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William Shakespeare and the American People: a Study in Cultural Transformation Author(S): Lawrence W William Shakespeare and the American People: A Study in Cultural Transformation Author(s): Lawrence W. Levine Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 89, No. 1 (Feb., 1984), pp. 34-66 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1855917 . Accessed: 17/03/2014 16:43 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Oxford University Press and American Historical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The American Historical Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 17 Mar 2014 16:43:19 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions WilliamShakespeare and the AmericanPeople: A Study in Cultural Transformation LAWRENCE W. LEVINE THE HUMOR OF A PEOPLE AFFORDS IMPORTANT INSIGHTS into the nature of their culture.Thus Mark Twain's treatmentof Shakespearein his novelHuckleberry Finn helps us place the Elizabethanplaywright in nineteenth-centuryAmerican culture. Shortlyafter the two rogues,who pass themselvesoff as a duke and a king,invade the raftof Huck and Jim,they decide to raise funds by performingscenes from Shakespeare's Romeoand Julietand RichardIII. That the presentationof Shake- speare in snmallMississippi River towns could be conceivedof as potentiallylucrative tells us nmch about the positionof Shakespeare in the nineteenthcentury. The specificnature of Twain's humortells us even more. Realizingthat they would need materialfor encores, the "duke" startsto teach the "king"Hamlet's soliloquy, which he recitesfrom memory: To be, or not to be; thatis the bare bodkin T hatmnakes calamity of so longlife; For who would fardelsbear, tillBirnam Woodldo come to Dunsinane, But thatthe fear of somethingafter death Murders the innocentsleep, Great nature'ssecond course, And makes us rathersling arrows of outrageous fortune Thanl flyto othersthat we know not of.' Twain's humLnorrelies on his audience's familiaritywith Hamlet and its abilityto recognizetl-he duke's improbablecoupling of lines froma varietyof Shakespeare's plays. Twaiin was employing one of the most popular forms of humor in nineteenth-centuryAmyierica. Everywhere in the nationburlesques and parodies of Shakespear-econstituted a promiinentform of entertainment. This essay was begun while I was a Regents Fellow at the SmithsoniianInstitution's National Museum of' Ameiican History and was completed in its present fhrrindulring my f'ellowshipat the Woodrow Wilson InterniationalCenter for Scholars. 'I'he splenididfacilities and atrnosphereprovided by both of these instittLitions greatly enhancetl my work oni this and related projects. Ani early version of' this essay was presented to a meetirngof Americaniand Hungariani historianssponsored by the Amer-icanCounicil of Learnied Societies and the Hunigarian Acatlemiyof Scienices, held in Budapest, August 1982. 1 anmgratetul to the scholars at that conferenicefor their encouragernent and c-riticismsas I am to those itianycolleagues who commented on later versiorisI presented in senminarsand lectures at Johns Hopkinis University,Yale University,the Universityof' Mirnniesota,the State University of New York at Stony Brook, the Wilsoni Center, and the Universityof' Maryland. Twain, The Adventuresof IIiucklebensyFinn (New York, 1884), 190. 34 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 17 Mar 2014 16:43:19 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions WilliamShakespeare and theAmerican People 35 Hamletwas a favoritetarget in numerous travestiesimported from England or craftedat home. Audiences roared at the sightof Hamlet dressed in furcap and collar,snowshoes and mittens;they listened with amused surpriseto his profanity whenordered by his father'sghost to "swear??and to his commandingOphelia, "Get thee to a brewery";they heard him recitehis lines in black dialector Irishbrogue and sing his most famous soliloquy,"To be, or not to be," to the tune of "Three Blind Mice." In the 1820s the Britishcomedian Charles Mathewsvisited what he called the "Nigger's(or Negroe's) theatre"in New York, where he heard "a black tragedianin the characterof Hamlet" recite "To be, or not to be? That is the question;whether it is noblerin de mind to suffer,or tak' up arms againsta sea of trouble,and by opossumend 'em." "No sooner was the word opossumout of his mouth,"Mathews reported,"than the audience burst forth,in one general cry, 'Opossum!opossum! opossum!'"-prompting the actor to come forwardand sing the popular dialect song "Opossum up a Gum Tree." On the nineteenth-century American stage, audiences often heard Hamlet's lines intricatelycombined with thoseof a popular song: Oh! 'tisconsummation Devoutlyto be wished To end yourheart-ache by a sleep, Whenlikely to be dish'd. Shuffleoff your mortal coil, Do just so, Wheelabout, and turnabout, Andjump Jim Crow.2 No Shakespeareanplay was immuneto thissort of mutilation.Richard I7I, the most popular Shakespearean play in the nineteenthcentury, was lampooned frequently in such versionsas Bad Dicky.In one New York productionstarring first-rank Shakespeareanactors, a stuttering,lisping Othello danced whileDesdemona played the banjo and lago, complete withIrish brogue, ended theirrevelries with a fire hose. Parodiescould also embodya seriousmessage. In KennethBangs's versionof The Tamingof theShrew, for example, Kate ended up in control,observing that, although"Shakespeare or Bacon, or whoeverwrote the play ... studieddeeply the shrewsof his day.. , the modern shrew isn'tbuilt that way,"while a chastened Petruchioconcluded, "Sweet Katharine,of your remarksI recognizethe force:/ Don't striveto tame a woman as you would a horse." Serious or slapstick,the punning was endless. In one parody of the famous dagger scene, Macbeth 2 Laurence Hutton,Curiosities of theAmerican Stage (New York, 1891), 157, 181-86; StanleyWells, ed., Nineteenth-CenturyShakespeare Burlesques, 5 (London, 1978): xi-xii;Charles Mathews, Trip to America (Baltimore, 1824), 9, 25; CharlesHaywood, "Negro Minstrelsyand ShakespeareanBurlesque," in BruceJackson, ed., Folkloreand Society: Essays in Honor of Benj. A. Botkin(Norwood, Pa., 1976),88; and RayB. Browne,"Shakespeare in America:Vaudeville and NegroMinstrelsy," American Quarterly, 12 (1960): 381-82. Forexamples of parodies of Hamlet,see An Old Play in a New Garb:Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, in Wells,Nineteenth-Century Shakespeare Burlesques;and Hamletthe Damnty, in Gary D. Engle,ed., ThisGrotesque Essen:e: Plays from the Minstrel Stage (BatonRouge, 1978).For thepopularity of parodiesof Hamlet in theUnited States, see RalphLeslie Rusk, The LiteratureoftheMidle Westrn Frontier, 2 vols. (New York, 1925), 2: 4n; LouisMarder, His Exits and His Entrances: The Stoy of Shakespeare'sRep ion (Philadelphia,1963), 295-96, 316-17; and EstherCloudman Dunn, Shakespearein America(New York,1939), 108-12, 215-16. This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 17 Mar 2014 16:43:19 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 36 LawrenceW. Levine continuesto put off his insistentwife by asking, "Or is that dagger but a false Daguerreotype?"Luckily, Desdemona had no brother,or Othello"might look both blackand blue,"a characterin Othelloremarked, while one in TheMerchant of Venice observed of Shylock,"This craftyJew is full of Jeux d'esprit!"Throughout the century,the numberof parodies withsuch titlesas JuliusSneezer, Roamy-E-Owe and Julie-Ate,and Desdemonumwas impressive.3 These full-fledgedtravesties reveal only part of the story.Nineteenth-century Shakespearean parody most frequentlytook the formof shortskits, brief refer- ences, and satiricalsongs insertedinto other modes of entertainment.In one of theirroutines, for example, the Bryants'Minstrels playfully referred to the famous observationin Act II of Romeoand Juliet: AdolphusPompey is myname, But thatdon't make no difference, For as MassaWm. Shakespeare says, A name'sof no signiforance. The minstrelsloved to invoke Shakespeare as an authority:"you know what de Bird of Avon says 'bout 'De black scandal an' de foul faced reproach!"And they constantlyquoted him in appropriatelygarbled form: "Fust to dine own self be true, an' it must follownight an' day, dou den can be false to any man." The significanceof this national penchantfor parodyingShakespeare is clear: Shake- speare and his drama had become by the nineteenthcentury an integralpart of Americanculture. It is difficultto take familiaritieswith that which is not already familiar;one cannotparody that which is not well known.The minstrels'character- isticconundrums would not have been funnyto an audience lackingknowledge of Shakespeare'sworks: Whenwas Desdemonalike a ship? Whenshe was Moored.4 IT IS NOT SURPRISING THAT EDUCATED AMERICANS in the eighteenthand nineteenth centuriesknew theirShakespeare. What is more interestingis how widelyShake- speare was known to the public in general. In the last half of the eighteenth century,when the reading of Shakespeare'splays was stillconfined to a relatively small,educated elite,substantial numbers of Americanshad the chance
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