Shakespeare and Education - An Iatrogenic Relationship

You know you're getting steadily older when certain cultural tropes begin to sharpen into your perceptive foreground from a previously low-resolution haze of disinterest. This has happened to me recently with classical music, which has swelled from an everpresent yet subdued intrigue, as well as with the works of William Shakespeare. I have been caught by the riptide current of the Bard's colossal ouevre, willfully aiming to purge myself of my shameful ignorance of Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, et al. Such an urge coincided in June with visiting London's Globe Theatre to watch a magnificently exuberant performance of 'The Tempest'. Finally, I realised, I had been converted.

The characters, plot lines and dialogue of Shakespeare are so ingrained in the DNA of the English language that its almost impossible to envisage any literary works since in any sort of context without such an influential beacon guiding a safe passage across the enshadowed narrative plains. Yet, by the same token, it is almost absurd to comprehend that his work is still held in such high esteem some 400 years hence, as though seemingly nothing of any comparable accomplishment or worth has been achieved since. The incalculable wealth of Shakespeare’s legacy and his continual resonance make a mockery of our supposed cultural progress.

As part of yet another curriculum reorganisation initiative, Education Secretary Michael Gove has stated school children should be made to study even more Shakespeare than before (including introducing his works to children as young as five), as part of his ultra-conservative personal manifesto, stripping away the ‘fluff’ and grounding things again with the core ‘English heritage’ foundations.

This, I would like to argue, is a mistake. It is my belief that enforcing Shakespeare on school children is almost as anachronistic as enforcing the learning of Latin. It is an iatrogenic relationship – that is, one in which a disease is inculcated by the thing that professes itself as the cure. The ‘disease’ in this analogy is that worrying benchmark - children’s literary levels.

Teachers and parents have an increasingly arduous task it seems, to instil in children an enthusiasm for and love of reading; to find pleasure and enthralment from the written word as opposed to the tidal wave of distraction, packaged as the 'entertainment industry', that now abounds in the digital age. If, being faced with something so linguistically archaic and structurally challenging, children make the stubborn decision that reading is an activity from which little enjoyment can be gained and is only to be endured under duress, then this is a great tragedy which is likely to be instilled throughout their formative years and on into adult maturity.

Indeed, I’ve known several personal friends who would happily promote their meagre literary credentials as though this were an asset to be coveted and aspired to. It is this mentality that truly concerns me; the blanket refusal to engage with the truest means of attaining a clearer and more enlightened impression of the world around them and what it means to live in it as a human being. That very literary band Manic Street Preachers sum it up very well in my view with the simple lyric ‘Libraries gave us power…’ Only by absorbing a wealth of stories, opinions, interpretations and voices are you able to inspire true creativity on your own terms. Each book is like a handful of seeds sown in the garden of your own imagination.

From my own experience, I resented studying Shakespeare at school as much as the next person. The difference was that I was already a prolific reader and therefore, wasn’t provoked into turning my back on reading in defiant rebellion. I knew there was more out there for me. As a 6 and 7-year-old I read Roald Dahl until the pages were dog-eared and yellow; I immersed myself in the quaint adventures of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and ‘Mr Galliano’s Circus’. As a 9 and 10-year-old I enjoyed Michael Morpurgo, Anthony Horowitz, and R.L. Stein’s ‘Goosebumps’ series, something that would later compel me into a monogamous Stephen King literary exile during the ages of 15 and 16.

My point is that, first and foremost, the lesson children should be learning, instead of Shakespearean sonnets, is how much can be gained from the simple act of reading itself. Literary snobs may huff, puff and stamp their feet, but it cannot be denied that writers such as Jacqueline Wilson and J.K. Rowling have played an enormously beneficial role in inspiring children and teens to pick up books over the last decade or so.

Of course, I am not advocating a removal of Shakespeare from the curriculum, he is a pivotal figure in English history and should rightly be taught. Instead, I would argue for a reduction in prevalence placed on teaching his works and certainly argue against the increase on which Gove appears to be intent. Indeed, one could also argue that the work of Dickens is similarly likely to alienate schoolchildren, or any of the books aside from Shakespeare that I personally was made to study – ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, ‘Of Mice and Men’, ‘Lord of the Flies’. I would respond to this point by saying; firstly, that all the aforementioned books are far more contemporary than Shakespeare, their language and dialectics far more familiar; and secondly, that they convey a more explicit sociological message that is more easily discernible and hence, of particular benefit to schoolchildren.

The literary palate, like food, music or film, needs time and space to mature without being prematurely overwhelmed by complex influences. Again, from my own experience, my reading habits became more and more developed, through Stephen King to more contemporary writers Irvine Welsh and Bret Easton Ellis; further back to Kafka, Dostoevsky and Hardy; to writers like Milton, Swift, Bronte and Defoe. To the point at which it would be sheer folly for me to ignore Shakespeare any longer. Given time for taste, preferences and abilities to gestate naturally, inevitably readers will of their own volition navigate a course to the Bard’s work. When they do, the chances are that they will discover how much they can revel in its brilliance, as I did recently on reading ‘The Tempest’ – the first Shakespeare I had read since ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, aged 16.

Stood in the Yard of the reconstructed Globe Theatre, it's hard not to feel like you are participating in a uniquely 'London' event, largely unaltered since the 17th century. A glimpse of the occasional mobile phone or plane floating across the polygonal window onto the sky were the only glaring indicators of modernity. Try as I might, I was hard pressed - and still am - to call to mind another experience with equivalent timelessness to be had in the capital.

As already stated, the play was something of an epiphany to me; I'd had no conception of how enjoyable Shakespeare could be if done well. Roger Allam (of 'The Thick Of It') was wonderfully acerbic as Prospero, and the whole play was bursting with invention, humour and energy that never waned throughout the nearly 3-hour running time.