Alices brilliant Shakespeare blog everybody
Shake•speare
ʃeɪk spɪər [sheyk-speer]
–noun
William, (“the Bard”; “the Bard of Avon” ), 1564–1616, English poet and dramatist.
The negative connotations the word Shakespeare holds in the eyes of so many people is mental. And one of the reasons is simply because he was knocking about quite a while ago.
At school from year 9 most of us have no choice about whether we want to read Shakespeare or not; so when we begin that section of our studies the teacher usually begins with a disclaimer such as: ‘i know you think it’s boring but...’ or ‘he was an important man’. Of course, in my experience there’s rarely discussion about why he was important or even why they assume we think it’s boring. And yes, in fairness there are deadlines and lesson plans to take into account but really...10 minutes chatting about something that won’t earn you any extra marks...get over it.
For the past 2 months? Maybe...something like that anyway. We have been work-shopping various elements of Our Will’s works – both plays and sonnets, in the build up The Shakespeare Festival 2010...
I don’t claim to be thoroughly educated in The Bard’s (lol I called him The Bard) work but I know that there’s a pre-conception, that I reckon I shared before these workshops, that you can only get it right or wrong. Almost as if the people that he wrote about were one dimensional and simplistic. You only have to read/watch/know the story of Romeo and Juliet to know this isn’t the case at all-they had split loyalties, they were brave and cowardly and adoring and deceitful; they kept secrets yet were utterly truthful. And hundreds of years on from the era when these plays and sonnets were crafted people still discuss, disagree and discover the integrity and humility of their content – proving that the themes and characters are timeless and as accessible as any literature written today.
Being allowed to share your ideas in a space where using disclaimers is the embarrassing thing to do rather than ‘getting it wrong’ is so liberating...that word seems too strong but I think it’s the right one. It’s liberating because you walk in to a workshop not knowing what you’re going to explore and you come out having learnt something, wishing you’d learnt more or done that brilliant thing of hearing someone say what you couldn’t describe yourself.
So The Shakespeare Festival is gonna be an absolute sensation and if you miss it... well...your loss innit...
Shake•speare
ʃeɪk spɪər [sheyk-speer]
–noun
William, (“the Bard”; “the Bard of Avon” ), 1564–1616, English poet and dramatist.
The negative connotations the word Shakespeare holds in the eyes of so many people is mental. And one of the reasons is simply because he was knocking about quite a while ago.
At school from year 9 most of us have no choice about whether we want to read Shakespeare or not; so when we begin that section of our studies the teacher usually begins with a disclaimer such as: ‘i know you think it’s boring but...’ or ‘he was an important man’. Of course, in my experience there’s rarely discussion about why he was important or even why they assume we think it’s boring. And yes, in fairness there are deadlines and lesson plans to take into account but really...10 minutes chatting about something that won’t earn you any extra marks...get over it.
For the past 2 months? Maybe...something like that anyway. We have been work-shopping various elements of Our Will’s works – both plays and sonnets, in the build up The Shakespeare Festival 2010...
I don’t claim to be thoroughly educated in The Bard’s (lol I called him The Bard) work but I know that there’s a pre-conception, that I reckon I shared before these workshops, that you can only get it right or wrong. Almost as if the people that he wrote about were one dimensional and simplistic. You only have to read/watch/know the story of Romeo and Juliet to know this isn’t the case at all-they had split loyalties, they were brave and cowardly and adoring and deceitful; they kept secrets yet were utterly truthful. And hundreds of years on from the era when these plays and sonnets were crafted people still discuss, disagree and discover the integrity and humility of their content – proving that the themes and characters are timeless and as accessible as any literature written today.
Being allowed to share your ideas in a space where using disclaimers is the embarrassing thing to do rather than ‘getting it wrong’ is so liberating...that word seems too strong but I think it’s the right one. It’s liberating because you walk in to a workshop not knowing what you’re going to explore and you come out having learnt something, wishing you’d learnt more or done that brilliant thing of hearing someone say what you couldn’t describe yourself.
So The Shakespeare Festival is gonna be an absolute sensation and if you miss it... well...your loss innit...
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