This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

30th June 2007

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Some feel that the only way to keep Shakespeare interesting and accessible to young learners is to modernise the playtexts. One of the chief proponents of this approach is Walter Saunders, whose Shakespeare 2000 series of modernised texts has been reintroduced by Macmillan through their Clever Books division. Saunders gave a talk at the Cape Town Book Fair in which he argued that attention and retention is reduced when learners stumble over the grammar and syntax of Elizabethan English. According to Saunders, updating the text facilitates a greater immediacy of response and, most importantly, makes the experience enjoyable.

If the language barrier is eradicated, so the thinking goes, learners are happy to be transported imaginatively to other places and times – sixteenth-century Venice, or medieval England – and to the stories that unfold there. The burden of ‘relevance’ is thus eased. Likewise, Saunders believes, Shakespeares set in modern situations need not be "dishonest" by reformulating the signifier and signified in Shakesperean texts (such as when, in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet, Leonardo DiCaprio and co dubbed their guns "swords" and "daggers").

Saunders presents a convincing case, especially as he is not suggesting that the Shakespearean text be jettisoned – it appears side-by-side with his updated version. It is likely, however, that for many young readers the modernised text would become a replacement of the ‘original’.

The project as a whole presents various difficulties. Not least of these is establishing what counts as ‘modern’. UCT’s Natasha Distiller has pointed out that in Saunders’ version of Macbeth there are modernisations that "arguably require as much explanation as Shakespeare’s ‘original’": she gives the example of "a dated phrase like ‘fagged out’ (‘All uncertain it was:/ The armies like two swimmers so fagged out/ They cling to one another and can’t budge’)". This phrase, used in the first Shakespeare 2000 series, has been changed in the current edition – one example among many of the ongoing process of revision required by the ‘modernising’ imperative.

A further problem with modernising Shakespeare is that, in many ways, the modernised text ceases to be ‘Shakespeare’s text’. Of course, we don’t really know if Shakespeare of Stratford was the author of any of the plays (Saunders’ money is on Sir Francis Bacon). But the marketing of the modernised editions – using the argument that Shakespeare would have been horrified if he knew that his plays were being performed and taught in outdated language – depends on an implied "authorisation" of Saunders’ enterprise by Shakespeare. Distiller distrusts this. The editions, she notes, promise Shakespeare’s "original" texts "in modern English by Walter Saunders", which seems straightforward enough, but the description is problematic: firstly, because it overlooks "current bibliographic work, which demonstrates that for us, there can be no such thing as ‘Shakespeare’s original texts’", and secondly, because "the author, presenting Shakespeare’s texts, is Saunders".

Moreover, Distiller reasons, we cannot proclaim Shakespeare’s universality (following Ben Jonson’s famous assertion, "He was not of an age, but for all time") and simultaneously insist that his plays were intended to be ‘relevant’ to Elizabethan audiences; this merely "emphasises that what made them great was their initial immediacy and relevance". Consequently, it is inappropriate to attempt to prove "the putatively a-historical nature of Shakespeare’s texts" by pointing to "their very historical material form".

Having read through some of the Shakespeare 2000 editions, I have one or two demurrals of my own. Modernising is a form of translation and, when it comes to poetry, translation is invariably an act of interpretation. The translator-moderniser, encountering lines that remain ambiguous in the ‘original’ language, often has to choose a single meaning to carry over into the ‘new’ language. Furthermore, sometimes Shakespeare’s language is difficult because it is poetically compact or complex but not because it is archaic.

This also applies to humour: the porter in Macbeth complains that "drink makes [a man] stand to and not stand to", alluding to sexual arousal and erectile problems; Saunders translates this as "drink makes him stand at attention, like a guardsman, and collapse like a dead man". As Saunders rightly points out, if Shakespeare’s jokes have to be explained in a footnote they are no longer funny; but explanation in the form of interpolation can have the same effect.

There are times when updating both the language and the concept is undoubtedly useful: "I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician", declares one of the characters in Twelfth Night, a line that Saunders renders, "I’d rather be a communist than a politician". This makes more sense to the modern reader, even if it is anachronistic. But at other times the insistence on modernising can lead to unnecessary changes. Is Count Orsino’s "That strain again, it had a dying fall" really less accessible than "That tune again – those falling, dying notes"? And there will always be disagreement about how to modernise consistently. For instance, in his updated version Saunders chooses not to change the word "wench", which is only used nowadays as a deliberate (and derogatory) archaism.

The alternative to modernisation is, then, contextualisation. But, as Victor Houliston points out, glosses and commentary can very easily become intimidating and – even when they are visually appealing – they tend to bombard learners with information. Houliston is the general editor of Nasou Via Afrika’s new Wits School Shakespeare, which was launched at the Book Fair. The Wits editions attempt to offer an "uncluttered text": "You’ve got to concentrate your explanations. Not everything in a Shakespeare play is crucial. We’ve tried to make it feel free, to be as clean and open as possible."

There are also numerous photographs from the 2004 Maynardville production of Macbeth, which Houliston describes as "African without being ‘Africanised’". Although he and his colleagues were concerned with the matter of Shakespeare’s ‘applicability’ (being cognisant of how Macbeth, for instance, can be located in "medieval Scotland, Nazi Germany, Shakespearean England and apartheid South Africa"), they were careful to avoid producing too many "frames of reference" at any one time: "We tried to separate the various elements. When you’re reading the text, you’re in medieval Scotland. In the introduction, there’s material about Shakespeare’s England (like Guy Fawkes’ gunpowder plot). Of course, readers will know they’re in Africa. So how do you make the connection?"

Their solution is to intersperse sections on African writers, such as Chinua Achebe, at various points in the text, indicating the resonance between works such as Things Fall Apart and Macbeth. "Instead of using Africa to explain Shakespeare, you’re using Shakespeare as a launching pad into African literature. You don’t apologise for Shakespeare and say, ‘this isn’t relevant’. We’re not claiming that the works were inspired by or modelled on Shakespeare. Rather, there are Shakespearean strains running through the work. Our aim is an opening of horizons – that’s why Aristotle is also included in the introductory material. We’re introducing students to major figures; some of them may be European, some of them may be African."

Ultimately, however, Houliston’s concern is with Shakespeare: "I wouldn’t want to reduce Shakespeare to any single educational objective, to a tool or a means to an end; each of those ends may be good in itself, and certain teachers will emphasise one over the other – that’s fine, because it’s their passion, and will create enthusiasm among their pupils – but you don’t want the edition to prioritise one over another. In other words, all the related educational aims are subordinated to the unum necessarium: the response to the story as a story."