Egypt's Laborers Lost

Last Friday my roommate had a boy over at our apartment and they were doing homework together. He started humming a song I vaguely recognized but couldn't quite place. Of course, I couldn't rest until I figured out what it was. Turn's out it was the song "When You Believe" from The Prince of Egypt. So of course that dang boy got the song stuck in my head and I had to go listen to it. Then I had to listen to it again, and again, and again. Needless to say, I've been listening to the Moses and the Hebrews leave Egypt since last Friday. I ended up finding an awesome video with the song put to a compilation of the movie. As I watched this video again and again (and was overheard singing it in the shower), I started thinking about the power of song, and how a well acted (or animated) scene and a good song can elicit emotions from us and make an experience more memorable. As you watch this video, pay attention to how it makes you feel, and maybe consider how different it would be if you were simply reading the words.

It's also pretty cool in context...

So why in the the world am I talking about this on my Shakespeare blog? Well, I've been thinking as I read Love's Labour's Lost about the production of Winter's Tale we went to and the fact that Shakespeare is meant to be seen, not read. That play was so different on stage than it was in my book. I was more connected to the characters, more invested in the plot, and better able to understand the humor. And the songs were awesome. There's a line in the beginning of Act 3 of Love's Labour's Lost that says:

BOY[sings] Concolinel


My footnote says that the word "Concolinel" is unknown, but is perhaps the first word or title of a song. So you're probably saying "so what?". Well, I don't know. I can't know, because all it is, is a word, not even lyrics to a song. What if the song sung by that boy is something as important to the plot as the song above was to its movie? Shakespeare wrote this boy to sing a song and I will never know what it sounded like. What else are we missing out on by simply reading the text? Moses's animated sister and wife singing about their faith in miracles had a real impact on me, now this boy singing Concolinel will never have the chance to do that.

So, answer me this: What are we missing out on when we only read the text of Shakespeare's plays? And, conversely, what are we gaining from experiencing the greatest literature of all time in a way it was not meant to be experienced?