Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
That's the problem with Shakespeare - children are "force fed" him in school, and put off for life. Shakespeare did not write for children.
My advice would be to go and see a really good production of one of his "lighter" comedies - "As you like it" or "A comedy of errors", perhaps. I think you'll quickly change your mind about him.
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I think many children of our generation were "force fed" too many books before we were ready for them.
Oh, how I hated "A Tale of Two Cities" as a 13 year old, but have since re-read it several times as an adult. Same with "Great Expectations," "Julius Cesare," "Macbeth," and "Jane Ere." (Confession... I didn't particularly enjoy 'Jane Ere' as an adult either, but at least I did finish it.
) As an adult I can re-read all of these. As a young teenager it was pure pain and almost put me off reading for life. Where was the supposed joy in reading? I can't remember a single book read for school between the ages of 12-17 that I enjoyed or for that matter even finished!
Many years later I spent a year as a teacher in a private boarding school teaching Senior English. I gave the students a list of about 8 different books for us to choose from, with synopsis of each, and group discussions about the books so 'THEY' could take responsibility for what they read. They chose well, everyone actually read the books (instead of the Cliff Notes) and we had some lively classroom debates and discussions about them. For the first semester they read "Sidhartha," and during the second semester they chose "Stranger in a Strange Land." They also read lots of poetry and performed a 'Reader's Theater' of Macbeth for the school. Considering that these were a bunch of druggies who had been thrown out of several other private schools before winding up there, I think they did damned good!
Stitchawl