The DU Lounge

thanks for the opportunity to make the contrary case.

5. Yes, the language is archaic, and yes it takes some work to get through the first 2 or 3 plays; so I'd certainly agree that it should not be taught until the latest grade levels (or perhaps the earliest, while kids are still adroit at picking up languages). But...

4. The subject-matter could not be more relevant. First, yes, Shakespeare makes fun of lower-class people; he also makes plenty of fun of upper-class people; ditto villains vs. heros. Second, I simply do not know of any author that has managed to cram so much wisdom about so many subjects into so few words – he is brilliant about politics, social relationships, marriage, individual psychology, ethics, epistemology, language, etc. etc. – which is why his plays have been produced more often than those of any other author ever and continue to be produced to this day (see, e.g., Aneil Karia's new version of Hamlet). A great many of the world's greatest directors have made versions of one of the plays, even though they might seem outside the director's usual range (see, e.g., Joel Coen's production of Macbeth, in which Frances McDortmund contributes one of my favorite Lady Macbeth performances, or Akira Kurasawa's Throne of Blood, also based on Macbeth). (And yes, our mores in some areas have changed since Shakespeare wrote about them; but Shakespeare's treatment of those areas was vastly more enlightened than typical in his day.)

On top of all that, the language he used was among the most exquisite and inventive of any author ever – substantial chunks of our modern words and phrases were literally invented by Shakespeare.

3. There are tons of bad productions of Shakespeare, in which actors proclaim the lines relatively tonelessly because they haven't gone to the trouble to fully understand and bring out the meanings embedded within them – this, to my mind, is a tragedy, because it does turn people off to the Bard. And yes, much of Shakespeare's work is stylized, but much of it is brilliantly naturalistic; plus, I don't see how you can complain in one paragraph that it's stylized and complain in another that there's not more music, like a hollywood musical, which is about as stylized as you can get.

As for the length, I think an argument could be made that we'd be better off viewing full productions of Hamlet than feeding our ever-shorter attention spans with TikTok & the like; also, Hamlet is a good deal longer than any of the other plays.

2. I'm fine with the plays not being operas or musicals. As far as I know, no one knows what melodies might have been used in the early productions for the songs found in the plays or as background music between the actual songs. Every production I've seen adds whatever music the director thought helpful for both the songs and otherwise, just as does nearly every film made since film was invented.

1. Yes, there's tons of other great literature for people to read – thankfully! (And I certainly concur in the importance of expanding curriculae beyond the Western canon.) But nearly every great work of Western literature or film that I've encountered contains one or more references to Shakespeare's works, and those references aren't thrown in just for fun; they are included because they carry with them a whole universe of truth and meaning that Shakespeare created for us. If you want to understand great, more modern literature, it's helpful to have some familiarity with Shakespeare.

PS: In response to some of the replies above, I'd just like to add that imho, if you take any set of lines from any one Shakespearean character as the whole truth about either the world or what the Bard himself believe, you're missing at least one important aspect of his worldview.

If you should be interested in trying to give Shakespeare another chance, you might possibly appreciate this miniature Shakespeare Festival for Book Clubs – http://www.c-cyte.com/shakefest/shakefest.pdf – which is basically a set of favorite, often famous scenes from the plays, formatted so that all the archaic language is clearlly explained directlly across from the line in which it occurs (so you don't have to keep moving your eyes to fine print at the bottom of the page – makes it a lot easier to get through the archaic bits). The script also provides brief synopses to be read before each scene is enacted, to set the stage plot-wise and also give clues to some of the important themes. This ShakeFest was designed specifically for amateurs – no memorization required; you can just print your pages and read out the lines – and has been the basis of many great parties in which the guess were encouraged to choose a part or the type of part they were interested in and then use their creativity in performing it; e.g., I've seen Macbeth enacted by a cat, and the intense scene in which Hamlet excoriates his mother performed with sock puppets.