On Yahoo! Answers students chat with each other to complete their paraphrasing assignment: "Explain the meaning of 'To be or not to be,'" iCarly (sic) writes. I cringe at the word "explain," for it is an invitation to "explain it away," a get-it-over-with mode. And then "the" meaning, as if there's only one way to interpret, and Shakespeare is just hiding it. Even a shopping list deserves more hermeneutic respect than that. The answers to iCarly are even more disturbing. Here's Bob's response: "It's really along the same lines as 'Do or die'- it really just means do something, or don't do it. At least, that's what I think it means..." Or Krystina: "just go to www.sparknotes.com and click on no fear Shakespeare." Sure, let's get someone else
to figure it out. And, by the way, let's emphasize that Shakespeare is someone to fear. All this while ads for face lifts, images of storm-troopers, and the Geico gecko vibrate, flash, and fade in and out on the screen.
Paraphrasing is a one of the core "skills" that we teach in our schools. But it is prison and misprision. Because paraphrasing is such a default mode--an invitation to shut down when you've "got it right"--I have done the unthinkable: I forbid paraphrase and summary. I also relegate plot to the least important aspects of literature qua literature. Here is the official notice in my syllabus:
"Any plot review systems, including, but not limited to CliffsNotes, Monarch Notes, SparkNotes, Shmoop and online chats are not acceptable sources for developing literary appreciation and interpretive depth...This course is an opportunity to develop yourself as an original thinker. Any papers that rely on summary, paraphrase, or plot outline will not be accepted for a grade."
Paraphrasing exercises are perfect for assembly-line education--of teaching to the test and standardization. Paraphrasing teaches students that literary interpretation is boring, laborious, and disappointing. It tempts them to plagiarize. Paraphrasing teaches them that literature is somehow objective, something to do for someone else's approval--for the grade. Paraphrasing creates a power struggle, a get-it-right atmosphere in the class--frustrating to all. As a passionate reader, writer, and teacher, I find this abhorrent.
But, but, but? Let's remember with Robert Frost, "Poetry is what gets lost in translation." And, Will knew this better than anyone--"a rose by any other name" would not be as sweet. What makes literature is not what it "says" but, to use John Ciardi's word how it says. Let's return to "to be or not to be." What are some of the interpretive strategies we have to appreciate how Shakespeare characterizes Hamlet through language? The simplest is to look for language patterns, what Gertrude Stein would call "what repeats":
the line starts with to be and ends with to be
the word "or" is like a fulcrum of a seesaw between the start and end of the line
to be and not to be are opposites
to be is an infinitive verb (at this point, I'm wondering why it's called "infinitive")
to be is the most abstract verb
to has the lowest, most depressing sound-frequency vowel oo
be has the highest, most energetic sound-frequency vowel ee
the ts seem to spit here
there are no images in this line, the emotion is carried through sound
What meanings might we draw from these few observations? That Hamlet is seesawing between extremes. Given the sound patterns, he seems to be emotionally bipolar. Since this is the beginning of his soliloquy and there are no images, we can hypothesize that words, themselves, are important to him--perhaps more than images, which are grounded in the body. Since to be is the most essential of verbs, he's asking a very large question. Playing with the idea of the infinitive, he might believe in eternal life. We could then look for these and other patterns in the rest of the soliloquy and the play. The only use a paraphrase would have here is to show how utterly inadequate it is. To quote Bob, "It really just means doing something, or don't do it." Duh.
Speed-dial, For Dummies, Twitter Shakespeare. Paraphrasing is an instrument of instant gratification; of having, as Shmoop so jauntily puts it, Shakespeare in a "nutshell"; of avoiding fear, instead of embracing it as a necessary part of literary adventure and discovery. Paraphrasing digitalizes literature into right and wrong. It is handy for surprise quizzes and grade books. Paraphrasing hearkens back to the inferiority complex literature studies had when there were no English Departments. To establish credibility, scholars had to prove they were "scientific" and "objective." Now we have business as a model for academic credibility--make it quantifiable: multiple-choice-easy to calculate. One of my most gifted students and now brilliant teacher failed the praxis four times.What makes literature literature is that it is infinitely generative. That it resists reductio ad absurdum.
We have been reduced, as teachers, to a litterbox model for education--coverage and control. Students know this, if only unconsciously. They resist being herded with mechanical exercises. They resent being told what to think. They resent being made to regurgitate. You can fill in the metaphor from here.
Mort reminded me of when paraphrasing exercises were called precis: reduce Hamlet to three sentences. Then why have Shakespeare at all?
©
2014 Susanna Rich
