Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Not Just Aping the Brits

Levine's first chapter of Highbrow Lowbrow provides a solid introduction to his work's premise: by the turn of the century, American culture had shifted from a heterogenous and democratic arena allowing for the mixing of classes to a series of discrete venues segregated by refinement of sensibilities. Levine does such a good job positing arguments, spinning them to take another perspective, and moving on, that it is hard to find fault with a particular argument. He writes at the end of his first chapter that the shift in American appreciation for Shakespeare must be so thoroughly (and yet vaguely) theorized, because it parallels the development of all "Culture" and art in the country. In passing through so many positions, he does not do justice to one in particular, that of the nationalist implications of the mass eschewing of Shakespeare.

Levine argues that Shakespeare was "in tune with much of nineteenth-century American consciousness," but then somehow this changes (39). If Shakespeare had been "presented as 'moral dialogues'" (and presumably appreciated as such), why did that appreciation stop? Did America become a less moral place? Shakespeare's "plays had meaning to a nation that placed the individual at the center of the universe" (40), so why did that nation give up those stories of individuality? I doubt America had become less individualistic. Levine even presents the case for greater individuality at the time of Shakespeare's decline, arguing that people of different artistic sensibilities opted to segregate into audiences based on taste (60).

It seems clear that class is an issue to the rise of taste, but Levine might be missing something here with his argument regarding Shakespeare. Shakespeare, though speaking to the American mood, was not American. While America had no great cultural creators, it was easy to adopt the seemingly eternal (and therefore perhaps nationally neutral) Shakespeare, who came from mean beginnings, as an icon of American gumption and thus of America. Once America began to foster its own artistic geniuses, it would seem possible that Shakespeare might seem out of touch. American artists in the mid- to late- nineteenth century were writing and performing their own works, works that were contemporary and more understandable, or at least inherently more interesting, to their fellow Americans. With art of their own, at all levels of taste, Americans could leave behind the (im)perfectly popular Shakespeare, with its mixture of refined and vulgar tastes. Similarly, with greater opportunity for national (as opposed to neutral) amusements, Americans could divide themselves how they saw fit.

Given that there were more everyday entertainments of esteem and also of humor in America than Shakespeare, it seems odd to think that Shakespeare, a foreigner with royal patronage from his historically oppressive country, would have had such a place in American culture as Levine argues. But perhaps the prospect of a long-dead foreigner's works, however difficult they might have been to read (though certainly not to watch), were more appealing to a nation still finding its chauvinistic footing than a contemporary foreigner's entertainment. I would not argue that Levine is wrong, but I do believe he has glanced over an important American ideal in his attempt to cover so many bases. To prefer American works, whether reinterpretations of Shakespeare's work, parodies of it, or simply more vulgar fare, might have been the patriotic thing to do.

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