soo, how 'bout today's class...
I've changed my mind from the position I kind of started off on today. I'm sorry for being a book-snob. If you want to read a modern English adaptation of Shakespeare, why should it matter? Not everyone likes Shakespeare. I don't like Sigmund Freud or Percy Bysshe Shelley, maybe you don't like George Orwell or Emily Bronte or Shakespeare. Just because an author is a big figure in literature doesn't mean you have to like his writing.
And it's not right to say one has to read or like Shakespeare to be intelligent or educated. Obviously, if you want to be an English professor, you should read and understand Shakespeare. But if you have ambitions completely outside of anything literary, it doesn't really matter and it is just elitist to think that everyone should cultivate an appreciation of Shakespeare as a necessary attribute of an educated citizen. What kind of terrifying society would it be if everyone were required to like reading Shakespeare? Everyone would just be a bunch of robots.
It was implied today that the number of students who don't read and don't understand Shakespeare is evidence that young people today are lazy or under-educated. But it's not. There are some high school students who like Shakespeare and there are some who don't. And it has always been that way in modern schools.
My mom, who went to public high school in the sixties, tells me that she didn't like Shakespeare then. And my mom is very smart. Modern high school students are not lazier or less educated than high school students thirty or forty years ago because some of them do not like Shakespeare.
Shakespeare is such a cultural icon that appreciating him can be taken as a sign of education, of literacy, but who cares whether or not you can drop lines from Hamlet at a party thrown by the literati? It doesn't matter.
The arguing that happened today pulled me down to earth. I'm really sorry that I've been snobby when it comes to books and literature in the past. I'm going to stop it for good now.
Disliking Shakespeare is not ignorant. Elitism is. Elitism is what narrows experience.
Why should it matter what books the people we know read and which authors they like? Why should it matter if they don't like reading at all? It doesn't matter. Everyone is different and that's beautiful.
Lack of devotion to Shakespeare does not cause problems in the world. Elitism does.
And it's not right to say one has to read or like Shakespeare to be intelligent or educated. Obviously, if you want to be an English professor, you should read and understand Shakespeare. But if you have ambitions completely outside of anything literary, it doesn't really matter and it is just elitist to think that everyone should cultivate an appreciation of Shakespeare as a necessary attribute of an educated citizen. What kind of terrifying society would it be if everyone were required to like reading Shakespeare? Everyone would just be a bunch of robots.
It was implied today that the number of students who don't read and don't understand Shakespeare is evidence that young people today are lazy or under-educated. But it's not. There are some high school students who like Shakespeare and there are some who don't. And it has always been that way in modern schools.
My mom, who went to public high school in the sixties, tells me that she didn't like Shakespeare then. And my mom is very smart. Modern high school students are not lazier or less educated than high school students thirty or forty years ago because some of them do not like Shakespeare.
Shakespeare is such a cultural icon that appreciating him can be taken as a sign of education, of literacy, but who cares whether or not you can drop lines from Hamlet at a party thrown by the literati? It doesn't matter.
The arguing that happened today pulled me down to earth. I'm really sorry that I've been snobby when it comes to books and literature in the past. I'm going to stop it for good now.
Disliking Shakespeare is not ignorant. Elitism is. Elitism is what narrows experience.
Why should it matter what books the people we know read and which authors they like? Why should it matter if they don't like reading at all? It doesn't matter. Everyone is different and that's beautiful.
Lack of devotion to Shakespeare does not cause problems in the world. Elitism does.
posted by Laura at 5:19 PM
2 Comments:
yay laura! :)
Your change of heart makes me feel better about myself, and I feel a little more on the same level as you today than I ever did before. Thank you.
-Dave the doledi/ninja
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