> To conduct, in all sincerity, a study of Shakespeare, today, merely for personal edification, is to take for oneself knowledge, which, it turns out, cannot an

> To conduct, in all sincerity, a study of Shakespeare, today, merely for personal edification, is to take for oneself knowledge, which, it turns out, cannot and will not be taken or absorbed by most people. Even when that knowledge is freely available and the government spends great sums of money in the attempt to spread that knowledge. [emphasis added] Will not, yes. Cannot, no. Very silly oversight. Shakespeare isn't actually that hard to read, if you've got a good annotated copy. The issue is that a lot of people just aren't interested in reading something which, though obviously great in many senses, was not written for a modern audience and in many ways is less compelling than something fresher and more contemporary which you won't need a glossary to enjoy. And higher education is more common than ever—it's just that Shakespeare isn't a necessary part of that. In framing this as a question of "democracy versus elitism," the author shows his hand. The modern era of prestige TV dramas in popular culture was ushered in by Breaking Bad, a show which was very popular and is easily defensible through any "elite" lens as a great work of art. Huge amounts of scholarly work have been written on the differences between high and low art, but within this article, the point of distinguishing between them is just to puff yourself up as a True Art Understander rather than to actually learn anything about the current media ecosystem or how general audiences interact with art. Much as I like to critique popular art, the point of art is simply to move the audience. It's ridiculous to presuppose that canonical classics are necessarily the best and that any deviation from this orthodoxy by the general public is an intellectual deficit which betrays the ultimate failure of democracy. I'm not opposed to a bit of snobbishness, but this is ridiculous.