4 ms·

Ah yes, Shakespeare is so high brow. >> My naked weapon is out. -- IIRC Romeo and Juliet but I forget exactly where. Double entendres are all over the place.

bigstrat2003 3y ago
My favorite example is the "nothing" scene between Hamlet and Ophelia, where the whole thing is a double entendre for her pussy. Shakespeare was so, so dirty and a lot of people have no idea.
- jerf 3y ago
  I think we shouldn't teach Shakespeare in school, because there is negative value in holding up something incomprehensible to students as the Height of Culture. I can't think of a better way to turn students off to "culture". If one wanted to design a program to turn students off to culture, I can hardly think of a better one. And probably my best proof that absolutely nobody involved understands it is the complete and total obliviousness to the double entendres. If the teachers realized how dirty it was they might think twice about teaching it. If the parents realized it, there would be protests. But nobody realizes it. Nobody has a clue. Nobody understands what is being said at all. They're just all pretending because if you don't Get Shakespeare you're a stupid dum dum who is drooling your stupid all over your stupid face. But basically nobody at that level does Get Shakespeare and they are just pretending. This is not only not a good use of educational time, it's actively bad. So many students are going to be inclined to think education is a waste of time under the best of circumstances anyhow... why do we go to such efforts to prove them 100% correct? But we have to keep teaching it. Because anyone who suggests that we should stop is obviously a stupid dum dum drooling stupid all over their stupid face, and who wants to be seen with a person like that?
  - swells34 3y ago
    Agreed. I think it should be taught, but taught from the HISTORICAL perspective, not from an arts/culture one. "This is an example of low brow comedy from a certain era" rather than "This is the greatest set of plays ever written". I got nothing out of Shakespeare culture wise, and mostly was just quite angry at having to read it.
  - bigstrat2003 3y ago
    I think that this is throwing the baby out with the bath water. I didn't fully get Shakespeare in high school, but I certainly found it to be interesting and beautiful. Not everyone does or will, but that's true for literally everything we teach in schools.
  - vkou 3y ago
    A Shakespeare play is fine for a high school curriculum. It would be a good contrast for more modern works, and it is an important cultural touchstone. But there's no good reason to cover four, or five of them. Just pick one, struggle through it, and then go analyse three or four works of modern theatre, and modern penny theatre. Half the point of schooling is trying to instill interest in a subject. Nothing instills disinterest in theatre like spending 80% of your mental energy trying to figure out what the hell the words mean. Shakespeare is meant to be seen. Shakespeare is meant to be parsable with no mental effort by the 16-th century groundlings with the rotten fruit and a strong desire to throw it. Shakespeare in grade 8-12 English is neither of those things.
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    > And probably my best proof that absolutely nobody involved understands it is the complete and total obliviousness to the double entendres. If the teachers realized how dirty it was they might think twice about teaching it. If the parents realized it, there would be protests. But nobody realizes it. Nobody has a clue. Nobody understands what is being said at all. They're just all pretending because if you don't Get Shakespeare you're a stupid dum dum who is drooling your stupid all over your stupid face. My high school covered a lot of classical literature: from Greek Mythology to Shakespeare. Its all sex and violence. I mean, Oedipus Rex literally murders his father and has sex with his mother. ----------- In any case, it should be taught because when you go to high-class museums, the naked statues in various mythologies will be staring at you... and unless you studied it you won't know anything. Its high culture because its high culture. Low-brow sex jokes are bad, but "high-brow" sex jokes, well that's just the classics!! Anyway, my high school English teachers were pretty explicit about these things. "Read this line. Okay, does everyone understand it? Please come up to the front and explain the meaning of this passage". Uh huh... etc. etc. (a bunch of bad explanations from various classmates). Teacher: "Yall are overthinking it. Its a sex joke. Okay, next passage".
    - jerf 3y ago
      "My high school covered all the classical literature: from Greek Mythology to Shakespeare." Did you cover the Greek in the original Greek? I actually would be fine with covering Shakespeare in what amount to a translation. The sex and violence does not bother me per se, as they are valid topics for true literature. As you allude to, we do that for many things. The problem is that we pretend Shakespeare is in English and present it to the students that way, but it really isn't anymore. It is at the very least in a very different dialect, and for practical purposes is in a different language. When I say we shouldn't teach Shakespeare, I mean, in the way we do, not that he should be some sort of verboten topic. We teach it in a way that clearly nobody involved has any clue what is going on. Directly attacking that problem is fine, but first we have to get people to even be willing to admit it's a problem and it doesn't make you a stupid dum dum to say that language has shifted over the past 400+ years to the point that we can't expect to just throw it at modern teenagers and have them understand it even superficially, let alone deeply. And to be honest, I will hold this point up as a counter to anything anybody else argues. Clearly, nobody involved understands what is going on. What is the point of teaching something the teacher is oblivious to? How hypothetically wonderful it might conceivably be if people more deeply understood it does not a single thing to change what is actually being tought. Until we can admit that what is actually being taught is lightyears from that hypothetical wonderfulness, we can't fix the problem and students will continue to be taught that High Literature is incomprehensible nonsense.
  - supertofu 3y ago
    I truly believe that most people who enforce Shakespeare in education without acknowledging the absolute bawdiness of his works are themselves barely literate or poorly educated, and could not think of anyone more suitable. That said, a high school English curriculum could do with more scandalous writers simply because teenagers love that stuff. I loved Oscar Wilde back in 10th grade. Absolutely scandalous, scathing, and hilarious writing.

bigstrat2003 3y ago

My favorite example is the "nothing" scene between Hamlet and Ophelia, where the whole thing is a double entendre for her pussy. Shakespeare was so, so dirty and a lot of people have no idea.

jerf 3y ago
I think we shouldn't teach Shakespeare in school, because there is negative value in holding up something incomprehensible to students as the Height of Culture. I can't think of a better way to turn students off to "culture". If one wanted to design a program to turn students off to culture, I can hardly think of a better one. And probably my best proof that absolutely nobody involved understands it is the complete and total obliviousness to the double entendres. If the teachers realized how dirty it was they might think twice about teaching it. If the parents realized it, there would be protests. But nobody realizes it. Nobody has a clue. Nobody understands what is being said at all. They're just all pretending because if you don't Get Shakespeare you're a stupid dum dum who is drooling your stupid all over your stupid face. But basically nobody at that level does Get Shakespeare and they are just pretending. This is not only not a good use of educational time, it's actively bad. So many students are going to be inclined to think education is a waste of time under the best of circumstances anyhow... why do we go to such efforts to prove them 100% correct? But we have to keep teaching it. Because anyone who suggests that we should stop is obviously a stupid dum dum drooling stupid all over their stupid face, and who wants to be seen with a person like that?
- swells34 3y ago
  Agreed. I think it should be taught, but taught from the HISTORICAL perspective, not from an arts/culture one. "This is an example of low brow comedy from a certain era" rather than "This is the greatest set of plays ever written". I got nothing out of Shakespeare culture wise, and mostly was just quite angry at having to read it.
- bigstrat2003 3y ago
  I think that this is throwing the baby out with the bath water. I didn't fully get Shakespeare in high school, but I certainly found it to be interesting and beautiful. Not everyone does or will, but that's true for literally everything we teach in schools.
- vkou 3y ago
  A Shakespeare play is fine for a high school curriculum. It would be a good contrast for more modern works, and it is an important cultural touchstone. But there's no good reason to cover four, or five of them. Just pick one, struggle through it, and then go analyse three or four works of modern theatre, and modern penny theatre. Half the point of schooling is trying to instill interest in a subject. Nothing instills disinterest in theatre like spending 80% of your mental energy trying to figure out what the hell the words mean. Shakespeare is meant to be seen. Shakespeare is meant to be parsable with no mental effort by the 16-th century groundlings with the rotten fruit and a strong desire to throw it. Shakespeare in grade 8-12 English is neither of those things.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  > And probably my best proof that absolutely nobody involved understands it is the complete and total obliviousness to the double entendres. If the teachers realized how dirty it was they might think twice about teaching it. If the parents realized it, there would be protests. But nobody realizes it. Nobody has a clue. Nobody understands what is being said at all. They're just all pretending because if you don't Get Shakespeare you're a stupid dum dum who is drooling your stupid all over your stupid face. My high school covered a lot of classical literature: from Greek Mythology to Shakespeare. Its all sex and violence. I mean, Oedipus Rex literally murders his father and has sex with his mother. ----------- In any case, it should be taught because when you go to high-class museums, the naked statues in various mythologies will be staring at you... and unless you studied it you won't know anything. Its high culture because its high culture. Low-brow sex jokes are bad, but "high-brow" sex jokes, well that's just the classics!! Anyway, my high school English teachers were pretty explicit about these things. "Read this line. Okay, does everyone understand it? Please come up to the front and explain the meaning of this passage". Uh huh... etc. etc. (a bunch of bad explanations from various classmates). Teacher: "Yall are overthinking it. Its a sex joke. Okay, next passage".
  - jerf 3y ago
    "My high school covered all the classical literature: from Greek Mythology to Shakespeare." Did you cover the Greek in the original Greek? I actually would be fine with covering Shakespeare in what amount to a translation. The sex and violence does not bother me per se, as they are valid topics for true literature. As you allude to, we do that for many things. The problem is that we pretend Shakespeare is in English and present it to the students that way, but it really isn't anymore. It is at the very least in a very different dialect, and for practical purposes is in a different language. When I say we shouldn't teach Shakespeare, I mean, in the way we do, not that he should be some sort of verboten topic. We teach it in a way that clearly nobody involved has any clue what is going on. Directly attacking that problem is fine, but first we have to get people to even be willing to admit it's a problem and it doesn't make you a stupid dum dum to say that language has shifted over the past 400+ years to the point that we can't expect to just throw it at modern teenagers and have them understand it even superficially, let alone deeply. And to be honest, I will hold this point up as a counter to anything anybody else argues. Clearly, nobody involved understands what is going on. What is the point of teaching something the teacher is oblivious to? How hypothetically wonderful it might conceivably be if people more deeply understood it does not a single thing to change what is actually being tought. Until we can admit that what is actually being taught is lightyears from that hypothetical wonderfulness, we can't fix the problem and students will continue to be taught that High Literature is incomprehensible nonsense.
- supertofu 3y ago
  I truly believe that most people who enforce Shakespeare in education without acknowledging the absolute bawdiness of his works are themselves barely literate or poorly educated, and could not think of anyone more suitable. That said, a high school English curriculum could do with more scandalous writers simply because teenagers love that stuff. I loved Oscar Wilde back in 10th grade. Absolutely scandalous, scathing, and hilarious writing.