INTERPRETING SHAKESPEARE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 331, 26 October 1945, Page 5

INTERPRETING SHAKESPEARE

Sir,-When he contended that there -was only one right way of presenting Hamlet- with which your Viewsreel commentator disagrees- John Drinkwater was probably speaking from the point of view of a wrifer. I have often wondered how many times Shakespeare has turned | in his grave, and if his ghost could vie with that of Hamlet. It seems to be a question of whether an interpreter should faithfully interpret what the author in- . tended, or whether he should allow his own personality and his own interpretation to come into it. Of course it is sometimes difficult to separate the two, since the interpreter will see from his own viewpoint what he thinks the author intended; and whether Hamlet becomes eventually a child of Shakespeare or of, say, John Gielgud, is a matter of interesting speculation. My ‘sympathies are with the authors. It must be very infuriating to hear one’s own work, though well presented, empha-

sised where it should not be, unemphasised where it should be, and, in general, subject to the interpretation of minds that run in different directions. As for the parsing and analysing of character motive and manner of treatment that the works of Shakespeare and Dickens have been put to-it may be valuable as a study, but some of it, I am afraid, would greatly astonish those worthy gentlemen. Surely, even allowing for hard work and infinite attention to detail, much of a great man’s greatness is unconscious. Is it conceivable that when he originated Hamlet, Shakespeare imagined in this man everything that everybody else has since imagined into him? But, to be fair, there’s the broader outlook which your commentator apparently favours. Does the value of any work of art lie in its origin, in its impact on the minds of those who are influenced by it and therefore contribute something towards it, or in the whole breadth of its history? In short, what is Art, in any form? Is it a conception of author, interpreter, or a balanced fusion of every mind that rubs against it?

F.

(Christchurch).