Here’s to you, Bill

Posted on 2011.04.23@10:43:44 (EDT) | 2 comments

William Shakespeare was definitely a man who was never afraid to test the waters of new genres. Obviously, there’s the ever-popular revenge story that is Hamlet, but instead of sticking to a genre that he knew worked (well, okay, technically, he did with Hamlet, since it’s heavily inspired by Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, but I’m talking about within his own works…well, okay, there’s the thing where a woman dresses up as a man and…yeah, let’s just keep going.) he also went for other genres, like the Romantic Drama that is Romeo and Juliet, the fantasy epic that is The Tempest, and the sheer WTF-ery that is The Winter’s Tale. However, the one play that I find myself enjoying more than not is one of his political Histories. And no, it’s not Julius Caesar (although that’s a good one, too.)

The one that strikes me the most is what is, using modern terms, his Art Film, an under-appreciated gem called Richard II. Yes, it does tell a compelling political story, as well as the story of a man who remains steadfast in being who he is past being just a monarch, even as his world crumbles around him for his sake and his Queen’s (although historically speaking, his Queen was ten years old at the time and I’ll just leave that conversation where it is before things get creepy), but the true draw of this play for me is the artistry used in the language. Taken at face value, a lot of the dialogue in this play seems caught up in the linguistic protocols of the time, resulting in characters taking two minutes to respond to the question “What is your name?” or having characters say the exact same thing, albeit with different wording, for what feels like forever. However, when looking at the text itself from an artistic perspective rather than a realistic one (which really only encourages the performance of a certain Monty Python gag), it becomes apparent that this was Shakespeare joyfully making the English Language perform Dolphin Tricks.

That, of course, is where Shakespeare’s greatest strength as a writer lies: creating infinities out of limits. Language itself, as a medium of art, is restricted by its own rules (heck, he even had to make up new words just for Richard II: Shooting Star, Time-Honored. and used Accused as a noun), but in this play, Shakespeare used every last millimeter of the canvas that is language to present his art. Not too many writers have taken English to its limit as much as Shakespeare has, and in that respect, Richard II is to him what The Starry Night is to van Gogh.

And that, in essence, is what inspires me about Shakespeare: His ability to create infinities even when he’s bound by limits (his skills when he’s obligated with minimums, however, is a different story) is something to emulate, regardless of what artistic medium you have chosen. Whether it’s a Motion Picture that gives audiences a completely unique perspective that draws them into the story either with camera angles or lighting or any other shot compositions, or music which uses combinations of instruments and distortions that produce completely unique sounds, one can look at Richard II and see that even though it seems that you’re bound by the perceived limits of your art or profession, all it takes is inspiration, diligence, and imagination to make those shackles feel light as as feathers. Thanks for that, Bill. Happy Birthday.

_{This blog post was written for the Shakespeare Birthday Trust‘s Shakespeare Birthday Project.}