Discussion time.  When, in your opinion, should Shakespeare be introduced?  I’m looking for a specific age/grade level.  Along with that, what are your *expectations* of understanding Shakespeare at that age?

Last week the topic came up over that whole darned Cliff Notes thing (yet again) and whether you’re assisting students in their introduction to the material (and thus a good thing), or dumbing it down because you acknowledge that they’ll never understand the real thing (which I don’t think anybody is for 🙂 ).

Long time readers know my answer.  My kids have heard *about* Shakespeare and his stories since they were born. And I  mean that almost literally.  My youngest saw his first production of The Tempest while still in his stroller – we were telling that story long before that. The archives for this blog are loaded with stories of me coming home from work and overhearing my daughter playing games with her Barbies which that day were named Ariel, Miranda and Sycorax.  Over the years my older kids have taken to reading the “for kids” versions of the plays on their own, and I’m not shy about showing them quotes and explaining their meaning.

As for my expectation, well, that’s sort of my motivation for the question. I’m ok with my 5yr old knowing plot and character. He asked for King Lear, for pete’s sake.  *Asked* for it.  So when you show me a 17yr old that has to read Romeo and Juliet and goes running for whatever crutches he can find because he’s already convinced it’s too hard and he’s never going to understand it, I get frustrated.  Had we just brought them up on these stories from a very young age, this wouldn’t happen as often as it does.

There are other problems with expectation when it comes to Shakespeare. Last night a Twitter follower asked me for help with her Hamlet homework.  Her essay question?  

“One critic said, ‘Hamlet himself seems stranded between two worlds, unable to emulate the heroic values of his father, unable to engage with the modern world of diplomacy.’ To what extent does this statement explain why Hamlet is a tragic character?”

Are you kidding me??  What high school student, forced to stay awake long enough to even *read* that question let alone *answer* it, will go through life thinking “Wow, I really got into Hamlet, that was an awesome play.”  These are students who have just been introduced to it, and are at the same time trying to get their heads around that same story and character that, had they lived in my house, they would have learned 10+ years ago. And you’re asking questions like that?! Are you crazy?!

I suppose it has value, but there are times when I simply *loathe* literary analysis of the plays.  I try to go back to what Shakespeare was trying to say, versus what 400 years of critical analysis has read into it, and wonder what we should test kids on.  Tell me what you thought of the play. Tell me how you sympathized with the characters, or did not.  Where did you rage?  Where did you laugh out loud? Why? Which passages do you remember because they resonated with you in just the right way?  How do AC Bradley and TS Eliot change what Hamlet means to you?

Ok, rant over.  Been busy at the day job so I haven’t been posting as often as I should, and wanted to see if I could get some conversation going.

While cruising through Yahoo! Answers today I saw that somebody had asked about the theme of destiny in Romeo and Juliet.  Then something hit me.  It’s easy to point to the “star-crossed lovers” right in the prologue, and later Romeo, who is Fortune’s fool, defies to stars, etc etc etc.

But here’s the thing, I’ve also always thought of the play as a lesson to the parents about not being so stubborn in your ancient grudges and your own problems that you don’t realize what you’re about to lose. 

At the end of the play, the prince gives his great “All are punished” speech and the two families shake hands and build statues.  I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely left with a feeling of, “See how stupid you’ve been? If only you’d changed your ways and seen what was happening, this all could have been prevented.”

And there’s the problem.  Which is it?  Is Shakespeare giving us a story where we’re supposed to come away thinking that this tragedy could have been prevented?  Or that it was Fate, and that these kids were going to end up dead no matter what happened?

I’d never really thought of this before, but has anybody ever done an ending to this play where the Prince still gets to give his speech, but rather than the statue building stuff, the two families turn their backs on each other and the grudge continues?  I think that would be genius.  Depressing, but genius.  Then you’ve got the more helpless feeling that no, these kids never had a chance, the feud is never going to end even in the face of such overwhelming tragedy.

This question came up again this morning – why doesn’t Shakespeare ever write an actual wedding ceremony into any of the plays?

The simple answer (historians, fill in the details for me) is that he wasn’t allowed. Marriage was a holy sacrament, a big deal, and having actors depict one would have been considered sacrilege.  The Master of Revels wouldn’t let it happen.  Although, what the punishment would have been I don’t know – would it just get edited out, or would even attempting it have been a swift trip to the Tower?

Anyway, this post is not about that. I started to list in my head all the different ways that Shakespeare gives us “everything but” the actual ceremony.  I’m sure I’ll miss a few, but we have:

• The “eye witness testimony” in Taming of the Shrew where we get to hear, but not see, how Petruchio ruins his own wedding (made very confusing by the fact that most movie versions just go ahead and turn this first-hand account into an actual wedding scene).
• The “wedding that doesn’t happen”, in Much Ado About Nothing.  “Do you, Claudio…” “You’re a whore!”  “Eeeek! *faint*” *chaos* …
• The “rehearsal dinner” scene (well, that’s what we’d call it, but for Shakespeare we’ll call it the “scene before the wedding”) also from Much Ado, which ends literally with a bunch of people saying “We’re going to get married, but first, let’s dance!”
• The Reception.  Midsummer Night’s Dream, of course – a wedding reception scene so hysterical that while I was researching my book I actually found a bride who was trying to get her bridal party to act it out.
• The “does it still count if the marriage is performed by a non-human entity?” dodge.  Well how would you describe As You Like It, where the goddess Hymen comes down to bestow her blessings on the new couples?
• The “blink and you’ll miss it, oh look we’re married now” wedding.  I don’t think that Romeo and Juliet is the only example of this, but it’s the most obvious.  High school students for generations try to figure out where in the play that Romeo and Juliet get married, because for the life of them they can’t find that scene.  That’s because it happens between scenes, kids.  One scene, not married.  Next scene?  Married.

What am I missing?

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