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.

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.

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.

Plus, Shakes is so damn GOOD.

I am constantly wishing there was more time to teach more lit.

This. And learn more lit...I MISS lit classes! I read a metric fuckload by myself, and sure, I can discuss it on the internet, but frankly, sometimes writing about it gets tedious. I like talking better.

When you get into a class, you are in a mindset to go to the class and discuss something with (ostensibly) someone who has studied the works in questions. You may not always agree with them, but almost always they provide some information and perspectives you otherwise wouldn't have had.

so ... Shakespeare was the basic cable of his time?

Erin, that's why I wish I had the time and money to get a second Masters in lit.

Shakespeare was the network channels of his time.

I know he's amazing, but when, in many schools he gets taught every year while playwrights like Caryl Churchill go completely unrecognized I think there's an imbalance.

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.

You could probably say the same for Aristophanes. I think the pop culture/high culture divide is a fairly modern invention, and anything that survives a century or two in our culture gets shoved into the former, no matter what the original audience and intent might have been.