Jan

28

Book ‘Em: Attend The Tale of Sweeney Todd.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

January 28, 2008 |

sweeney.jpgWith Johnny Depp nominated for an Oscar for his performance in Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd, some might be tempted to ask, Was there a real Sweeney Todd? The subtitle of Robert Mack’s book The Wonderful and Surprising History of Sweeney Todd: The Life and Times of an Urban Legend gives away the disappointing truth: he was not a real person. London has had its share of real serial killers, including the famous (and even, by his own claim, briefly cannibalistic) Jack the Ripper. The story was originally written by Thomas Peckett Prest who first published it as The String Of Pearls around 1840. It was republished in serial form in The People’s Periodical And Family Library from 1846 to 1847, and has just been re-issued as Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, edited and with an introduction and notes by Robert Mack. It’s been re-told regularly, growing and changing through various adaptations. Playwright Christopher Bond gave Sweeney a whole new background, and his play became the basis for Stephen Sondheim’s musical, which, in turn, has become the basis for the recent film.

 E.S. Turner includes a chapter on Sweeney Todd in his 1948 book Boys Will Be Boys, a study of London magazines that included lurid and gruesome stories, earning them the name “penny dreadfuls”. He traces the story back to tales of two French barbers, one from the 14th Century and one from the 18th Century, and starts his discussion with a succession of gustatory puns before getting to the heart (and liver, kidneys, pancreas, and everything else) of Sweeney Todd’s immortality:

“Probably a psychologist could be found to assert that the macabre relish with which successive generations have devoured the stories, stage play and even radio plays and films of Sweeney Todd, the demon barber, springs from a desire deep down in every man’s heart to know what his neighbor tastes like.”

 Cannibalism in reality is extremely rare; various anthropologists have tried to document cannibalism in places like Polynesia and New Guinea and have found that, while it was practiced in a few very strictly controlled rituals, most cases were exaggerated at best. Cannibalism in literature, though, is pretty common. In various Greek myths, from Cronos eating his children to Tantalus serving his son as food for the gods to Ugolino in Dante’s Inferno devouring the head of his enemy Ruggieri, to Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus all the way down to Hannibal Lecter. It’s all a matter of taste.

 


Comments

1 Comment so far

  1. cronos on March 11, 2008 2:03 pm

    […] Devil&39s Backbone. Young Ofelia Ivana Baquero moves with her recently …www.thisishampshire.netBook ???Em: Attend The Tale of Sweeney Todd. With Johnny Depp nominated for an Oscar for his performance in Tim Burton??s Sweeney Todd, some […]

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Speak your mind

<< Post Navigation >>

« « Word Of The Week: January 26, 2008 | Y Not Go To The Library? » »