Shakespeare gets decolonized
Yep, it was inevitable that the greatest writer in the English language, but one who wrote several centuries ago, would have to be “decolonized.” You know, of course, that Shakespeare’s plays are full of stereotypes, dirty jokes, and filthy words, and that can’t be allowed to stand. But it’s worse than that: he’s made out … Continue reading Shakespeare gets decolonized
Yep, it was inevitable that the greatest writer in the English language, but one who wrote several centuries ago, would have to be “decolonized.” You know, of course, that Shakespeare’s plays are full of stereotypes, dirty jokes, and filthy words, and that can’t be allowed to stand. But it’s worse than that: he’s made out to be a white bigot: a sixteenth-century Nazi.
And so, according to this new piece in Spiked (click below to read), the Pecksniffs have decided to place the Bard in perspective for the public, including the fact he adhered to the ideology of white supremacy. But read Johanna Williams’s article below, largely riffing on a Torygraph article that seems credible:
Some excerpts:
What is it with Britain’s cultural custodians and their hatred of everything British? National self-loathing drips from curators and directors alike, revealed in a Tourette’s-like compulsion to blurt out ‘Decolonise!’ at everything they see. They are currently getting hot under the collar [JAC: archived here] in the sleepy town of Stratford-upon-Avon, where they have Shakespeare’s birthplace in their sights.
The links above and in the three paragraphs below the next excerpt go to a Torygraph piece (archived here) that says this:
The claims were made in a 2022 collaborative research project between the trust and Dr Helen Hopkins, an academic at the University of Birmingham.
The research took issue with the trust’s quaint Stratford attractions, comprising the supposed childhood homes and shared family home of Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, his wife, because the Bard was presented as a “universal” genius.This idea of Shakespeare’s universal genius “benefits the ideology of white European supremacy”, it was claimed.
This is because it presents European culture as the world standard for high art, a standard which was pushed through “colonial inculcation” and the use of Shakespeare as a symbol of “British cultural superiority” and “Anglo-cultural supremacy”.
Veneration of Shakespeare is therefore part of a “white Anglo-centric, Eurocentric, and increasingly ‘West-centric’ worldviews that continue to do harm in the world today”.
. . . The project recommended that Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust recognise that “the narrative of Shakespeare’s greatness has caused harm – through the epistemic violence”.
The project also recommended that the trust present Shakespeare not as the “greatest”, but as “part of a community of equal and different writers and artists from around the world”.
And as the Pecksniffs kvetch, so the Birthplace Trust follows:
. . . The trust will continue looking at updating the “current and future interpretation” of objects in its collection. It will also explore how objects could be used as the focus for new interpretations which tell more international stories, in order to appeal to a more diverse audience.
It has additionally pledged to remove offensive language from its collections information, as part of a “long, thoughtful” process.
. . . The Globe Theatre in London ran a series of seminars titled Anti-Racist Shakespeare which promoted scholarship focused on the idea of race in his plays.
Academies taking part in the series made a number of claims, including that King Lear was about “whiteness”, and that the character of Prince Hamlet holds “racist” views of black people.
Back to Spiked:
Where normal people admire timber-framed houses and marvel at the schoolroom where Shakespeare learnt the classics, our cultural elites see ‘white supremacy’. Where you and I see genius in plays like King Lear, Hamlet and Othello, they see a symbol of ‘British cultural superiority’. They seem to imagine that racist thugs have swapped sharing memes on Telegram for watching Macbeth at the local theatre. Labelling the Bard as a vehicle for white supremacy really is that insane.
With hatred comes flagellation. As such, Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust – the charity tasked with preserving Shakespeare-related heritage sites in historic Stratford-upon-Avon – is now ‘decolonising’ its vast collection. This means that, just as in practically every other museum and art gallery across the UK, exhibits will be labelled to make clear ‘the continued impact of Empire’ or the ‘impact of colonialism’. In Stratford-upon-Avon, the special twist will be to show how Shakepeare’s legacy has allegedly played a part in this litany of sin.
Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust has also warned visitors that some items in its collections may contain ‘language or depictions that are racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise harmful’. Of course they will. The past was a different time, with different attitudes and values. Shakespeare was not subjected to training in diversity, equity and inclusion. Nor was he presented with a style guide advising him as to the correct pronouns to use for his many crossdressing characters. Thank goodness.
And Williams’s conclusion, the first paragraph of which is spot on:
Just as Shakespeare is integral to being British, his work also absolutely has universal value. He portrays emotions such as joy, grief and anger, and experiences like being young, falling in love and growing old that are fundamental not to being British or even European, but to being human. This is why his legacy endures. His genius is to transcend racial, national and generational differences and point to what we have in common, rather than what divides us. That Shakespeare is English is incidental to the common humanity in his work, but it is entirely relevant to the historical circumstances that made his prodigious talent possible. To boil all this down to ‘white supremacy’ is ridiculous.
The Birthplace Trust’s real concern is to stop British people taking pride in Shakespeare and seeing his work as a symbol of ‘British cultural superiority’. It wants him to be viewed not as the ‘greatest’, but as ‘part of a community of equal and different writers and artists from around the world’. But if academics and curators really cannot say that Shakespeare’s plays are better than a Nigerian soap opera or a Brazilian drag-queen performance, then we really are in trouble. If even Shakespeare’s custodians cannot say that his work is the pinnacle of human achievement, then the Bard has no need of enemies. The barbarians are not at the gate, they are sitting in the stalls.
There is no older work that cannot be scrutinized for violations of wokeness, and they inevitably find it. Now Shakespeare must always be put in “context” when his works are taught in schools—if they’re taught at all. After all, do we really want our kids to read plays written by a Nazi?
h/t: Ginger K.
