You know, I just... I woke up, and I looked in the mirror, and I thought, hey, what's with all the sin? I need to change. I'm... I'm dirty. I'm, I'm bad with the... sex and the envy and that, that loud music us kids listen to nowadays.

Buffy ,'Lessons'


Spike's Bitches 41: Thrown together to stand against the forces of darkness  

[NAFDA] Spike-centric discussion. Lusty, lewd (only occasionally crude), risqué (and frisqué), bawdy (Oh, lawdy!), flirty ('cuz we're purty), raunchy talk inside. Caveat lector.


amych - Jul 29, 2008 10:17:04 am PDT #9123 of 10001
Now let us crush something soft and watch it fountain blood. That is a girlish thing to want to do, yes?

I think all other drama is undertaught.


Fred Pete - Jul 29, 2008 10:19:31 am PDT #9124 of 10001
Ann, that's a ferret.

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.


Strix - Jul 29, 2008 10:31:35 am PDT #9125 of 10001
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger

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!)


Vortex - Jul 29, 2008 10:33:45 am PDT #9126 of 10001
"Cry havoc and let slip the boobs of war!" -- Miracleman

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


Calli - Jul 29, 2008 10:41:13 am PDT #9127 of 10001
I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul—Calvin and Hobbs

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.


NoiseDesign - Jul 29, 2008 10:41:31 am PDT #9128 of 10001
Our wings are not tired

There are other classics like Moliere and Lorca that get left out, but there's also contemporary plays that get left out. Modern writers like Durang, or showing how Sondheim help reshape musical theatre and his use of tough social commentary.

Don't get me wrong, I love Shakespeare, but I think he's put up on too much of an altar to the detriment of other dramatic works and it's impact on society.


Strix - Jul 29, 2008 10:43:10 am PDT #9129 of 10001
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger

And I think one of the reasons that Sh. is taught so much in high school --aside from the overweening opinion that he is "art" and therefore infallible -- is that there are so many allusions and words in Western culture that spring directly or indirectly from Sh., and that a hs education is, necessarily, directed at providing an extremely broad foundation to all graduates.

Edited for repition. I rubriced myself. I need to get back in a classroom.


Strix - Jul 29, 2008 10:46:27 am PDT #9130 of 10001
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger

Note bene: I do NOT think Sh. is infallible. And he certainly was not altarized as "high art" (god, let's not start a discussion on high vs. low art, puh-leeze, cause I don't care all that much) in his lifetime.


Pix - Jul 29, 2008 10:48:00 am PDT #9131 of 10001
We're all getting played with, babe. -Weird Barbie

ND and I have had this argument before. I completely understand where he's coming from, but from a regular English lit perspective, no other playwright is as entrenched in the British and American lit and popular culture that followed Shakespeare. Students need to know at least the basics of the major plays in order to catch these allusions. I'm sure I'm missing other things because I don't have as thorough a background in Moliere and Lorca and so forth, but the difference is that my professors in college didn't expect me to know them, whereas they did expect me to know my Shakespeare. So while I agree that he may be overemphasized, it is a reality that my high school students are better served by at least getting the major tragedies before they go off to college. I am constantly wishing there was more time to teach more lit.

ETA: Or what Erin said (we x-posted):

And I think one of the reasons that Sh. is taught so much in high school --aside from the overweening opinion that he is "art" and therefore infallible -- is that there are so many allusions and words in Western culture that spring directly or indirectly from Sh., and that a hs education is, necessarily, directed at providing an extremely broad foundation to all graduates.


NoiseDesign - Jul 29, 2008 10:48:35 am PDT #9132 of 10001
Our wings are not tired

In many ways he was pop culture for his time. In context, being a groundling at a theatre was cheap entertainment. Most people couldn't read, and TV didn't exist, so it was church or theatre.