Seven American misconceptions

Abstract

One of the most deep-rooted instincts in America is the need to debunk what it cannot comprehend. In regard to the classics, the American suspicion of ‘high art’ takes the form of levelling down anything that appears to be lofty or high-falutin’. This accounts for the widespread notion that a Shakespearian play is really no different from any other, and there is no reason in the world why a knotty and intractable work such as King Lear or The Tempest should not be approached as if it were an item from the œuvre of Kaufman and Hart, Arthur Miller or even Neil Simon. As a result, all questions of prosody — scansion, metre, pulse etc. — are given short shrift. The American actor understands prose (that’s where it all runs together, right?) and he has a working definition of blank verse which, loosely stated is: ta dum, ta dum, ta dum, ta dum, ta dum — five beats to a line — the stress on the second beat. Iambic pentameter — what could be easier?