Shakespeare for the Young

S chool has been out for a few weeks, but I’m still mulling an essay question assigned to one of my students at the end of the semester. Some years ago, I accepted a private tutoring role teaching writing, and I’ve appreciated diving back into essay construction and grammar at more basic levels. As my students have advanced, however, so have their essay topics. We’ve looked at themes of death in the Book of Job, shuddered through John Hersey’s Hiroshima, and giggled at the absurdities in Aristophanes’ The Clouds. This final essay prompt, though, was Shakespearean in nature — about The Taming of the Shrew, to be precise.

My student’s assignment was to compare and contrast this Shakespeare play with Paul’s exhortation to husbands and wives in Ephesians 5 — that wildly unpopular reading that often leaves wives muttering and husbands smirking. But these verses deserve significantly more consideration than people are willing to give them, and I was delighted to have my student wrestle with the question. While talking her through the essay outline, I found myself drawn more and more into the subject, and wanting to go read the play. Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate is a treat, but it’s no substitute for the original, so off I went down a Shakespearean rabbit hole.

Enter Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare. On the recommendation of my NR colleague Jessica Hornik Evans, I went searching for this book and found it in the most convenient place possible: my living-room bookshelf. First published in 1807, it contains retellings of 20 of Shakespeare’s best-known plays. The Lamb siblings weren’t trying to dumb down the language or stories, they were simply hoping to give newcomers a more understandable introduction to these plays. Often, it’s easy to get stuck on the unfamiliar language and trip on the allusions, and these mishaps can make us lose the whole thread of the plot. Many characters, some major and many minor, zip on and off stage, adding to the confusion. Tales from Shakespeare, however, aims to fix some of that by giving the plots in as straightforward a manner as possible and including enough of the Bard’s language to give a thrilling glimpse to eager readers.

While I did read some Shakespeare in high school, it wasn’t until college at Hillsdale that I got a taste of the Bard, theatrically speaking. I was never in a mainstage show (many of which I saw and enjoyed), but I auditioned for a student-led production of Macbeth my sophomore year. The ill-fated Lady Macduff — not to be confused with the murderous Lady Macbeth — was my role, and my crowning moment was uttering an ear-piercing shriek each time I was murdered on stage.

My sister, who was one of the witches in the same show, and I were recently reminiscing about it and realized that we’d both paid little attention to the production beyond our roles. Yes, we attended most rehearsals and all the performances, but our parts were small, and we spent our backstage time doing homework (or panicking over looming deadlines).

My student’s essay and this conversation with my sister were enough. I realized I had sufficient general knowledge of Shakespeare to seem well read, but remembering that Miranda is from The Tempest wouldn’t impress anyone if I then knew nothing about the rest of the tale.

Some of the stories, such as Romeo and Juliet, I knew from high-school readings of the actual plays. Those star-crossed lovers had always annoyed me, and I’d often wondered why we subject moody teens to reading about even worse moody teens. Reading the retelling, however, gave me pause. This story is far deeper than we often give it credit, and if we can peel back the years of tropes, there is much that we — and those teens — can learn from it.

Tales from Shakespeare also piqued my interest in reading Measure for Measure, a play that I must’ve read in high school (I have a Signet Classic Edition with my handwriting in it), but whose plot I’d long since forgotten. My editor pointed out that this play, already one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays,” might cause far more consternation today. Much of the plot revolves around Isabella’s not yielding to Lord Angelo’s wicked lust for her, even if the cost of guarding her chastity is her brother’s life. Would a modern audience nod along with this, or would they find Isabella tiresome?

Also, the Lambs’ book brought back much of the pity for Shylock that I felt as a high-school student. While murder is always wrong, I remembered thinking him the most ill-used character in the play, and refreshing my memory of the story heightened rather than diminished this feeling. There are many excellent essays on The Merchant of Venice (the title of which I finally realized was not referencing Shylock but Antonio), some of which can be found in Norrie Epstein’s fabulous book The Friendly Shakespeare (not a suitable book for children, but excellent for adults). Furthermore, this video of Patrick Stewart demonstrating three ways to play Shylock is a small masterpiece.

Whether you’re a long-time lover of Shakespeare’s works or you couldn’t name a single one of his plays; whether you’re a Stratfordian or an Oxfordian; and if you never could figure out whether Hamlet was crazy or not, Tales from Shakespeare is a wonderful addition to any library. Read it aloud to your children or dip in and out for your own pleasure — this delightful introduction to some of the greatest stories, prose, and poetry in the English language is a treat.