From: djdaneh@pbhyc.PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes)
Subject: Re: Enforced Shakespeare?
Reply-To: djdaneh@PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 18:56:17 GMT

In article <12621@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:

(responding to Mark's claim that Ms Fysh's proposal re: Shakespeare was a joke):

>A Politically Correct one.

>Shakespeare's plays are one of those reminders that, regardless of
>one's culture, there is literature of lasting value.


Actually, Ms Fysh's proposal does not appear to have been either a joke nor
"pc."  Given how many 14-year-olds in our culture are, shall we say, quasi-
literate at best, shoving Shakespeare at them is an exercise in confusion and
frustration:  only slightly better than handing them FINNEGANS WAKE.  (Well,
quite a bit better, actually, but still on the same side of the zero-point.)
If they have trouble reading TOM SAWYER, how can we expect them to make sense
of HAMLET, when specialists in Elizabethan literature *still* can't quite 
agree on?  -- not to mention the more complex and unfamiliar language forms.

The problem, I agree, is not that Shakespeare is inappropriate for 14-year-olds,
but that our school system has failed: but as a result, *our* 14-year-olds are
not appropriate for Shakespeare.  The effect is the same:  giving Shakespeare
to 14-year-olds has a negative, not a positive, effect.  The long-term solution
must be a revamping of our education system so that 14-year-olds are capable of
reading and enjoying, if not HAMLET, at least A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.  But
the short-term solution is to give 14-year-olds something they *can* read and
enjoy, to build their reading skills and salvage what we can of the illiterate
generation.

Allow me a personal illustration of my next point:  in my Senior year of high
school, I had a particularly incompetent, not to say senile, battleaxe of a
teacher for the honors seminar in American lit.  Now, these were kids who had
all made it through A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST. . ., T.S. Eliot, and HOP ON POP
without trouble (well, okay, some of them had a little trouble analysing 
Geisel's scansion and pre-Columbian references, but what do you want from high
school kids?).  Miss Burnett gave us a rather interesting selection of good
American literature, including HUCK FINN, Steinbeck's THE MOON IS DOWN (still
my favorite Steinbeck novel). . . and a book called MRS. BRIDGE, by Evan S.
Connell.

I don't know if you're familiar with this one.  I recommend it highly to anyone
over 30 or so.  Mid-20s, use your judgement.  But it is simply *not* accessible
to high school kids.  I don't care *how* intelligent they are:  they simply 
don't have the *emotional* equipment to understand what makes this book tick.
Every one of us (28) were bored witless, and developed an utter loathing of the
book.  (As one of us summarized it, "Connell sets out to demonstrate how boring
and pointless this woman's life is -- and succeeds beyond his wildest dreams!")

Fortunately, a few years ago, a friend pushed me into giving it another try.
It's witty, subtle, and not at all dull. . . but I understood right away why I
had failed to understand it at 18, and I would say that it would be a most
exceptional 18-year-old that would *not* find it dull.

Most of my fellow students will not have that friend who shoves Connell back at
them in their 30s.  Most of them were literature lovers back then, so I presume 
many of them still are -- and they have lost the chance to enjoy a truly 
outstanding novel, because an incompetent teacher made them read it when they
were not ready for it.

The same, I suggest, is true of Shakespeare.  I agree with Clayton about the
ultimate value of Shakespeare; indeed, I think that if anything, he understated
the case.  But giving Shakespeare to a kid who simply *can't* read and 
understand him yet, will have the same effect that giving Evan S. Connell to a
class of 18-year-olds had in 1976:  and even those who eventually learn to love
reading will never give Shakespeare a second glance.

And that is a tragedy.


		Houston, Houston, do you read? I'd mortgage half my soul
		If I could see it one more time - Apollo, Ground Control
		The Devil take the men who killed the dream that died too soon
		For all my dreams are haunted by a fire on the Moon.
			-- Visual Purple

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, Net.Roach
My opinions do NOT represent Pacific Bell,
Professional Development, or anyone else.
But I'm willing to share.