And I like how, in THE LONG WAY HOME, Poul Anderson "translated" some of Hamlet's famous "to be or not to be" dialogue into the language used by the people of the Technarchy five thousand years from now. By then the name of the play's author had been long forgotten.
Yes, here is what I found in Chapter VIII of THE LONG WAY HOME, a bit of the "Hamlet" known to the people of the Technarchy 5000 years from now:
"Existence or nullity--thus the problem: Whether more free-born mentally to endure The blast and bolts of adverse chance occurrence, Or to shoot through a universe of troubles, And counteracting, annul them?"
Darn! I should have used "monologue," not "dialogue" in referring to that famous bit of "Hamlet" and its "translation." It would have been a more accurate word to use.
Paul and Sean: Lois McMaster Bujold has written a number of stories involving a colony world, Barrayar, cut off from the mainstream of Terran-descended civilization for several centuries, but then regaining contact. It's mentioned that the colonists — mostly derived from English, Russian, French, and Greek, but with a few other national minorities — maintained a tradition of Shakespeare's plays, orally whenever they couldn't manage written. They did this so "successfully" that it was later found they'd "preserved" two or three of the Bard's works the entire rest of humanity had never heard of!
Interesting! And I can well believe some oral traditions can preserve works which had otherwise been lost. In his book JESUS AND HIS TIMES, Henri Daniel-Rops discussed how, before books became so ubiquitous, many people's memories were far better than is the norm today. Because a trained and retentive memory was more necessary in past times.
I can believe that! A trained "memorizer" could probably memorize large parts of the Bible. And the skalds and other poets in Anderson's Scandinavian stories were also trained to remember verbatim many poems.
Ummmm, the way I understood Bujold's anecdote, and which I THOUGHT the quote marks around "successfully" and "preserved" conveyed, was that due to distorted memories the Barrayarans CREATED two or three "Shakespearean" plays that SHAKESPEARE never heard of.
Another amusing thing Bujold did with Shakespeare was a scene in which her main character Miles was being interogated using the truth serum 'Fast Penta'. He found he had an atypical reaction to the drug & he was able to avoid giving useful information if he could get onto poetry he had memorized. Neither he nor the interrogators could get him onto something else until he had finished reciting the poem. One of the interrogators mutters "at this rate we will be here all winter", and Miles says "Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer..." and carries on through the whole of Richard III.
"were also trained to remember verbatim many poems"
Poetry is easier to memorize. Rhythm (and rhyme) means there is a pattern that the words have to fit, so if one is uncertain about some detail that pattern helps one remember what should come next.
Kind of related. I was talking with a friend about fusion reactions and went through the CNO cycle that fuses hydrogen to helium in some stars (mostly larger than the sun, it happens in the sun a bit but there it is mostly the proton-proton chain). She was a bit surprised at me remembering the details & I said, any nucleus with more protons than neutrons will be unstable & one of the protons will change to a neutron plus a positron. So she said, oh there is a pattern that makes it easier to remember.
19 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I like how, in THE LONG WAY HOME, Poul Anderson "translated" some of Hamlet's famous "to be or not to be" dialogue into the language used by the people of the Technarchy five thousand years from now. By then the name of the play's author had been long forgotten.
Sean
Sean,
That is also relevant. Are you able to quote any of the translated dialogue?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, here is what I found in Chapter VIII of THE LONG WAY HOME, a bit of the "Hamlet" known to the people of the Technarchy 5000 years from now:
"Existence or nullity--thus the problem:
Whether more free-born mentally to endure
The blast and bolts of adverse chance occurrence,
Or to shoot through a universe of troubles,
And counteracting, annul them?"
Very different, but still recognizably "Hamlet"!
Sean
Darn! I should have used "monologue," not "dialogue" in referring to that famous bit of "Hamlet" and its "translation." It would have been a more accurate word to use.
Sean
Paul and Sean:
Lois McMaster Bujold has written a number of stories involving a colony world, Barrayar, cut off from the mainstream of Terran-descended civilization for several centuries, but then regaining contact. It's mentioned that the colonists — mostly derived from English, Russian, French, and Greek, but with a few other national minorities — maintained a tradition of Shakespeare's plays, orally whenever they couldn't manage written. They did this so "successfully" that it was later found they'd "preserved" two or three of the Bard's works the entire rest of humanity had never heard of!
Kaor, DAVID!
Interesting! And I can well believe some oral traditions can preserve works which had otherwise been lost. In his book JESUS AND HIS TIMES, Henri Daniel-Rops discussed how, before books became so ubiquitous, many people's memories were far better than is the norm today. Because a trained and retentive memory was more necessary in past times.
Sean
Sean,
I have heard it said that the Bible and Shakespeare could be reproduced from memory alone.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I can believe that! A trained "memorizer" could probably memorize large parts of the Bible. And the skalds and other poets in Anderson's Scandinavian stories were also trained to remember verbatim many poems.
Sean
Sean,
there are people with photographic memories, actors who have learned lots of Shakespeare and Evangelicals who reread the Bible non-stop.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
True, we still have people today who can recite from memory large blocks of material, whether plays or the Scriptures.
Sean
Ummmm, the way I understood Bujold's anecdote, and which I THOUGHT the quote marks around "successfully" and "preserved" conveyed, was that due to distorted memories the Barrayarans CREATED two or three "Shakespearean" plays that SHAKESPEARE never heard of.
Kaor, DAVID!
Darn, I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying the Barrayarans preserved by memory the texts of several of Shakespeare's undoubted works.
Sean
Sean:
No; when I said "the rest of humanity had never heard of" these plays, I meant NEVER. EVER. Especially in Shakespeare's time.
Kaor, DAVID!
That's what I thought you were saying. Plays MISTAKENLY attributed to Shakespeare.
Sean
Sean,
Shakespearean monologues are "soliloquies."
Paul.
Another amusing thing Bujold did with Shakespeare was a scene in which her main character Miles was being interogated using the truth serum 'Fast Penta'. He found he had an atypical reaction to the drug & he was able to avoid giving useful information if he could get onto poetry he had memorized. Neither he nor the interrogators could get him onto something else until he had finished reciting the poem.
One of the interrogators mutters "at this rate we will be here all winter", and Miles says "Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer..." and carries on through the whole of Richard III.
Kaor, Jim!
Now that was an interesting a prisoner could try using to avoid giving information to his enemies.
And I should get back into reading Shakespeare again, perhaps one of his history plays.
Ad astra! Sean
"were also trained to remember verbatim many poems"
Poetry is easier to memorize.
Rhythm (and rhyme) means there is a pattern that the words have to fit, so if one is uncertain about some detail that pattern helps one remember what should come next.
Kind of related.
I was talking with a friend about fusion reactions and went through the CNO cycle that fuses hydrogen to helium in some stars (mostly larger than the sun, it happens in the sun a bit but there it is mostly the proton-proton chain). She was a bit surprised at me remembering the details & I said, any nucleus with more protons than neutrons will be unstable & one of the protons will change to a neutron plus a positron. So she said, oh there is a pattern that makes it easier to remember.
Kaor, Jim!
Yes, many different kinds of patterns are used as mnemonic devices. Like the examples you cited.
Ad astra! Sean
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