It's like saying French shouldn't be taught because you don't understand it because it's new. Shakespeare is just like learning a new, exciting language.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Well, as a kid I did not get Shakespeare. I just never understood it.
There's a specificity of language that's required in Shakespeare that most drama students in England deal with - a specificity of language that is somehow not as clear in a lot of American schools.
Shakespeare teaches you how to act. You come out of this process as a better actor. It's just the nature of the words he writes.
I believe kids shouldn't be taught Shakespeare. They should experience it first by seeing a great production.
The English people, a lot of them, would not be able to understand a word of spoken Shakespeare. There are people who do and I'm not denying they exist. But it's a far more philistine country than people think.
I read Shakespeare when I was 14 because it's what we were taught.
And I just think that to introduce an unknown Shakespeare is thrilling, too - not to do Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet, to do the richer Shakespeare. People will come to this and not know the story.
It's amazing how, age after age, in country after country, and in all languages, Shakespeare emerges as incomparable.
I believe that writers have a responsibility to evolve the language, whether by introducing new words or new usages. Shakespeare alone is responsible for something like 3400 words and phrases.
Shakespeare language is fantastic, and to be honest, you don't need to do anything to Shakespeare.