Shakespeare: Skepticism About Movie and TV Versions

[Extollager]

Home schooling and kindred approaches took off in the US in the 1970s. Many families involved were "counter-culture" folks. I have an issue of Time or Newsweek about a Californian effort that, as I recall, called itself "the Shire" and was a collective kind of thing. Basically, much homeschooling reflects the sense that the government schools are places where children's innate abilities are squandered and where they are subjected to a lot of regimentation, etc., for little benefit. More and more parents are aware of the profile of elementary (especially) teachers:

http://city-journal.org/2015/bc0423mg.html

They don't think it is a good idea for them to enroll their children, with the idea that we call need to support public education, it will get better if we spend even more money, etc etc. Kids grow up too fast to make waiting till the schools are good an attractive idea. Language acquisition, for example, seems to go best in early years -- so one wants to have them in a language-rich environment.

The item I pointed out has to do, so far, mostly with higher education swindles. It really does seem to me a swindle to take undergrads who have probably (given they mostly come from the government schools) read few works of lasting literature, and, instead of immersing them in such writing, to indoctrinate them in political ideology. That ideology happens to be left-wing, at the moment. Likewise it would be wearisome to the spirit if you were a literature major and the prof were always going on about free markets and "creative destruction" in business.

Even Gerald Graff, past president of the very PC Modern Language Association, has asked, "What right do we [academics] have to be the self-appointed political conscience of our students? Given the inequality in power and experience between students and teachers (even teachers from disempowered groups) students are often justifiably afraid to challenge our political views even if we beg them to do so. . . . Making it the main object of teaching to open “students’ minds to left, feminist, anti-racist, and queer ideas” and “stimulate” them (nice euphemism that) “to work for egalitarian change” has been the fatal mistake of the liberatory pedagogy movement from Freire in the 1960s to today."

I think too many academics are people for whom, in a sense, literature has never really happened. They are shackled with Blake's "mind-forg'd manacles," and have forgotten, or never knew, the literary imagination in its own right rather than instrumentally, as something to be pressed into service in the "struggle" for "change." No wonder the English major has plummeted in attractiveness!

https://theamericanscholar.org/the-decline-of-the-english-department/#.VT7EKO4o6P8

(My source is The American Scholar, "the venerable but lively quarterly magazine of public affairs, literature, science, history, and culture published by the Phi Beta Kappa Society since 1932" -- not a rightwing blog, in case you wondered.)

 

[Connavar]

Interesting:

----The council noted that Shakespeare’s demise as a subject of specialist study mirrored an increase in courses with emphasis on race, class, gender, and sexuality such as “Literature, Food, and the American Racial Diet” at Princeton University. ....
“Many of these institutions brand themselves as places that provide a true liberal arts education, but this study shows that is too often a claim full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.
“Rather than studying major literary works in depth, students are taught the rationale for and applications of critical approaches that are heavily influenced by theories of race, class, gender, and sexuality.”----

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/...-reading-for-most-literature-grads-in-US.html

That says to me something is wrong with that US thinking thankfully over here classes from grade school to University lit classes they take it seriously studiying the literary works in depth and more than seeing only from theories of race, class in everything. You can study those issues with modern writers or 1800s literature from gender issues,class angle but not every literature must be analyzed like that. You choose literary theories based on the writer you are studiying and not adapt the writers to every new modern literary theories.

You read Ibrahim Said, other post-colony theory writers, analyze Joseph Conrad from that POV you dont go back to earlier classic lit for that.

 

[Extollager]

That says to me something is wrong with that US thinking thankfully over here classes from grade school to University lit classes they take it seriously studiying the literary works in depth and more than seeing only from theories of race, class in everything.

There may be a revolt eventually, if there are enough young people experiencing the joy of literature now to rebel against the careerist-proselytizer profs who dominate English.

 

[MWagner]

There may be a revolt eventually, if there are enough young people experiencing the joy of literature now to rebel against the careerist-proselytizer profs who dominate English.

I think any revolt is likely to come in the form of avoiding university literature programs altogether, rather than overthrowing and reforming them. The traditional university model is facing genuine threats in online and alternative post-secondary education models. The most adventurous and self-motivated students will be drawn to those alternatives, which lie outside the orbit of petty ideological academia, leaving traditional universities as degree mills for job seekers who don't rate literary insight highly among the credentials they're seeking.

 

[MWagner]

Count me with those who find Shakespeare masterly enough to be compelling both for the poetry of his verse and for the power of his characterizations. His mastery of both comedic and tragic drama transcends the language, and has been employed to tremendous effect in film even when the verse is substantially revised to the needs of the medium (or translated into another language altogether). Some of my favourite film adaptations include the aforementioned Throne of Blood, Ran, Polanski's Macbeth, and McKellen's Richard III.

My personal epiphany with Shakespeare came at a production of Julius Caesar at Stratford when I was 12. The production was first-rate, and immersed me in the drama in a way that a more austere production might not have. Appreciation for Shakespeare's stories came first, a love of the language came later.

 

[hitmouse]

My 13 year old son just got the part of Demetrius in his school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (actually a Welsh language version, Breuddwyd Nos Wyl Ifan) Very great competition for parts. He has been devouring the old TV adaptations, and the Mickey Rooney film, which are on Youtube. Three observations:
1. TV/Movie has provided a good background source in this instance. Reading the script will come later.
2. Absolutely no shortage of enthusiasm for Shakespeare here.
3. Being part of a Shakespeare production is important to those kids. I suspect the particular play has little bearing at this stage. I don't think it particularly matters.

 

[2DaveWixon]

Just as an amusing aside (I hope!): this morning's news crawl on MSNBC, telling about the casualities resulting from a suicide bombing in Pakistan, ascribed the bombing to "the Caliban."

It did not seem to raise any tempest among watchers...