Why should the works of Shakespeare be taught in schools?

It's the closest literature has come to expressing the pure essence of something. Visceral, organic language that one feels as much as hears. One of the few who genuinely connects with and expresses the deep currents that push and shape human lives. A man for all men, a language for all time.

>Twice I had kind of dumb teachers who insisted that "Shakespeare should be watched, not read!"

except this is true.

It's not.

>actual books instead of plays.

Plays are not books?

No they don't lel. High schoolers don't give the smallest shit about literature.

It is

>I didn't understand what iambic pentameter was until I looked it up in college
Same. To hell with public education, honestly.

ill accept this if you name me the last time you read the screenplay for an entire season of a TV show instead of actually watching it.

What YA novels have the depth that Shakespeare has? Not to say that all kids who study it understand it, but some can definitely get a lot out of it.

It's true, but the reasoning behind that choice was really more "I want to show a movie in class", and you can feel that as a student. High schoolers are not going to get that much out of watching a movie, just based on how school structure works. Movie periods are when people do other homework, text, etc.

>Once we read Julius Caesar aloud as a class, but the teacher didn't control things very well and I just remember a lot of fake Italian accents and overly stressed homoerotic undertones between Brutus and Cassius.
That sounds like a great reading and a fun lesson. Kids should be able to engage with the text in any way they like as long as it makes them pay attention to the bloody thing. Hell, Shakespeare's plays were full of jokes and innuendo, and would have been performed as pretty broad comedy at times
>Twice I had kind of dumb teachers who insisted that "Shakespeare should be watched, not read!" so we watched the Mel Gibson Hamlet.
They were right, but they showed you the wrong Hamlet, should've watched the Branagh version

that makes sense. Perhaps if teachers made kids perform the play it would be better. It definitely worked in the ninth grade for me. That teacher was my favourite english teacher of all time.

People actually got really into it, but it was a gifted class and everyone was autistismo af so maybe that explains it.

>Perhaps if teachers made kids perform the play it would be better.
This is true of any play imo. Not even 'performing' it necessarily, but just sitting down, reading the lines in something approaching that character's voice/accent, can be fun.

the Branagh one is so amazing. My contriarain self was complaining we didnt watch the Olivier version when I was in senior year but as we watched it I got so into it.

The way he sets up the To Be soliloquy is such an interesting interpretation

What an idiotic analogy, as if the length proves anything.

Shakespeare's plays are also poems. They are supposed to be watched as plays, and read as poems. These are too very different experiences and approaches to the text of Shakespeare, but equally valid, they even complement each other.

Yeh, I still think it's the best Hamlet ever put to film. It's not possible to appreciate on its own, without some study beforehand. But still, a masterclass

le human condition!

Poems don't have dialogue dumb dumb

Same here.

Whit? They are 100% intended to be performed and watched, first and foremost. Plays were mass entertainment, practically disposable. Sales of the texts were a side business

That sounds awesome

it's not about the length you mong. It's about the fact that they're written with characters and in folios and intentionally undescriptive verse so as to give actors the ability to add interpretation when its performed, like you know...a screenplay.

>there is only one kind of poem

Yes, that's what I said. They are supposed to be performed and watched as plays, and they are also supposed to be read as poems (dramatic poems if you want). My point is that both approaches to the text complement each other, and to say that they should be watched instead of read limits the possibilities of the readers and the text itself.

>practically disposable

That's why they printed quartos and folios, right? Playwrights didn't think their own plays as disposable, in any case.

Your core of your argument is about length, otherwise you wouldn't mention a sceenplay "for an entire season of a TV show".

>Shakespeare's verse
>intentionally undescriptive

I agree that the actor is supposed to interpret it for its performance, but Shakespeare is very clear in his text about what he wanted an actor to do in a scene regarding action, or about props. Of course, sometimes they are open to interpretation because of their ambiguity (like in King Lear), but other times they are not (like in Antony and Caesar's first encounter in Antony and Cleopatra).

In any case, read my previous post and this one for my argument, which you easily dismissed.

How do i get the most out of Shakespeare?

I don't disagree that reading helps. I think to study them, you should obviously do both, but when you analyse why Shakespeare made a choice about using a certain word or direction, you should understand that the performance came first. First and foremost, they were intended to be performed.

Again, I agree, but to say something like "It should be watched, not read" is stupid and limiting. If that were the absolute truth, why would Shakespeare's friends have printed the First Folio?

Yes, yes, Shakespeare was very aware of the conditions of his tools. He wrote plays for the stage. But when dealing with plays you always deal with two text: the dramatic text and the performance text. The one you read and the one you watch. Both complement each other, and it isn't advisable to take one over the other in order to fully understand a play.

>a choice about using a certain word or direction

Now you are getting us into a bigger problem. You could argue that most directions found in his plays are choices made by editors, and not by Shakespeare himself. In any case, directions were not set in stone, and they changed depending on the performance and how the public received it or the actors felt suited it better. Today's performances are the same, it depends on what the director and the actors want from the text, and on the edition they are using. Of course not all directions are like that, but I'm speaking in general terms, since we lack any text of a play written by Shakespeare himself.

Not that dude Im actually this guy (check em) but I guess I can sort of agree with you.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I much prefer watching the plays than reading them. there's a certain quality a kind of dimension that's missing from just reading it.

To study shakespeare fully you have to do both but in my opinion if you can only do one you ought to watch them.

Georege Herbert - Dialogue

Man. SWEETEST Saviour, if my soul
Were but worth the having,
Quickly should I then control
Any thought of waving.
But when all my care and pains
Cannot give the name of gains
To Thy wretch so full of stains,
What delight or hope remains?

Saviour. What, child, is the balance thine,
Thine the poise and measure?
If I say, 'Thou shalt be Mine,'
Finger not My treasure.
What the gains in having thee
Do amount to, only He
Who for man was sold can see;
That transferr'd th' accounts to Me.

Man. But as I can see no merit
Leading to this favour,
So the way to fit me for it
Is beyond my savour.
As the reason, then, is Thine,
So the way is none of mine;
I disclaim the whole design;
Sin disclaims and I resign.

Saviour. That is all: if that I could
Get without repining;
And My clay, My creature, would
Follow My resigning;
That as I did freely part
With My glory and desert,
Left all joys to feel all smart----

Man. Ah, no more! Thou break'st my heart!

I actually would rather read them instead of watching them if I had to do only one, but that's just personal preference. Just as there's something you miss if you just read it, there is something you miss if you just watch them.

We are both entitled to our opinions in the end.

Knowledge of Shakespeare is enriching to life in the culture we (Anglos) live in, and that is enough to justify its instruction imho

W/r/t how best to teach it in high school? I can't say, depends on the outcomes you're looking for I guess.

fair enough.

Because of human bouncinessologies newly ventures into the studies of peniletelekinesis, that's why #aemeliainjurcurriculia

Well, what else are we to teach? The only reason why things like science and politics should be pursued is to have more time to devote to things like reading Shakespeare, rather than plowing a field or catching malaria. If we're not to teach and read Shakespeare, we're not to teach anything at all and should just live like beasts, or better yet not live at all.