Unit 5: Vocabulary from Readings 6

As a tribute to Shakespeare this St George's day, isn’t it time we dropped him from the National Curriculum?

Along with a flag, an anthem, and a football team, a national writer is part of the trappings of nationhood.

The Italians have Dante, the Germans have Goethe, the French have a pantheon which includes Molière, Racine, Victor Hugo, and Proust.

The date of his death and the putative date of his birth neatly fall on our patron saint's day; he belongs to the golden age of Elizabethan expansionism; his history plays chronicle our kings and queens and contain quotable patriotic gobbets (“This precious stone set in the silver sea,” “We few, we happy few,” etc.).

He had, as George Orwell put it, an amazing skill at putting one word beside another; as well as acute psychological insight, the largeness of mind to give great lines even to minor or unfavored characters, an unmatched ear for rhythm, and an uncanny ability to coin memorable phrases which, in many cases, have passed into general usage.

He had, as George Orwell put it, an amazing skill at putting one word beside another; as well as acute psychological insight, the largeness of mind to give great lines even to minor or unfavored characters, an unmatched ear for rhythm, and an uncanny ability to coin memorable phrases which, in many cases, have passed into general usage.

But that cannot be the justification for making Shakespeare compulsory—to teach outdated idioms that no one under the age of 40 uses.

We need to think more clearly about the purpose of enshrining Shakespeare in this manner.

If it is to teach those things that literature is supposed to teach—aesthetic pleasure, understanding of character, moral sensitivity, liberal humanist values, an inkling of the techniques by which literary texts work their magic—then Shakespeare is simply not delivering.

If it is to teach those things that literature is supposed to teach—aesthetic pleasure, understanding of character, moral sensitivity, liberal humanist values, an inkling of the techniques by which literary texts work their magic—then Shakespeare is simply not delivering.

Yet it’s laid down in the National Curriculum that all British children of secondary school age must study not one but two Shakespeare plays. It is, as Will himself would say, a custom more honored in the breach than in the observance—and in practice, many teachers circumvent the difficulty by teaching a fragment of Romeo and Juliet and then showing the class West Side Story.

Force-feeding children Shakespeare can only induce nausea and a lifelong aversion.

Force-feeding children Shakespeare can only induce nausea and a lifelong aversion.