That was a scary quake, though thankfully it was short.

From San Diego it was just a kinda fun quake, but I thought it felt pretty long. Anyway, congrats on your official initiation!

Call me a heathen, especially since I work in theatre, but I think Shakespeare is overtaught. There are so many other valuable works of drama that are left out of curriculum to put in more Shakespeare. I know I'll be in a minority with this though.

Call me a heathen,

with pleasure. You are a heathen.

There are so many other valuable works of drama that are left out of curriculum to put in more Shakespeare. I know I'll be in a minority with this though.

I totally understand where you are coming from with this. And, to a degree, I agree with you.

Nobody ever got fired for buying Shakespeare.

Vortex - speaking as someone who is a hardcore procrastinator, hit 'em where they live. Otherwise they'll end up like me.

email has been sent to boss.

Call me a heathen, especially since I work in theatre, but I think Shakespeare is overtaught.

no, I don't think that you're wrong. but it's so beautiful!

I think all other drama is undertaught.

I won't quarrel with you, ND -- especially on the "so much left out" point. Shakespeare also presents the hurdle of Elizabethan slang -- and that a lot of school districts would likely not approve of a lot of Shakespeare's unbowdlerized lines.

Appreciation of Shakespeare at that age also depends a lot on the teacher's style. My freshman English teacher had a "Bow before the greatness of Shakespeare!" attitude that ruined MoV for me -- it wasn't until I took a Shakespeare class in college that I realized it was a comedy.

I don't have a quarrel with your POV; in my specific case, I'd have to point at my undergrad training. I got LOADS of Shakes -- two specifically Shakespeare classes, plus Sh. plays in Intro to Lit, 17th c. Lit in undergrad, then I was a GA for an undergrad Shakes. class in grad school. It's the drama I am most familiar with.

Hell, I think the only other plays I've had to read for my degrees were a couple of O'Neill plays. I've never even read an Ibsen play!

(Feel under-read right now. But I was focusing on medieval and Rennaisance lit. Wait, wait -- I've read Goethe and Marlowe!)

I was a theatre major, so of course, I read a shitload of plays. I forget that most people don't get that exposure.

I was an English lit major, but I realized very soon that, O'Neil aside, the length of most plays was circumscribed by the tolerance of most playgoers butts. So I usually selected period plays over period novels when given the option. Restoration drama was lots of fun.