Month: March 2011

Words and Meaning

/ Ann Aubrey Hanson / Leave a comment

I suppose it is inevitable that I became a writer and editor. Words have always held great importance for me. The precise word for a precise meaning: a concept vital to me as a child, and still.

I remember contemplating the difference between the word “marriage” and the word “wedding,” knowing that these two words, while sometimes used interchangeably, meant something very different. Because I couldn’t formulate my question properly at the age of seven, I didn’t receive a clarifying answer when I asked my mother about the difference. The question continued to haunt the recesses of my mind, until at the age of nine I finally figured it out. A wedding was the ceremony that joined two people into a partnership called marriage. The wedding was a one-time event, and the marriage was the result. Don’t laugh. I felt immensely satisfied to have figured that one out on my own.

Then there was the night when I learned that it was, in fact, the Civil War, not the Silver War. I had asked my brother, by spelling, if he wanted to go play “S-I-L-V-E-R W-A-R” with his Army men after dinner. My father overheard and corrected me. As he and Mom often did. A fact for which I am eternally grateful.

I also learned, by similar means, that one made a cavalry charge when one played cowboys and Indians, not a Calvary charge.

Even today I am enchanted by language and words. PD James is one of my favorite authors because of how she finds the absolutely perfect word for what she means to write. When her character Adam Dalgliesh is sitting in a fire-lit room with his aunt, she writes: “The firelight threw gules on her long face, brown and carved like an Aztec’s, the eyes hooded, the nose long and straight above a wide mobile mouth.” I was enchanted. What was this word “gules”? I looked it up. It means the tincture of the color red, but in heraldry it also means an area marked with vertical lines. This blew me away. I could SEE the aunt’s face, tinted slightly red, with vertical wrinkles at the sides of the mouth, and on the cheeks. Who but PD James would use a word like gules to such an effect?

I am adamant about the importance of word use and word choice and fervent in my belief that we retain an important edge when we know and use our language to precise effect.  Too often, we are lazy with our language, and I think that we, as a culture, suffer as a result.

The Play’s the Thing

/ Ann Aubrey Hanson / 2 Comments

I recently finished editing a volume on Herman Melville’s aesthetics (who knew there was MORE to find in his fabulous writing?), and then edited a book on early Greek thought in light of modern philosophy (a book that left me untouched, and slightly bewildered as to the why of its existence), and now I am editing a book on Shakespeare’s King Lear.

This is the fun part of my job. As I edit, I am constantly Googling, looking up references from the books, for my own edification. The chapter on productions of King Lear throughout the centuries led me to read about David Garrick and the early theater productions of Shakespeare, and then on to read about Ian McKellen and Laurence Olivier and Michael Gambon, and on and on. Sure this takes more time than just reading the book and editing it, but I’m learning so much as I do this extraneous research. Learning for my own knowledge, but also to benefit me in the long run as I continue to edit. The more I know about a broad swath of subjects, the better I’ll be at my job.

In addition to doing research on many of the actors named, I did research on staging of productions, both British and American, which led me to a staging in Taiwan’s Contemporary Legend Theatre, with a one-man production called “Lear Is Here,” starring Wu Hsing-Luo. From there, it was an easy leap to a Russian production, and then back again to television productions. But it was the understanding of stage sets and lighting that fascinated me, as they enhanced the written work of Shakespeare’s script with lighting and imagery that prompted different emotions from the viewers than would ever have been prompted by the text alone.

The text is the beginning, but beyond the text, there is so much that can be added, through the actors, the music and sound effects, the set, the lighting, and the costumes. I can’t help but wonder what Shakespeare would have thought about the productions since his time. I’m certain he would have been as enchanted as I, if not more so. Imagine if he were writing today, with the music, the visuals, the sounds available. But would his text have been a solidly foundational now as it was then? I wonder. Nevertheless (shaking my head to clear my mind)…we have his texts, and the play’s the thing!