Unfortunately my classes didn’t do Macbeth but I got to see the dirty bits in Polanski’s version, years later. Othello was the “mature adult mayhem” tragedy in my HS English class.
The typical teaching scheme is:
Teen characters-Romeo &Juliet
Young Adult-Hamlet
Mature Adult (Macbeth, Othello, Richard III)
Old-King Lear
I grew up in the Bible Belt, which maybe is why I had to wait until ninth grade. 
I can’t remember much about the Moonlighting “Taming Of The Shrew” episode which we then watched in tenth grade, but it seemed like an improvement over the original. And senior year one lucky class got to the rewrite MacBeth*. They made it a western set in a saloon. If there were any objections from parents they were drowned out by Tone Loc’s “Funky Cold Medina” blaring over the sound system.
Oh, make no mistake, the same people pulling Shakespeare from the shelves now, are the ones who would have pulled it twenty years ago, citing the sex and violence.
Never mind the author’s enduring influence on the entire English Language, or the key insights it gives into understanding so much theatre (and hence film and TV as well). Someone feels uncomfortable with it, so it must be stricken from the record.
I’m going to keep posting this , because it keeps being relevant:
I remember watching the Moonlighting episode when it aired. I loved that show.
I vaguely remember watching the Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton version of Taming of the Shrew in college. Unfortunately the most I could remember about that how Elizabeth Taylor really knew how to fill out a bodice.
Along with the cross-dressing in The Merchant of Venice. They would probably be OK with the anti-semitism in it though.
Why not both? Shakespeare is as valid a cultural influence to learn about as any other.
Shakespeare is as valid a cultural influence to learn about as any other.
If that’s true, and I agree that it is, then Shakespeare isn’t necessary at all. Learning about Shakespeare can be accomplished with the context of his influence on other playwrights and genres, though.
That’s like saying “you can watch O Brother, Where Art Thou but you can’t read Homer’s Odyssey.”
That reminds me I saw both Zeffarelli’s Romeo and Juliet and Walkabout in seventh grade in the mid-70s, setting me up to fully appreciate Logan’s Run when it came out.
No permission slip. Of course this was in California where we also had actual sex education starting in the fourth grade.
Who knew Florida was at the forefront of rejecting the Western Canon? Pretty soon, they’ll have to cancel themselves.
It’s like saying “If Shakespeare is as valid a cultural influence as any other,” then all of them are equally valid, and therefore equally useful. And if they are equally useful, Shakespeare isn’t necessary, since there are a whole load of equally useful others to study.
I suppose the question is one of “why read Shakespeare in the first place?” If it’s for some insight into the human condition, or to appreciate how good playwriting can communicate important ideas, or to understand how human relationships can be expressed in popular culture, or “what is good writing,” then Shakespeare might be useful, but he isn’t necessary. Read Chekov, Sarah Kane, Samuel Beckett, Lillian Helman, Jackie Drury (although her work would likely not be allowed in Florida), and discuss how they were influenced by a variety of playwrights, including an Elizabethan English guy. Or even read Tang Xianzu and talk about how he died in the same year as Shakespeare, who you can’t talk about because you’re in Florida.
If it’s to understand the cornerstone of English and western-Anglo playwriting and perhaps even western literature, then yes by all means read Shakespeare.
If it’s to reinforce an accepted hierarchy in the western canon, and instill the notion that Shakespeare is the central lens through which to view playwrights, then also yes, Shakespeare is great for that.
No, it’s saying Shakespeare is no less valid than any other cultural influence. Clearly there are many, many examples of literature that had less cultural impact than the works of William Shakespeare.
That doesn’t mean we should frame Shakespeare as the unquestionable apex of human art and culture, but nor should we excise his work from the curriculum.
Down with Shakespeare! Up with John Webster!
Shakespeare is important as an English stylist.
A reminder that in Shakespeare’s time, and until 1660, it would have been shocking if the women’s roles were actually played by women
Which isn’t what you wrote originally. Back upthread you wrote:
Shakespeare is as valid a cultural influence to learn about as any other.
“No less valid” is, to me, different from “is as valid.”
I’m not arguing that he should be excised. Just that he doesn’t need to be central. And that Not reading the works of Shakespeare isn’t the death of education. As I wrote, he can be incorporated in a lot of ways without casting him in the central role.
Hit 'em with “The Miller’s Tale.”
Given the bawdy content of that particular tale, I’m sure that these Florida bluestocking concern trolls would turn a whiter shade than their already pale complexions.
OK, you win. All human literature is equally worthy of a place in our school curricula, from William Shakespeare to erotic Care Bears fan fiction.
Almost literally what you wrote.
This is getting silly and I’m done here.
Thus swyved was this carpenteris wyf,
For al his kepyng and his jalousye;
And Absolon hath kist hir nether ye;
And Nicholas is scalded in the towte.
This tale is doon, and God save al the rowte!
(The Miller’s Tale, 3850–3854)
Given that not a one of them would bother to interpret, let alone actually read, Chaucer, I suspect this one will slide by.
