Pop Sonnets (rebroadcast)

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.8 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2018

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Here’s the assignment. Fourteen lines in iambic pentameter, with an a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g rhyme scheme. Now: add Taylor Swift. It’s astounding and gratifying that Shakespeare—a 450-year-old playwright—continues to pop up in popular culture. Our guest on this podcast episode is Erik Didriksen, who takes hit songs from artists like Taylor Swift and Eminem and rewrites them as Shakespearean sonnets. The Tumblr where Didriksen posted his sonnets became so popular that in 2015, he published a book, Pop Sonnets: Shakespearean Spins on Your Favorite Songs. He was interviewed by Barbara Bogaev (This episode was originally broadcast February 10, 2016). From our Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. ©Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode, called "Press Among the Popular Throngs," was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. Ben Lauer is web producer. With help from Bob Auld and Deb Stathopulos at the Radio Foundation in New York and Phil Richards and Matt Holzman at KCRW public radio in Santa Monica, California. Erik Didriksen’s pop-sonnets are read by Elyse Mirto and Bo Foxworth of The Antaeus Theater Company in Los Angeles.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Okay, here's the assignment.
0:02.0	14 lines, all in iambic pentameter.
0:06.0	Two syllables each.
0:07.0	The rhyme scheme is ABAB, CDCD, EF, GG.
0:13.0	Then, add in Taylor Swift.
0:17.0	Ready? Go.
0:28.4	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.
0:30.9	I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folgers director.
0:39.4	It's always surprising how Shakespeare, this 450-year-old playwright, continues to crop up in popular culture.
0:45.9	And at the time we originally broadcast this podcast in 2015, this was the latest example.
0:51.3	For two years at that point, a New York software developer named Eric Didrickson had been taking the lyrics to songs by pop stars, 50 Cent, Adele,
0:56.0	Sir Mixalot, and converting them into Shakespearean sonnets. The results were hilarious. And like the songs
1:05.2	that inspired them, they became immensely popular. At the time we recorded this, Eric had just published a book titled Pop Sonets, Shakespearean
1:15.8	spins on your favorite songs.
1:18.4	We invited him in to talk about it.
1:20.7	We call this podcast Press Among the Popular Thongs.
1:25.0	Eric is interviewed by Barbara Bogave. How does this happen? One day you just wake up and you say to yourself,
1:31.3	there just aren't enough pop songs out there that have been rewritten in the form of Shakespearean sonnets?
1:35.3	I was wandering around the wilderness of the internet one day a couple of years ago and came across a Tumblr post.
1:43.3	Someone had screenshotted a Twitter account that purportedly takes pop lyrics
1:48.0	and turns them into Shakespearean verse, but they weren't doing a terribly good job of it.
1:53.0	And someone had posted this on Tumblr and said, not an iambic pentameter, do not accept.
	...

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