How to overcome SADD (Shakespearean Attention Deficit Disorder)

Howard Richler

Recently, I saw an excellent production of Hamlet at the Stratford Festival but was disheartened by the great number of empty seats.

While the musicals playing at the festival were well-attended – notwithstanding seat prices that were many times more expensive – a fine production of arguably the greatest play ever written was at least 40% vacant. Don’t blame the critics – this production has received universal rave reviews. Why then was this Hamlet so poorly attended?

I think that lack of comprehension of the language used by the Bard is a partial answer. Shakespeare’s comedies, with their myriad double entendres, are even more inaccessible, but the tragedies present many situations not really appreciated by a modern audience. For example, when Hamlet resolves to avenge his father’s murder he states, “Yea from the table of my memory I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records.” Here “table” has the sense of “writing tablet” and “fond” means “frivolous.” When Hamlet’s mother, terrified by her son’s behaviour, is struck with “admiration,” she is struck with “astonishment” and not “approval.” When Horatio says to Hamlet that “one with moderate haste might tell a hundred” he is using “tell” in the now obsolete sense of “itemize.” Similarly, in Hamlet, Shakespeare employed the word “abuse” to mean “deception,” “accident” to mean “incident,” “coil” to mean “turmoil,” “conceit” to mean “understanding,” “dismal” to mean “sinister,” “flaw” to mean “squall” and “protest” to mean “proclaim.”

This brings up the obvious question: does anybody aside from a rarefied elite understand Shakespeare’s vocabulary? Take the following famous passage in Hamlet when Polonius provides fatherly advice to his son Laertes who is embarking on a journey:

And these few precepts in thy memory

See thou character. Give the thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.

Here “character” means “to inscribe,” “thoughts” refers to “intention” or “plan,” and “act” means “execution.” Thus, Polonius is advising his son to mark his advice in his memory – not to show his hand, and not to act on his intentions until they are completely thought out. Later on in the passage Polonius advises his son to “bear’t” and to “take each man’s censure.” It would appear to the modern listener that he is telling his son “to cope” and to “turn the other cheek,” but this is not the intent of Polonius. “Bear’t” here means “make sure that” and “censure” means “to judge.” Thus Polonius is telling his son not to “grin and bear it” but to “strive for excellence” and not “to defer” but to view people with insight.

There are times when the context helps make the meaning evident. I suppose when Hamlet tells Horatio and Marcellus, “I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me,” many people will fathom that “let” here does not mean “permit” – in fact it means “hinder” or “prevent.” But one may be easily thrown off assuming that Shakespeare was employing it in the modern sense.

The meaning of words over the past 400 years has changed enough to render any comprehension of Shakespeare by a modern audience partial at best, and only the Shakespearean cognoscenti or a trained expert in Elizabethan English can get a full understanding. Ironically, the French can appreciate Shakespeare to a greater extent than we do, being able to enjoy it in a language they understand.

Clearly, English-speaking theatregoers are suffering from a case of SADD: Shakespearean Attention Deficit Disorder. Well-annotated programs explaining Shakespeare’s vocabulary would be very helpful in bringing back what the author intended – a thrilling and witty narrative understood by a large audience.

Howard Richler’s latest book is Can I Have a Word With You?