Without hesitation, I declare that no person had a bigger positive influence on the English language than William Shakespeare, whose birthday was believed to have been April 23, coincidentally, also the date of his death.<\/p>\n
But this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to be a pep talk on Shakespeare; rather, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lament.<\/p>\n
Let me explain:<\/p>\n
Daniel Burnett, secretary of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a nonprofit dedicated to academic excellence, recently wrote that Shakespeare studies are virtually non-existent today.<\/p>\n
The headline to Burnett\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s opinion piece that appeared in the Albuquerque Journal read \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Shakespeare\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s birthday. Who knew?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And to that we might add, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Who cares?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
As evidence, Burnett cited numerous stellar universities that don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t require courses in Shakespeare \u00e2\u20ac\u201d even for English majors. Among the bastions of higher learning that have jettisoned the Bard are Yale, NYU, Penn State, Ohio State and the University of Texas.<\/p>\n
Our own Highlands, thankfully, continues to offer Shakespeare, and it remains part of the dwindling number of schools to do so.<\/p>\n
As further evidence, if you Google Shakespeare, you will probably get 40 million \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hits.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Impressive for works have been around for half a century . . . until you discover that typing in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Justin Bieber\u00e2\u20ac\u009d gives you 400 million hits, 10 times more than the Bard of Avon.<\/p>\n
But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just that I wish to write a paean for my Idol, the subject of two of my master\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s theses in graduate schools. General literacy, many fear, is dwindling.
\nConsider:<\/p>\n
Making the study of Shakespeare such a rarity in leading colleges and universities indicates the unfortunate \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dumbing down\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of the curriculum, especially at the higher education level.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, the study of a couple of Shakespeare plays \u00e2\u20ac\u201d usually Julius Caesar and Macbeth \u00e2\u20ac\u201d made its way into high school curricula. Those requirements may be the most concentrated exposure to the rich canon that many people experience. But, if public schools haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t already worked to reduce the Shakespeare requirements, look for a compromise in which either Macbeth or Julius Caesar gets tossed.<\/p>\n
I was turned on to Shakespeare as a high school senior, in a class taught by Margaret Kennedy, an English professor after whom Highlands\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Kennedy Hall received its name.<\/p>\n
At the risk of seeming like a pedant, let me refer to the times in class when we read the play aloud and became addicted, assigning Lady Macbeth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s role to Delia; having Charlie play the part of Banquo; Mary Lu would be one of the Evil Sisters; Martin was Duncan; Wilfred would be Macbeth; I played MacDuff.<\/p>\n
We discovered that when the play was read aloud, it became much clearer to us; it aroused our interest, and the play became much more lucid than the arcane language we had expected. Partially because she was well qualified, Margaret Kennedy brought the Bard to life.<\/p>\n
And when I taught senior English in high school, I sensed an appreciation among the students for literature that wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily \u00e2\u20ac\u0153modern,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153relevant\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153American.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
To a person like me, it borders on heresy to posit that reading Shakespeare is worthless, a waste of time.<\/p>\n
Burnett\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s column argues that students ought to leave college with a body of knowledge, which includes literature. He believes too many students exit college with only a receipt for the tens of thousands of dollars it cost to get through.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s obscene and disgraceful to allow lackluster expectations among our students.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u201a\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u201a\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Do you still believe Shakespeare wrote in a obsolete language? A couple of dozen words that appear in this column were coined by the Bard. Feel free to track them down.<\/p>\n
Some words we use every day, which did not appear in this column, include dawn, deafening, epileptic, eyeball, generous, hobnob, moonbeam, fashionable, critic, bet, assassination, bandit, drugged, secure, jaded, cold-blooded, fixture, gossip, mimic, torture, undress, unreal, zany and grovel.<\/p>\n
And some common expressions and quotations include \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Foregone conclusion,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to thine own self be true,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Greek to me,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in one fell swoop,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153foul play,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dead as a doornail\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Cowards die many times before their deaths.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Without hesitation, I declare that no person had a bigger positive influence on the English language than William Shakespeare, whose birthday was believed to have been April 23, coincidentally, also the date of his death. But this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to be a pep talk on Shakespeare; rather, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lament. Let me explain: Daniel Burnett, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1213"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1216,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions\/1216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}