Taylor the Teacher

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I seemed, in my Power to the People post, to be bashing Shakespeare, so I need to explain further:

Shakespeare does, in fact, bring it. He’s one guy THEY tell you to read whose reputation is deserved, unlike PeeBee Shelley, among others. ~anthony burgess is another guy whose language makes me happy. sometimes i read passages of clockwork orange out loud, just to hear the music.~ My objection is to much of literary criticism. Some people have fallen so in love with Shakespeare that they feel they must make a living writing arcane articles about him even if they find themselves lacking anything original or interesting to say. I think Shakespeare would put a plague on these critics’ houses.

They also, incidentally, find themselves without balls enough to find contemporary writers who are writing with liveliness and analyze those writers because these contemporary writers, hip-hop artists for example, are not approved by THEM. ~these are the same blowhards that can only talk about someone if they’re dead, white, and too difficult for average modern readers to grasp, or to care about, it’s an elitist thing. if they didn’t learn it in college, it’s just no good. i’m all for reading the dead white guys — no prejudice here, but thinking they’re the only ones that write something worth studying is just incorrect, an untruth.~

This is how I discovered Shakespeare at the age of 30:

As I’ve said before, I was an English major with a concentration in Writing and Culture. I studied things even most English-types find boring like linguistics, the history of English, writing instruction, and cultural studies ~during one class we listened to & discussed a Puff Daddy song. Go Dr. Abraham!~ I deliberately avoided taking a Shakespeare class for reasons related to my late-developing, but persistent Oppositional Defiant Disorder. I didn’t want to read Shakespeare for the same reason I still have not read Tom Sawyer or seen Titanic. Too many people told me to do it.

So when I started my first student teaching semester and had to teach Romeo and Juliet, I wasn’t looking forward to it. But I was dedicated (to teaching, not to Shakespeare) and took a weekend to plow through the play for the first time since high school, following along with a couple of different film versions ~less than impressed, as well, with those who disparage the Baz Luhrmann/Leo DeCaprio version of the film. love it. couldn’t live without it. have several copies because people keep giving it to me as gifts.~

I made extensive notes. But more importantly, I fell in love.

So, if you’re a high schooler trying to avoid reading Shakespeare because your teacher is telling you to do it, hear this: They’re right about him. But contrary to what your goofy-assed English teacher says as she swoons over some lines you barely understand, you don’t have to like him right now. The important thing is to NOT LET THE ENGLISH TEACHER KILL IT FOR YOU.

I compare it to the Metallica Black album phenomenon. You know how when someone says that the only Metallica album they like is the Black album, people who consider themselves the real Metallica fans get a look on their faces like someone farted? ~speaking of, i’m getting out my iPod now so I can hear wherever i may roam.~

People who define themselves by their tastes, and consider themselves TRUE BELIEVERS in anything cannot stand when someone picks what they, in their considered, esteemed opinion, believe is less than the best. Those people are fascists.

It’s another case of “if you love something set it free.” We English teachers have, by and large, been unable to set you free to discover, freely, what is such an undeniable truth: Shakespeare kicks ass. We’ve also not trusted in Shakespeare to speak for himself.

If Shakespeare doesn’t last another 400 years, it will be because institutional schooling killed him. But if that happens, it will be a damn shame because if you really knew what Shakespeare had to say, you’d probably love him, too.

But if you don’t — it’s okay. Your life is not doomed. You are free.