Webb wrote on Mar 15
th, 2012 at 10:59pm:
How should Shakespeare really sound? Quote:Inspired by working with Kevin Spacey, Sir Trevor Nunn has claimed that American accents are "closer" than contemporary English to the accents of those used in the Bard's day.
The eminent Shakespearean scholar John Barton has suggested that Shakespeare's accent would have sounded to modern ears like a cross between a contemporary Irish, Yorkshire and West Country accent.
Others say that the speech of Elizabethans was much quicker than it is in modern day Shakespeare productions.
Well, now you can judge for yourself ...
It doesn't sound remotely like any American I've ever heard.
Nor me.
Quote:Sounds more like Padraig Harrington (Northern Irish) with a hint of John Lennon (Liverpool) than Kevin Spacey (American) to me. Macbeth sounds completely Scottish (like Commander Scott).
Padraig Harrington was born in Dublin in the Republic of Ireland & speaks with a local southern Irish accent. There's more than a hint of the Irish lilt in all three sound clips. I can't detect any Scots accent in the Macbeth example.
They have also fallen into the same trap as so many modern historians who look at things from today's perspective. They seem to have forgotten that in Shakespeare's time all female parts were played by men. I'm sure that Elizabethan actors would have had to project & not whisper as so many screen actors do today.
I'm no authority on Shakespeare but have always been fascinated by regional dialects & accents. These are no doubt influenced by social status & education. The article seems to presume that everyone in Elizabethan England spoke with the same dialect. I suggest that this is nonsense & that there would have been as much regional variation as there is today, if anything probably more marked. As he was born & raised in Stratford-upon-Avon I assume that William Shakespeare spoke with the local Warwickshire accent. This would not have been the case with his contemporaries who came from all parts of England.
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