I can remember a time, long ago, when Shakespeare was not the “theatrical spinach” (Levine 31) Levine has claimed that Shakespeare has become to the masses and when it actually was exciting to engage with his work. Wishbone’s television and book series definitely come to mind here, and I remember enjoying the plots of Romeo and Juliet and Henry IV. Never did I think I was contaminating Shakespeare in anyway, or did I consider myself unfit or unworthy to enjoy and appreciate his work. I never thought I posed any threat to his work whatsoever. Only until I grew older did this unease to be around all things Shakespeare emerge. Somewhere between my Wishbone years and the present I was indoctrinated to believe that the majority of the population were not intelligent/civilized enough to look beyond the sex, drunkenness, and violence and appreciate the more important aspects of Shakespeare’s work, which are the political, social, and economic questions raised in plays such as King Lear, Hamlet, and Othello. Personally, this mindset has proved itself to be crippling when it comes to my relationship with Shakespeare’s work. As a result of this unease, I have chosen to limit my involvement with Shakespeare, often avoiding courses and lectures pertaining to his work and rarely reading his texts for leisure.
It was relieving to read the passage in Levine’s prologue where he admits “the difficulty [he] had believing that [he] was worthy to work on Shakespeare” (Levine 5). Interestingly, Levine attributes his hesitancy to tackle Shakespeare to American culture. Levine’s initial fear (thank God it did not last) of Shakespeare, as well as my own, leads me to ponder on this question: Where did this TDUS (Too Dumb to Understand Shakespeare) label come from? Unfortunately, far too many scholars, Levine argues, have chosen to avoid this question and have failed to expose the TDUS label for what it really is, which is a socially-constructed sham based on everything but factual evidence.
I applaud Levine for calling out those historians who are not doing what they are suppose to do as intellectuals and scholars, which is to be critical of everything. A historian must always trace the trajectory of any given ideology, examining the agenda and motives behind its creation. In the case of the TDUS label, members of the elite were attempting to keep the masses away from Shakespeare, using him to legitimatize their position in society. In hopes of preventing Shakespeare from being duplicated by the masses, this TDUS label was circulated by the elite in order to convince the masses that they were not competent to understand Shakespeare and needed to rely on the interpretations of a select few. This definitely was a smart move on the elite’s part, with the masses becoming complicit in their own oppression by removing themselves from the Shakespearean realm. This notion of needing a select few to “spoonfeed” the rest of society Shakespeare is still present today, and I can attest to the fact that I often feel unworthy to draw my own conclusions from Shakespeare’s work and apply them to current political and social situations.
The present inaccessibility of Shakespeare is something that should be examined in academia, and I hope the TDUS label continues to be deconstructed. However, one still finds that there are scholars in academia perpetuating this label and refusing to criticize it publicly. I think it is ridiculous that certain scholars choose to allow the masses to continue to believe that this label is has existed since the beginning of time. Furthermore, it is also harmful to have society believe that a select few have been ordained by some higher power to become the Rosetta Stone for all things Shakespeare.
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