This post is a continuation of my emphasis on Renaissance Teaching methods. In this particular entry I will focus on a loose modern adaptation of the principle of analysis and genesis as applied to a Shakespeare viral game. I will show where a particular relationship between a few aspects of the Renaissance teaching method and this digital mediation.
The practical scholastic exercise of renaissance language studies comprised the detailed analysis of text. The texts studied were reviewed in terms of multiple factors. One of these factors was style. As a literary tool, style functions as more than simply aesthetic appeal. Style creates a tone that pervades the text. It also is a vehicle for crafting aphorisms, and developing a series of constructions that can make an individual’s writings easily identifiable. Over time a particular style becomes emblematic. For example, think of something Dickensian, or Shakespearian. If that didn’t connect with you imagine something by Mark Twain. These authors have designed specific structures that over time have made their text identifiable with a set of connotations. Dickensian: top hats, dirty London streets, small polluted rivers, cold winter months. Mark Twain: colloquial speech, South American environments, sarcasm. Shakespearian: ruffled collars, people talking to skulls, “all the world’s a stage.”
Kokodigital met with this sense of style when they attempted to create a viral videogame based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The game is only loosely based on the play. There is little plot relation, or dialogue congruity; however, the game does seem to attempt to transpose a sense of Shakespearian style into the format. For example, examine the following screen shots:
You will note that the caricature portraying Romeo is small in comparison to the environment. While this is opposite to the majority of Shakespeare’s plays, which emphasize the characters in order to engage the plot, the environment is clearly designed to imitate the conceptions of a more natural society, surrounded by picturesque homes, and lush forestry. The creation of the game was funded by the fairground “Shakespeare Country” so this emphasis is not coincidental.
Throughout the game the player collects sections of Shakespeare’s playbook. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to the end (got stuck on level five), so I don’t know if you actually get to see a scene of the play enacted out at the end.
Clearly mountains of details of authenticity are missing from this interpretation of Shakespeare’s work. So, where digital mediation provides the means to interact with Shakespeare and make the imagined become corporeal, there is also the tendency to be reductive in order to accommodate the brief interest span of web browsing. Despite the draw backs, I think this was a fun experience, and it is an interesting way to propagate Shakespearian trends in modern culture.
