Shakespeare - Rewarding or a pain in the Ar**?

dewsbury

This is directed to those who are 5 or more years finished secondary school.

I have deliberately NOT put it in the education forum to target replies from non-students and the older amongst you.

QUESTION: Do you get any value (short term or long term) from studying a Shakespeare play in school.

I "studied" Coriolanus in for leaving cert 1978 and got nothing from it. Incidentally I was quite good at english and got an honour in the subject.

Perhaps you could respond to the question by answering the following;

1. Play studied.
2. Year left school
3. Rate on a scale of 1 to 10 (No reward to extremely rewarding). Zero in my case!

kelle

1. The Merchant of Venice (Inter Cert 1986), Hamlet (LC 1988) and King Lear (LC repeat 1989)

2. 1989

3. Is zero available?

EDIT: I suppose I have to mention I needed an honour in English to get a place on the course I did in London, which I can partly credit Shakespeare with. This course led me to the job I have worked at and loved for the last 19 years!

LoYL

Enormously rewarding and a life long gift. Would it make you a better parent? Not in the modern "I did a parenting course" sense.

ruthloss

I did Hamlet.
I see shades of the tale in all walks of life.

Oryx

1. Play studied.
Merchant of Venice. Hamlet.
2. Year left school
1988
3. Rate on a scale of 1 to 10 (No reward to extremely rewarding) 8 and 9 respectively.

A lot of shakespearian quotes are used in regular life, I like knowing the origin and context. I enjoy the language used and the way they are written as plays. We so seldom read stuff in that format. I'll take shakespeare over txtspk any day of the week.

I keep meaning to read Macbeth too.

LoYL

ruthloss wrote: »

I did Hamlet.
I see shades of the tale in all walks of life.

Shades: I like that.

LoYL

Oryx wrote: »

1. Play studied.
Merchant of Venice. Hamlet.
2. Year left school
1988
3. Rate on a scale of 1 to 10 (No reward to extremely rewarding) 8 and 9 respectively.

A lot of shakespearian quotes are used in regular life, I like knowing the origin and context. I enjoy the language used and the way they are written as plays. We so seldom read stuff in that format. I'll take shakespeare over txtspk any day of the week.

I keep meaning to read Macbeth too.

Read MacBeth. "I am so stepped in blood..."

longhalloween

I always thought it was a case of 'better to have it and not need it, to need it and not have it'.

Never used Shakespear in day to day life, though I do mumble that passage from King Lear when the weather outside is shocking.


Lear: Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout 4
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, 8
Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!
Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once
That make ingrateful man!

iguana

1. Play studied.
Hamlet.
2. Year left school.
1996.
3. Rate on a scale of 1 to 10.
10. I absolutely love Hamlet. I wasn't wild on Shakespeare before that, we'd done Romeo and Juliet for Junior Cert and while I didn't hate it, I was absolutely indifferent to it. Hamlet, on the other hand, woke something up in me. I started out ready to hate it but fell more and more in love with it each day. I didn't even have a particularly good teacher for Leaving Cert English, the JC teacher was much better, but the play worked it's magic on me all by itself.

Yet a few months later when we started our novel, Jane Austen's Emma, I was all geared up to love it but found it incredibly dull and got nothing out of it at all. It's all personal taste really.

littlebug

Very glad Kelle and Oryx replied as it was taking me a while to remember.

IC Merchant of Venice, LC Hamlet.
Year left school: 1988

I find it difficult to rate from 0 to 10. I wouldnt say it's something that I've found useful in later years as such but I did enjoy them at the time and went on to read others (Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet) when I'd finished school. I do still occasionally find myself quoting Shakespeare e.g. if I open the fridge and there's something nasty in there i'll say "something is rotten in the state of......." . So not rewarding in a useful sense but as rewarding as any other good book I've read if not more so. I didn't enjoy the Jane Austen novels at all. Far too twee. I enjoyed the darker side of Shakespeare.
I can't think of any other book/ play I can still quote from after 20+ years!

CrazyRabbit

No idea why this is in the Parenting Forum, but...

1. Play Studied
King Lear

2. Year Left School
I've never stopped my schooling (I'm 36 now).

3. Rate on a scale of 1 to 10 (No reward to extremely rewarding)
2

I've no problem with plays being studied in schools, but I don't see the point if it's such old plays that are written in archaic English. There are plenty of excellent modern plays which are much more relevant to current society & life in general.

Oryx

I (along with anyone else who did the LC), studied the shakespearian sonnets too. They, along with the rest of the poetry curriculum, gave me a love of poetry that I carry to this day.

Jane Austin is definitely a waste of time though. Overrated, sleep-inducing stuff. I've read a lot of the classic novels since, I think JA, like Peig, was done as a penance of some kind in school. There were so many better books from the same era I've read since.

January

Not a parenting issue... moving to Literature.

megadodge

Romeo & Juliet (Inter) Macbeth & Hamlet.
1988.
Zeros across the board... well ok maybe Romeo & Juliet get a 1 - cos I'm a romantic at heart.

I suppose when you look at my signatures below this is a predictable response, but I firmly believe it is utterly, utterly pointless shoving what is effectively pidgin English down the throats of teenagers. Archaic English is more or less similar to txtspk (of which I am not a fan either) in that is has a resemblance to modern English, but that's about it.

In fairness I feel that way about almost the entire second-level education system - of no relevance to the lives people will go on to lead, the LC is just an entrance exam for third level - but Shakespeare in particular bugged me more than anything else I studied.

Giselle

I didn't go to school in Ireland, but I studied Merchant of Venice, Coriolanus, Midsummers' Nights Dream, Romeo and Juilet and Hamlet.

I like Shakespeare but I'd spend forever on the sonnets instead of the plays if that were possible.

Studying a play in a classroom from the page is a lot less rewarding than seeing it performed, as it was intended, but there's some advantage to having some understanding first to get the best out of it.

I think it just depends on the play. I found Coriolanus is the dullest of all, and making me study it in depth was akin to torture, but I really enjoyed The Merchant of Venice.

Jane Austen is florid, archaic, chick lit imo. Boring.

wlzkelly

Hamlet, and I give it a ten because Shakespeare and his works started a life-long love of literature for me.

--Kaiser--

1. Studied Hamlet
2. Year irrelevant
3. The beauty of the language, the cleverness of the wordplay, the absolute hilarity of some parts, the way I can read certain scenes and interpret them slightly differently each time, the fact that I can still quote bits of it verbatim even though I have't read it for years, the wisdom, the insight, the way I can see aspects of the characters in people I meet.
I'd give it a ten

quickbeam

Studied Romeo & Juliet for IC and loved it - would give it a 8/10.
Studied King Lear for LC and hated it so 2/10

So basically it depends on the play in question. However I'd be of the opinion they should be seen not read (as are all plays), and I do love a good Shakespeare adapation, most recently the BBC's Hollow Crown series which was excellent.

So my school experience certainly didn't turn me off his work.

Chavways

Play:Hamlet

Year:2012

Rating:3

Was never a fan of English in school even though I'm hoping for a high B.Never realy found the appeal of old English Plays either.

snausages

I'm only out of school 4 years so my opinion mightn't mean much but I don't really agree that just because they're written in archaic English means that they're not relevant today. They're a lot like parables, which is probably why something Mark Anthony effortlessly swaying the opinion of the plebian crowd with his rhetorical skills in Julius Ceasar was still relevant even 1500-1600 years after the fact.

Anyway, Ceasar for the JC, Macbeth and Othollo for Leaving (repeat). Favourite was Othello, so 10 for that and 10 for Macbeth. 10 for Julius Ceasar as well.