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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Failing to teach native English speakers about Shakespeare would be like if Italian kids read no Dante, or if Chinese children didn’t read Li Bai or Du Fu.

Also, Shakespeare is remarkable in how well it holds up even now. Yes, there is racism and misogyny (obviously) but way less than you’d expect and often happens in ways that provide useful jumping off points for discussing these issues. Reading Merchant of Venice and discussing anti-Sémitism is worthwhile. Othello raises a ton of issues- anti-black racism, colorism, Christian bias. Taming if the Shrew an opportunity to discuss misogyny. In many ways, approaching these concepts through Shakespeare is useful in helping kids see how old snd persistent these issues are.

And other plays are just masterpieces. Macbeth, Hamlet, Much Ado… these are classics for a reason and I’d rather kids read Shakespeare then almost any other dead white guy. Certainly preferable to Chaucer.[/quote]

The only reason people think that Shakespeare is the pinnacle of English language achievement is because they've only been exposed to a very limited amount of great English literature.[/quote]

PP here. I don't think Shakespeare is the [b]pinnacle of English language achievement[/b]. Ninety percent of the books I read today (and I'm a writer, I read a lot) are by women and POC, both contemporary and not. A significant number are translations. We live in the age of the immigrant narrative and I am so grateful for it. I would probably not even list Shakespeare among my top 5 or 10 writers of all time, though I do have a certain soft spot for a few Shakespearean soliloquies.

But learning Shakespeare in high school and college was invaluable to me. What Shakespeare did with the English language was transformative for the language, which is why I think the comparison to Dante is correct. Many/most Italians would not consider Dante the pinnacle of Italian language either, by the way. But he created a bridge between the language of the elites (Latin) and the language spoken by every day people in Florence at the time. He basically invented Italian as a written language. Shakespeare didn't do exactly that (that really was more Chaucer's milieu, and as I noted, I don't really like Chaucer), but he brought the glory of the English language to the people through his plays and married a high minded literary tradition to the bawdy, humorous, language of the masses in a sophisticated way. He wrote sonnets and he wrote sex jokes. He is very much worth a read and earned his place in the pantheon, so to speak.

No one is saying "read Shakespeare but not Zora Neale Hurston." But still: read Shakespeare. It's worth it and kids should absolutely get an introduction to it in high school, if only through a couple of the plays.[/quote]

What’s that supposed to mean? You might be confusing the English language with the leader board of a video game.[/quote]

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