WEBVTT

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So I thought Craig said,
"Come do a TED Talk for my students,"

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and I thought, "Why?

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I'm a professor.

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I get paid to talk for 50 minutes.

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How the hell am I only going to be able
to talk for 15 or 18?"

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So I thought, "I'll give it a go."

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I said, "What should I do?"
He said, "Talk about Shakespeare."

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And I thought, "Why Shakespeare?
Why Shakespeare?"

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The only answer I could come up with

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was to plagiarize our gorgeous,
young Prime Minister

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and say, "Well, it's 2016."

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That's a start.

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And it's the easiest one

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because 400 years and 6 days ago,

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on April 23rd,

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Shakespeare died.

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Prince died this week.

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He's had a lot of press.

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Would he still have that press
400 years from now?

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I don't know.

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Will there be a press 400 years from now?

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Probably not.

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So why? Why after 400 years?

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In 2012, during the London Olympics,
lots of exciting things happened.

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One of them we probably all remember
is the lightning man, right?

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Usain Bolt repeated it again, right?

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Won all those sprint events.

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Hundreds of thousands of people
witnessed something else.

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Every Olympics match a sport with culture.

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And there's always a Cultural Olympiad.

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In 2012, in London,
they chose Shakespeare.

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There were over 100 productions

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between April the 23rd
and the end of the event in November.

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Seventy of those took place
in the Globe Theatre.

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They represented countries,
over 40 countries from around the world,

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and they were in 37 different languages.

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Why?

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Most of those countries
had been colonized by the English.

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Having thrown off
all the shackles of colonization,

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why had they kept Shakespeare?

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And why did they want to listen
to Shakespeare in their own language?

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And why, when they came to London,

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did thousands of people living in London
whose origins were in those countries

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come to listen to Shakespeare

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in the language
into which they had been born?

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That's what I want to talk
to you about today:

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the power of listening to Shakespeare.

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That's why I don't want a text up there.

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Because that would contradict me, right?

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And that's why I'm glad
we closed that book.

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When Shakespeare was first performed,
and for well over 200 years,

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when people wrote about going to plays,

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when they wrote about
going to a Shakespeare play or any play,

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they would write in their diary,

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they would write
in their commonplace book,

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"Last night I went, and I heard
Midsummer Night's Dream."

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"Last night I went, and I heard Hamlet."

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No one ever wrote,
until well into the 19th century,

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that they saw a play.

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Because a play is about voice,

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and no one understood that
more than Shakespeare did.

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We are there because it consoles us
to hear a human voice,

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because we want a voice to make
the sounds of joy and sorrow for us.

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Because what matters in life
is what we apprehend,

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what we seize,

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what seizes us -

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those things that make us terrified,

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and those things that make us joyful.

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And theater brings us those,
and Shakespeare, no more so.

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So it's curious -

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not tragic, just curious -

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that when students
come to me at university,

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the majority of them say,
"Oh, Shakespeare. I don't know.

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It was always so hard in high school."

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Some would say,
"Oh, I loved it. I loved it."

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I'd say, "What did you love about it?"

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"Oh, the movies. There are
such great Shakespeare movies."

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And I have to say, "Well, no, no, no, no.

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Shakespeare is not
about watching a movie."

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There has to be a person there,

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a person who is enduring the story for us

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so that in witnessing it,

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we can be grasped and grasp in turn

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the emotions that are being experienced.

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Don't be afraid of Shakespeare, right?

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Most of my students, many of you -

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one of the reasons I thought,
"Well, we'll do this,"

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is because Craig said
there'll be over 900 students here,

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and they're all going to be doing
Shakespeare at some point,

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holding their noses or not.

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I said, "What do they do?"

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"Well, the usual things:

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Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet,

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Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth."

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I thought, "Great.
We'll get there. We'll see.

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We'll talk about some of those."

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But most of them probably also use
the No Fear Shakespeare cribs,

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that translate Shakespeare into English

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as if it wasn't English to begin with.

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And the Sparks Notes people
have made millions of dollars

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off the backs of No Fear Shakespeare

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when we shouldn't have feared him
to begin with, right?

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And Shakespeare
never made a penny in his life

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off of the printing of his plays.

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He could not have cared less.

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When the Folio came out,
seven years after his death,

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it came out because the surviving partners
of his company wanted to make a memorial.

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He never cared.

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There were hundreds
of editions of his works;

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he never made a penny on them.

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Because it wasn't about reading.

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And that's what I want to focus on now.

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I want to take a couple of scenes,
and I want to talk you through them,

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and I want to try to give you a sense

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of what you can apprehend
when you look and listen.

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And what I'm going to say to you now
and perhaps repeat in concluding -

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because I have no idea where I'm going;

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it will depend on what we hear
when we listen to these texts -

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Don't look for meaning.

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There isn't any.

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Don't look for a thesis.

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Don't hunt themes.

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Don't analyze metaphors.

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Don't worry about what
you're going to write your essay about.

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Just listen.

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And open yourself up as you listen.

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And be very responsive to what you feel.

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Because apprehension
is far more important than comprehension,

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and in Midsummer Night's Dream,

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one of Shakespeare's extraordinary
figures, the Duke Theseus,

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says precisely that
at the end of the play.

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He says, "One of the most interesting
things about life is this."

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He said, "Whenever we apprehend an effect,

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we want to comprehend a cause."

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And that's a problem,

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especially with theater

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and always with life.

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Something happens to us,
and we want to know why.

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Well, the cause doesn't matter.

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Who knows what the first cause
of anything is?

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Was it God the Creator or the Big Bang?

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They're beyond my comprehension, right?

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But in the moment of life,

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I apprehend constantly
what it is to be living,

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and to seek meaning in that

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rather than to simply swim

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in the luxuriousness
of my own soul and heart

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seems like an extraordinary
abandonment of the joy of living.

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So let's look at Shakespeare.

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We'll go through maybe just one scene.

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The screen here tells me
I've got nine-and-a-half minutes.

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We'll see what we can do.

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That'll give us enough for one.

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I'll give you a choice;
I've got a few ideas.

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Let's go for two
that are big ones out there.

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If you haven't encountered them yet,
you're going to in your high school years.

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Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet.

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Which one do you want?

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(Audience) Hamlet.
Romeo and Juliet. Hamlet.

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I think,

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I think Romeo and Juliet.

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Right? Wrong? Craig?

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If I can stay - oh boy,
I'm under nine minutes now.

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So if I can talk like the Bolt Man,

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if we can get through this scene,
maybe we do a bit of Hamlet,

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maybe finish with a moment from Hamlet.

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Here we go.

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What I'm going to do with Romeo and Juliet

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is go to the scene
where we first meet Juliet

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because it tells us something
about Shakespeare.

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Shakespeare's great at women.

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He's great at listening to women
and making us listen to women.

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And there's a reason for that.

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Because in his lifetime,
no woman was ever on the stage.

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No woman ever acted on the English stage

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until 1665.

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So men always played the parts of women,

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and not just boys.

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There were men in the company

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who spent their entire career
aging through female parts.

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So in this scene, we first meet Juliet.

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We have Juliet, and we have the Nurse,
and we have Lady Capulet.

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Three principal women from the play.

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We've not met Juliet yet;

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it's Act 1, scene 3.

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The Nurse is sitting,

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Lady Capulet we've met,
and she comes in and says,

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"Where's my daughter?"

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We met Lady Capulet in Act 1, scene 1,

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when the men were all fighting,
causing all that difficulty -

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the Montagues and the Capulets
wrestling with one another,

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men drawing their swords,

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all demonstrating their masculinity.

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Excruciatingly funny.

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And Lady Capulet knows that,
and she mocks her husband.

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She says to him, "Why bother
getting your sword out, old man?

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There's no point to it."

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She's a strong woman.

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So she comes in, and she says,
"Where's my daughter?"

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And the Nurse says, "Oh,
by my maiden head these last 12 years,"

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she says, "I called her; she didn't come."

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She says, "I swear by my virginity at 12,
I've been calling her.

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I don't know where she is,"

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and then she gets up,
and she says, "Juliet," -

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No, no, I don't want that.
I don't want anything up there.

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Can we just kill that? Is it impossible?

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How do I kill those screens? Great -

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And she starts calling her:

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"Ladybird. My dear one. Where are you?"

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In most productions,

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Juliet's on the balcony
or she's not on stage,

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because the text says, "Enter Juliet."

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It's always - in the original printings,

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they say, "Enter,"
when the character speaks.

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She's already there.

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Everything the Nurse is saying,
if you listen - right? -

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is what you do when you're playing
with a small child.

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You must have all done that,

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or an aunt or an uncle or parent
has done that with you.

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Joey, Joey, where are you, Joey?

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My goodness, Joey.
When are you going to come?

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My, what am I going to do with you, Joey?

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And where's Joey the whole time?

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Right there. Right behind you,
and you pretend you don't see him.

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That's where Juliet is

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if we really are listening
to what the Nurse is doing there.

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"Ladybird. My dear one. Where are you?"

NOTE Paragraph

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And Lady Capulet is standing, watching.

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And eventually Juliet says, 
"Here I am. Who wants me?" -

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playing with the Nurse.

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The Nurse says, "Your mother."

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And Lady Capulet says to the Nurse,

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"Will you give us a minute?

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There's something
I need to tell my daughter."

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And the Nurse begins to leave,

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and Lady Capulet says,
"No, come back. Please, come back."

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And what she needs to tell Juliet is,

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"Your father has decided
that you're going to be married now,

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and you're going to meet tonight
the man you're going to marry."

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Now, what's crucial in this scene,
if we are listening and looking,

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is what Lady Capulet's doing.

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Because always in Shakespeare

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in crucial scenes
when he wants us to listen,

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there's a listener on stage,

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and here it's Lady Capulet,

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listening while her daughter
plays with the Nurse,

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and then the Nurse tells a long story,

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a comic story

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about Juliet growing up,

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and Juliet's mother listens,

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knowing that she's about to tell
her daughter childhood is over.

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What's she feeling while she's listening?

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What does any parent feel?

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At that moment -

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commonly in tv ads -

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when you give your child
the keys to the car for the first time?

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When you leave them
at their university residence?

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When their probation officer
comes and takes them away?

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(Laughter)

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Whatever the point,

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where you realize,

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What happened to my child?

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How did I miss that?

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If we're listening,

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that's what's happening in that scene.

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Most productions miss that
because people are reading,

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and they ignore Lady Capulet.

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An extraordinary thing happens
when the Nurse is talking.

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They're trying to figure out
how old Juliet is,

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and her mother says, "Oh, you know,
I don't think she's 14 yet."

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And the Nurse is, "Oh, no, no.
It will be two weeks.

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I remember because my Susan,
my daughter, and her

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were born at the same time.

00:14:38.288 --> 00:14:42.909
My Susan, who God took from me

00:14:42.909 --> 00:14:45.550
because she was too good for me."

00:14:45.550 --> 00:14:51.719
The Nurse's daughter died
in her infancy, and Juliet lived.

00:14:52.849 --> 00:14:55.910
The Nurse says that, looking at Juliet,

00:14:56.170 --> 00:14:58.951
and Lady Capulet is looking at Juliet,

00:15:00.211 --> 00:15:02.238
and two daughters are dead.

00:15:02.868 --> 00:15:05.140
And if we're not listening, we miss that.

00:15:06.100 --> 00:15:11.671
The Nurse tells us, "My Susan died
almost 14 years ago."

00:15:12.041 --> 00:15:14.050
And Lady Capulet is thinking,

00:15:14.430 --> 00:15:20.273
"My child will be lost to me in two weeks

00:15:20.893 --> 00:15:22.817
when she marries Paris,

00:15:22.817 --> 00:15:25.750
and away she goes to live with him."

00:15:26.850 --> 00:15:33.426
And when the child I remember playing
just disappears, is gone.

00:15:33.936 --> 00:15:36.819
That's the crucial thing about listening.

00:15:36.819 --> 00:15:38.008
I've got two minutes.

00:15:38.008 --> 00:15:41.729
I'll very quickly tell you something
about Hamlet and then tie this up.

00:15:42.169 --> 00:15:43.979
At the end of Hamlet,

00:15:44.689 --> 00:15:47.800
when all the swordplay is going on
and the poisoning,

00:15:47.800 --> 00:15:50.089
and a dozen people
are going to be dead on stage,

00:15:50.089 --> 00:15:51.969
and it's going to be full of spectacle,

00:15:51.969 --> 00:15:54.888
and it turns into a real guy flick, right?

00:15:54.888 --> 00:15:59.219
There's a chick moment in there
that's powerful, and it's about mothers.

00:16:00.089 --> 00:16:03.580
Gertrude says nothing but three lines.

00:16:04.210 --> 00:16:10.739
The first of them is, "Hamlet,
let me wipe your brow.

00:16:11.209 --> 00:16:15.443
Take my napkin," she says,
"and wipe your brow. You look so tired."

00:16:15.983 --> 00:16:19.608
At the start of the play, she'd wanted
to touch him, and he wouldn't let her.

00:16:19.608 --> 00:16:20.970
He never lets her touch him;

00:16:20.970 --> 00:16:24.311
he pulls away because he's angry at her
for marrying his uncle, right?

00:16:24.311 --> 00:16:27.769
Shakespeare gives her
as her second-last line,

00:16:28.259 --> 00:16:30.569
"Let me wipe thy brow,"

00:16:30.999 --> 00:16:35.212
and she takes her handkerchief
and wipes the sweat off her son's brow,

00:16:35.212 --> 00:16:39.611
just the way your mother,
even when you're 62 like me,

00:16:40.021 --> 00:16:44.180
on a cold day, will tighten up your jacket

00:16:44.180 --> 00:16:50.340
or call you at university and say,
"Is it snowing? Wear your mittens."

00:16:51.920 --> 00:16:56.979
When we don't listen in life,
we miss the small things.

00:16:56.979 --> 00:17:01.948
In literature, listening is crucial
to getting those things too.

00:17:01.948 --> 00:17:04.929
That's why Shakespeare matters.

00:17:04.929 --> 00:17:07.670
Not because we should read him,

00:17:08.060 --> 00:17:11.130
but because we should be listening to him.

00:17:11.620 --> 00:17:16.027
At the beginning of Hamlet,
there's a man who's all alone on stage,

00:17:16.027 --> 00:17:17.101
Francisco,

00:17:17.101 --> 00:17:19.479
waiting to be relieved by Bernardo.

00:17:19.479 --> 00:17:21.188
He can be out there alone

00:17:21.188 --> 00:17:23.880
as long as the director
wants to leave him there,

00:17:23.880 --> 00:17:25.238
say nothing.

00:17:25.238 --> 00:17:30.287
Bernardo comes, and Bernardo says,
"Who's there?" because it's dark.

00:17:30.287 --> 00:17:33.048
And Francisco says, "Nay.

00:17:33.918 --> 00:17:38.449
[Answer me. Stand]
and unfold yourself," he says.

00:17:38.970 --> 00:17:40.708
Open yourself up to me.

00:17:40.708 --> 00:17:41.979
And I say to you,

00:17:41.979 --> 00:17:46.989
unfold yourself when you read Shakespeare.

00:17:46.989 --> 00:17:49.254
Close the book,

00:17:49.254 --> 00:17:50.709
open yourself up,

00:17:50.709 --> 00:17:52.277
apprehend,

00:17:53.017 --> 00:17:55.698
and you won't worry about the meaning.

00:17:56.028 --> 00:17:57.323
Unfold,

00:17:57.533 --> 00:17:58.808
listen

00:17:58.948 --> 00:18:02.949
and allow life
and literature to touch you.

00:18:03.509 --> 00:18:04.609
Thank you.

00:18:04.609 --> 00:18:06.639
(Applause)