I’m No Looker, So Today I’m Skipping Books and Just Chattering
Today is the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, husband of Anne Hathaway. Yes, that Shakespeare:
But not this Anne Hathaway:
This Anne Hathaway:
Anne Hathaway (1555/56–August 6, 1623), English poet, playwright, and actor. She married Shakespeare in 1582, when she was 26 and he was only 18.
Miguel de Cervantes, the Spanish author of Don Quixote, died on the same day, in the same month, and the same year (1547–1616). There was no internet then, and they could not follow each other. How did they arrange to make April 23 trend as World Book Day together?
In 1995, UNESCO designated April 23 as World Book and Copyright Day (also known as World Book Day, World Reading Day, and other names). —Wikipedia
Another Chinese writer died in 1616: Tang Xianzu of the Ming dynasty. He not only died in the same year as Shakespeare; they were also born in the same year! Tang Xianzu is often called “the Shakespeare of the East” or “China’s Shakespeare.” Yesterday I saw a post on my feed declaring that he and Shakespeare could not be compared. Its simplest argument was that no one had ever heard Shakespeare called “the Tang Xianzu of the West.”
Leaving aside their places in their respective literary histories and their contributions to their languages—not to mention colonialism and the dominance of English—if we look only at how widely their works are read, I have to admit Tang Xianzu does not measure up to Shakespeare. But first, let’s hear a song.
Have you read The Peony Pavilion, or the other three plays in Tang Xianzu’s “Four Dreams of Linchuan” (The Purple Hairpin, The Dream of the Southern Branch, and The Handan Dream)? What about the Kunqu opera The Peony Pavilion, or Bai Xianyong’s youth version of it?
And even if you have never read Shakespeare in the original or in translation (for example, Zhu Shenghao’s), you have probably seen these films. Here are a few:
The Lion King, adapted from Hamlet.
A postmodern version of Romeo and Juliet starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
My Own Private Idaho, adapted from Parts One and Two of Henry IV and Henry V.
The Banquet, adapted from Hamlet.
There are countless other adaptations that keep Shakespeare’s play titles, including last year’s well-reviewed Macbeth, starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard:
I am not trying to belittle Tang Xianzu or traditional Chinese opera. I only want to say that whether we are promoting tradition or taking its best elements and creating something new, we still have a long way to go.
The sun has set, and this ugly fellow had better get back to reading. The handsome should read more too, because the book in your hands could very well be the last one you read.
P.S. If you love movies, follow the fun, highbrow A Certain Movie account below. I have published lots of articles there that are not just idle chatter ↓↓↓
