Week 9: That shalt be king hereafter

Let me tell you an anecdote about this one time when I was in grade 11 English.

We were reading Macbeth, which as it turns out is one of my favourite Shakespeare plays. We had reached the point in our in-class reading where Duncan has been killed and the Porter provides everyone with some well-deserved comic relief. A lot of the jokes he makes are way above the average person's head these days; the words alone really aren't that funny. But there's a lot of sexual innuendo mixed in. It's obvious if you know the play, but to sixteen-year-olds, the whole thing can be pretty murky.

The edition of the play that we used was the Folger Shakespeare, a book that ought to have been better quality than it was, though we were also at the mercy of a public school budget. The layout on the inside provided the text of the play on the right-hand page and notes on the left. As my teacher brought to our attention that day, the notes for the Porter's speech completely neglected to mention the sex jokes. 

Perhaps this is the origin of my fury when it comes to censorship. I was really annoyed that an editor somewhere didn't think that high-school-aged students can't handle a little bawdy humour. I mean, how do you annotate Romeo and Juliet if your mandate is to not talk about sex? 

Thinking about this moment in my educational history got me wondering about the different versions of Shakespeare plays that are used in schools, and those that might be used in the future of teaching Shakespeare. 

I would like to structure my paper by choosing a popular and often-studied play (as I write this, Romeo and Juliet sounds more and more appealing) and studying some already-existing versions of the text. I especially want to discuss No Fear Shakespeare, which offers a the original text and a contemporary translation side-by-side. Is it really necessary? Sure, it's an educational tool, but I think it's a band-aid solution. Giving someone all the answers does not equal improved reading comprehension.

I'm also fascinated by Shakespeare graphic novels, though in a way I think this is yet another band-aid solution to not using live performance as a teaching tool. 

I know just from going to school that studying Shakespeare tends to be a desk-oriented exercise. "Read the play," they tell you over and over again. Well, fine. But I'm pretty sure Shakespeare never sat himself down and said "You know, my plays are going to survive for hundreds of years after my death, and people are really going to enjoy sitting in chairs to read them". There's no way. This stuff was designed for a more practical approach, and the second part of my paper will cast my projections on how studying Shakespeare can be changed for the better with the use of e-books, tablets and online resources.

How can the performance aspect be integrated into reading? The Wasteland app is a great example of this. Fiona Shaw does performance art while the reader follows along in the text.

Last class we were talking about when/how people use audiobooks. My answer to that question is "reading Shakespeare." I find sitting down with Shakespearean text, as per the above example of the vast majority of high school classrooms, is pretty much useless. I zone out really quickly. But if I listen to an audio version of the play at the same time as I read, it becomes much, much easier to keep track of who's who. Not only is the language a challenge, but the characters are forever switching clothes with each other, disguising themselves, and crashing through the forest in mad epics of mistaken identity.

I think it's time for a revamp of how Shakespeare is taught in schools, and this is directly linked to the changes books will face in order to keep pace. 

Sources:

http://nfs.sparknotes.com/romeojuliet/page_38.html

https://www.amazon.ca/Macbeth-William-Shakespeare/dp/0743477103/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1458151674&sr=1-4&keywords=folger+shakespeare