[Lexicog] When Semantics Doesn't Matter

[Fritz Goerling]

For me the question is "For what purpose should Shakespeare (or any author)
be modernized?"  

Shakespeare was bowdlerized, and efforts are going on to edit the Christian
content out of C.S. Lewis' "Narnia" books.

How about rewriting Shakespeare in inclusive language?

 

Fritz Goerling

"Better a witty fool than a foolish wit." Is this the use of 
antistrophe or chiasmus? Well, here the use, or frequency of use, 
would take precedence over any particular dictionary, because "it's 
all one" according to the dictionaries. My gut tells me "chiasmus," 
but the OneLook Reverse Dictionary doesn't list it under "inverse," 
but it does list "antistrophe" (both alluding to the reverse order of 
parallel phrases.) 
This all becomes trivial pursuit however, when balanced against 
the original meaning of Shakey. According to C.T. Onions, and backed 
up by disparate lines in Bardies' collection of plays, the original 
meaning of "witty" here is "wise" or "prudent" -- other than we would 
assume (or do we even assume we know the meaning of the cryptic 
phrase in the first place?). The meaning of "witty" has lost that 
connotational color in today's one-liner-world of Leno and Letterman 
(sorry, Carson, that you didn't get mentioned). 
This example would also be grist for the purist-mill in 
castigating 'modernizers-of-Shakespeare', if it weren't for the 
matter of words changing meaning 180 degrees (oppo-semantic-shift)-- 
an issue that, for me, makes modernizing Shakespeare more than an 
idealist-torch for hip-lingo-Anglophiles. (e.g. In III Henry VI 1.4.3-
5 "My uncles both are slain in rescuing me/And all my followers to 
the eager foe/Turn back and fly..."). Rather than hot pursuit of the 
enemy, 'turn back' means "turn their backs on" -- i.e. "flee in 
fear". Would changing the wording "turn back and fly" to "Turn their 
backs and flee" be such a roll-over-in-his-grave affront to the 
genius of Shakey -- if it meant understanding what he meant? 
Oviously, the following context indicates the meaning -- but that's 
an eventual understanding, if the listener/audience/reader would like 
to go back to re-interpret what has now turned to a new phrasal 
enigma, to perhaps re-interpret a line or two later. 
These examples show how tricky modernization can be. Many more 
examples, especially of verse, not open-prose, could be cited to 
illustrate the conundrums involved. But the question to me is not 
really "Should shakespeare be modernized" as much as "At what point 
in the current/future English language era must it be modernized?"

Scott Nelson

 

 

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