User talk:Latifla1940

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SHAKESPEARE'S GIFT By Latif Harris

Some years ago after many years as a student of world literature and philosophy (graduate work in literature at Essex University, England 1968/69) with an emphasis on drama, I was suddenly struck with a simple idea, which explains Shakespeare's longevity and greatness-- especially in the plays. Epiphanies are rare, but this had all the qualities of a sudden insightful answer to a question which had been floating around in my mind for years. To my thinking Shakespeare's writing is extraordinary, the insights broad, characterizations powerful and artifice unequaled by any subsequent playwrights. Productons vary and modernizations of his plays, through minimal design, historical time period changes, i.e., King Lear taking place in a contemporary office setting with computers playing some of the rolls, should not be attempted under any circumstances.

So, to the point. He created so many small rolls! That's it. He put in place a natural training school for actors. I don't need to bother counting the number of small rolls, including rolls with one or two lines, to know that there are hundreds of characters in the plays. In much the same way as a ballet company provides a place for training younger dancers in the corpes de ballet system.

We can argue the meaning of certain great rolls, the emphasis of diction, pauses, tone and reading of the lines forever. Each generation will interpret the plays according to the dictates of time. It is an open ended world for endless exploration by actors, these plays of William Shakespeare. They provide a syllabus for the greatest school of acting one can imagine.

This system has been used in England for a hundred years or more.

Such a seemingly insignificant insight explains why investigation and meditation on subjects as vastly different as astro physics and poetry gives such joy. At any moment, while musing on any subject one might be struck with a crystal like insight which keeps thinkers thinking and tinkers tinking.