Re: The Demonization of Shakespeare

I regularly see screeds like this and they are usually better-written and
more coherent, so let me quietly recap the arguments that the original message
meant to make.

The argument is that not enough attention is being paid in schools to the
Great Western Books, and that time is being wasted by introducing students
to literature of other cultures.  There is also the whole argument that doing
this implies that the literate of other cultures can be as good and as
important as the Great Western Books.

This author is using Shakespeare as a proxy for the Great Western Books, which
seems odd to me because high schools that I know of are still teaching
Shakespeare.

On top of that, Shakespeare is extremely "woke" by their standards, as anyone
who actually read his work would realize.  Othello is basically a story about
racial tolerance.  Julius Caesar shows the futility of violent revolution.
Romeo and Juliet is about a couple pre-teens who couldn't keep their hands off
of one another in spite of the best efforts of their families.  So a I am not
quite sure that Shakespeare is in any way a valid example.

Oh wait, there's Henry V which is all about embracing enemies and other
cultures like the French.... at least once you get to the ending.

Now, personally, I do wish that more time was spent teaching the Great Western
Books in school, as well as teaching books from other cultures.  But from my
perspective, the first problem is that kids aren't reading anything at all on
their own.  Fixing that by giving them anything they can relate to seems like
a beginning to me.  Yelling about the lack of Shakespeare in schools is
merely sound and fury, signifying nothing.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."