Shakespeare not required

[gotsnowgotslush]

Study: Top universities dropping Shakespeare requirement

"...only four of 52 universities and liberal-arts colleges ranked highest by U.S. News & World Report required their English majors to take a class delving into Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies and historical works, according to the study by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni."

The four universities that required a course dedicated to Shakespeare were Harvard University, Wellesley College, the U.S. Naval Academy and the University of California-Berkeley.

http://chicago.suntimes.com/education/7/71/542110/study-universities-omitting-thine-self-true

Study: Few Top Colleges Require Shakespeare
April 23, 2015

Today ACTA released a study that shows less than 8% of the nation’s top universities require English majors to take even a single course that focuses on Shakespeare, often encouraging instead trendy courses on popular culture.

The Unkindest Cut: Shakespeare in Exile 2015 is an examination of 52 of the national universities and liberal arts colleges ranked highest by U.S. News & World Report.

http://www.goacta.org/news/study_le...ges_require_english_majors_to_take_a_course_f

 

[DesEsseintes]

Study: Top universities dropping Shakespeare requirement

"...only four of 52 universities and liberal-arts colleges ranked highest by U.S. News & World Report required their English majors to take a class delving into Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies and historical works, according to the study by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni."

The four universities that required a course dedicated to Shakespeare were Harvard University, Wellesley College, the U.S. Naval Academy and the University of California-Berkeley.

http://chicago.suntimes.com/education/7/71/542110/study-universities-omitting-thine-self-true

Study: Few Top Colleges Require Shakespeare
April 23, 2015

Today ACTA released a study that shows less than 8% of the nation’s top universities require English majors to take even a single course that focuses on Shakespeare, often encouraging instead trendy courses on popular culture.

The Unkindest Cut: Shakespeare in Exile 2015 is an examination of 52 of the national universities and liberal arts colleges ranked highest by U.S. News & World Report.

http://www.goacta.org/news/study_le...ges_require_english_majors_to_take_a_course_f

Shakespeare IS a bit trendy and right-on, now you come to mention it. I expect the other colleges are focusing on Chaucer, Langland and Anglo-Saxon, with lashings of Spenser and Milton for good measure.

No?

More seriously, how can you claim to have studied English at university level if you haven't studied Shakespeare? It would be like doing physics without Newton.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

New England children were exposed to Olde England authors, and Olde English, at an early age. So many school trips, to see who started this crazy mess in America. The writers expressed themselves in strange ways. It primed us for Shakespeare. Latin was required. (That changed, suddenly.) It is,strange, to think of all the poems we were instructed to memorize and recite.

A system leftover from the Victorian age?

As an introduction, the teachers served us easily digestible slices, sitting at our little wooden desks. Teenagers were allowed to watch Roman Polansk's Macbeth, in class.
(Progressive approach, nothing much was off limits.)

Bits of Chaucer, were included in the curriculum. Open ended, Finnegans Wake was acceptable, and many books that the Religious Right of today, would be happy to burn in a bonfire, were available to choose.

Extreme liberals in the 1970s.


I suspect they let Baz Luhrmann feed Romeo+Juliet to the teens and tweens in 1996,in order to revive an interest. (Hysteria!) The film sold sheet music. Leonardo DiCaprio was very young.


The Romeo and Juliet film from 1968, gave many of us dreamy eyed teens a reason to study.

 

[ishtat]

. I expect the other colleges are focusing on Chaucer, Langland and Anglo-Saxon, with lashings of Spenser and Milton for good measure.

Trendy modernist! How about Gildas, Beowulf and Bede?

I did Maths at University but we were required to study an arts minor. The lecturer gave us an option on part of the course. We could present him with ticket stubbs to 6 Shakespeare performances and turn up for a tutorial on the play the next week. Thinking it was an easy option we took it. Those tutorials were torture, only four or maybe 5 students present at each tutorial, there was no where to hide. But we learned a lot, not least that reading the play was not a bad idea.

 

[Que]

As long as they are able to keep up with the Kardashians, I should think that would suffice, no?

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

They tormented us with the classics, when we were children and teens.
(I am glad that they took the trouble to torment us.)

Instead of struggling with introductions, as a young adult, we were helped along into delving and examining.

 

[eyer]

They tormented us with the classics, when we were children and teens.
(I am glad that they took the trouble to torment us.)

Instead of struggling with introductions, as a young adult, we were helped along into delving and examining.

As an adult who's matured into an intolerant, close-minded, bigoted, socialist Party hack of the nth degree...

...you're not doing the words "delving and examining" any favor.

 

[Miles Long]

While we're at it let's not forget the old Norse eddas!

 

[DesEsseintes]

While we're at it let's not forget the old Norse eddas!

You'd like Course Two English at Oxford, Miles: Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Old Icelandic and Old High German. Enough sagas, lieds and epics for a thousand seasons of GoT.

 

[oggbashan]

They tormented us with the classics, when we were children and teens.
(I am glad that they took the trouble to torment us.)

Instead of struggling with introductions, as a young adult, we were helped along into delving and examining.

My school(s) taught us to understand the classics but accepted that many of the themes and nuances would be beyond us until we were older. They told us to come back to them later in life.

Shakespeare and Chaucer (Moliere, Racine, Plutarch...) mean far more to me now than when I was studying them in depth as a student.

 

[dolf]

It is,strange, to think of all the poems we were instructed to memorize and recite.

They wanted you to hate poetry?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Education today is inane. That is, pointless without aim or direction or intent. Curriculum is the educrat gladiator arena. Or maybe modern education is a cultural regression to the mean....and beyond. Feed all grits and fat-back and outlaw ambrosia. Maya Angelou is the one, Shakespeare is the other. But Shakespeare will endure in spite of our negro homosexuals in charge.

 

[Recidiva]

Shakespeare is a bit of work. Worth it entirely, but you have to learn a lot of language and history to get into him.

I don't mind if it's not taught in schools, because it's out there, it's available, and people can get it for free.

I got so much joy and discovery from reading Shakespeare, performing his works, going to see the RSC perform his works, going to go see Ian McKellan perform "Acting Shakespeare" and I got on stage with him and I got to be a French soldier with a dicey name, he put his hand on my shoulder and I fell down.

Anyway...Shakespeare is alive right now.

You don't have to learn him in school the same way you don't have to have a class teach a child to like ice cream (lactose intolerant people, I'm very sorry)

More people can potentially be exposed to him than ever because you can download his stuff for free and read them.

I'm not worried, Shakespeare will be fine. People come to him not because it's required, but because it's art, good art, the kind that makes you want to go get more.

There is a lot of other stuff to teach, stuff that isn't as well known, that isn't as endemic or saturating our culture.

 

[DesEsseintes]

They wanted you to hate poetry?

It doesn't have to be that way: it can be wonderful fun as well as excellent training. 101 Poems to Remember, by Ted Hughes, is well worth finding: especially his wonderful voice reading the audio version.

Education today is inane. That is, pointless without aim or direction or intent. Curriculum is the educrat gladiator arena. Or maybe modern education is a cultural regression to the mean....and beyond. Feed all grits and fat-back and outlaw ambrosia. Maya Angelou is the one, Shakespeare is the other. But Shakespeare will endure in spite of our negro homosexuals in charge.

I think you might find 'The Lost Tools of Learning', by Dorothy L Sayers, very interesting: about returning to a mediaeval trivium/quadrivium mode of learning. It inspired the US Classical learning movement, among many other things, and it's a short essay available online.

 

[AllyRose]

http://i2.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article4693780.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/ShakeyspierMain.jpg

​

 

[Miles Long]

You'd like Course Two English at Oxford, Miles: Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Old Icelandic and Old High German. Enough sagas, lieds and epics for a thousand seasons of GoT.

I would like that class quite a lot, Des. I would sit there and imagine I was taking the course with Professor Tolkien 80 years ago, no disrespect meant to the current instructor.

One of my favorite classes from university was one I took on Don Quijote, which we read in the original Spanish. I say original Spanish as opposed to just Spanish because it was written in 1605, so it was effectively the equivalent of reading Shakespeare. It was fascinating to see how the language has evolved over just a few hundred years - words going in and out of use, changes in definition and pronunciation, etc. And that's all on top of the fact that the content itself is brilliant.

Going back to Shakespeare, here's a clip from the Globe Theatre about performing the Bard's works in original pronunciation. It shows how certain rhymes and plays on words were different in Shakespeare's time than they are now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s

 

[glynndah]

It doesn't have to be that way: it can be wonderful fun as well as excellent training. 101 Poems to Remember, by Ted Hughes, is well worth finding: especially his wonderful voice reading the audio version.
<snip>

I think we listened to this in Honors English. Wasn't he the husband of Sylvia Plath? I'd google, but I'm sure you know without that process.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

It doesn't have to be that way: it can be wonderful fun as well as excellent training. 101 Poems to Remember, by Ted Hughes, is well worth finding: especially his wonderful voice reading the audio version.

I think you might find 'The Lost Tools of Learning', by Dorothy L Sayers, very interesting: about returning to a mediaeval trivium/quadrivium mode of learning. It inspired the US Classical learning movement, among many other things, and it's a short essay available online.

Raymond Chandler said Sayers was a no talent cunt like Garnate, so I cant read anything she wrote. We real misogynists have a code of honor.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

:heart
No Langston Hughes, until uni. Plenty of scientists and maths geniuses, from all walks of life. But, no minorities were included in the poetry list.

Hmmpphhhh!

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Stupid keyboard.

That Mad Face was not supposed to be there.

I cannot get rid of it.

arrrggghhhh

 

[DesEsseintes]

Raymond Chandler said Sayers was a no talent cunt like Garnate, so I cant read anything she wrote. We real misogynists have a code of honor.

Well, on the off-chance that you ever change your mind, it's here.

And a brief extract:

'When we think about the remarkably early age at which the young men went up to university in, let us say, Tudor times, and thereafter were held fit to assume responsibility for the conduct of their own affairs, are we altogether comfortable about that artificial prolongation of intellectual childhood and adolescence into the years of physical maturity which is so marked in our own day? To postpone the acceptance of responsibility to a late date brings with it a number of psychological complications which, while they may interest the psychiatrist, are scarcely beneficial either to the individual or to society. The stock argument in favor of postponing the school-leaving age and prolonging the period of education generally is there is now so much more to learn than there was in the Middle Ages. This is partly true, but not wholly. The modern boy and girl are certainly taught more subjects--but does that always mean that they actually know more?

'Has it ever struck you as odd, or unfortunate, that today, when the proportion of literacy throughout Western Europe is higher than it has ever been, people should have become susceptible to the influence of advertisement and mass propaganda to an extent hitherto unheard of and unimagined? Do you put this down to the mere mechanical fact that the press and the radio and so on have made propaganda much easier to distribute over a wide area? Or do you sometimes have an uneasy suspicion that the product of modern educational methods is less good than he or she might be at disentangling fact from opinion and the proven from the plausible?

Have you ever, in listening to a debate among adult and presumably responsible people, been fretted by the extraordinary inability of the average debater to speak to the question, or to meet and refute the arguments of speakers on the other side? Or have you ever pondered upon the extremely high incidence of irrelevant matter which crops up at committee meetings, and upon the very great rarity of persons capable of acting as chairmen of committees? And when you think of this, and think that most of our public affairs are settled by debates and committees, have you ever felt a certain sinking of the heart?'

 

[DesEsseintes]

I think we listened to this in Honors English. Wasn't he the husband of Sylvia Plath? I'd google, but I'm sure you know without that process.

He was indeed, and wrote a wonderful series of poems to her and about her, called 'The Birthday Letters', which were published to great acclaim shortly before she died. Well worth dipping into. And he did have a wonderful voice.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

They wanted you to hate poetry?

dolf, sweet darling, you prompted my memory to float something up from the depths. The Roman numeral clock in our Latin class room, and how sore my hands were, from practicing my cursive.

They treated us like miniature adults, that were self sufficient and capable, for a long while. They stuffed our minds, until near overflowing. Luckily, children's brains are elastic, absorbent, and adaptable. Later on, they started treating us as if we were backwards infants, that needed baby steps to lead us to any gains.

I did not know the word, at the time, but what I felt was disconcerted. Some new, nation wide program was put into place, I suppose. Thank goodness, that practice of dumbing down was stopped. But, sadly, we never went back to the olden way. Many things seemed to be geared toward prepping us for Tommorowland.

Tomorrowland is here. Someone is wearing an Apple watch, and the cars park themselves. A drone will deliver your heart's desires. Someone is being killed by remote control. A computer will assist your surgeon's hands with a robotic remote scalpel. A robotic android will greet you and initiate a conversation. Robots are constructing large scale materials in humongous immaculate installations.
A miraculous plan came to fruition, and a computer is roaming around on Mars.
Someday, we may have a glimpse of the edge of the end of all existence, in space.


400 years after his death, Shakespeare’s sonnets live on in your smartphone

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/400-years-death-shakespeares-sonnets-live-smartphone/

"Each video is uploaded to a mobile app, which then notifies users that a new video is available. Ross Williams, Founder and Artistic Director of the New York Shakespeare Exchange, says he hopes to reach 1 million viewers across the globe this way."

 

[glynndah]

:heart
No Langston Hughes, until uni. Plenty of scientists and maths geniuses, from all walks of life. But, no minorities were included in the poetry list.

Hmmpphhhh!

We studied all sorts of minority poets in high school, from the Harlem Renaissance to Nikki Giovanni. Gwendolyn Brooks spoke to my Creative Writing class and gave me an award for poetry, too.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

*sigh* I am guessing that the admin was trying to avoid fireworks.
There were some fiery patches, during the birthpangs of the awakening.