds to contrast the
>Bard's treatment in America with that in Africa, noting the
>strong receptivity to and affinity for Shakespeare on the part
>of African poets, actors, and playwrights. The "allusive
>practices" of such scholars and performers -- used in America
by
>such writers as Thomas Pynchon and Maya Angelou -- ought to be
>given more attention, Mr. Moschovakis concludes, for their
>identification with Shakespearean texts arises "from a
>meaningful and intentional relationship to Shakespeare's
>writings (rather than his image) among audiences as well as
>authors." The journal's World-Wide Web address is
>http://web-dubois.fas.harvard.edu/transition/