** Is Shakespeare still relevant today?

The topic of Shakespeare's relevancy to today has come up in a few threads (here and here), so I thought I would bring the question to the larger group. Is Shakespeare still relevant in today's world? Should Shakespeare be taught in high school? University? Should there be a Shakespeare requirement for a BA in literature? Or has Shakespeare become too difficult for people to understand?

Is it even necessary to read plays and poetry written in the Renaissance when so much good literature has been written since then - and it's more contemporary, touches on the same themes, and doesn't involve interpreting obscure 16th century words and references?

I still read Shakespeare, and I don't find it too difficult to understand, but that's b/c I've read it a lot.

I think "Macbeth" with its themes of power and ambition endlessly fascinating, always "relevant."

Also like "The Merchant of Venice," with its constantly shifting POVs--who's the hero? who's the villain?

I think "Twelfth Night" is still hilarious, especially if you view Malvolio as a character with puritanical tendencies (and why didn't someone get Alan Rickman to play that character before he got too old???).

Not enthralled with "Hamlet" or "Othello." Never liked "Romeo and Juliet."

Saw a hilarious production of "Two Gentleman of Verona" in which an English bull terrier out-acted the rest of the cast--who were all very good.

Aside from my personal preferences, I think reading something written during the Renaissance (or before) is helps people get a sense that people have been loving, squabbling, clawing and fighting in pretty much the same way and for the same reasons for centuries or millennia.

I just finished re-reading Euripides' "The Trojan Women" to get Margaret George's "Helen of Troy" out of my head.

As someone who had to study Shakespeare last year (as a requirement for a BA in English lit degree), I say "absolutely."

I actually could have missed Shakespeare, but I would have had to take Renaissance drama in it's place. Shakespeare is referred to all the time in later literature, so I think it only enriches my reading to know what other authors are alluding to. I also have to take either a course Medieval English lit or Chaucer. Challenging, but I think it's a good thing.

Shakespeare is a part of the English-speaking world's consciousness and sub-consciousness. Anyone who doesn't read Shakespeare and/or go to see productions of Shakespeare's plays is missing a vital part not only of the English language, but its history, culture and soul. How can we understand the contemporary world if we don't know where we came from and how we've gotten here?

There's something ironic about the English-speaking world debating Shakespeare's relevance when so much of the rest of the world is increasing its interest in his work. There are Shakespeare festivals and companies in Japan, South Africa, Bulgaria, India--you name it. To me, that speaks for the continuing relevance of his characters and themes (not to mention his language).

Is Shakespeare still relevant today?

YES YES YES YES YES

In my experience, REREADING Shakespeare years later made his work a hundred times more relevant than I'd ever realized in high school.

For instance, try Ania Loomba's Shakespeare, Race and Colonialism alongside Othello.

Learning more about what 'a Moor' meant back then (the racial and sexual and religious issues bound up in the image) and then thinking about how that figure's historical baggage affected (and/or was intentionally used by WS to shade) the play's main themes made that play a whole new work of art for me... and *definitely* one with modern applications and relevance.

> Is Shakespeare still relevant today?

Wow, I don't want to sound like a literary snob, but anyone who asks this question in earnest (and I know Talbin is just raising the issue) has not read Shakespeare. One cannot be but amazed at how profound and contemporary his work is. The proof is in the fact that it has lasted and permeated all of western culture. It may be "hard to understand" - I don't think it is - but it is rare to gain anything without some effort. If I had to wager, I would say that he is MORE relevant now than ever before. If fewere people are reading Shakespeare, then one might see that as fitting comment on our times, rather than a criticism of Shakespeare.

I think it depends on the opportunities people have to experience Shakespeare. Most people have to study it at school in Anglo-Saxon countries. Now for me English at school was awful. I loved to read but hated English class. It wasn't until I went to Uni and did English courses as part of my BA that I really enjoyed it.

So at high school I read/studied King Lear and Macbeth and 'got it' enough (just barely) to write essays on themes etc but didn't enjoy it. However since then I've had the opportunity to see Midsummer's Night Dream and Romeo and Juliet on stage with the Uni 'Summer of Shakespeare'. I loved it so now I still wouldn't be too keen to read Shakespeare without a good reason but I would enjoy seeing any of the plays on stage. BTW after seeing the plays performed I did read the plays too.

I think there are lots of people who struggled/survived through the Shakespeare requirement at high school and then avoid Shakespeare ever since not realising that what they experienced in school with the long drawn out torturous reading of the play by the teacher (my school experience) is not how Shakespeare intended his plays to be experienced.

Shakespeare's work was great enough that it could elude the efforts of HS english teachers to make it not so. Read Chaucer was a chore ( a pleasant one) in HS, but Shakespeare really wasn't. Of course i didn't get half the political / social themes (eg what are the limits of power or the historical revisionism except in the historical Roman plays and much more. But just reading them wasn't hard.

Introduce Shakespeare in 8th or 9th grade with short excerpts of a few of plays. Read orally in class, or watched/listened to from an audio/video source. I'd also consider requiring 9th graders to prepare a short paper/oral presentation on another play. Each student would draw the name of a play from a hat. The paper/presentation would include a brief plot summary, a couple of key characters, a few quotes. All of which could be obtained from secondary sources.

Something like: In 10 sentences or less, tell me if the play is comedy-history-tragedy, what it's about, who are the main players, and include a memorable quote or two, one or two comments on the significance of the work. They would not be required to actually read the entire play to accomplish this assignment, but they would hopefully read some of it.

I think seeing/listening to a play would make it more accessible to younger readers.

I have an interesting little book Coined by Shakespeare that shows Shakespeare's contribution to the English language. If you all of the quotations from his plays that are still used in conversation he is relevant just based on his contributions to the language.
His plays are very insightful expressions of human emotions that have not changed. I read the Iliad about every two years and always find something new in the poem that is relevant to what people are doing today.
Until human nature changes Shakespeare will continue to be relevant.

Yes, the two things about Shakespeare that pose problems are the language and the context. It really helps when students have background, as fullmoonblue notes.

Long trip down memory lane follows:

Some years ago, when I was teaching freshman comp, I assigned students a personal experience monologue. We talked a lot about voice and significant, concrete details.

I'd brought in a lot of musical monologues--everything from Marlene Dietrich's "Naughty Lola" to "Mama Hated Diesels" by Commander Cody, and, I also slid in Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" (after being advised by the director of comp courses to stay away from literature).

I read the poem all the way through first. Then I explained the type of gas used WWI, talked about life in the trenches (rats and standing water), told stories about my great uncles who had been in France and Belgium, showed chemical warfare victims from several wars. I pointed out lines, images in the poem that underscored the poet's experience.

Then I asked two or three of the students to "put the poem back together" by reading it aloud. They did a great job!

And I'll never forget reading "Macbeth" in high school. The teacher asked two students to read a scene between Macbeth and Lady M. They decided to ham it up, Steve R. (who made himself a crown out of notebook paper) read Lady Macbeth in a falsetto and Avis B. read Macbeth like a guy. There was something about satirizing the scene that opened up the language. I think it also made the play our own, got us over the initial resentment of having to read something "hard."

Our teacher was very indulgent, bless her, and used the opportunity to challenge us to explain why the send-up was funny (because it got tone and character all wrong).

Maybe that's why I love "Macbeth" and see so many facets in it now. Well, that and the parallels with Richard Nixon who was president when we read it.

>11 ciridan: Sadly, today, most of the kids would just go to Spark Notes online.

Just as they went to Cliff's Notes in my day.

Relevant? Well I guess as listed above many of the themes he writes about continue to be relevant so yes.

But necessary? not at all. School or college, no need, there are many more accessible authors out there who not only cover the same material but may also inspire a love of reading at the same time. There's nothing wrong with a teacher using shakespere's work, if they enjoy and can bring the language to life for their students. But equally nothing wrong if an entire class / year /school never hear a word of his.

Given the continued cultural reference perhaps there is a case that in a BAlit, there might still be a case mandatory inclusion.

Not to further free associate and derail the topic at hand, but this topic has me thinking about other classics that have been dropped from university curricula.

Chaucer stayed popular with students, largely because of the farts and sex.

But 40 years ago, when the Milton prof retired at my university, Milton was taken off the required list for English lit majors.

There's a lot of rank hatred for Milton (I admit mine is more personal than literary), but he arguably ranks second in contributions to the English language.

Let all hell break loose arguing who's been dropped and who needs to stay on reading lists. hee.

Familiarity with a few works by William Shakespeare is crucial to understanding references in other artists' work. In addition, many people today still find much to love in the plays: satire, romance, war, cruelty, violence, relationships, family, heartbreak, hope, and despair.

It's OK to dislike reading Shakespeare or to dislike works by Shakespeare. But everyone should try him on for size, and at different points of his life--in other words, don't give up on "King Lear" because you didn't like it when you were 16. Try it again after you have kids.

I've posted about this on other threads, so some of you may know about it already. At my university, there is a movement on to get rid of the Shakespeare requirement for English majors. The Marxists and multiculturalists in the department have labelled him DWM (Dead White Man, i.e. elitist and therefore anathema) and would like to see him lumped into the Historical Knowledge Pre-1800 requirement (which, frankly, they would also like to see removed--that's Step 2). What that would mean is that many students would opt for the easier 200-level course, Mythology, or the Medieval Lit course (where most of the works are taught in modern translation) and would graduate with no exposure whatsoever to Shakespeare on the college level. No one teaches Shakespeare, other than perhaps a handful of sonnets, in the Brit Lit I survey course because it covers over 1000 years, and it's hard to justify taking a week on one author.

That--besides for the fact that the students find him dull--is also the reason I've dropped Milton and Paradise Lost from that course.

All single-author courses, except Shakespeare, have been removed from the curriculum. We used to have Milton course and (God knows why) a Melville course. This is seen as another justification for getting rid of Shakespeare.

It's sad, because this predeliction for 19th and 20th century literature, particularly fiction, trickles down through our students who are becoming high school English teachers. Many of them won't teach anything "old" in their classes; some of them will only teach fiction--no poetry or drama, because they don't like it.

It's easy to say something is not relevant if you don't bother to read it and just go by the date in which it was written or your teacher's preferences.

(Edited to close italics.)

Yeah, good heavens! I always tell people struggling with Shakespeare to be glad they're not wrestling with the multi-page Homeric epithets and metaphors of Paradise Lost.

I'm sad to hear your uni has dropped Milton. I think he's important too. No one cares about cultural literacy, huh?

>20 Nickelini: Nope, it's pop culture all the way. The only cultural literacy of interest is multicultural literacy, which I agree is important, but why not in addition to rather than in place of . . . ?

I am absent for a few days and look what happens. I will be back perhaps this evening or tomorrow with a lengthy defense of Shakespeare. Damn the heathens.

But a brief note: For a summer institute, I worked with 6th graders on A Midsummer Night's Dream. They adored it. In the meantime check the Folger Shakespeare site for teaching Shakespeare to children. Also check the side links because I jumped to a particular page in the middle of Shakespeare K-12 teaching plans.

urania, I was a fellow at the first NEH/Folger year-long institute, "Shakespeare and the Languages of Performance." It was great--lots of experts in both academia and theatre, plus we got to see a play every month. I still use many of the exercises I learned there.

>Cariola, remind me to tell you of the games we played in my undergrad Shakespeare class. 9 plays in one semester - it was brutal and wonderful at the same time. And we had fun too.

>18 Cariola: Deborah - Thanks so much for dropping in and giving the context for my initial post. I didn't want to quote you out of hand, so I'm quite glad you're here to do it yourself!

>15 reading_fox: reading_fox - And thanks to you for giving voice to the opposition, as it were. After reading the If everybody's reading it, can it be that good? thread, I knew that there were people - probably quite a few - who heartily agree with your point.

My bias: I love Shakespeare. I fell in love with his dramas when I watched Olivier's 1983 King Lear on the little b/w TV in my parents room. I was on a break from college, my freshman year, and in typical freshman fashion thought that whatever was being watched on the "big" TV was quite plebian, so I decided to watch Lear, which I had never read or seen before. Little did I know that Olivier's performance would make me cry - I wasn't quite as sophisticated as I thought, I guess.

I firmly believe that to fully appreciate Shakespeare, one must see the plays performed onstage, or in a really good screen adaptation. The difference between the written word and a well-done performance can make or break a person's appreciation for the plays.

After posting back and forth a bit with Deborah (Cariola) about the decline in respect - in certain quarters - for Shakespeare, and about her experience with students who don't think he's relevant to today, I thought I would post the question to the broader Club Read audience. I also thought it almost shocking that her department was thinking of eliminating it's Shakespeare requirement for English majors.

Ironically, when I looked to see what the requirement was at my undergraduate alma mater, I was shocked to find out there is no Shakespeare requirement. Then, after looking at the requirements, I seemed to remember that perhaps even when I was in school - in the mid-1980s - there may not have been a Shakespeare requirement. I made a phone call, and lo and behold - no requirement for English majors of the 1980s and beyond! (This started in 1981.) Part of the core requirements is to take one course from four different groups, one of which is "Medieval and Renaissance Literature." In this group are four courses - two on Shakespeare, two on Chaucer. So, the odds are about 50/50 that an English major will take Shakespeare. Plus, we had (and they still have) a comprehensive exam which is required for graduation. The reading list is quite long and includes a lot of Shakespeare. I can remember that it was in every English major's best interest to take at least one, if not two, Shakespeare courses to do well on the exam.

Anyway . . . . I can't imagine having a rich literary life without including Shakespeare. However, that's my bias and I'm quite aware of it. I'm still very curious about what others think, especially those who disagree with me. Obviously, his work touches on themes and ideas that continue to intrigue us today, but then a lot of more accessible writers do the same. As poetry, his work is obviously brilliant, but then there are also a lot of brilliant and more accessible modern poets.

So, please continue on!

#18: Cariola, last time I checked Marx was still very dead and he was white too. ;)
ETA: I think it would be really sad to have Shakespeare removed from the curriculum. I think he's extremely relevant.

Just wanted to say that I'm enjoying reading this interesting thread. I wish I could have been an English major in college just to have taken some of these courses. I enjoyed studying Shakespeare and other major classic authors in school because I feel I got more out of the books than I would have if I read them alone.

I have lots to say on this topic, but I just noticed the Sarcasm Police and the Kansas Housewives gathering on the horizon, so I shall creep under this bush and watch the the action.

Back again defending Shakespeare. I absolutely agree that the best introduction to Shakespeare is performance -- the plays are meant to be seen/performed/spoken -- and then read. I have to admit I've been steeped in Shakespeare all my life, and mostly by my choice, at least initially.

I swooned over the Hallmark Hall of Fame production of The Tempest with Richard Burton and Leigh Remick on TV. (I also swooned over the single showing of THE FANTASTICKS on TV and WEST SIDE STORY -- obvious take-offs on R&J). I was one of those kids desperate to be literate -- I picked up the Lambs' Shakespeare stories in jr. high school, went all alone to a touring production of Hamlet when I was in high school, read at least 10 plays during that time (along with Marlowe's Faust and the Jew of Malta).

Then I went to a poison-ivy league liberal arts college -- ah the glorious ivory tower of the 1960s -- where Katy Cook taught 2 semesters of Shakespeare and Griff directed at least one Shakespeare a year. I prompted and went on for Miranda in THE TEMPEST and played Phoebe in AS YOU LIKE IT. And dear reader, I married an actor -- British trained and Shakespeare devoted.

I teach Shakespeare all the time -- the TEMPEST in my Humanities course (and I still show that old Hallmark Hall of Fame production which the students still enjoy, though I DO wish someone would make a good new one), MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT'S DREAM or MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING or OTHELLO in my Introduction to Lit course (great recent films of those), KING LEAR (Houston directs Lear) and TWELFTH NIGHT (the Peter Hall production) in my Survey of English Lit course. Unless of course, the local repertory theatre is doing a Shakespeare, and then I teach that and give my students extra credit for seeing the production.

I have seen amazing Shakespeare productions in a tent in Colorado Springs (PERICLES), in a college auditorium with a touring company from American University (TAMING OF THE SHREW), at Chautauqua (THE TEMPEST), in a botanical garden in Sarasota (MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM), at the rebuilt Globe in London (TWELFTH NIGHT), at regional theatre companies (ROMEO AND JULIET and HAMLET in Cleveland), (KING LEAR and WINTER'S TALE in Sarasota) -- and on film: Olivier's HAMLET, RICHARD III, KING LEAR, OTHELLO; Kenneth Branagh's HENRY V, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, the OTHELLO with Laurence Fishburne, the BBC series from the 1980s, Ethan Hawke in the corporate adaptation of HAMLET, Kurosawa's Japanese adaptations and on and on....

Kids love Shakespeare if you just give them a chance. At a performance of R&J for inner city kids in Cleveland, there was a talkback after the show. One of the most memorable comments was, "I just love it when you talk that shit!" Let them watch, perform, and play -- analysis comes much later. Steep them in the drama, the spectacle, the language -- Shakespeare's world was young and juicy, and kids get it.

brava, janea!

>15 reading_fox: - the problem with your argument is that you seem to think if you give children something 'fun' to read in class they will read more at home. All evidence suggests that is rubbish - Harry Potter has not created a boom in youngsters reading, it just created a boom in HP products. On the other hand, if you remove Shakespeare and other classics you are probably removing the only contact many students have with 'great' literature.

Two weeks there was a short article on Newsnight Review on Shakespeare being combined with hip-hop - it can be seen here (not sure if this will work for non-UK viewers).

*gasp* He used the 'R' word!!!!!
Jargoneer, the Sarcasm Police will get you for that! RUN FOR THE HILLS!!!!!!

jargoneer said: All evidence suggests that is rubbish - Harry Potter has not created a boom in youngsters reading, it just created a boom in HP products.

nohrt4me, at the risk of being lumped with the Sarcasm Police and Kansas Housewives Auxiliary, replies: On what do you base this statement? I worked for our state library association during the HP craze. The children's librarians said they never saw so many boys reading when Harry Potter hit, and that that led to an uptick in reading among teenage boys who hitherto wouldn't set foot in a libarry.

My evidence is anecdotal, to be sure, but it's evidence nonetheless, something you haven't produced.

>33 nohrt4me: - how about these -

Decline in Reading 2004

Decline in Reading 2006

Ursula Le Guin discussing the issue

There are lots of other surveys stating the same thing if you would like more links. Notice that the biggest decline in the youngest age groups.

Jargoneer, thanks.

Your first link discusses only declines among adults, but doesn't include children, who might be better indicators of reading trends..

The second link discusses the fact that reading declines with age among children--but (I confess I skimmed) doesn't seem to indicate whether that's new or just a trend that's been going on for some time and, if so, for how long.

More to your point in #31 is whether acquaintance with Shakespeare would improve any of those statistics.

Or was your point merely that if "fun reads" won't increase reading, then let's just make people read Literature like Shakespeare so they at least will have had contact with something that's deeply embedded in Western culture?

Love Ursula Le Guin, but she's not an expert on reading nor a researcher, however many insights she may have on the matter.

>33 nohrt4me:-35 Okay, completely off topic, but here goes. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in the US published a study titled To Read or Not to Read in 2007 that showed that reading amongst teenagers was down dramatically: "Less than one-third of 13-year-olds are daily readers, a 14 percent decline from 20 years earlier. Among 17-year-olds, the percentage of non-readers doubled over a 20-year period, from nine percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004." 2004 was between books 4 and 6 of the series, so the series popularity was definitely very, very high. Make of that what you will. There's more in the report - the news wasn't good for teenage boys.

The good news: The NEA just put out a report in January - Reading on the Rise - that shows that "literary" reading amongst adults rose by about 5% between 2002 and 2008. (This study does not address reading by those under 18.) It also says, "Young adults show the most rapid increases in literary reading. Since 2002, 18-24 year olds have seen the biggest increase (nine percent) in literary reading, and the most rapid rate of increase (21 percent). This jump reversed a 20 percent rate of decline in the 2002 survey, the steepest rate of decline since the NEA survey began." This time period (2002-2008) includes Harry Potter hype at its height, so again, make of it what you will.

Now . . . back to Shakespeare . . . . If jargoneer's point is that schools should teach Shakespeare because schools are in the business of challenging students, then I agree. Discuss. (Or not) ;-)

>36 Talbin: - the main reason for that increase was due to the researchers including internet reading for the first time and many experts have disputed the validity of the study for that reason, i.e., reading a blog counts as reading literature. Buried deep in the survey are the figures: 7% decline in adults reading books since 1992, 12% for adults 18-24 (the former HP reading children).

Since schools have children for years it makes sense that they should be covering all aspects of literature - the further they go in school the more they should be challenged.

I don't think Shakespeare needs defending at all; but on the other hand we were taken Shakespeare's plays when we were in junior high and high school growing up in the DC area.* Getting to see plays maybe both expensive and geographically impossible for a lot of schools/students - but that doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of good performances available on DVD.

We had at least two complete Shakespeare plays in our 12 grade curriculum in a Virginia public high school in 1968.** And then we had four plays among all the other texts, including to Dickens novels, in a one semester sophomore English class at William and Mary.

* just reiterating points made by jane et al above.
** and it's not like Va had an especially rigorous state curriculum.

(I am leaving the "to" in do so anyone who's interested in speech recognition can see the problem with homonyms - it is much easier to correct when you type into one of dragons toolbox windows. I was just dictating to the message window here )

Isn't the best way to introduce students to Shakespeare's plays, or indeed anyone's plays, to get them to take part in the plays, or in excerpts from them? In my limited experience, it's performing that really gets people interested in drama.

timjones -- I agree that involving kids in some kind of reading or production is invaluable. And there are so many discrete scenes or plays within plays in Shakespeare that work well -- and one act plays are great for teaching tools for that kind of involvement. Everyone has a little ham in them. But a decent production is also magic.

I posted some of this on Talbin's thread, but it really belongs here.

While I do use films in my classes, one downfall is that the students tend to think that the movie IS the play. I keep reminding them that this is one director's conception. Still, they tend to refer to things in the movie when writing essays, forgetting that costuming, gestures, line delivery, added visuals, etc., are not in Shakespeare's text.

I stopped showing updated adaptations that change the language entirely. This was after showing a few excerpts from O, a teen version of Othello with Josh Hartnett and Mykeel Williams. Even though I showed clips from the McKellan and Olivier versions, students kept referring to the main characters as O and Desi. It was making me cringe.

Oh, and I wanted to say that every semester I try to arrange a trip to DC (about 1.5 hours away) to see a Shakespearean production. I had to cancel the last time because not enough students were interested (and it was a production of Macbeth with Penn of Penn & Teller). The previous time, I almost ended up personally responsible for about $250 in tickets because students who had verbally committed backed out. I understand the financial woes of students, but $26 for what is for most of them a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity seems pretty reasonable. The students who have gone with me in the past had no idea what it would be like, and they inevitably come back saying it was an experience they will always remember.

I know what you mean about the films. I watched every adaption I could find when I studied Shakespeare last year, and while it helped, in a way it made things sort of confusing too. One definitely picks up ideas from the films that aren't in the texts.

After watching the BBC Hamlet, I (1) will only ever see Claudius as Patrick Stewart (which isn't necessarily a bad thing), (2) will always think that part of Ophelia's problem is that Claudius was sexually abusing her--which definitely isn't in the text. But I can't get the image of Claudius leering at her out of my mind. . . . and then there's that whole weird thing going on between Mel Gibson's Hamlet and Glenn Close's Gertrude (but we won't go there).

Deborah--got your message about Measure for Measure and I'll have to think about it a bit. It was a whole year ago, after all, and I kinda forgot it as soon as I didn't have to think about it anymore!

I think challenging students to cast and write the business for a play would be a great assignment--have them envision their own movie version of the play. (I did this once for a class with "Everyman," and it was really fun, and made me think about how the drama hung together as a whole and what characters would be doing besides declaiming all the time.)

I liked Orson Welles' Macbeth in that the title character begins to drink heavily after murdering Duncan, clouding his judgment and leading to ambiguity about the supernatural elements--are the witches real or hallucinations.

Also think "Hamlet" inspires some pretty weird stuff--like Gibson's near rape of Gertrude--because Hamlet is a pretty weird character.

#44 - I think challenging students to cast and write the business for a play would be a great assignment--have them envision their own movie version of the play.
-----------

Yes! We did just a little bit of that in my Shakespeare class and it was really fun. I was assigned a bit from The Winter's Tale, and I cast Tilda Swinton as Hermione. I'd love to see her in that role, although I think Cate Blanchett would also be good.

>42 Cariola: "While I do use films in my classes, one downfall is that the students tend to think that the movie IS the play.

Deborah: Do you think students react differently to the movie version versus a theatrical production? Do they see the theatrical version as "the play" in the same way they think of the movie? I'm just curious, because if so, then that might say something about our culture's reaction to film as "the truth." Or not, but it would be interesting.

>46 Talbin: It's a little hard to answer that, first, because so few students actually see a play in performance. But there is something more detached, I think, about watching a film than experiencing a performance. With film, we sit back, watch, and enter the world on screen, tending to forget that these are actors playing roles. We're inside a film's own little universe for 120 minutes or so. And film allows for much 'realism' via flashbacks, closeups, special effects, changing and realistic locations, etc.). So in a way, it's easier to get wrapped up in a film than a play. And of course, many young people see movies regularly, and I'm sure they rarely stop to think about the fact that a film may be a representation of a play or novel or short story or screenplay; it just seems like an entity onto itself.

It's harder to forget that you're watching a play on a stage. You're seeing set changes before your very eyes. You've got a program. The curtain opens and draws closed. However involved you may be, you have to be aware of the distance between you and the stage/the actors and of the people around you. You are part of the experience in a way that doesn't quite happen with a film. And actors on stage have to rely more on the language of the play because they don't have the advantage(?) of the camera's work, nor can they be as subtle as a miked film actor. So the text becomes a much more important part of the whole experience.

All that said, I think the result is probably the same for anyone who sees only ONE version of a play, whether on film or in the theatre--unless they also go back to the text to think about what they have seen.

It may depend, in part, on how one reads plays. It takes me as long to read a play as to watch one, because I imagine the performance in my head. I hear every voice and line distinctly, and I envision the costumes and movements and expressions of the characters. It's helpful, because I always have my own ideas about the play and the characters before I see a performance, and thus I am able to make comparisons and criticisms. If you try to read a play as you would a history textbook (i.e., reading for the facts), you will miss all of the art and the subtleties. Sadly, it seems that a number of students just don't have that kind of imagination anymore; they need to be shown a film in order to "get it," and the film (as I said above) then BECOMES the play for them.

"It takes me as long to read a play as to watch one, because I imagine the performance in my head. I hear every voice and line distinctly, and I envision the costumes and movements and expressions of the characters."

What? You mean you don't stand in front of a mirror and act out the parts? Certain ones of us here may have done that from time to time, but I'm not sayin' who :-)

:)

That would require memorization beyond my feeble capacities, I'm afraid.

Oh, I, er SOME PEOPLE I'VE HEARD OF, don't memorize, just stand in front of the mirror with the book to get facial expressions, inflection and timing right.

>25 Talbin:, Talbin, I completely agree with your comment: "I firmly believe that to fully appreciate Shakespeare, one must see the plays performed onstage, or in a really good screen adaptation. The difference between the written word and a well-done performance can make or break a person's appreciation for the plays."

The only Shakespeare plays that have any life for me are those that I have seen performed on stage - A Midsummer Night's Dream and King Lear are the two that jump immediately to mind.

I once read an article about teaching the classics in high school that questioned whether they should be taught to high-school age students because the way many of them were taught was so bad that these books had the life and significance completely sucked out of them. I wonder sometimes if my high school experience with Shakespeare's plays supports that argument. Julius Caesar was required in 10th grade English class - don't ask me why it was that one that was required - and otherwise, I think that was all the Shakespeare one "had" to read. I also took a Shakespeare course in high school in which we read a number of his works - mostly comedies, I think. That was better because it was a group of students, mostly those interested in theatre and drama, who had chosen to study Shakespeare & the level of interest was high. But I still don't remember getting a lot out of the class & Shakespeare often reads like a foreign language to me.

However, this thread has prompted me to download a bunch of his plays from Project Gutenberg, so maybe I'll have a different perspective after reading more.

Back to the OP, I expect Wm S. is very able to look after himself.

But what would be his replacement if he was deemed to be irrelevant?

>52 snickersnee: Stephen King or Dean Koontz, no doubt.

I studied Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and Much Ado at school, have seen productions of all three as well as several other of his plays.

I haven't had any contact with Shakespeare from probably the past 6 years. I'm trying to think why that is, so apologies if the following thoughts seem a bit unformed.

I wonder whether the plays just don't seem that relevant to me any more. For example, I remember Much Ado raising the issue of women being considered as possessions, but don't remember this being challenged - in the text nothing about this is resolved. I'm probably expecting too much from a play written at the time it was.

And perhaps I've seen too many amateur dramatic productions. Perhaps my view of Hamlet would be different if I saw David Tennant in the part than my memory of the play revolving mainly around trying to stay awake (although if I had got a chance to see David Tennant, my reasons for attending would be in no way intellectual!).

ETA - I did see an excellent production of Antony and Cleopatra and that is definitely the play that I remember most vividly and that touched me most.

I have been resisting this particular thread but Fannyprice's comment in #51 forces me to speak up.

My view is that in discussions of this sort one is always preaching to the converted and the unconverted will cheerfully remain so, no matter what arguments are brought forth. Is Shakespeare relevant, Is Dante relevant, Is a university liberal arts degree relevant, Is any university degree relevant, Is high school relevant, Is breathing relevant?

Does anyone ever become "convinced" by the other side in an argument such as this?

In our household we have been reciting sections of Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Lear, Othello to each other while there were just the two of us, as the kids were growing up and joined in, and continue to do so now that it is just the two of us again. Sometimes the effects are comic ones, sometimes serious. "When shall we three meet again?" as I am going to the grocery store might mean that half an hour later we are still exclaiming, being a witch, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Banquo. The kids, once they reached high school, sailed through the plays because they knew them well from our family theatricals.

Which brings me to fanny's points. There ARE a great many very bad high school English teachers; we all have come across some. There are some very bad university professors, very bad doctors and car mechanics. Because someone repaired my car poorly I would not generalize about either car repairs or cars. I taught Shakespeare for many years to hundreds of high school students. I taught him, conveying my passion. I love the works. I taught the students about the context, placing the works within English and world literature. I did dramatic readings myself, hamming it up, not afraid of being laughed at. I brought in other readings on tape, and video productions. The students prepared dramatic readings, both of the original text , and then rewording, updating, putting into other contexts. I eventually brought in critics worth reading such as Bradley. We then compared with other works we were reading together, such as Oedipus Rex or Death of a Salesman. We discussed ideas, passionately.

In the course evaluations at the end, inevitably, it was the Shakespeare which the students enjoyed the most.

Many of my students have gone on to teach high school English; some have given me credit for their life choices. I believe they teach Shakespeare well; they do not ask themselves whether Shakespeare is relevant. They know the answer, and theirs is the same as mine.

loud applause and whistling from the gallery Well said that man!

P, I'm coming to live in your house and attend your classes for six months. That ok?

It is absolutely right that for many people, the way to an appreciation of shakespeare lies in performance. I have seen many excellent performances (Anthony Hopkins and Judi Dench as Anthony and Cleopatra in London at the National Theatre being one highlight). Even in the worst high school performance I have seen, the words come alive by themselves. Even when done by Taiwanese seniors)

I also get a lot of out of reading Shakespeare as poetry. for me the the two ways of appreciating his work are both equally valid and important.

Quite frankly, those academics someone mentioned above, ought to be given 25 years hard labour in the Mines of Falun for even suggesting that our culture be further impoverished by removing Shax from the syllabus.

t strikes me that this is an argument between the low culture vultures and the high culture vultures. in my experience, such arguments only leave both sides more firmly entrenched in their positions, and more confirmed in their contempt for the other side.

and then there are those wack jobs like me who gives his wife a rather lovely poster w/ all of Shakespeare's sonnets printed on it, small print, to be sure, but still very legible. And a lovely design. Patty liked it - we're having to move some stuff around on our walls to make room for it in a location where people can read it.

While one can argue w/ some validity over the superiority of one Shakespearian play vs another; it'd be damn hard to argue against any of the sonnets.

Of course you could claim that modernity has rendered love an irrelevant concept too, i guess.

Ah perhaps.... but the man who has been my husband for nearly 40 years read me Shakespeare's sonnets on the first night we spent together....
We chuckled at his puns:

When, my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutor'd youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young.
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false speaking tongue:
On both side thus is simple truth suppress'd:
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore says not I that I am old?
O! love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told:
Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.

and pondered the eternal truths:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

And a new portrait of Shakespeare has been revealed: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/portrait-of-shakespeare-unveiled-399...

oh wow. Handsome devil, wasn't he?

>59 janeajones:, 60 I swooned when I saw Shakespeare's picture.

>55 polutropos: P. Yes!

not just relevant...but useful. When adam was born (first grandson) my dad put together an small album wherein he sought apropos quotes from WS to fit his Polaroids.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2759489&l=06d5a7294e&id=726841347

hahaha cute!
"My glass shall not persuade me I am old", I always 'saw' a martini or wine glass for that quote. mmm.

So, assuming one wanted to start reading a bit more in this category, does anyone have favored editions of Shakespeare's plays? I was thinking of either the Folger Shakespeare Library editions (despite the ugly covers and the non-Kindleness of them) or The Pelican editions, which might be on Kindle - it is so hard to tell with public domain books on Kindle - Amazon is very deceptive about what you're actually buying.

I don't know what might be on Kindle. In single editions, the ones I use most for my classes are the Signet Classics editions--inexpensive and user friendly notes. I also use some of the Norton and Longman critical editions, which have some nice contexual materials and good critical essays. For an anthology, I still like the Riverside Shakespeare.