Oh, well, Merry Christmas to me!
IO9 has put up one of the most comprehensive lists of Shakespeare in science fiction and fantasy that I’ve yet seen.
35 different entries, depending on how you count : 11 books, 12 movies, 9 tv shows/series, and 3 comics.
I’ve only heard about 21 of them (which gives me lots of new books to read after Christmas!), and personally experienced about 10 of them.
Some of the choices are cheating – like putting Gnomeo and Juliet and Henry 5, two movies that aren’t even out yet, onto a list of “coolest Shakespeare riffs”. Or more than a handful of one-off appearances in 1970’s tv shows (including Fantasy Island and I Dream Of Jeannie. What, no Love Boat?) Like most of these lists it really ends up being “as many as we could think of”, and then they just tack on some adjective to make it interesting in the title.
DISCLAIMER : If you’re not up on your geek news, note that IO9 is part of Gawker Media, who recently lost their entire password database to hackers. This is important information to consider before registering to post comments. The existing problem is fixed (they say), but what exactly does that mean, given how easily it was hacked in the first place? I think, reluctantly, I consider Gawker sites to be “read only” now.

As we’ve just confirmed, Romeo and Juliet remains most students’ introduction to Shakespeare (at least in the US, assuming approximately a 9th grade / 14yr old introduction). The problem, as many have also pointed out, is that Romeo and Juliet has got a crazy amount of sex references in it, and typically a high school teacher (again, at least in the US) is severely constrained in exactly how far he or she can go in explaining these things. Lastly there’s also the question of whether Romeo and Juliet is the best example of Shakespeare’s work to start with. Maybe being a teenager has changed since I was a teenager, but the thought of re-enacting the balcony scene with some random girl from class was always to be met with “Oh god no not that I hate that don’t make me do that” feelings.

So then, here’s the question : Should it be changed? Assume the following : You must introduce Shakespeare to United States school children in a way that could be accepted as national curriculum (i.e, we can’t talk about special case “let them pick their own” situations, we need to actually pick one). When do you introduce it (roughly what age), and what play do you start with? Why? Do you teach it as history, as literature, or as drama? I fully expect “a combination of all three” answers, so let me rephrase that – assuming that Drama, Literature and History are different departments taught by different teachers, who will be teaching Shakespeare? To set a baseline let us also assume that the students would be required to read the play, have some degree of homework associated with the play, and be able to pass some form of test demonstrating their knowledge of the play. This is primarily to rule out the “I took my kids to see The Tempest when they were 3 years old!” argument. I will not try to argue that my kids “know Shakespeare” until they have experienced it to at least this level.

Keep in mind the realities of the situation – there will most likely be a bell-curve of students, some of whom excel, some of whom just can’t seem to get it, and a whole bunch in the middle who may or may not care at all. Any play that has any level of performance involved should take into consideration roles for both boys and girls (or at least, have a plan for how to deal with this).

If you want to defend Romeo and Juliet as still the best choice, feel free.

Who was Giulio Romano, and why does he merit a mention in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (“a piece many years in doing and now newly performed by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano”)?
Apparently Romano’s work known as the I Modi (“the positions”) depicts a series of 16 explicit sexual positions. The work was handed around, soon becoming a wood cut and going on to be a best seller in Europe where the likes of Ben Jonson apparently got a look at it. Did Jonson perhaps invite his friend Shakespeare over to have a look at his dirty book?

A comment from Ed made me realize that I don’t have a good picture of where everybody is. So, I’m asking. Where are you?

Me? I’m in Massachusetts, north of Boston. So I do get to see the occasional local show, but even though there’s all kinds of Shakespeare going on in and around Boston I do not often get in to see it.

I want to thank everybody for participating in the “What Shakespeare Did You Read In High School?” thread, I got a great deal of detailed responses. Because of the informal nature of the question and the variety of the answers (does “performed it” count as read it? does “read selections from” count? What about home schooling?) I can’t really make statistical judgement on the results. But here’s some interesting bullet points:

• Romeo and Juliet is still a favorite, with the large majority of responders saying that they either read or teach it, normally as the first play (i.e. 9th grade, or even earlier)
• Second place, somewhat surprisingly, appears to go to Macbeth. I don’t really know why that is, but Macbeth gets nearly as much recognition as Romeo and Juliet.
• Hamlet and Julius Caesar split the difference for the next two great tragedies, with Othello pulling up in the #5 spot.
• There was some love for Lear, Titus and Antony & Cleopatra, but those don’t even registered compared to the “Big Five”.
• Many people said that senior was split between several plays. I’m not really sure how you devote an entire year to R&J but only half a year to Hamlet, but I suppose we’ll chalk it up to most of that freshman time being spent learning about Shakespeare as a topic in general.
• Among the comedies, Midsummer wins handily (though still read/taught only about 1/3rd as frequently as the great tragedies).
• Behind Midsummer comes, in order, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and Shrew.
• Props to the one school that’s apparently still teaching Merchant of Venice as required reading!

Discuss. I think that Julius Caesar is so popular because of the tie-ins to the student of ancient Roman history, also going on at roughly that grade level. Hamlet seems obvious to me as an example of just how great Shakespeare can be (I think that teaching Lear to teenagers is a bit of a disservice, actually, as they haven’t got nearly the life experience to understand it. Familiarize them with it, sure, but I wouldn’t expect most (note, I say most, not all) of them to actually “get” it). I truly don’t get the Macbeth thing, though. It’s got a history tie-in, sure, but I don’t recall that being the major point of discussion. I would have thought that Othello would come next.