Weeding Shakespeare

Sounds like a statewide lobotomy.

Shockwaves continue to ripple north following reports of Florida teachers censoring Romeo & Juliet to comply with the recent mandates of Gov. Ron DeSenseless to whitewash and dumb down history and literature taught in the state’s public schools, K thru Post-Grad.

Most reactions do little more than exclaim two words that should never be heard together: Censor and Shakespeare.  But I wonder if liberal reaction is due more to the choice of play.

Romeo & Juliet, fair to say, is the English-speaking world’s ultimate love story–which masks the fact that it is also the ultimate statement against vengeance.  For both reasons, it has had countless adaptations to fit various nations, ethnic groups, and as many generations as have been since 1595 when it first appeared on a London stage.

That includes, of course, West Side Story, as American a tale as any, which itself has spawned a healthy, colorful, vibrant share of adaptations for both stage and film.  Conceived and written by my Lawrence homeboy, Leonard Berstein, its songs have lives of their own, something that British rocker Keith Emerson noted when he compiled his “America” pastiche.

His band, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, included everything from the theme of the classic television westerm, Bonanza, to the opening of Hendrix’s  “Purple Haze,” from “Camptown Races” to clips of John Philip Sousa.  For the warp and woof holding it all together, we keep hearing “Maria” and “I Want to Live in America.”*

To most Americans since 1960,  those songs and others from West Side Story–“I Feel Pretty” and the “Jet Song”–are like the very names, “Romeo” and “Juliet,” known even by those unfamiliar with the full story.

Which is why I wonder:  Would we be so shocked if the reports from Florida named one of Shakespeare’s lesser known plays, say, Titus Andronicus or King John, or even Twelfth Night or Love’s Labor’s Lost? Would our reaction be mixed if it were a play now deemed tainted by “political incorrectness” such as The Taming of the Shrew or The Merchant of Venice?

Forgive me.  My perception has been warped by recent trips to public libraries well north of the Mason-Dixon Line.  Up here, “censorship” is a dirty word, and “dumbing down” a crime against humanity, as they should be.  Problem is that, when you call them by a harmless sounding name and give them the veneer of technology, the result gives you the very thing you profess to be against.

That name is “weeding,” and it is now a term of art for librarians nationwide as they depend on the algorithms to tell them the frequency of circulation of each book to determine what they keep and what they discard, no thought required.

If you doubt this, here’s a challenge for you: Pick the writer you consider the most consequential in American history (say, pre-1970), walk into a public library, and count the number of volumes by that writer.  Then pick a present day author who caters to pop culture and count his or her volumes.

Here, for example, in this northeast corner of deep blue Massachusetts, Danielle Steele wipes the floor with Herman Melville every time: Ipswich PL, 88-6; Newburyport PL, 82-4, Methuen PL, 65-5; Topsfield PL, 62-4; Newbury PL, 49-1.

That one, of course, is Moby-Dick, the only title of Melville’s nine novels that you can count on finding. Likewise, if you pick Willa Cather, you have a fair chance of finding My Antonia, but Death Comes for the Archbishop? Forget it. Steinbeck? Good chance you’ll find Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, but you’ll likely need interlibrary loan to get In Dubious Battle or The Winter of Our Discontent. So much for browsing.

That last title, coincidentally, is a line from Shakespeare’s Richard III, which brings us back to the question. Good chance that DeSenseless and his thought-police might back off from, or at least distance themselves from that particular play. Far more than any chance of libraries bringing back Cather’s Archbishop, Steinbeck’s Battle, or Melville’s Redburn, the most eloquent, humane, and irrefutable description, explanation, and defense of immigration to America I’ve ever read.

So the question remains: What is the difference between sanitizing Florida schools and weeding American libraries?

The answer, my friend, is negligible, but the implication is huge. Call it a national lobotomy.

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*I first heard ELP’s “America” played by Jethro Tull in a concert in Connecticut 16 years ago. Tull added several quotes that are not in the original. Here’s a recording of it on the same tour, followed by ELP’s own much wilder, hyperventilating version made longer by a drum solo.