The Cat Chap: Does Jo Think We're Dumb?

[MsTattersall]

No, I don't believe she thinks we're dumb, but perhaps dear Jo still 
thinks her principal audience is older children, ages 9-13, who 
probably haven't yet had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of 
that Spearshaker dude in their public school classes. 

As I recall, my first real immersion in the plays did not occur until 
my junior year in high school (which was much closer to Shakespeare's 
own time than it is now), when we began with that classic tale of 
teen angst--R+J to the current generation--which, despite the 
ultimate body count, remains a fairly tame and manageable story for 
young skulls full of mush to muddle through.

The Scottish Play, on the other hand, would probably merit an R 
rating, so Jo's presumed audience might well have only heard of it, 
since wasn't that, like, where they got the lyrics for the song by 
the Frog Choir? Kewl! Lady Macbeth makes Lord Voldemort seem 
positively cuddly by comparison, though she personally wields neither 
weapon nor magic. 

Patronizing? Perhaps a bit. Maybe a bit of an indictment of modern 
education as well.

Now, what's all this about Rickman not being Thane-of-Cawdor-worthy? 
MsTattersall

"Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-browed night, give me my 
Romeo. And when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little 
stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world 
will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun" 
(III,2,20-25).
 

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Caius Marcius" 
<coriolan at w...> wrote:
> Granted, one must allow for a certain dumbing down of educational 
> standards on both sides of the pond in recent years (Heather Has 
Two 
> Mommies and My Pet Goat casts out both Caliban and Ariel). 
> Additionally, one must allow for the fact that a significant 
> percentage of the HP fan base was born after Anno Domini 1990 (even 
> I, with the mighty cerebellum I am privileged to possess, could not 
> make heads or tails of The Tempest when I first attempted to peruse 
> the text at the age of eight – though nowadays I frequently 
serenade 
> myself in the shower with Michael Nyman's musical settings of 
same).  
> Nevertheless, I cannot help but react to what strikes me as a 
> singularly patronizing parenthesis at jkr.com
> 
> "If neither boy was 'pre-ordained' before Voldemort's attack to 
> become his possible vanquisher, then the prophecy (like the one the 
> witches make to Macbeth, if anyone has read the play of the same 
> name)"
> 
> "If anyone has read it"?  Jeez Louise, Jo, there might be a tiny 
> miniscule fraction of a percent that possibly might have glanced at 
> one of the greatest masterpieces of the mightiest of English 
language 
> authors – e.g., the late Richard Harris, who played the role of 
> Macbeth several times on stage during his career, Maggie Smith, who 
> played Lady M on several occasions, (but alas! that fervent 
> antagonist of the Zionist Conspiracy, Alan Rickman, seems to have 
> been denied the opportunity to strut and fret his hour upon the 
> Macbethian stage, and we all know **WHY**)
> 
> Perhaps JKR is a fan of Wodehouse, and supposes that her readers 
> operate on the same cultural level of Bertram Wooster (the 
following 
> dialogue is from The Code of The Woosters, Chap. 2)
> 
> 'That is the problem which is torturing me, Jeeves. I can't make up 
> my mind. You remember the fellow you've mentioned to me once or 
> twice, who let something wait upon something? You know who I mean — 
> the cat chap.'
> 
> 'Macbeth, sir, a character in a play of that name by the late 
William 
> Shakespeare. He was described as letting "I dare not" wait upon "I 
> would", like the poor cat i' th' adage.' (END QUOTE)
> 
> The bit of dialogue that Bertie alludes to is in Macbeth, Act I, 
> Scene VII as Macbeth and his Lady equivocate over the proposed 
> assassination of King Duncan. The "adage" that the Lady refers to 
is 
> a popular Elizabethan saying: "The cat would eat fish, but dare not 
> get her feet wet." 
> 
> LADY MACBETH.
> Was the hope drunk
> Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?
> And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
> At what it did so freely? From this time
> Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
> To be the same in thine own act and valor
> As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
> Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
> And live a coward in thine own esteem;
> Letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would,"
> Like the poor cat i' the adage?
> 
> MACBETH.
> Pr'ythee, peace!
> I dare do all that may become a man;
> Who dares do more is none.
> 
> Let's just hope that JKR will not introduce Hegelian or Kantian 
> philosophies into Book Six, since them writers is even more harder 
to 
> read than that Willy Shikespower feller.
> 
>     - CMC (don't even get me started on the Earl of Oxford)