Why do we still study Shakespear's work?

[FathomFear]

i don't need to write a book about the book i just read. That, is my main gripe with english classes.

You have to remember the essays are less about the writing about the book you read and more about learning how to make a coherent argument. They're essentially logic exercises.

[eriseis]

It's rather comical how this thread is just showing how pretentious and entrenched people can be about literature instead of actually be willing to teach a curious person about it.

Also, please learn to differentiate between language, grammar, lexicon, vocabulary and prose. These terms are getting misused everywhere in this thread.

[buck008]

It's rather comical how this thread is just showing how pretentious and entrenched people can be about literature instead of actually be willing to teach a curious person about it.

Also, please learn to differentiate between language, grammar, lexicon, vocabulary and prose. These terms are getting misused everywhere in this thread.

It's the internet, what do you expect. A few people answered his question. Also, one guy volunteered to help who seemed to be fairly knowledgeable on the subject. That's more rational response than I generally expect to find.

I've noticed you've not lifted a finger to help our friend, the OP, understand either. Nor have you really said what we should be teaching in a college level 101 style course. Obviously Shakespeare doesn't make your cut, but what should we teach?

[shimerra]

whether or not that is true, its still a valid point that should be addressed. the point of standing the test of time means that it should hold the same merits now that it did then. if significant cultural influences have changed so that the majority of the values in shakespeares works don't match the majority of the values now, then it simply does not work universally. that's not to say it isn't good, but it's simply saying that now-a-days, shakespeare really doesn't hold up because there's been enough shifts in culture that it simply shouldn't hold up in terms of ideals.

You've completely misunderstood standing the test of time. A story about love or loss suddenly doesn't apply at all to today's world because women weren't as empowered as they were today? Some of the values don't match but I think a story about the revenge of a jilted lover makes sense whether or not you tell it 400 years ago or today. The problems of the peasant class back then aren't exactly the same as today's working poor but that doesn't mean there's no ability for empathy or no similarities at all. More importantly why does it HAVE to behave in this way for you? That makes absolutely no sense to me that you read a story taking place in a difference time period to get annoyed that things aren't as they are today. Not to mention the writing itself can be beautiful and the story itself can be well told on its own merits.

He holds up as much as you want him to hold you because in every story people find something different to connect with. You seem to be looking for some sort of weird 1:1 time period/culture translation which is just a silly thing to do when reading classics. We read them because they give us insight into the time period and quite often they stand up on their own as good stories.

see this is the thing that i kind of don't understand though.

lets say I were to write a book that had nigger slewed about 900 times over 500 pages. lets also say that it was blatantly sexist in favor of men throughout those pages. lets say i wrote that book NOW in 2012. the consensus would rightfully be that i'm simply out of touch with reality because that is not how we operate. now that DOES excuse shakespeare because i'm sure his writing wasn't written for the plan that it'd be studied almost 400 years later, and he could never have predicted any cultural shifts. however the fact that the culture is almost inverse now from his writing simply means that his work is simply not relevant anymore. even the language is long since out dated and requires deep study to understand. should it still be studied as extensively as it is considering that many many aspects his work is simply not relevant? would that hold up in other fields? I mean, should we study caveman art for art majors extensively? should we study ancient Egyptian physics for our physics classes extensively? probably not. it only hinders us.

You're right people would be pissed about that, because people are a bunch of overly sensitive jerk offs. If you wrote it now taking place in todays time period yes you probably should be criticized for slapping nigger all over your book's pages. But if you wrote a book about the deep south in the 1800's? Might make sense to have people tossing nigger left and right.That's just people who just can't abide the fact that some one somewhere may have had their feelings hurt. You're also once again doing a 1:1 comparison where it isn't justified, warranted, or really needed. Like I said does a story about love or revenge lose all of it's relevance just because it takes place 400 years ago? Am I not allowed to sympathize with Hamlet because my father wasn't a king? I can't find a joke about in the Tempest funny because it's not joking about a situation of today? Not everything is the same, but a lot of things are and we can still relate to them. The only thing that hinders us is stubbornly thinking that only the now is relevant or important and ignoring our past works and history.

Your analogy isn't very good methinks. We call people who study cavemen art anthropologists and I'm sure somewhere out there there is an anthropologist/with a focus on early human art. And guess what if there was a profound cave painting still in tact you bet you're ass it'd at least be mentioned. And guess what we do read ancient epics like Beowulf. Pythagoras's theorem still applies today. The works of Newton, Kepler, Hubble, Euclid, Einstein, Pasteur, and many many many more are what you would consider classical work in science and much of what they discovered pioneered and shaped science as we know it today. Do we suddenly stop studying their work because it was discovered in the past or do we have to reprove things every 10 years or so? Every field studies its origins and builds its way up to the more advanced and latest theories. And an understanding of the origin/foundation is important in English just like it is in Physics.

Edit-someone also used the psychology example. The works of Frued, Skinner, Yung, and more are all still studied. Zimbardo did the Standford Prison experiment and that one where they had people "shock" someone even though considered morally and ethically undoable today are still studied. Lots of fields still study their origins and historical points of significance even if things have since changed. Steven Pinker's work in "The Language Instinct", "How the Mind Works", and "The better angels of our nature," will still be well written and insightful books 200 years from now.

the funny irony in that is that we get mad at knaak for depicting women in the same way that shakespeare depicts women, and that we also almost universally expect for writers to study shakespeare before they write. essentially we're saying "study shakespeare because he was so brilliant, but don't do what shakespeare did because his stuff is out dated"

I get mad at Knaak for writing crappy books. It is ironic that some people get butt hurt that person X is kind of an idiot and then extrapolate that to somehow the author hates gender X. But here's the difference: Shakespeare wrote for his audience just as much as any writer today writes for theirs. You're not going to make it as a writer today if you write for Shakespeare's audience. He already took care of that.

[eriseis]

It's the internet, what do you expect. A few people answered his question. Also, one guy volunteered to help who seemed to be fairly knowledgeable on the subject. That's more rational response than I generally expect to find.

I've noticed you've not lifted a finger to help our friend, the OP, understand either. Nor have you really said what we should be teaching in a college level 101 style course. Obviously Shakespeare doesn't make your cut, but what should we teach?

I don't like Shakespeare. His only work I enjoy is The Tempest, the book was made interesting by my lit prof in college.

Shakespeare might have significance, but I don't see him having room in the below college classroom. The material is in old prose and not many student will appreciate that. The skills and themes taught by Shakespeare can be found in other books. I enjoyed Brave New World and Animal Farm in high school much more than Shakespeare.

[buck008]

I don't like Shakespeare. His only work I enjoy is The Tempest, the book was made interesting by my lit prof in college.

Shakespeare might have significance, but I don't see him having room in the below college classroom. The material is in old prose and not many student will appreciate that. The skills and themes taught by Shakespeare can be found in other books. I enjoyed Brave New World and Animal Farm in high school much more than Shakespeare.

Well, the discussion was about a college level course, but I read Romeo and Juliet for freshman in high school English. I read a good bit of his stuff on my own in middle school because I like to read. The two books you point out are great, but they don't fill a semester's worth of introduction to literature. There's more to literature than satire and science fiction. There are other ways to tell a story than prose. An intro course should talk about these things. There's also the fact that you can discuss the themes Shakespeare wrote about in dozens of other books, but none of them give you the experience of reading Shakespeare. It's not about the themes, it's about appreciating the work of a master, and a very good representative of the era in which he wrote. I assure you, colleges don't teach him because they're too lazy or too cheap to find something better. They teach him because his work has merit.

On a side note, Brave New World is one of my favorite books. I've probably read it 10 times. We read 1984 in my high school despite my fervent belief that BNW covered similar topics in a much better way, and was a better written book. My opinion doesn't really matter. One can't really say that either book is objectively bad and shouldn't be taught. In this case, though, there was a clear alternative. If you don't teach Shakespeare, do you just ignore the Elizabethan Era in Britain? Do you use a different playwright or poet instead? That's what I don't understand.

[Falrinn]

Well, the discussion was about a college level course, but I read Romeo and Juliet for freshman in high school English. I read a good bit of his stuff on my own in middle school because I like to read. The two books you point out are great, but they don't fill a semester's worth of introduction to literature. There's more to literature than satire and science fiction. There are other ways to tell a story than prose. An intro course should talk about these things. There's also the fact that you can discuss the themes Shakespeare wrote about in dozens of other books, but none of them give you the experience of reading Shakespeare. It's not about the themes, it's about appreciating the work of a master, and a very good representative of the era in which he wrote. I assure you, colleges don't teach him because they're too lazy or too cheap to find something better. They teach him because his work has merit.

On a side note, Brave New World is one of my favorite books. I've probably read it 10 times. We read 1984 in my high school despite my fervent belief that BNW covered similar topics in a much better way, and was a better written book. My opinion doesn't really matter. One can't really say that either book is objectively bad and shouldn't be taught. In this case, though, there was a clear alternative. If you don't teach Shakespeare, do you just ignore the Elizabethan Era in Britain? Do you use a different playwright or poet instead? That's what I don't understand.

When I was in high school we were given a choice to read 1984 or Brave New World. I ended up reading Brave New World, if only because *spoilers* the main character isn't brainwashed at the end. *spoilers*. What can I say, I don't like absolutely horrifying endings and I'm not ashamed to admit it.


Anyways, if you are studying classical English literature, Shakespeare is something that needs to be discussed. However I otherwise think we might focus on it a tad to much. Don't get me wrong, Shakespeare was likely one of the best writers in history, but he's just that, history. His stories were written for a different time and an audience very far removed, both culturally and linguistically, from modern society. And while it's true nothing aside from reading Shakespeare can give you the experience of reading Shakeseare, but the same could be said of practically any author ever (whether it be CS Lewis, Tolkien, JK Rowling, perhaps unfortunately Stephanie Meyer, etc.). Every author has their own style and virtually all of them have academic merit far beyond "how is this like Shakespeare". Even objectively terrible authors like Stephanie Meyer can be examined to try to answer the question of how such a misogynistic series can be so popular among teenage girls.


Hmmm.....

You know, no matter how much it may intellectually make sense to me, I can hardly believe I just advocated teaching Stephanie Meyer over Shakespeare. Mind you strictly in the context of modern literature and modern culture, but it still is kind of scary in a way.

[aloiv25]

Shakespear's work is undeniably a masterpiece for the entire English literature. But if we want to advance, I don't get why we don't study literature from the PRESENT. In a way it is another language or else the books wouldn't have direct translation on the side. Also if you were to read it the first time without help, you probably wouldn't get a lot of the meanings he is trying to convey. Maybe studying it for one year in high school would be acceptable...but not all 4 years in mine.

[Deleted]

Shakespear's work is undeniably a masterpiece for the entire English literature. But if we want to advance, I don't get why we don't study literature from the PRESENT. In a way it is another language or else the books wouldn't have direct translation on the side. Also if you were to read it the first time without help, you probably wouldn't get a lot of the meanings he is trying to convey. Maybe studying it for one year in high school would be acceptable...but not all 4 years in mine.

Generally in secondary school here you do one poet, one Shakespeare play and one modern novel for study.

[aloiv25]

To me learning about Shakespeare is equivalent to putting Latin in the English curriculum. I mean they both tell you about the histories of English right? Both may answer questions about why English is the way it is today but many consider studying Latin useless as we have now MODERNIZED and developed English to no longer resemble Latin. Same with Shakespeare.

[Zhangfei]

This thread is proof that if you are not educated to teach, then you really don't understand teaching...

[eriseis]

Well, the discussion was about a college level course, but I read Romeo and Juliet for freshman in high school English. I read a good bit of his stuff on my own in middle school because I like to read. The two books you point out are great, but they don't fill a semester's worth of introduction to literature. There's more to literature than satire and science fiction. There are other ways to tell a story than prose. An intro course should talk about these things. There's also the fact that you can discuss the themes Shakespeare wrote about in dozens of other books, but none of them give you the experience of reading Shakespeare. It's not about the themes, it's about appreciating the work of a master, and a very good representative of the era in which he wrote. I assure you, colleges don't teach him because they're too lazy or too cheap to find something better. They teach him because his work has merit.

On a side note, Brave New World is one of my favorite books. I've probably read it 10 times. We read 1984 in my high school despite my fervent belief that BNW covered similar topics in a much better way, and was a better written book. My opinion doesn't really matter. One can't really say that either book is objectively bad and shouldn't be taught. In this case, though, there was a clear alternative. If you don't teach Shakespeare, do you just ignore the Elizabethan Era in Britain? Do you use a different playwright or poet instead? That's what I don't understand.

The class could be framed to later introduce Shakespeare by using other works as reference to understand what goes on in his plays.

I wouldn't know how to teach literature, I have no interest in works of fiction. I can appreciate literature but I don't go seek it myself; I have a friend doing a PhD in literature and I enjoy what he talks about usually but I don't go out of my way for literature xD.

I'm getting involved in this thread since I have a background in Linguistics and I like to get involved in any matter prescriptive grammarians and potentially pretentious and entitled literature aficionados might get into. There's plenty of stuff these people talk about without having knowledge of the subject, like language.

[sophos1]

I hated Shakespeare and poetry in my english classes in high school but looking back, it is probably a good way to introduce data mining.

[eriseis]

I hated Shakespeare and poetry in my english classes in high school but looking back, it is probably a good way to introduce data mining.

Whoa, how? I'm actually and non-sarcastically very curious about this.

I wonder if that's why a couple Silicon Valley firms like their liberal arts-educated analysts.

[Deleted]

His amount of work was unprecedented, and the quality of his work was exquisite, Shakespeare is responsible for introducing hundreds (Thousands?) of words into the English language, he is a pioneer of modern English.

Most of his works are regarded as literary masterpieces, why should you not study his work? Pay respect to a truly great man.

[Oricc]

It's not even a matter of it's meaning. Those who say shakespeare is "outdated" or "respectable for it's time" have not read good shakespeare properly. There has been no author since that has even come close to his level, and I'm speaking as someone who has read a lot of shakespeare and a lot of other literature. don't get me wrong, people like James Joyce are amazing writers, but Shakespeare is just as good if not better. Writing isn't an art form that has improved progressively over time, every work should be taken more or less independently (with caveats for social context of course).

[eriseis]

It's not even a matter of it's meaning. Those who say shakespeare is "outdated" or "respectable for it's time" have not read good shakespeare properly. There has been no author since that has even come close to his level, and I'm speaking as someone who has read a lot of shakespeare and a lot of other literature. don't get me wrong, people like James Joyce are amazing writers, but Shakespeare is just as good if not better. Writing isn't an art form that has improved progressively over time, every work should be taken more or less independently (with caveats for social context of course).

But what does this greatness consist of?

[Deleted]

"... Somewhere in La Mancha whose name I do not remember,
not long lived one of those gentlemen of lance and
old buckler, a lean hack and a greyhound for coursing.
A pot of rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most nights,
duels and on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays,
a pigeon or so extra on Sundays, with three quarters of his income.
The rest della concluded broadcloth gown of velvet breeches and shoes for the holidays,
with slippers of the same; and days of midweek was honored
with vellori of the finest ... "

[sophos1]

Whoa, how? I'm actually and non-sarcastically very curious about this.

I wonder if that's why a couple Silicon Valley firms like their liberal arts-educated analysts.

Well its like this: Datamining is the process of taking useless incomprehensible data and attempting to make sense of it, thus outputting useful information. So by studying Shakespeare, you are learning how to make sense out of garbledigook just like a datamining program. And actually if you can make sense from Shakespeare, you can make sense out of anything that's halfway rational and you will become a good writer, which is somewhat of a requirement to convey your ideas effectively in a research report. Writing is somewhat of an art form in itself.

[BananaInsane]

What I think is interesting is the arguments that he didn't write his work. If you're interested; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakesp...rship_question