223 lines
8.6 KiB
Plaintext
223 lines
8.6 KiB
Plaintext
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What if Shakespeare had a computer?
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| Bard Bytes Dust |
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| By: |
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| Charles Burress |
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| From: |
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| The San Francisco Chronicle |
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|Sunday, April 20th, MCMLXXXVI|
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| Typed in by: |
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| The Unknown User |
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|_____________________________|
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("Why", you may ask, "in the
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world would someone type something
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straight in from the newspaper?". The
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answer is: Because I find this an
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interesting and funny article, and
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thought that some people that don't get
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the Chronicle might want to read it. By
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the way, this was typed in on the 21st
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of April, but is yesterday's paper.)
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(Note: Anything in ALL UPPER-
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CASE was in italics in the article.)
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Shakespeare's greatest tragedy
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wasn't HAMLET. It was not having a
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computer. Computers have come a long
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way since the Stone Age of the micro-
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chip 20 years ago, when they were used
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for such raw displays of brute tech-
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nology as hurling men to the moon. To-
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day, the computer is a creature of
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sophisticated finesse, shooting for the
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moons of the mind. One result is a
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revolution in the art of writing, a
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transformation unmatched since perhaps
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adverbs first emerged from pre-lingual
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ooze. The breakthrough consists of a
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masterpiece of word-processing software
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known modestly as a style-checker. Like
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a jeweler's lens, it can reveal a seem-
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ingly perfect gem of writing to be a
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rough-hewn landscape of blemishes. You
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put in the prose, the computer spits
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out the mistakes. But its crowning
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achievement is the next step: It
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composes improvements. This brave new
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world, however, has not been tempest-
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free. While style checkers are winning
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friends on campuses and in offices,
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they have met stubborn resistance from
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the battlements of literature. Indig-
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nation still simmers over what a Bell
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Laboratories style-checker did to the
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Gettysburg Address a couple of years
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back. Lincoln's first sentence: FOUR-
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SCORE AND SEVEN YEARS AGO, OUR FORE-
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FATHERS BROUGHT FORTH UPON THIS CONT-
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INENT A NEW NATION, CONCEIVED IN
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LIBERTY AND DEDICATED TO THE PROPOSIT-
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ION THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL -
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was improved to read: EIGHTY-SEVEN
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YEARS AGO, OUR GRANDFATHERS CREATED A
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FREE NATION HERE. With Lincoln, how-
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ever, the style-checkers were just
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flexing their cursors. They were pre-
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paring the eventual assault on the Mt.
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Everest of literature - Shakespeare.
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That sublime peak was claimed recently
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when a Berkeley scientist revealed he
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had successfully trained his computer
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to sniff out Shakespeare's flaws. Dr.
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C. J. Wallia - a Stanford Ph.D. and
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consultant in electronic publications -
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turned his customized style-checker
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loose on Hamlet's "To be or not to be"
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soliloquy. Their computer coughed up 34
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errors, found the language "obsolete"
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and "overwritten," and gave this 15
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word alternative: IS IT BETTER TO LIVE
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WITH BAD LUCK OR END IT ALL AND HAVE
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NIGHTMARES. There we have it, the high-
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water mark of the computer as a young
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artist. But were Shakespeare's lovers
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grateful? "I think it's hideous" said
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Jerry Turner, artistic director of the
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Oregon Shakespearean Festival, the 50-
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year-old company that has performed
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more Shakespeare for more people than
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any theater in America. "It's absurd,"
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he added. "Shakespeare's work is the
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standard of the best literature there
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is. Any attempt to say it can be im-
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proved is presumptuous." Turner's not
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alone. A chorus of ridicule greeted
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Wallia's effort. But let us not be too
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hasty to join the herd. There's little
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profit in literary lemminghood. If
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truth be told, the glare of the fame of
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Shakespeare often blinds us to his
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actual merit. When someone says "Shake-
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speare," we genuflect from habit. To
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praise Shakespeare or to bury him -
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that is not the question. The issue is,
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no matter how great Shakespeare is, can
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he be improved by computer? If so, the
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world has suffered an immeasurable
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tragedy. Millions of readers died
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knowing only a Shakespeare who did not
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fulfill all his potential - a stunted
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Shakespeare. Our highest standard of
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literature has been but a poor shadow
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of what it could be. In short, the
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crown jewels of writing are riding on
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Wallia's experiment. Let us then remove
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the literary chastity belts from our
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minds and consider the possibility that
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Shakespeare was not perfect. It's help-
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ful to recall that other Elisabethan
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giant, Ben Jonson, one of Shakespeare's
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ardent but not fawning admirers. Jonson
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wrote: THE PLAYERS HAVE OFTEN MENTIONED
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IT AS AN HONOR TO SHAKESPEARE, THAT IN
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HIS WRITING HE NEVER BLOTTED OUT A LINE
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MY ANSWER HATH BEEN, "WOULD HE HAD
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BLOTTED A THOUSAND." Such a view, of
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course, is merely a generaliztion. The
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real test must be to examine the text
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itself. This means casting an uncowed
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eye on the Hamlet speech, as composed
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without a computer: TO BE OR NOT TO BE
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- THAT IS THE QUESTION. Already we have
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a problem. "To be or not to be" is not
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a question. But let's not quibble
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Hamlet is clearly torn between living
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and dying - or at least it appears that
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way until the second sentence: WHETHER
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'TIS NOBLER IN THE MIND TO SUFFER THE
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SLINGS AND ARROWS OF OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE
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OR TO TAKE ARMS AGAINST A SEA OF
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TROUBLES AND BY OPPOSING END THEM. Let
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us ignore the metaphoric indigestion
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of taking arms against a sea. Here the
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choice that divides Hamlet is not life
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or death, but passive suffering vs.
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active opposition. We naturally go to
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the third sentence to find out what
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Hamlet's talking about, and run into
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this: TO DIE, TO SLEEP - NO MORE, AND
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BY A SLEEP TO SAY WE END THE HEARTACHE
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AND THE THOUSAND NATURAL SHOCKS THAT
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FLESH IS HEIR TO. Now he's back on the
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death trip. No wonder Hamlet's conf-
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used. On top of that, this sentence is
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not a sentence but a fragment without
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proper subject and verb, and thus not a
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complete thought. Moreover, try saying
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it out loud. It hardly rolls trippingly
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on the tongue. From there it's downhill
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at a gallop. We hit a BODKIN and some
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FARDELS and phrases like THE SPURNS
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THAT PATIENT MERIT OF THE UNWORTHY
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TAKES, and other such stuff as head-
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aches are made on. One can rummage
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through the play and find numerous ex-
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amples of that country from whose
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bourne no comprehension returns. Here
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is a typical Hamlet remark from later
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in Act III: LET THE GALLED JADE WINCE,
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OUR WITHERS ARE UNWRUNG. The meaning
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of this sentence may not leap out at
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first glance. Luckily, we have the
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footnote in Professor G. B. Harrison's
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widely used tome, "Shakespeare: The
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Complete Works." The sentence trans-
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lates: "Let a nag with a sore back
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flinch when the saddle is put on; our
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shoulders feel no pain." This example
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makes one thing clear: society owes a
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large debt to Shakespearean scholars,
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who have kept the old Bard afloat on a
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sea of footnotes. Think of Wallia's
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computer as Galileo's telescope. First
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comes the shock of heresy. Then accept-
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ance of Shakespeare's not being the
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center of the literary universe.Finally
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we enjoy the discovery's benefits. For
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example, if Hamlet's 265-word soliloquy
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can be trimmed to 15 words, then the
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same rate of improvement can reduce the
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entire 4 hour play to a 1980s size bite
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of culture - 14 minutes. Add drums and
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electric strings, and imagine Shake-
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speare born anew for today's world:
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HAMLET, THE ROCK VIDEO. Call Shake-
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speare a casualty of progress, a moldy
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scribbler, an emperor unclothed - but
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do not call him to account. He's not to
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blame. How could he have known our
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vocabulary and attention spans would
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become much slimmer thanks thanks to
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the quick-thrill diet of modern enter-
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tainment? The fault, dear William, is
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not in ourselves, but in our stars -
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Joan Collins, Mr. T, Boy George...
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=======================================
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=======================================
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Thanks to Arnie (and the Republique)
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=======================================
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