Do you quote the Bard of Avon? No? Are you sure?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Article.

 

Seems many words and phrases were invented and came into the language in Shakespeare's works.

 

Is the Bard included in the high-school curriculum in your area?

 

Far as I know, it still is in most Ontario schools.  It would be a shame to shuffle off this mortal coil without a touch of Elizabethan class.

[AkemiAzula 280]

I read a few of his works. Dull i found them to be. Then again i be of the age of television. Words have somewhat shed their edge methinks.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Methinks?  How Elizabethan of you!

 

I think the greatest shame with respect to the works of the Bard is they get crammed down unwilling throats in school before the minds are ready for it.  I never really enjoyed Shakespeare until I was over thirty.  Then I went and saw a few of the plays.  That's when the whole thing started to make sense.  I appreciate them more and more but now my life has fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf.

[AkemiAzula 280]

Possibly if we saw enactments rather than read the script at school wed appreciate it more.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Almost all of the plays of Shakespeare are now available in video of some form or other, from film to DVD.  There is actually no excuse for a teacher not to have and use some of this material.

 

I have seen classical performances such as Olivier's Hamlet, but I have also seen the same play done it modern dress.  Twelfth Night is really hilarious if done in the formal dress of the 1920s as I have seen it.  Recently I watched a broadcast of a slightly updated Richard III where the update was to between the world wars military perspective.  (Not quite 'a tank, a tank, my kingdom for a tank, but pretty near).

 

You can also get Kenneth Branaugh's interpretation of the Scottish Play.  Very gory, but worth seeing.

 

And, by the way, the Scottish Play has the introduction of the knock-knock joke at the beginning of Act II.  The Bard has really affected our culture.

 

With exception of the historical plays that recount the accession of the Tudor line, most of Shakespeare's plays are allegories:

 

Hamlet :- The guy who couldn't make up his mind to act.

The Scottish Play :- Don't ask for things, you might get them.

Titus Andronicus :- The gratitude of rulers.

Twelfth Night :- Gossip will get you.

 

and so on.