Wednesday, June 29, 2011

There is no way NOT to click on a link with this headline.

Shakespeare was a pothead, says anthropoligist.

"A South African anthropologist wants to exhume Shakespeare's remains to determine if the literary giant was a pot smoker."

Is this going to lead a breakthrough in literary studies that will revolutionize the way that Romeo and Juliet is taught to dozing and horny ninth graders? Will performances of Hamlet sound like the turtles in "Finding Nemo"? Will stoned freshmen put down their copies of "Dark Side of the Moon" and turn off the "Wizard of Oz" in order to pore over the pages of Othello and King Lear for references to doobie?

Should costumers put Lady Macbeth into dreadlocks and hippie skirts? Clearly, A Midsummer Night's Dream is rife with the ganja (I know a bank where the wild thyme blows/Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows/Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine/With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine. All weed.).

But what about Titus Andronicus? Coriolanus?

Well, it may take some time (and a lot of snacks), but I am sure that our nation's youth will sort it all out.

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