[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.

[dragontamer]

Shakespeare didn't speak as the English did in the 1500s. Shakespeare *CAUSED* the entire English-speaking world to change how they talk because he was that influential of a playwright.

So even back then, Shakespeare's mode of English was weird and exotic. No one, at any point of time, ever talked as Shakespeare did aside from entertainers.

In particular, the Iambic Pentameter rhythm of his words would be roughly the same as saying Eminem's "Lose Yourself" was is how people talked in the early 2000s. Erm... no. Eminem is a singer/rapper who makes rhymes and beats. So was Shakespeare. No one talks like how Eminem talks in rap songs.

Shakespeare's words are weird, exotic, and rhythmic. Like a 1500s version of rap (a different rhythm but a rhythm nonetheless). And that's part of the reason why Shakespeare had to make up so many words: because he needed the rhythm to line up just right. (And then English was forever changed, with people using the made-up words from Shakespeare in everyday language. But definitely not the Iambic Pentameter beat because nobody's got time for that).

--------

Did your English teacher ever do the "Da daaaa Da Daaaa Da Daaa Da Daaaa" thing to help guide the rhythm of Shakespeare with you?

When we were covering Shakespeare in my English class, we also covered Robert Burns poems (from the 1700s), to remind people how common people talked centuries ago. In all honesty, today's English is closer to Shakespeare than to Robert Burns... despite Shakespeare being 1500s and Robert Burns being 1700s. Its a testament to how incredibly influential Shakespeare was.

[BitwiseFool]

When I was in school we were taught about Iambic Pentameter and even had a few demonstrations. But I was never able to grasp or appreciate the significance of it. To me it seems no different than the 5-7-5 rule of a Haiku. Neat, but nothing profound.

Many of us wondered why our English curriculum was so keen on Iambic Pentameter despite the fact that it doesn't really seem to have affected modern English. I say that because it's so hard to recognize, even when using fully modern vocabulary. Apparently the Gravemind in Halo 2 speaks in IP and I'm sure that fact is lost on over 99% of players.

Whereas teaching students about all the words Shakespeare introduced and just how many tropes originate from his plays seems far more valuable to know.

[dragontamer]

Iambic Pentameter is just a rhythm to add a beat to the play. Its not something crazy influential, but its needed if you are to "perform" Shakespeare, in your head or on stage.

I bring it up because Iambic Pentameter is probably the only crazy thing that's "not done today" that's all over Shakespeares works (as well as the variations of Iambic Pentameter to keep the rhythm spicy).

And Iambic Pentameter is not so much a hard rule as it is a soft one. Most lines are IP... but when Shakespeare wants to emphasize certain lines, he'll change the rhythm up. So its a way to cue the audience in with a subtle change.

[MeImCounting]

I studied shakespeare in highschool. Like actually studied and performed the source text. Everyone there "understood" it. Not "understanding it" is merely a symptom of not putting in the effort. Since Shakespeare literally created much of what we call modern English it is actually very easy for a modern teenager to understand shakespeare. You might be thinking of Chaucer, which is actually much more difficult to understand. Shakespeare just requires the bare modicum of effort and its really not that hard.

[dragontamer]

> Hamlet: Get thee to a nunnery! Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves – believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where’s your father?

[Snip]

> Hamlet. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery. Go, farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell.

I mean, what do people want with regards to a modern translation? Like, I could say "Hamlet then insults Ophelia by saying she should die as a virgin with a double-entendre also suggesting she's a whore" (Due to a quirk in the language of the 1500s, nunnery is a slang term for whorehouse), but its just not as awesome as the insult Hamlet actually slings in the play.

Its over the top, but you know, that's how theater is supposed to be sometimes. (And doubly so: Hamlet himself is being over-the-top on purpose "in universe").

---------

In my high school, there were "translation notes" so to speak... to help with the slang of the 1500s, to help you out when terms had a 2nd meaning that'd be lost on today. But the base layer is in fact, quite straightforward.

Its really not hard to understand the words as written, though I can definitely see needing deeper analysis + more reading to fully comprehend the scenes and all layers of the play.

But yeah, its like, almost all sex jokes, double-entendres, incredible insults. Etc. etc. Its probably the most low-brow, base humor just with an air of "Smart people think this is cultural" about it. Its stuff high schoolers should honestly find interesting, if its taught correctly.