Snakespeare

Recently we have completed a topic focusing on William Shakespeares works and the contemporary time around him. Here we focused on what made shakespeare so special at his time and why he stood out from his peers. We learned that it was his incredible ability to compose and structure his stories and his lyrical genius of his poetry that left its imprint history.

But...

I found that Shakespeare was quite hard to assimilate. I do not doubt the genius of shakespeare but i felt as if there was quite the language barriere between the english and this "ancient" english that shakespeare was accustomed to. This barrier made it hard to understand what Shakespeare is trying to convey in his works. He also uses a lot of metafores and and smilies which does not make it any easier. I think it can be summed up as english on hard mode. But when you finally decipher what it is that he is trying to convey you feel some sort of that you have made some sort of accomplishment.

During this topic we were compelled to read and analyse an article concerning the relevancy of Shakespeare´s works. This article was "Why do we force students to read shakespeare" by Rajat Bhageria brought HuffingtonPost on the 13 January 2015. In his article Bhageria discusses why we still force students to read Shakespeare even when it is 400 years old and when there are better alternatives, though written later, out there. One counter argument could be that no-one did what shakespeare was capable, the same way as him, at the time. Another is that he helped make theater available to the general public and common folk which it had not been beforehand.
Shakespeare undoubtedly helped create and shape the english as we know it today. There might be better alternatives out there but the sheer originality and ingenuity that has made Shakespeare as indispensable an author when it comes to understanding the fundamentals for the english language.


Comments

  1. KHR-RybnersApril 16, 2018 at 1:42 AM

    Hello again,
    I think it is great to read your reflections which seem to go in different direction, starting with a sense of disinterest in Shakespeare and his writing, moving on to a kind of appreciation of the achievement involved when 'doing the work', and, finally you seem to be defending Shakespeare's role in schools. I suspect that you enjoy the fact that you have studied Shakespeare - perhaps you didn't enjoy it while it went on, but now that it's done - you can honestly say that you have studied Shakespeare, and that it worth something :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ivanov the destroyerMay 1, 2018 at 11:45 PM

    Hello comrade, I Ivanov. I have discover blogspot of you, and I find you to be tru slav. Mein comrades invite you to visit my bæutiful homeland of mother Russia, to enjoy fine women and Vodka. I do not know who dis KHR is, but he will stop comment or he will face wrath of Ivanov, and no one see another day after wrath of slav devil king himself. If find dis offer interesting, pls send mail with seagull to
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