Why We Shouldnt Read Romeo and Juliet

Why Shakespeare Shouldn't be Taught in Schools

Today is supposedly the birth and death day of Shakespeare, which makes this topic fitting. The topic of Shakespeare has always provoked a sure type of emotional response. Whether information technology's teenagers avidly hating the difficulty of the language to historians arguing virtually whether or not the works of Shakespeare were really written past Shakespeare. Regardless, the works that we've come to all enjoy and love from Romeo and Juliet to Macbeth to Midsummer Night's Dream — and the list goes on — are, across the entire earth, respected past most instruction systems, especially in the Western culture. Anybody tin recognize the lines, "To be or not to be," or "Wherefore art thou Romeo." And I don't think all of these celebrations are wrongly placed. I practice call up Shakespeare should be praised for eloquent dialogues, precision, clarity, and pioneering in modern (relatively) expressions and language in full general. Still, equally a student who is learning Macbeth currently, Shakespeare existence in nigh every schoolhouse literature curriculum, does seem very out of place.

Over again, this isn't an essay talking about how Shakespeare is overrated or how he's a bad writer who uses cliches to excel at what he does all-time because it'southward non true. The kind of imagery and symbolism he uses in his writing, shouldn't be denied. Only why are we learning about it in literature class; it'due south non literature.

To analyze, of course, I am not referring to the very literal definition of literature, pregnant nearly any sort of writing, but specifically towards the narrative stories nosotros read in school. Shakespeare is the Merely work of "literature" we read in schoolhouse, that's non actually a book, a short story, or an essay. Information technology's the Simply piece of work of "literature" that is its own medium. Information technology's the Merely work of literature that is but, and very much so, a script.

Shakespeare never wrote his works to be analyzed, at to the lowest degree non among anyone but play critics and possibly aspiring playwrights. To compare this to the other works, in The Swell Gatsby (another piece of work of "literature" in almost every school literature curriculum), every sentence matters. The sentences yous read in The Great Gatsby is the end product of what you're supposed to get. The emotions that are carried through F. Scott Fitzgerald'due south words on the page to your encephalon, provoking an emotional response is the point of that volume and any book. For Shakespeare, the word usage, near didn't thing. In fact, when you read some of his plays, nosotros simply don't know some of the words that Shakespeare used in some areas. In the published editions, literary scholars are merely forced to make the all-time possible educated estimate to make full the words that we don't know, driving further the betoken that things such every bit word pick don't matter as much equally nosotros like to believe.

Furthermore, even Shakespeare didn't care. Hamlet, for example, has four unlike versions that we've constitute from Shakespeare's time: "outset, through reading of a "basic" text; second, through a study of the iii principal versions of Shakespeare's text that have come down to us (the First and 2d Quarto and the Outset Folio); third, through actors' interpretations of Shakespeare's creation on phase and on film; and fourth, through other authors' renditions of the characters and events in the play, both earlier and after Shakespeare." There are different versions with unlike word usage and dissimilar lines, and ultimately, Shakespeare didn't care which way the actors said his lines. He didn't intendance if you used the word, "unfortunate," instead of "miserable."

Shakespeare's writings also aren't meant to be read. What Shakespeare wrote, regardless of high forehead language, was simply a template for a play. Nosotros don't read the musical notes, we listen. We don't read blueprints for houses, we live in them. Nosotros don't read scripts for movies, we spotter them. Aaron Sorkin is an acclaimed screenwriter for multiple movies, simply his scripts volition never be remembered, just his movies.

This is important because in that location is such an unbelievably HUGE disconnect between scripts and movies. Mad Max: Fury Route has a horrible script, merely a slap-up motion picture. Daniel Radcliffe said that his movie, Victor Frankenstein, had the best script he ever read, but when the movie came out, it was critically bashed, and fifty-fifty Radcliffe changed his statement to express that the script was too weird to interpret onto the big screen. The script for the fifth Die Hard movie, A Bye to Die Hard, wasn't even washed when the filming for the flick began; and this happens all the time. Reshoots happen all the time and editing changes change the picture show significantly. The explosive opening of La La Land near came at the end of the motion picture, instead of the beginning. Information technology's the same with Shakespeare.

In that location are hundreds of Macbethdue south, but they're all differently viewed and reviewed by audiences and critics alike. On Rotten Tomatoes, Macbeth (2015) has 80%, Macbeth (1971) has 86%, Maqbool (2003) has 67%, Throne of Blood (1957) has 98%, Scotland, PA (2001) has 59%, and countless versions of staged Macbeth all too have different responses. But how could it be when they all take the exact aforementioned play? It's because the lighting, music, tone of voice, delivery, stage direction, and costume all alter the play and the lines in them.

Words on a page mean zero in scripts. In Literature, they're used to finer describe something to make you feel something — the words are the end product. In scripts, they're simply blueprints — "To exist or Not to Be" is a horrible line with the wrong lighting, costume, staging, camera angle, and actor. A terrible script can transform into a good picture, and vice versa.

When we read Hamlet, we aren't told what to visualize. The readers see what they desire to see. They imagine Hamlet dressed the way they want him to be dressed. They imagine the castle as big as they want to see them as. The story plays out the way they desire it to play out. Literature isn't supposed to be play-doh that you play with, mold, and shape into the fashion you want. Literature (expert literature, at least) makes a point that you've never thought of earlier. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn tells you what you're supposed to see when Huckleberry rips the alphabetic character, signifying change in his character from bigoted, naive racist, to courage-earned, more than mature, friend. The appropriate emotions and feelings that come as a reaction to that moment, is when literature succeeds equally literature. Alan Moore, legendary comic book author, said, "If the audition knew what they wanted then they wouldn't exist the audition, they would be the artist." Shakespeare didn't write the play so you could experience what you want to experience; he wrote it so the play can. It's time for literature to carelessness not-literature. ◼

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Source: https://medium.com/@jongjinpark/why-shakespeare-shouldnt-be-taught-in-schools-5046411335c0

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