| "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. |
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.