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| Andy Staples' take on that famous soliloquy |
To huddle, or not to huddle? That is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler on the field to call
For slings and screens with outrageous frequency
Or to gather round to discuss a play
And by talking, bleed the clock to death.... (Staples 21)
This passage, from the August 19, 2013, issue of Sports Illustrated, about the trend of
fast offenses in college football, demonstrates the extent to which Hamlet's
soliloquy has become shorthand in Western culture for a dilemma with no real
solution. It has become as applicable to football offensive coordinators as to
soul-searching princes of Denmark.
This particular example seems to work because Staples uses enough
of the structure and language of the original passage that it is immediately
recognizable as an allusion to Shakespeare's work. Shakespeare is master of the
iambic pentameter, in his original soliloquy adding a feminine ending, and
out-iambs Staples like a boss. However, Staples is able to use roughly the same
amount of syllables per line to make his version work.
Staples imitates the language of Shakespeare as much as possible
but changes some of the words from Shakespeare's to his own in order to apply
the passage to an offensive coordinator. Examples of this include changing
"be" to "huddle", "in the mind" to "on the
field", and "And by opposing end them" to "And by talking,
bleed the clock to death...".
Furthermore, Staples' article title, "Too old school?”
complements his re-purposing of Shakespeare. Shakespeare is old school but
still the best - as is, perhaps, the huddle when it comes to handling the
football offensively. This gives the reader an indication of the direction the article may lean in answer to the question posed in the title.
Staples' recognizable use of the structure and language of
Hamlet's soliloquy has the effect of highlighting the offensive coordinator's
dilemma. It shows the reader the intellectual effort required to accommodate
all stakeholders in running an offense. If Shakespeare's "To be or not to
be?" may be interpreted as "To act or not to act?", in Hamlet
seeking revenge for his father, in the same way, Staples' article shows us how
the offensive coordinator can act to coach his players in a hurry-up offense or
not. There are consequences, positive and negative, for not huddling or
huddling on the field - just as Hamlet was weighing up consequences for his
actions in his soliloquy.
Even though referencing Hamlet's famous soliloquy has become a cliché
for dealing with a dilemma in Western societies, I appreciate Staples' use of its
structure and language of it in the context of his article. In comparing
Staples' allusion to Shakespeare's original, I think I can better understand
the seriousness and difficulty of Hamlet's position in 3.1 of Hamlet. This allusion also emphasizes the intellectual difficulty offensive coordinators face in deciding how to run their offenses. However, alluding to this particular piece of Shakespeare's work is getting old and not generally recommended.
Works
cited:
Staples, Andy. "Too Old School?" Sports
Illustrated 19 August 2013: 20-25. Print.
As I confessed earlier, prior before this week I had never read the famous soliloquy in full until the section was assigned for class. However, I kind of knew the whole gist of it because of the oversaturization of parody's (parodies?) that have followed it. I can recall everything from Tiny Toons to comic books to famous movies to internet shows parodying Hamlet's dilemma in every which way possible.
ReplyDeleteAnd, on that point, I completely agree that the allusion/parody has become a cliche in Western media. However, it is interesting that this Staples piece actually paid [i]some[/i] attention to the structural form of Shakespeare's original. That is more than I can say for other works.