Haven't any of you read Shakespeare?

[fpb]

I have to laugh at the criticisms expressed against John McCain for saying "You do not have to be afraid of a President Obama". Can't you understand the suggestion? Have none of you read Othello? "Beware, my lord, of jealousy -" which nobody had thus far so much as mentioned. Or Julius Caesar? "For so are they all - all honourable men." John McCain is smarter than you think; and he is fighting meaner than you can imagine.

Comments

[guarani]

Irony doesn't seem to be part of the majority's toolbox.

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

Most of them also don't have the level of familiarity with the classics and Shakespeare as our esteemed host.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

i did not quote anything that anyone should not be likely to have met at school. And I am not a Shakespeare specialist anyway. Several of his plays still remain unread.

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, Shakespeare is taught only passingly in high schools today.

When my mother was an English teacher in the late 50's and early 60's, she taught several of his plays each semester, and no student got out of her classes without a working acquaintance with all the major plays.

When I was in high school in the early 80's, we studied exactly one of Shakespeare's plays in the entire course of our high school career, Romeo and Juliet -- and the teacher was only able to get the class to pay attention because of the romantic angle, and because that one movie version was still considered somewhat racy because of the scene where Romeo gets out of bed and reveals he was sleeping in the buff.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if present-day high school students never even have to study any of his plays unless they take an elective.

[cheyinka]

When I was in high school (graduated in 2001), we studied two plays; Hamlet, because my honors English teacher liked one of the film adaptations, and Romeo and Juliet, because of the movie Romeo + Juliet which was the movie adapted to "modern times".

We also got to pick a soliloqui (sp) from a list of them from a number of plays, but that doesn't really count as reading more plays, and in any event that was only the honors English class, not the regular one... and I don't think the regular English class ever did study Hamlet.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I find that appalling. I did the whole of Hamlet for my A-levels, and King Lear as well. My teacher and I read through large portions of Hamlet, dividing the roles, and I got from this a lifelong love of the play.

[stigandnasty919.livejournal.com]

It has to be said that was for A Level, what proportion of people do A Level English?

I didn't - much to my chagrin at the time and regret now - so in school was only exposed to Henry IV Parts 1 and 2. But for the annual appearance of the Royal Shakespere Company at Belfast Festival in the eighties that would have been it for Mr S.,

[blue-sky-day.livejournal.com]

I only read two in school - Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. I've since read a few more on my own, but it took me a while to get to do so. At one point I bought a "complete works" volume, intending to read it, but that never happened - too large to carry around for casual reading, too tiny print. I donated it. Sometime later I found some good annotated paperbacks and I started buying them.

[blue-sky-day.livejournal.com]

I've also attended some performances and rented some film versions of his plays, which helps as well.

[thefish30.livejournal.com]

At my daughter's otherwise elite engineering/marine/naval Science high school, and at all others high schools in our district, Senior Year English Lit has just been scrapped in favor of modern, 'vocationally relevant' literature. Which means all kids can now leave high school with only Romeo & Juliet to represent Shakespeare and never having even heard the names of Chaucer, Beowulf, Samuel Johnson, Alexander Pope, etc, etc.

We have become a people without a past.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

Shakespeare didn't invent the rhetorical trick being employed; if one is observant, it should be possible to recognize it with or without familiarity with Shakespeare.

However, it is true that having read Shakespeare helps to recognize what's going on because it is so clearly demonstrated there. Some of the value of having read the classics is simply being able to recognize that "Hey, wait, he's doing that same thing that {Character} did in {Work of Literature}!"