But they were—and to some extent remain—the canon for those English speakers who still read. And we are all in the process of smashing it, even those, like me, who retain shreds of Shakespeare—”Like a rich pearl in an Ethiop’s ear”—many of which we would no longer dare to recite.
Two versions of that smashing occurred to me this week when I looked, again, at the film Brokeback Mountain, finding it more moving and more desolate than when I first saw it years ago. Then, I thought it was about two cowboys coming out of the closet; now, I think it is about courage. Not the courage to come out but the courage to pursue an unlikely and dangerous path. When Jack Twist says, “We could have had a good life together,” even embracing the possibility of violence, he is asking for greater courage than his partner can provide. Smashing the canon must always involve courage, but to pursue the path laid out calls for even more.
I also looked at a more recent film, The Danish Girl, recommended to me by a friend for its beautiful shots of various cities—and they are beautiful, but of course that’s not what the film is about. I was enormously irritated to find that the harrowing sex change operation only reinforced a familiar stereotype—the wilting lily. Lily Langtry, the “Jersey Lily” of a hundred years ago, displayed the same drooping neck, sideways glances and vague gestures without the need of an operation. Of course this film is set in 1926 when the lily stereotype was even more familiar than it is today, but I found it so disheartening that such a dangerous and drastic change could only produce a reinforced stereotype of femininity.
So we are still engaged—and will probably always be engaged—in smashing the canon. Meanwhile my pretty volumes of Shakespeare’s plays will remain, admired if not read.
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