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Also, though it is hard to choose, my favourite play is probably The Taming of the Shrew , despite how incredibly misogynistic it is. I think it probably comes down to having seen an amazing RSC production, though the Ian Mckellan/Judi Dench version of Macbeth made me appreciate the play more after I had seen it than studying it in school ever did.
A friend and I would do accents and change our tone befitting the characters, because we dug us some words and gave no fucks. Macbeth was super fun.
I think this is my favorite exchange. Like, ever.
I'll still watch that film if it's on the TV.
It's funny that you should say it's almost like parody, because actually, critics make the argument (and I would too) that R&J very deliberately subverts a lot of the romantic tropes of Shakespeare's era - basically all of the hammy ridiculous shit surrounding the courtly lover. Romeo's closest friends are patently tired of his emo shit with his ex girlfriend (who wasn't even his girlfriend, since she refused to give him so much as a first date), but then he instantly gets over her at the sight of this other girl, Juliet, that he's like, so totally in love with this time. His friends comment on the insanity of this.
This sets up quite a lot of clever irony played out in Juliet. The 14 year old girl is by far one of the most sensible characters in the play. The balcony scene, which at this point is the bush league cliche of all stage drama, is never performed for the kind of humor that's implied in it. You've got Romeo waxing poetic to his not-girlfriend, who keeps reminding him "No, seriously, if they see you, they're going to stab you," to which Romeo replies something like "Oh but they cannot pierce my soul!" "But they have swords!" and so on.
The tragedy is not so much that this ideal love is not allowed to flourish, but that too few people become aware of their own ignorance far too late, and the lot of them had less sense than the girl no one listens to. Except Mercutio. Mercutio is a boss.
The main reason I dislike the Baz film is because it retains the aesthetic but glosses over the much more complex love story that is very much in the original text. We've gotten too used to an unproblematic reading of it as being JUST a star-crossed lovers tale in which our hero and heroine are the angelic exceptions to a corrupt society.
And man should this play be taught to high school kids from a perspective of "here's what happens when you become so incredibly wrapped up in your own whiny bullshit that you can scarcely tell how badly you're alienating your best friends and making emotional decisions patently counter productive to your future since you're not the grown-up you think you are."
About Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet: You should know 15 seconds in whether you'll love it or hate it. I'm firmly in the love camp. Actually It might be my second favorite Shakespeare movie adaptation, after Taymor's Titus.
The Taming of the Shrew seriously?
That whole thing is just incredibly fucked up.
The second part is only a travesty if you think teaching is a travesty. Having taught shakespeare to a generation of children who have never seen a play, nor read a book that wasn't required of them, they just don't understand the language. So you teach them the nuances (which won't help most of them on standardized testing because they're not paying attention), And a side by side "translation" is helpful for certain kinds of learners (i.e. visual ones).
Sure it's a "travesty" on it's own, but it doesn't do anything that a teacher doesn't do when explaining the language.
or are teenagers supposed to just get everything? Side by side is infinitely better than footnote books, anyways.
No, no, wait, that's Titus Andronicus.
I reject the premise that kids can't learn from Shakespeare's language.
You send the kids out to read the play and then in class maybe you use this kind of thing. But allowing kids to just read the cut down versions as if that's good isn't something I'm willing to entertain. But kids should make the effort to read the text, class time can be used for clarification.
This really depends on what your class is going to look like, I suppose. I doubt anybody is going to argue that the sparknotes version is an equivalent experience, but it definitely serves a function as a supplement to (not a replacement for) the original text.
And in most classrooms, I'm betting the kids who didn't get it (and surely many will get it) either A) gave up and read Sparknotes instead, and so have no clarifying questions or B) are so lost by the text that they don't want to out themselves for fear of being the dumb one who can't understand this BIG Important Text. The No Fear type stuff can be one way to mediate those outcomes.
The other thing to consider is that, lame as they might be, those No Fear texts are a kind of adaptation, and adaptations of Shakespeare are hardly a thing to shy away from. Modern adaptations often drop the original script in favor of something that attempts to engage with / modify the original themes in a way that might be more relevant or unique in a new context. It's not quite the same thing, but those adaptations can speak the original text not unlike the way that a modern English version can: it represents specific editorial / artistic interpretations of Shakespeare. All summary, after all, is a form of interpretation.
Just typing this I'm imagining what the coursework for a unit on "No Fear Shakespeare as Adaptation" might look like.
It is hilarious! Jaw-droppingly, holy-crap-did-I-just-read-that funny.
I was with you until you got to the adaptation thing.
Please don't teach that course, it will not do good things for literature.
If they're used as a supplement, I suppose I understand the drive. It is important for students to understand the plot and such, but I would be highly skeptical of any teacher you assigned the no fear versions.
My problem with the No Fear versions is that they don't leave anything up for interpretation it is all AND THIS IS WHAT THIS MEANS, which rather misses the point of reading.
Then you're with me on my practical attitude to what they can do as an everyday resource. They're training wheels and should be discarded as such.
But! To go back to the adaptation point, this last bit is what's so great about it! When you teach adaptation, you show a continuum of texts that are all in discourse with one another - they're making choices about what's important and what isn't, and how to communicate that. No Fear positions itself as being Truth: highly literal representations of what Shakespeare Means, For Real. But, in insisting on all the rigid stability, they're responding to and changing the original text by making those same sorts of decisions. I haven't looked at much No Fear Shakspeare, but I bet you could get some really productive thought out of a class of students (upper level ones anyway) who are reading against those texts and examining the interpretive consequences for their streamlining of Shakespeare. Ironically, that line of thought pretty much demands much greater scrutiny on the original text rather than the No Fear text.
Have you ever taught in a public school? If so, what was the economic situation of the surrounding neighborhood?
How's a kid supposed to read Shakespeare without assistance when they don't have the time (the school I taught at had low attendance rates for after-school help because 65% of the student body over 16 had employment)? Parents who can't attend P-T conference night due to working two jobs?
Again, the "kids reading it outside of class" is the idea that they're just supposed to get Shakespeare. I know you did. I did, too. That's not how the majority of public education works, and I'm not really trying to turn this into an argument about public education, but it's kind of funny that we say that everyone should read Shakespeare even though it can be so far removed from the lives of certain populations of students. Take the "son of York" line. Are the kids supposed to just know who that is?
I'm not saying there are kids out there that "can't" learn from the language. I'm also not advocating for complete separation of the different texts. But your ignorance is showing if you think all kids can read outside of class, let alone read Shakespeare without direction by themselves. I'm not even talking about lazy students, I'm talking about 9th graders who can't read at an acceptable level because very few--if any--schools hold back students at "middle school levels."
Case in point, my very first 9th grade english class had 36 students. At the end it of that year, it had 20. We spent 3 months learning to read Of Mice and Men. Then we went to R&J. Every single student referenced the movie. Ignoring different teaching techniques is elitist goosery that ignores how differently people can learn.
The real battle is all about engagement. Shakespeare is gripping, engaging shit, if it's approached in the "right" way, being whichever way works. I would have fucking rapped Othello's scenes if it would have engaged a student more than I had. Hell, "O" was one of the best modern adaptations I've seen in recent memory.
I've not personally taught public education, no, I'm not even out of grad school yet, but I did go through public education in a really poor really rural part of the world. I understand the problems your facing and I don't want to sound like I'm shitting all over teachers, because that's the last thing I want to do but I don't really like the idea that we should lower our expectations completely (which I'm sure you're not doing, just to be clear).
I can see how they might be useful as a supplement in class or as a study aid for students on their own time, but I wouldn't accept them as an actually replacement for the texts.
It is incomprehensible to me that you would expect someone, in 9th grade, to read MacBeth and not miss out on the vast majority of meaning and nuance. Kids who don't have these training wheels are going to look at the text, not get it, and get bored and decide that Shakespeare is balls. It is literally the best way to kill someone's interest in Shakespeare.
Ideally an education in Shakespeare would go like this: first the kids read a play with the annotations, then the kids read a different play without them. They'll already be introduced to the language and how to decipher the bits they don't understand, but now they have no choice but to read the original words.
You teach Shakespeare to show how powerful themes can be, how invasive they are in popular culture and how great examples of human truths these plays from over 400 years ago were. Yes, "learning the language" is a good part of that, but it's not like Shakespeare is given the time he needs, anyways. Look at college, you can take courses that are just on some of his plays for 6 months, 2-4 hours a week. Instead you get 45 minutes from a captive and often unwilling audience. I think the fight is definitely worth it, but you have to pick your battles. Also, I taught from the footnote versions of the books, which is way more distracting than the side by side versions released later.
There are many things I would do to change current education, but offering a shakespeare in the modern world course to young people would probably be at the top of that list. No, Not R&J, though if that helps, so be it. The problem ends up being, the actual books we use as canon are so violent that we can't show those movies because lolzthe children.
Agreed, though this really does have everything to do with the public school / college divide. I know professors who would froth involuntarily at the notion that Shakespeare teaches "human truths," so their battles are very different, but in a public school context, starting a conversation that demands students evaluate their own believes based on those Big Human Ideas has a real value very much apart from understanding Shakespeare's use of the functional shift.
Just like writing, you have to learn the rules before you can break them in a way that has value. Rebellion through comprehension is the only rebellion I value.
So no, little imaginary Johnny, don't tell me shakespeare sucks, or that you don't get it. Tell me why it sucks--read it first--then complain.
One of my worst students ever got away with this. I punished his ego by making him do a reference paper explaining in great detail why Lord of the Flies sucked, but it got an A because it was better than average and did everything I asked him to do with it.
:^:
All my best teachers have had this kind of attitude. If I ever become a teacher (its one of the things I'm considering) I hope to have this attitude.
This. So much this. But in regards to Hamlet even more so. That's the whole play. I love Hamlet, but that character spends the entire play trying to decide what to do and asking other people to tell him when his dad came back as a ghost to tell him what to do in the very beginning. He drags it out until the matter is sort of taken out of his hand. Shakespeare wrote some messed up stuff, and I love it.
I certainly know that my Jr. High self would have engaged with something with lots of sex and beheadings, more than it did with Romeo and Juliet.
However, my love of Shakespeare (or whoever wrote them) didn't start till senior year, and AP English. We did a detailed breakdown of Merchant of Venice and Othello and I soaked that up like a sponge.
I now hit the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival in Kansas City every year. I'm pretty excited for this year's, as it features Antony and Cleopatra, a play I've got very little experience with. Looking forward to it.
I swear that high school should start at 16, go to 20, and provide you with a certificate/a.s. in the field of your choice (which you choose at 18). Anything before 16 should be teaching those bags of hormones how to integrate into society (write a check, open a savings acct, apply for a job, write, read, do basic math and how not to be a shithead).
When I did my undergrad in English, all I wanted was to take as many Shakespeare courses as I possibly could. Thankfully, my university managed to offer a sole Shakespearean drama class towards the end of my time there. /bitter
I was thrilled to finally have the chance to argue about Shakespeare with adults, since my High School experiences with literary aptitude (among the general student body) were lackluster at best.
Day 1 we arrive to class and the teacher hands out the syllabus. Our first play? Romeo and Juliet.
I
was
furious
Why was this teacher wasting our time with Shakespeare's most trite, boring, and contemptible play? I'd already read that play in 9th grade and it made me want to vomit. No Hamlet? No Lear? No Othello? Who was this jackass? I went home that evening so upset that in my only collegiate level Shakespeare course, half the semester would be spent on Romeo & f'ing Juliet. I thought about dropping the course right there, but I didn't. I consoled myself that at least the second-half of the semester would be Macbeth, and that play is awesome. So I'd stomach Romeo and Juliet to get to the awesomeness that is Macbeth.
Only, the Romeo and Juliet I read wasn't the 9th grade play I remembered. It struck me as completely unlike the movies and the popular romanticized angelic love story that it is so often portrayed as.
No, this Romeo and Juliet was different. This one was sharp-witted, grim, and seemed to mock every teenage romance I'd ever read or watched. I came to the table expecting garbage, but as I pulled away the layers of romantic façade, I found the incredibly juicy steak lying within. That's when I fell in love with William Shakespeare.
My most enjoyable moment reading R&J was this line:
What a beautiful sentiment, that names are immaterial to who and what we are; that we love people not names. Except, this is Shakespeare using Juliet to unknowingly, and ironically, mock the shit out of Romeo. Romeo started the play madly in love with Roseline, a girl he can't even get to talk with him for more than 5 minutes; then he sees Juliet, and *BAM* all of sudden it's "whose Rose again?" What's in a name, indeed.
I spent the rest of the play reading it as the actual romantic dark comedy that it is, openly laughing at all the silly courtship nonsense that Romeo goes through. The play is utterly brilliant in its subtlety. After the course ended I thanked the professor for giving me a new love that would burn throughout the rest of my life. I've read most of his plays at this point, and seen probably about 15-20 performances, and I have never been disappointed. Shakespeare is enlightening and fulfilling in a way so few other artists ever reach.
I was lucky enough that my Shakespeare course in undergrad had us do several plays, Titus, Caesar, Comedy of Errors, Othello, a few of the sonnets, and Lear. It was a decent enough class, the prof hated Shakespeare so at times it was a bit grating at 8am, but over all it was good.
Then this semester in my master's degree I took a course on Shakespeare Adaptations, it was, less than impressive to say the least.
We started with R&J in 9th grade, which was easy. The new movie had just come out, everybody was familiar enough with the general overview of the story that the language did not really present a barrier. Oh, there were some struggles with the words, but the overall point of the story came through that much easier. Then sadly the only other experience I had in high school was with the Scottish Play senior year. Which was not as good an experience as it could/should have been. The teacher put on the movie, had us read along with it, and then had us write a sequel (based on the end of the movie showing Macduff going back to see the witches).
But Uni... I got involved with my Uni's theatre company through a production of Midsummer, and then I switched majors to English. I took the Shakespeare courses that were required, had a professor that was astounding. Particularly in his teaching of R&J (which was very similar to Roz's experience), and then we moved on. I loved the language, the sound, the beats, the plays on words.
Which led me to another course at Uni for Reformation drama. The period of drama after Oliver Cromwell's defeat. I wish I had my books with me down here, they were seriously some fantastic plays. I wrote a full research paper on how the differences between the words you see on the page were translated to the stage.
Man I miss those classes.
You have to fight through some bad days, to earn the best days of your life.
If by worst you mean most awesomest...
"Money tends to corrupt, and lots of money corrupts lotsely" - Me.
so much FUN! Seriously. the actors and the playwrights all went wild, and the jokes and the plots...
One of the absolute best classes I took at Uni. Along with another class (same professor!) about the "Rise of the Novel" in which we studied Moll Flanders, Tom Jones, And so many other works. I think that was also Evelina and Orinoco? I think that was the name of the book with the Noble Savage.
You have to fight through some bad days, to earn the best days of your life.
Maybe I should take a break from my high fantasy and go back and reread some of those. Moll Flanders was amazing. If you haven't read it, you should.
Oh. umm.
Shakespeare was awesome I loved those classes too!
You have to fight through some bad days, to earn the best days of your life.