shakespoop

so i realize it may be ridiculous to start a career as a book reviewer online...so what i've decided to do instead is review the crap i have to read and go through in order to graduate with an english degree at the u of m/twin cities campus. this will include individual readings combined with the way they are taught. maybe someday i'll look back on this and remember ways NOT to teach my students in the future.

it is required that i take one semester of upper level shakespeare to fulfill my "shakespeare requirement".....


who decides the literary canon these days ANYWAY. why is it that william shakespeare, who wrote for his time, during his time, is considered the most important writer to study, as a precursor, even, to modern literature? i have yet to encounter an author or playwright that invents and reuses insults like "thou cream faced loon". i guess in this sense, shakespeare is an innovative writer--but if so, why not teach him this way? he was an oddball--let's marvel at that. instead, i get loads of crap about how beautifully he writes: in all actuality he wrote mathematically and for large audiences. my vote is that the educational institutions either reform the way shakespeare is taught so that students come away from it with an idea of what his time was like, and why he created his odd words, as well as the ability to glean meaning from the cryptic messages he posed. i should, for lawl's sake, lay out my shakespeare experience. my teacher for this course is "shirley i'm too old to have anything innovative to say nelson". we sit in a circle, and look at certain portions of plays in class. then we read aloud. sometimes, this kid with a total hard-on for shakespeare will read in an annoyingly stage-shakespearean voice and it makes me want to kill myself and/or cough to cover my laughter. i hate that class.