What is the Big Idea? by Roderick Dungate

Roderick Dungate explores the ability of a simple question to focus an art-work, and to focus our understanding of that work.

20 October 2023

Every work of Art should have a Big Idea behind it. The Big Idea focuses the work and keeps it in check; it may well be the message the writer wishes to communicate.

The Big Idea principle can be applied to dramas (of all types including film), novels, poetry, fine art and so on. Music is more complex and will be discussed briefly later. I shall make brief references to four of Shakespeare’s plays and one poem – Edward Thomas, Adlestrop.

For many years, when I was growing up, I puzzled about the word ‘themes’. I was not able to work out what it meant, nor how you were meant to work out what a work’s theme were. Hence, my coining the term Big Idea; it says what it means.

So, for instance, if we take a play like Much Ado About Nothing, the Big Idea could be ‘everybody can fall in love’, (or something along those lines). The Big Idea behind King Lear could be something like ‘Don’t let power go to your head’.

But what about The Taming of the Shrew? Or Merchant of Venice? The Big Idea behind Shrew is ‘Make a woman behave properly by physically and mentally abusing her.’ And behind Merchant, ‘Christians are good and Jews should be abused and brought to Christianity.’ This is why these two plays are so difficult to do in the 21st Century. Changes in societal norms create problems for many art works.

Which brings us to interpretation.

Firstly each individual may interpret a work of art in their own way – an individual brings their own experience, circumstances, beliefs, knowledge to the work; a writer (creator) cannot (should not) own any one interpretation. However, whatever you consider the Big Idea to be, you ought to be able to encompass all elements of the work.

Secondly, it is possible to re-evaluate a work’s Big Idea in order to make the work acceptable in new circumstances. I have seen this done on many occasions with both Merchant and Shrew; though I must say it is rarely wholly successful nor wholly satisfying. There are wonderful examples of success, though. One example is the 2023 RSC production of Merchant in which the Big Idea is along the lines of ‘a perverted Christianity can justify evil. This could, by extension become ‘perverted religions . . . ‘ It is worth noting two things about this particular production: there were changes , additions, edits to the text to achieve clarity of the shifted Big Idea, though the play is still essentially Shakespeare’s; and the production is brilliantly consistent and clear.

A brief look at the poem Adlestrop will show how the Big Idea works in poetry. (Edward Thomas’s evocative poem can easily be found on the internet.) The Big Idea that sits behind the poem could be ‘We are removed from the beauty of nature by our modern lives’. Another way of thinking about the poem could be ‘give yourself up to sudden moments of consciousness, it is valuable’.

You will note that rarely do I indicate a Big Idea with a well-crafted short phrase. It would be possible to do this, but not always appropriate. I feel that we can get close to the Big Idea but never totally capture it; great works are many layered, nuanced, allusive. Parcelling them up in a pithy phrase is like killing a butterfly to keep it in a glass frame.

The Big Idea has a more complex relationship with music. It is not difficult to apply it to music with words, as in songs and opera. But for other music works it is more difficult to apply a Big Idea. A discussion of the Big Idea in the music world is beyond the remit of this article; possibly within the remint of a further one?

I am not saying the only way to understand the focus of a work is via the Big Idea, but I am suggesting that it is a useful tool to help to encompass a work as a whole and to see how the elements fit together. And it has the advantage of saying what it means.