Este texto foi escrito para uma cadeira, Literatura Inglesa I. Críticas e comentários são muito bem-vindos.
I remember the first experience I had concerning Hamlet. I don’t remember when or how, though. The only thing that comes to my mind from that time is a man in fancy clothes holding a skull in one hand, gesticulating with the other, the face of one who suffers. The skull was the element which shocked me the most, certainly, but it didn’t say much, then. Much later, probably, I confronted Shakespeare’s story about a man who didn’t know what to do, basically, and that was Hamlet. I still didn’t know what Hamlet’s doubt was: to do or not to do what? One of my best literature teachers from High School reformulated the sentence when talking about Brazilian modernist literature (or else, told us of one particular recreation of the sentence): “tupi or not tupi”. Nothing made much sense, still, but I already had some information regarding Hamlet.
It was only when I came to this Letras course that I thought of actually reading the book. So there I was with my mother’s copy in hands, a melancholy face, much like the one I remembered, only it was a book I was holding, not a skull. The book I read was in Portuguese and, I soon discovered, was an abridged version. After reading it, I also discovered that the thing that most shocked me this time was not the skull – I must confess, I don’t even remember reading about it – but Hamlet himself. Although I felt as if I was cheating since I read an abridged version, I also felt that I wouldn’t be able to read the unabridged version at that time. It was just too much. Too many doubts, too many thoughts, too many words to deal with.
Then, this year I resolved I would write something about Hamlet, because of my research project, which pursues to further analyze the marks and consequences of the “I” in contemporary literature. I thought I couldn’t evade Hamlet anymore (the character himself, not the book). I started writing an article and reading about the play within the play, the illusions, the appearances and realities articulated in the storyAll this only to try and understand what the contemporary books I referred to were doing. I was well aware that they were not “innovating” when inserting stories within stories.
To sum up, I can say that writing about it was a wonderful experience. It was a tough and rather incomplete attempt, yes, but a nice one. I started realizing that each reading I did, each conversation I had about it, each lecture or class I attended brought up something new about almost the same topic. One of the most remarkable coincidences happened when I was beginning to write my article. The teacher from this course, English Literature I, asked us what was Hamlet talking about when he said (to himself or to the audience?): “to be or not to be, that is the question” and so on. This was a difficult question, I realized. The following words uttered by Hamlet have to be carefully considered. Hamlet is actually thinking of his alternatives. He even considers suicide. I have never thought about that. How have I never thought about that?
Now would perhaps be a good opportunity to evoke some “expert words”, instead of only complaining about my lack of attention. Ítalo Calvino, in one of his most known articles, at least in Brazil, called Por que ler os clássicos? (1981) – Why read the classics? – comes up with some very interesting points, maybe not to answer this question, but to make us think about it. He says:
7. Os clássicos são aqueles livros que chegam até nós trazendo consigo as marcas das leituras que precederam a nossa e atrás de si os traços que deixaram na cultura ou nas culturas que atravessaram (ou mais simplesmente na linguagem ou nos costumes).
Well, that’s exactly what happened to me, and obviously to so many other people, including Calvino himself. When I first read the abridged version of Hamlet, as I said, I already had some previous “knowledge” concerning it. I remembered the skull, for example. Not only that, but the mere fact that I had already even heard about Hamlet makes it clear to me that the “marks of previous readings” Calvino refers to are really present in our own readings of the classics. When we watch movie adaptations of these classics or of any other book, it might become even clearer to us that what we’re doing is the reading of a reading of a book, transposed to this other media/technology. But we’re not always quite aware that the reading of a book, that is, without it being transposed to another media, can already be a re-reading.
Calvino also expresses his opinion towards the classics and school. He says that school should be the place to encourage the reading of the original texts, instead of encouraging the reading of critical texts about them. He also says that the classics ought to be read for love, not respect or duty, except at school. School should invite students to read classics so that later students might be able to choose their “own classics”, to have options. I agree with him on that point too. Although I don’t think we should force anybody to read anything if they’re not inclined to do it, it is also our role as teachers to provide them with alternatives. They may choose not to read anything, but some of them might choose to read a few of these books, or even to start reading some of them. That first attempt, I believe, will mark their reading stories and might encourage them to keep on trying to read something they like or, as another possible consequence, might as well discourage them or even traumatize them. It’s all up to the teacher, the student and the context in which they are leaving.
In order not to “traumatize” students instead of helping them, some course of actions could be tried, so as to make their reading experiences significant, and, luckily, positive. One option that occurs to me is exactly going for abridged versions in the beginning of children’s reading experiences, making it clear to them what this version is and that, if they want to, they can read the unabridged one. I know this is a really polemic issue, but that’s my opinion. I’d rather get to know part of the book when young, and maybe enjoy it, and try it again some other time, than avoiding it for the rest of my life because of some dull attempts.
If the group is not too young, let’s say High School graduates or older, I think they might go for the complete text, provided that the teacher motivates them to discuss some topics related to the book itself. Reading it because “it’s important” is not a good excuse. Reading it because you might find its content appealing, or because you might get the opportunity to question why that particular book is considered a classic – yes, that’s better
O design foi inspirado por uma ideia de uma mensagem secreta em um pedaço de papel, compartilhando com outros personagens o mesmo espaço de uma casa onde moravam, e cada um deles terá seu próprio impacto nisso; e foi uma homenagem a Tom Philips, que fez o livro A Humument, que é simplesmente lindo, e também achei que seria um jeito interessante de lidar com uma citação.
