PARVUM OPUS
Number 136
______________________________________________
SHAKESPEARE DID NOT
WRITE THIS
Q: What do the following three quotations have in common?
1. "Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the
intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body, but
rather to skid in sideways, champagne in one hand ~ strawberries in the other,
body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming YOO HOO ~ What a Ride!"
2. "Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon."
3. "Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to
whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a
double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the
mind....The citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will
offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so. How do I know? For
this is what I have done. And I am Caesar."
A: Each of them circulates the Internet with erroneous attributions.
The first is supposed to be by Clarence Darrow, the second by the Dalai Lama,
and the third by Shakespeare.
It's easy to copy
someone else's faulty attribution, and people who pass these around are mostly
just interested in the thought and can't be expected to research the source or
even notice it. But in all three, both the ideas and the styles are
conspicuously unlikely to have come from the supposed authors. How would you
know, or guess, that's something's wrong?
1. I don't know all that much about Clarence
Darrow, the famous Scopes Monkey Trial lawyer, though I knew that the trial
occurred in the 1920s. Given his profession and the era, it didn't seem like
he'd have been a man to suggest skidding into the grave hollering Yoo Hoo, or
Woo Hoo, as other versions have it. Here's are some actual remarks he made on
his 61st birthday:
Most of life is hard for those who think. No doubt there are those
who believe that "God's in his heaven and all's right with the
world." If one can live on this delusion, he would be foolish to awaken
from his dream. But if we really think and feel, life is serious and hard.
Not
a "What a ride!" kind of guy. That quote has also been attributed to Hunter Thompson, but
who wants to model their lives after a guy who offed himself?
2. I'm also not an expert on the Dalai
Lama, but I don't imagine he's had much experience either of cooking or making
love. Here's a quote from an interview
with him (not in response to the false attribution, which he may never have
read):
No, no, no. This is absolutely wrong. Nowadays, unfortunately, we
have a new vocabulary ~ a monk with a wife. This is wrong. A monk is celibate.
Those who dress like a monk, with a wife, they are not monks. Of course, it's
the individual's right. You can always give up a monk's vows, and then change
your dress.
As
for the cooking and love-making of non-monks, I think the Dalai Lama would
counsel attention and reflection. I certainly prefer careful attention to
lovemaking and cooking, especially by others, even if I'm reckless and
abandoned. Somebody has to be careful.
3.
Barbra Streisand read this at a
Democratic fund-raiser in Hollywood. If you had to read any Shakespeare at all
in school, it would be hard to think he wrote this awkward prose, full of mixed
metaphors (drums whipping up a double-edged sword) and clumsy lack of parallel
structure (It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind
should be either It both emboldens the blood and narrows the mind or
It emboldens the blood as it narrows the mind). David
Emery, an urban legend chronicler, also points out that Shakespeare wrote
in iambic pentameter, and the words "citizenry" and
"patriotism" were not part of the Elizabethan vocabulary. Besides,
there is no such speech in Julius Caesar or any other Shakespearean
play, or in any writings or speeches attributed to Caesar. Furthermore, while
Shakespeare addressed the sufferings of war, he never wrote anything so
convenient to modern political sensibilities ~ his thought was more complex.
And anyway, are we to follow the example of assassination of the head of state?
Been there, done that, wouldn't be prudent.
Here's
a passage from Shakespeare's play where Caesar speaks about Cassius:
Would he were fatter! But I fear him not:
Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much;
He is a great observer and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men: he loves no plays,
As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music;
Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort
As if he mock'd himself and scorn'd his spirit
That could be moved to smile at any thing.
Such men as he be never at heart's ease
Whiles they behold a greater than themselves,
And therefore are they very dangerous.
I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd
Than what I fear; for always I am Caesar.
Et
tu, Barbra?
Why
did these people get their names attached to those improbable quotes? Could
have been entirely accidental. But it's often because people want to express
their own ideas under the aegis of some venerable person, to suggest that these
ideas are not just theirs, but are deep and/or old wisdom. Jane Austen wrote
that. (No she didn't.)
People
love the idea that a serious person has a secret wild or silly side, as in
examples one and two, that their seriousness is only a front for a
"real" person. Does anyone want to think that a truly trivial person
~ let's say Britney Spears ~ has an intellectual side, other than her
publicist?
The
invented Shakespeare quote, of course, uses one of the great minds to back up
political opinion. Advertisers do the same thing ~ Apple was using Einstein and
others a few years ago ~ unpaid, implied endorsement. Politicians do it too.
In
The Trivium, The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric by Sister
Miriam Joseph, C.S.C., Ph.D., she explains the weakness in this kind of argumentum
ad auctoritatem (reasoning by citing authority):
...it is fallacious to substitute authority for reasoning in
matters capable of being understood by reason. This fallacy is particularly
pernicious when the authority cited is not an authority on the matter under
discussion.
It's
important to get a sense of language on all levels so you can understand its
message on all levels. Besides the literal content of the words, consider
style, skill, level of diction, modernity, and so on.
Link here to look
for books on Amazon.com!
NEED A SIMPLE WEB PAGE? WOULD A NEWSLETTER, ELECTRONIC OR
PRINT, HELP YOUR BUSINESS? TALK TO ME ABOUT
PROFESSIONAL EDITING AND WEB WORK.
I have a contribution in a new anthology about the
"center of life", Changing
Course: Women's Inspiring Stories of Menopause, Midlife, and Moving Forward,
edited by Yitta Halberstam.
Go to Babelfish to translate this page into Chinese,
Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian,
or Spanish!
Parvum Opus is a publication of KeithOps
/ Opus Publishing Services. Back issues may be found at http://www.keithops.us/.
Feel free to e-mail me with comments or queries.
If you don't want
to receive Parvum Opus, please reply with "unsubscribe,"
"quit," "enough," or something like that in the subject
line, and I'll take you off the mailing list.
Copyright Rhonda
Keith 2005. Parvum Opus or part of it may be reproduced only with
permission, but it is permissible to forward the entire newsletter as long as
the copyright remains.