I couldn’t help noting this article on the teaching of Shakespeare in schools on the BBC website today. Janet Suzman makes some very sensible points about Shakespeare, that his work is often best experienced through acting and participating rather than simply reading. Of course, Tony Thorne’s argument that many children will be unable to understand much of the language and cultural allusion is valid, but the references to Ovid would have been missed by most of his contemporary audience as well.
Shakespeare was an actor, a writer and a businessman and his work incorporates aspects of all three elements. While close attention to the use of language will always be a large part of teaching Shakespeare, it is important that we recognise that his plays were produced within a particular theatrical environment, and that they were designed to be performed as well as read.
While I’d probably disagree with Suzman’s claim that ‘You can’t be thoughtful and analytical – kids love extremes, they love danger and blood and cruelty and ghastliness. They love great romances and feelings they can’t express themselves,’ on the grounds that children can be as drawn in by the thoughtful elements of Shakespeare as much as by the extreme, there is certainly a good case for bringing out the passion of his work.
Of course, English drama has a rich heritage- the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries alone can offer Marlowe, Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger and Middleton- so it need not even be Shakespeare that is taught.
