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