Shakespeare and a case of the funnies
One fun thing about reading Shakespeare's plays (or anything) in a group is how we can all joke around about it. Shakespeare does his best to bring in jokes from time to time (the entire existence of the Porter in Macbeth), but it's interesting to compare it to some of the things we can come up with when we read as a group.
For example, when my high school class was reading Hamlet, we all made jokes about how Hamlet was some emo kid and how funny it would be if he was dressed as a stereotypical emo in modern clothing and just thrown into this where everyone else is dressed in period appropriate clothing.
Shakespeare has had an impact on storytelling, literature, and is an important figure when it comes to modern interpretations (or interpretations for garden gnomes even). His humor certainly had some kind of impact; the Porter in Macbeth being king of knock-knock jokes (but to himself).
Since our Qualities of Mercy project turned into "Qualities of Me(me)rcy" I thought it would be fun to explore Shakespeare memes and jokes made in the modern day and how it could have compared to the reactions of his actual audience.
"What up, my name's Hamlet, I'm 19, and I never f***ing learned to be" is a play off of Hamlet's famous "To be, or not to be" speech and the vine "What up, I'm Jared, I'm 19, and I never f***ing learned how to read". We see famous cultures merge like this for the sake of humor and on the surface level this is how I imagine a time traveler must feel like.
On top of things like this, we have the entire existence of "Hark! A Vagrant", but specifically they did one on Macbeth that gave us some more modern commentary mixed in to the play. It goes to show that even his most tragic plays have a few jokes laying beneath them. "Hark! A Vagrant" is also a good example of finding humor in all sorts of classic literature. Some may be familiar with this one on Poe and Verne.
So even though we've covered a lot of the problematic stuff in Shakespeare this semester (racism, sexism, anti-semitism, straight up just being a weirdo), it can be fun to see how we react to these stories today and it makes me wish I could have listened in on the conversations of the people leaving the globe theater after watching Hamlet or Macbeth for the first time. I hope they were cracking jokes, it's worthy of a good joke cracking.
For example, when my high school class was reading Hamlet, we all made jokes about how Hamlet was some emo kid and how funny it would be if he was dressed as a stereotypical emo in modern clothing and just thrown into this where everyone else is dressed in period appropriate clothing.
Shakespeare has had an impact on storytelling, literature, and is an important figure when it comes to modern interpretations (or interpretations for garden gnomes even). His humor certainly had some kind of impact; the Porter in Macbeth being king of knock-knock jokes (but to himself).
Since our Qualities of Mercy project turned into "Qualities of Me(me)rcy" I thought it would be fun to explore Shakespeare memes and jokes made in the modern day and how it could have compared to the reactions of his actual audience.
On top of things like this, we have the entire existence of "Hark! A Vagrant", but specifically they did one on Macbeth that gave us some more modern commentary mixed in to the play. It goes to show that even his most tragic plays have a few jokes laying beneath them. "Hark! A Vagrant" is also a good example of finding humor in all sorts of classic literature. Some may be familiar with this one on Poe and Verne.
So even though we've covered a lot of the problematic stuff in Shakespeare this semester (racism, sexism, anti-semitism, straight up just being a weirdo), it can be fun to see how we react to these stories today and it makes me wish I could have listened in on the conversations of the people leaving the globe theater after watching Hamlet or Macbeth for the first time. I hope they were cracking jokes, it's worthy of a good joke cracking.
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