Darthparadox on Live Journal translated some chunks of Pulp Fiction into Shakespearian prose.
This would be a very interesting way to get students really delving into the language of Shakespeare and a great way to make them interested in understanding it.
Let them choose what they want to “Shakespeare-rize.” You might have to add some propriety restrictions for high school but it’d be a lot of fun.
J: And know’st thou what the French name cottage pie?
V: Say they not cottage pie, in their own tongue?
J: But nay, their tongues, for speech and taste alike
Are strange to ours, with their own history:
Gaul knoweth not a cottage from a house.
V: What say they then, pray?
J: Hachis Parmentier.
V: Hachis Parmentier! What name they cream?
J: Cream is but cream, only they say le crème.
V: What do they name black pudding?
J: I know not;
I visited no inn it could be bought.
The original, in case you’ve forgotten it.
Vincent Vega: You know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?
Jules Winnfield: They don’t call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?
Vincent Vega: No, man, they got the metric system, they don’t know what the fu** a Quarter Pounder is.
Jules Winnfield: What do they call it?
Vincent Vega: They call it a Royal with Cheese.
Jules Winnfield: Royal with Cheese.
Vincent Vega: That’s right.
Jules Winnfield: What do they call a Big Mac?
Vincent Vega: Big Mac’s a Big Mac, but they call it Le Big Mac.
Jules Winnfield: Le Big Mac. What do they call a Whopper?
Vincent Vega: I don’t know. I didn’t go into Burger King.
I know I possibly overdo the idea of remixing things. I think it’s because of a poetry class I took in college. We were allowed to select a poem and had to re-write it with a paper explaining our process along the way . I chose “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” I switched blackbirds for ice cream and had a lot of fun. It was the most enjoyable paper I ever wrote and I certainly worked on it far harder than any other. Although I’m not sure how it could have been more enjoyable than my final history thesis on “The Negative Impact of the Communist Internationale on Indo-Chinese Communism.”
Found via Boing Boing