Monotony is anti-Shakespeare: "Hag-Seed: The Tempest Retold" by Margaret Atwood
Published October 2016.
“’Shit’ off bounds,” he says. “Adjust your cursing accordingly.”
“’Shit’ was okay last years,” says Leggs. “So how come?”
“I changed my mind,” says Felix.
“I got tired of it. Too much shit is monotonous, and monotony is anti-Shakespeare. […]”
In “Hag-Seed” by Margaret Atwood
When approaching Shakespeare in the twenty-first century many writers make an attempt at re-inventing the classical plays, updating the setting to a post-modern world of chaos, smartphones, Facebook, and Google+. Relating the stories of Shakespeare to the lives of people in 2016 can be utterly hectic to watch when done well; we can feel an honest connection to the drama of the world of the play when set in our everyday backdrop. But pitfalls come with re-imagining the world of any Shakespeare play: if it’s not fully coherent then it’s just an update for an update’s sake, not a new spin on the story to shine a new light on it. There is a lot to be said for a way that modern readers connect to they wouldn’t otherwise read in the first place.
If you're into retellings of Shakespeare, read on in the usual place, because I can't seem to add a frigging link to a frigging post on this frigging site!!!!
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