To think Shakespeare is boring and crap !

[Lardlizard]

Bloody hate it

I find this a bit sad. I always think my students quite enjoy the lightbulb moments with Shakespeare (and poetry) - top set the bottom set. Perhaps they're just humouring me but I think they like the kudos of getting it.

Top set to bottom set. You'd think an English teacher would proofread her posts

Live Shakespeare is incredible (done well) get to Stratford and see some tragedies (must admit I'm not so fond of the comedies)

I saw Patrick Stewart as Shylock.. breathtaking

Andrew Scott as as Hamlet..modern production and after a few moments the 'old' language disappears and it's as relevant and exciting as ever. Shakespear simply NAILED the human condition.. our loves, greed, jealousies.. our opinions of polititcians

My DD2 and I try to go every year and we read whichever play we are seeing outloud to each other, taking all the parts, before we see it... gets us in the mood :D

@CathyTre @iklboo I’ve found my people! I came here to make a Monty reference too... 😂

Get thee to a nunnery!

Shakespeare has something for everyone, and really has influenced so much of our popular culture. Sons of Anarchy (in my view one of the best things on tele in the past 20 years) was based on Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet is responsible for most popular love stories. Othello...relevant to this very day (especially right now). I’d say you just haven’t really given the proper time or effort to exploring it.

I absolutely love the ones I studied for A-Level and (sadly enough!) I can still recite whole chunks of ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ from memory. I’m not such a fan of those I don’t ‘know’, if that makes any sense, although I have read some of the plays. Live is far better.

Love Shakespeare. Cannot stand Dickens!

This 100%
The language in Shakespeare alone is so colourful and fascinating 🤩

Watching the plays/movies/series - no.

But yes I did not enjoy reading them.

I think Shakespeare is badly taught at school a lot of the time. As an English Lit undergrad, I was disappointed that Shakespeare was compulsory in the first year but it was an amazing course and completely changed my perception. There are plays I can't stand and ones I absolutely love. How can you dismiss the entire body of work by a playwright who covers so many genres and focuses on human experience and emotions? Have people stopped suffering from jealousy and committing crimes of passion? Has political skullduggery ceased to exist or gang warfare? Sibling rivalry? War? Revenge? The themes are all very relatable to audiences throughout the ages.

It doesn't take very long to pick up the language and references - the same ones tend to pop up. Some historical context is helpful for some of them (unsurprisingly, the histories). Basically, if it sounds vulgar, it's a dirty joke.

Cannot stand Dickens

I love tv adaptations of Dickens but just cannot read him. Is that his fault? No.

Anyone who thinks Shakespearian comedy can't be enjoyable really needs to watch this - www.amazon.co.uk/Comedy-Errors-DVD-Judi-Dench/dp/B0079K4YL0?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

I genuinely wish I enjoyed it, I just don't 'get' Shakespeare. Clearly a lot of people do, my DPs are very into theatre & literature and I am sure it disappoints them that all their DC are cultural philistines . I studied Shakespeare at O (shows my age) & A Levels but just didn't really understand it. Years ago a BF took me to see Richard III at Stratford, I was bored senseless. Last year we had a weekend in London & DH went to see a production at the Globe, he really enjoyed it, I preferred walking along the embankment.

In my experience, Shakespeare is often badly taught at school. I remember reading MacBeth as a class, and it being a very dreary experience. No enthusiasm or explanation from the teacher . It was only later in that I developed a love and appreciation for Shakespeare. Going to see live performances and studying it at University changed my perception.

Boring is a matter of taste.
Crap - it's hard to imagine that anyone would know the name of a "crap" playwright from the 16th century.

For those who struggle with Dickens. Try "A tale of two cities" based on the French Revolution.
Fabulous !

I really hate it when people make out that if you don't like Shakespeare, you must be immature/a teenager. How's that going to change anyone's mind?

I quite like watching Shakespeare performed live but my biggest bug bear is all the "twists" theatre companies seem to put on the plays - everyone's got a Yorkshire accent (Northern Broadsides I'm looking at you), or are Chinese, or it's Macbeth, but set on the moon etc etc.

No one ever seems to just perform the play, in traditional costumes, as was intended.

See I'm not keen on live Shakespeare. I don't like anything getting between me and the words.
It amazes me how the words of some bloke from centuries ago can make this middle aged woman feel 15 again. And how very time I re-read some of the plays my own life experiences or what's happening in the world around me interacts with them so I see new things in the plays and in my own life.
I just don't get that to the same degree from any other writer.

I quite like watching Shakespeare performed live but my biggest bug bear is all the "twists" theatre companies seem to put on the plays - everyone's got a Yorkshire accent (Northern Broadsides I'm looking at you), or are Chinese, or it's Macbeth, but set on the moon etc etc.

No one ever seems to just perform the play, in traditional costumes, as was intended.

But what's a 'traditional costume' -- doublet and hose? Shakespeare's actors by and large wore contemporary clothes. Are you saying that a play written in 1600 must only be performed wearing the clothes of 1600? And that all actors should speak Larry Olivier-style RP, rather than use their own regional accents?

And the way Shakespeare (and other bits of English Lit) are taught at school can sometimes do a disservice to students who want to study those things at university.

This is a problem for all subjects at school, how to balance teaching the fundamentals for those who will need those skills in their career vs teaching a minimum understanding of the aspects we consider culturally important for those that will never be interested vs teaching critical thinking and joy of learning to allow people to continue to develop their knowledge after they leave school.

I'm a scientist, I read novels for pleasure and don't need to dissect the text (although I'm aware that that can help with appreciation). A lawyer doesn't need to know the speed of light to use a mobile phone but a basic understanding of electromagnetic radiation should stop them thinking that mobile phone masts cause global pandemics.

Cannot stand Dickens

I love tv adaptations of Dickens but just cannot read him. Is that his fault? No.

I'm similar with Dracula. Love the story but found the language absolutely tedious.

Read it once, never again but will happily which any and all adaptations.

@MyHipsDontLieUnfortunately

They love the kudos of getting it! They are curious about Shakespeare from the start - they know it’s different.

Bad teaching is so incredibly sad as it stops them engaging. That’s the fault of the messenger, not the writer.

Ex-English teacher here thinking how much I miss teaching it🤣

This is a problem for all subjects at school, how to balance teaching the fundamentals for those who will need those skills in their career vs teaching a minimum understanding of the aspects we consider culturally important for those that will never be interested vs teaching critical thinking and joy of learning to allow people to continue to develop their knowledge after they leave school.

That's absolutely true. I know colleagues in other subjects will say they spend a lot of time 'unteaching' what was taught at school (or primary vs secondary, or whatever).

But I think there's a particular issue with English, in that the current curriculum doesn't seem all that great for students in either situation. It's not that someone decided to compromise between what was useful for students who'd go on to specialise and what was necessary for students who wouldn't. It's that someone thought 'I know, I'll turn English Lit into a weird excuse to inculcate moral values'.

IMO English Lit could give people who don't want to go beyond GCSE really valuable skills and (maybe more importantly) equip them to enjoy books and reading. But the way it's currently supposed to be taught frustrates that a bit. Loads of people come out of it believing they must rote-learn that Shakespeare is a genius, that Othello teaches us not to be racist, and that the plays are worth studying because they 'made an important contribution to our language'. Those are not really skills, and they're not really English Lit.

(And again, this isn't teacher bashing, and I know lots of teachers manage to teach the syllabus and do brilliant things with it.)

@Sarah

Yes. Thing is everyone thinks they know English as a subject. Studying it at any level requires critical thinking plus creativity - writing essays, etc.

I am amazed the primary curriculum was shaped by a mathematician- it’s as though they have tried to teach English as function in the way maths works. I get that you need to understand the formal linguistic elements and support that but we are not integrating it with how it is used and often distorted. We are focusing so much on the detail, we lose the bigger picture and it is that which pupils are often able to grasp conceptually.

I feel we have butchered it, actually. I know that not every child will love reading but we have to start from the premise that wise reading is crucial - not formulaic texts. Then we can move onto issues of comprehension, meaning, manipulation of language.

In a time of fake news, critical thinking skills are key yet we treat media studies (that looks at advertising, bias, etc) as a poor choice. If you are academic, then you will cover those ideas in English and ‘get’ it but for those who aren’t academic, the emphasis is on the practical, with very little critical.