[kogus]

I'm not sure if overall literacy rates were as high in the past (in the sense of "what percentage of people can read"), but among those who could read, the level of reading and writing skill was dramatically higher. Consider that the works of Charles Dickens were released serially, and crowds of people thronged stores to pick up the latest addition to his stories when they arrived. Those are not books that a typical modern reader would find accessible.

[jon-wood]

A modern reader would consider them inaccessible mostly because of the archaic language and period references, which of course at the time were neither. Likewise with Shakespeare who we think of as incredibly high brow now, forcing schoolchildren to spend weeks poring over the language, but who at the time was writing the equivalent of soap operas and sitcoms in order to sell as many tickets as possible.

[1123581321]

Shakespeare is very funny and crude, but he also wielded a larger vocabulary than we're used to in our penny theatre (TV shows, popular YA books, etc.) We also know that, if nothing else, poetry is good exercising for both sides of the brain, and most people won't bother with it outside of school. (There are more reasons to teach these things but I'm setting them aside.)

We don't even try to teach what was considered scholarly in 1600, let alone in Latin and French. Those works were also considered archaic back then, too.

[supertofu]

I remember reading an unabridged edition of Huck Finn in 7th grade that my mom had in her book collection. I was shocked at how different it read than our assigned copies. And no, I'm not talking about the racial slurs. The abridged version was in a simplified English, paragraphs and whole chapters had been edited out or reordered, whereas the unabridged version was a colorful and playful style of English such that I had never before encountered. I was a voracious reader and it still took me a month or so to get through the unabridged version of the book. I had to "translate" the witticisms and puns, but came to realize in time that Mark Twain was exceptionally clever, very funny, and not at all as racist as the volume of N-words would have it appear. (For the record, I'm Black).

Nowadays, I doubt any schoolchild gets exposure to unabridged anything unless they have a parent with archaic book collections.

[bmitc]

I am fairly certain that that does not explain it away and that reading levels among those who are literate have indeed dropped significantly.

When your primary form of entertainment and learning is long form reading, it isn't a big surprise.

[foldr]

In the case of Shakespeare, it doesn't make sense to look at the reading level of 16th century Londoners because they were watching his plays, not reading them.

[bmitc]

Well that's the problem with these game of telephone discussions. We went from the 18th century to the 19th and then all the way back to the 16th. Note that I didn't comment on Shakespeare specifically.

[dragontamer]

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]

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]

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?

[vkou]

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.

[supertofu]

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.

[swells34]

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]

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.

[dragontamer]

> 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]

"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.

[Exoristos]

Dickens didn't write in archaic language.

[pm3003]

The public scribes of the times (who were dictated a good part of the letters in the article) are well documented, and what I read of them is coherent with these letters.

The language is very informal. Since the guys were paid by word or page, they just wrote whatever was dictated. Hence the informal language. The first letter reads something like: "Your father-in-law greets you your sister greets you your brother I haven't seen since Mrs XXXX has asked news from you please pass my compliments to YYYY his wife alone gives me news from you."

This was possibly a letter from someone who could hardly read anything else than a prayer book (or had eye problems) to someone who couldn't read at all.

The language here is very modern, only a few outdated expressions. I've had much more trouble with professional letters from Napoleonic times, full of abbreviations and references to old social, judicial or political structures and procedures.

[SoftTalker]

Books were the entertainment of the day. In recent times people thronged movie theaters to see Star Wars or Harry Potter.