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A review by amymo73
Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us about Our Past and Future by James Shapiro
4.0
What I am loving about the Chautauqua books is that I'm picking up some things that are fascinating and I love but that I wouldn't necessarily have found on my own. And isn't that why we like lists? To find new things?
I bought a copy of this at the Institute earlier this month and I LOVED it. I wasn't sure what to expect, but Shapiro does a great job organizing -- taking specific events/issues in historical context and the ways that Shakespeare played a part in the debate. And isn't it interesting how we use Shakespeare in our communication about things which are important to us? And how interesting it is that more than 300 years later there is still plenty of room for interpretation. Truly, I love that about work. And I realized how little Shakespeare I've really read or understand. Also how much we are still debating, arguing, the same topics just with different costumes and set design.
My favorite parts:
"Shakespeare's habit of presenting both sides of an argument. ... Shakespeare was very much of his age, a product of an Elizabethan educational system that trained young minds to argue 'in utramaque partem' on both sides of the question."
I was fascinated by the chapter on Class Warfare and the history of the theater in New York.
"At stake were competing notions of what sort of behavior was acceptable in a theater, as well as diverging American and British approaches to Shakespeare."
"The violence at the Opera House brought into sharp relief the growing problem of income inequality in an America that preferred the fiction that it was still a classless society."
"What did change in the aftermath of the Astor Place was that violent protests in theaters were no longer tolerated. When competing claims over freedom of speech collided, the right of actors to be heard would prevail over the right of protesters to shout them down. ... Theatergoing in American would henceforth be a quieter and more passive experience."
The chapter on the immigration debate -- so topical now:
"Community in Shakespeare's comedies depends -- much like immigration policy -- on who is barred admission as much as who is accepted. ... A more hopeful community at the end of a Shakespeare comedy typically depends on somebody's exclusion."
"The real aim of restrictionists was to harden American hearts against an open-door policy, to no longer think of their country as a refuge."
"The playing of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' was both new and controversial. It was only in this year that President Wilson had ordered that it be performed at military events and recent efforts in Baltimore (where its lyrics were written) to impose a fine on anyone who refused to stand when it was played were met by resistance to 'the folly of trying to instill patriotism by law, to create reverence by statute.'"
What I did like about the 1998 chapter about the movie Shakespeare in Love is the way he treated Harvey Weinstein and showed him through a lens of what we now know about him. I'm grateful he spent time on that.
"At stake in what sort of union is deemed acceptable is how tolerant a community imagines itself to be. Comedies tend to be more socially conservative than tragedies. ... If you want to know what a culture is truly anxious about, look at what kinds of unions make its audiences uncomfortable."
I bought a copy of this at the Institute earlier this month and I LOVED it. I wasn't sure what to expect, but Shapiro does a great job organizing -- taking specific events/issues in historical context and the ways that Shakespeare played a part in the debate. And isn't it interesting how we use Shakespeare in our communication about things which are important to us? And how interesting it is that more than 300 years later there is still plenty of room for interpretation. Truly, I love that about work. And I realized how little Shakespeare I've really read or understand. Also how much we are still debating, arguing, the same topics just with different costumes and set design.
My favorite parts:
"Shakespeare's habit of presenting both sides of an argument. ... Shakespeare was very much of his age, a product of an Elizabethan educational system that trained young minds to argue 'in utramaque partem' on both sides of the question."
I was fascinated by the chapter on Class Warfare and the history of the theater in New York.
"At stake were competing notions of what sort of behavior was acceptable in a theater, as well as diverging American and British approaches to Shakespeare."
"The violence at the Opera House brought into sharp relief the growing problem of income inequality in an America that preferred the fiction that it was still a classless society."
"What did change in the aftermath of the Astor Place was that violent protests in theaters were no longer tolerated. When competing claims over freedom of speech collided, the right of actors to be heard would prevail over the right of protesters to shout them down. ... Theatergoing in American would henceforth be a quieter and more passive experience."
The chapter on the immigration debate -- so topical now:
"Community in Shakespeare's comedies depends -- much like immigration policy -- on who is barred admission as much as who is accepted. ... A more hopeful community at the end of a Shakespeare comedy typically depends on somebody's exclusion."
"The real aim of restrictionists was to harden American hearts against an open-door policy, to no longer think of their country as a refuge."
"The playing of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' was both new and controversial. It was only in this year that President Wilson had ordered that it be performed at military events and recent efforts in Baltimore (where its lyrics were written) to impose a fine on anyone who refused to stand when it was played were met by resistance to 'the folly of trying to instill patriotism by law, to create reverence by statute.'"
What I did like about the 1998 chapter about the movie Shakespeare in Love is the way he treated Harvey Weinstein and showed him through a lens of what we now know about him. I'm grateful he spent time on that.
"At stake in what sort of union is deemed acceptable is how tolerant a community imagines itself to be. Comedies tend to be more socially conservative than tragedies. ... If you want to know what a culture is truly anxious about, look at what kinds of unions make its audiences uncomfortable."