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Shakespeare is excellent, but it took me years - long past when I graduated from school - to recognize its excellence. I place the blame here squarely on how i

Shakespeare is excellent, but it took me years - long past when I graduated from school - to recognize its excellence. I place the blame here squarely on how it is presented in schools. First, it was dropped in abruptly, after years of focusing heavily on largely apoetic work like Old Yeller and Great Expectations. When poetry was introduced, it was typically dropped as part of some hermetically sealed unit, and all possibility of enjoyment was eradicated by analyzing each poem to death. [1] How are people supposed to learn to enjoy play on words when any hint of actual play has been surgically excised from the experience? And then, since this is a class, there will be a test, and so you have to format the presentation in a manner that makes it more amenable to testing. This means that, if the play is a comedy, then you'll have to stop every few lines to have the teacher explain, in detail, why what you just read is funny. Which it may not be, because performance comedy is all about presentation and timing, but we're not watching a performance, we're reading the text. Imagine encountering Spaceballs for the first time in script form, so that you're completely unable to associate any of the lines with the performances of John Candy or Rick Moranis. It won't be nearly as good. And having someone sitting over your shoulder repeatedly interrupting you to say, "Now, in the actual movie, this part is hilarious because..." only makes it less funny. If the work being studied is a tragedy, well, it's a similar story, only in this case it is kind of funny because the tragedy has gone meta. Not that anyone sitting in the classroom is in a position to realize that. They're too focused on taking notes so they can remember details - especially details about the teacher's interpretation of the story - for the coming test. Because furiously scribbling in notebooks and trying to memorize every detail is an essential part of the way in which members of the groundling audience, literate and illiterate alike, experienced performances in the original Globe Theatre. Ugh. It makes me irritated all over again just thinking about it. Primary and secondary education classes are seemingly predicated on the notion that the best place to study everyday human experience is in a cadaver lab. Largely only because the courses are being designed by people who sell scalpels and formaldehyde for a living. [1] Exhibit A: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/01/07/poet-i-cant-answer-questions-on-texas-standardized-tests-about-my-own-poems/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/01/...

lostcolony 5y ago
This is also exacerbated by the didactic approaches people like OP (and most teachers) take, about why the students -should- enjoy Shakespeare. I bet I would have liked it more in school (rather than much afterwards, when I became acquainted with the Shakespeare Tavern in Atlanta, though props to the teachers who set up field trips there) if instead a teacher had said "Okay guys. We're watching a movie today. It's going to be a little hard to understand, but don't worry too much about it; it's less the words and more the performance. There won't be a test, but we will discuss it afterwards. I'll have subtitles on to help with understanding; it's kind of interesting to see how English has changed since this was made, but how it still has themes you'll recognize, and can still be emotionally charged even when you don't fully understand everything being said. It may be a little challenging given that, but I think you're up to it", and then put on Branagh's Hamlet.
- generj 5y ago
  I not only agree with your post but also want to heartily endorse the Shakespeare Tavern in Atlanta. They go to great lengths to ensure everyone in the audience understands e.g. that Romeo and Juliet has loads of raunchy humor. I’m confident I could attend a play I have never read and understand the emotional and plot bones of it at Shakespeare Tavern. And in my experience their food only helps me in my understanding of the play! All for a quite modest price.
- hamburglar 5y ago
  I’d have gotten a lot more out of Shakespeare if they started by going through a deep line-by-line analysis of all the oblique and double meanings of an annotated rap song on genius.com (nee rapgenius.com) and then said, “ok, now we are going to do the same thing to find all the clever double entendres, jokes and allusions in Shakespeare”

lostcolony 5y ago

This is also exacerbated by the didactic approaches people like OP (and most teachers) take, about why the students -should- enjoy Shakespeare. I bet I would have liked it more in school (rather than much afterwards, when I became acquainted with the Shakespeare Tavern in Atlanta, though props to the teachers who set up field trips there) if instead a teacher had said "Okay guys. We're watching a movie today. It's going to be a little hard to understand, but don't worry too much about it; it's less the words and more the performance. There won't be a test, but we will discuss it afterwards. I'll have subtitles on to help with understanding; it's kind of interesting to see how English has changed since this was made, but how it still has themes you'll recognize, and can still be emotionally charged even when you don't fully understand everything being said. It may be a little challenging given that, but I think you're up to it", and then put on Branagh's Hamlet.

generj 5y ago
I not only agree with your post but also want to heartily endorse the Shakespeare Tavern in Atlanta. They go to great lengths to ensure everyone in the audience understands e.g. that Romeo and Juliet has loads of raunchy humor. I’m confident I could attend a play I have never read and understand the emotional and plot bones of it at Shakespeare Tavern. And in my experience their food only helps me in my understanding of the play! All for a quite modest price.
hamburglar 5y ago
I’d have gotten a lot more out of Shakespeare if they started by going through a deep line-by-line analysis of all the oblique and double meanings of an annotated rap song on genius.com (nee rapgenius.com) and then said, “ok, now we are going to do the same thing to find all the clever double entendres, jokes and allusions in Shakespeare”