Emma Smith on "This Is Shakespeare"

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.7 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2020

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is there a right way to interpret Shakespeare’s plays? No, says Oxford University’s Emma Smith, and there’s a good reason for that. In her new book, This Is Shakespeare, she writes that Shakespeare’s plays are characterized by gaps—unknowable elements and unanswered questions that require us to insert our own readings. These gaps, opened up by history, dramatic from, and Shakespeare’s tendencies as a writer, mean that these plays are much less tied up, spelled out, or clear cut than we like to think. In this episode, Barbara Bogaev talks to Emma Smith about her book, and some specific gaps in Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew, Measure for Measure, and The Tempest. Dr. Emma Smith is Professor of Shakespeare Studies, Faculty of English and a Fellow of Hertford College at Oxford University in England. Her new book, This Is Shakespeare, was published in the US by Pantheon, an imprint of Penguin Random House, in 2020. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published March 31, 2020. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “That’s Not My Meaning,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had technical helped from Andrew Feliciano at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, and Rich Woodhouse at Electric Breeze Audio Productions in Oxford, England.

Transcript

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0:00.0	There are all kinds of ways to interpret Shakespeare to really know what he meant.
0:05.0	But let's be honest, doesn't it sometimes seem like there are some ways that are just considered
0:11.0	a little bit more right than others?
0:20.0	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.
0:23.6	I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folgers director.
0:26.6	Emma Smith is an eminent Shakespeare scholar.
0:29.6	She's steeped in the world of Shakespeare studies.
0:32.6	And a while back, it dawned on her.
0:35.6	These quote-unquote right ways of experiencing or interpreting Shakespeare, they might actually be a problem.
0:44.4	Professor Smith worried about this a lot, and then she decided to do something about it.
0:51.1	She presented a series of lectures, one each, on 20 of Shakespeare's plays, all of them
0:56.6	designed with a message.
0:58.7	Look, your interpretation of what's happening on stage, your idea of what this passage
1:04.7	or that passage means, your interpretation is right. And maybe one of those other ones is right too.
1:14.6	In fact, according to Professor Smith,
1:16.6	Shakespeare wrote these plays in a style that was actually designed to be open to interpretation.
1:23.6	After delivering these lectures, Professor Smith decided to publish them in a book, a book that's coming out in the United States as we record this.
1:33.5	The books called This Is Shakespeare.
1:36.5	And Professor Smith, who teaches at Oxford, came in recently to talk with us about it.
1:42.2	We call this podcast, That's Not My Meaning.
1:46.5	Emma Smith is interviewed by Barbara Bogave.
1:49.8	Emma, your thesis that Shakespeare's brought appeal across cultures and centuries hangs on a
	...

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