Shakespeare's Pulp Fiction
Livejournal's Ceruleanst's produced a couple of passages' worth of Pulp Fiction, as written by William Shakespeare:
J: And know'st thou what the French name cottage pie?Link
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.
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Nice anachronism.
Shakespeare : 1564 - 1616
Parmentier : 1737 - 1813
Excruciatingly forced iambic pentameter :(
Surely Shakespeare wasn't the only playwright to write in iambic pentameter? When did English writers give up the habit? And... does that anachronism somehow make the anachronism of Pulp Fiction performed in iambic pentameter less funny?
Black pudding = boudin noir.
I'm sure it was available at damn near any "relais."
#2, The iambs break down at the word 'then' in line 6; drop it and the rest scans very well. This is really very funny stuff.
#3, The beat is still with us and still widely employed. It's the echo of our heart beat, after all, thus famously the most 'natural' of the meters.
I recently finished a translation/adaptation of Ben Jonson's 'The Alchemist', five acts in iambic pentameter. That took, in every sense, a whole lot of heart beats.
What, pray tell does Sir Wallace look like?
...SAY WHAT AGAIN!!
Imperfect meter is always more interesting, and Shakespeare did it often. The meter in some of his writing is so subtle and ambiguous that there is still argument about how to read things like, "To be or not to be that is the question."
That was laughter inducing.
After reading the replies I'm a little concerned that all the commentators here might be English Lit or History professors and didn't actually enjoy a bit of humorous writing for what it was worth.
Hate to quote myself, Grim Sean, but read what I said:
'This is really very funny stuff.'
Why do you think Lit and History professors can't enjoy 'humorous writing'? Have a couple of bad experiences did you?
Um, guys? There was no actual sorcerer Prospero or Prince Hamlet of Denmark, either. This is a parody! It's pretty funny, actually!
This is not Mel Torme iambic pentameter.
And my joke was ruined by the ineffective [strike] tag so just ignore it.
Now I'm really in the mood for popular movie scenes as written by famous authors! Here's one: the plane scene from Casablanca as written by Hunter S. Thompson. This is material ripe for literary parody!
"... but what about us?"
"We'll always have Bat Country. They're everywhere!"
The Germans wore grey, you wore two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, laughers, screamers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls.
"And you never will. But I've got a job to do, too. We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60's. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Ilsa, You can turn your back on a person, but, never turn your back on a drug. Especially when it's waving a razor-sharp hunting knife in your eye. Someday you'll understand that. Now, now... Here's looking at you kid."
The characters are reversed.
In the original scene it's Vincent explaining to Jules the cultural/language differences.
sorry to be such a movie wonk.....
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Sorry, but Shakespeare already published his take on Tarantino. It was called Titus Andronicus.
And, funnily enough, it involved pie.
I thought this was pretty funny, but it's about all I could stomach. Any more, and I'd take people at their word that it was funny.
This is a great companion piece to John M. Ford's Damon Runyon version of Henry V or Harry of Five Points:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/005235.html
Lotta lowbrows hanging around the fringes today. Go play with a gadget.
it's OK Buddy, our liddle mans just wants us to change his nappy. C'mere liddle-uns, c'mon, it must feel nasty sitting in all that all day!
Yankeeknowhow, why do you bother to comment here? All you've been doing is complaining. If you don't like BoingBoing, don't read it.
fear not Avram, the trash will be taken out
The trash already is out. Out out.
bueno,muy bueno
I think my favorite part in the quoted section is "Gaul knoweth not a cottage from a house". The whole thing is brilliant and we should definitely translate more pop culture into Elizabethan English. Though the Hunter S. Thompson translations were pretty fantastic...
Best additional line from the comments: "Didst thou a sign behold anent this house/Whereon was writ, 'Dead blackamoors stor'd here'?"
Loved this. Absolutely great.
#28: Awesome ! I was looking for it ! This line is what Pulp Fiction is to me.