Dr. James Shapiro is a man who definitely knows and loves his Shakespeare. When I was listening to him talk about excerpts from his book and the pre-play Q and A, I could tell he was a very passionate man. He boasted a lot of his vast knowledge of Shakespeare. He has the right to seeing how he has spent his life researching him. I did learn a lot from all this but when I reflect, I sort of found him as being pompous and condescending toward anything not Shakespeare.
During the pre-play talk he had mentioned how in ten years, the people who read Harry Potter would look back and say that it is stupid and wouldn’t be able to figure out why they liked it. I though that it was pretty ignorant of him to say that he could presume that people would think that Harry Potter is stupid in years to come. Kids and adults alike will continue to read Harry Potter and it will have the same value as before. To this day, kids and adults alike still read C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia and find it just as or more charming than before. Sorry to say, in terms of Shakespeare, kids will only read him because they have to.
Something Dr. Shapiro said did stick with me in a positive manor. He said there were tons of different elements in this play. What is meant by elements are…well, I guess themes. Here are the themes I noticed: love, hate, jealousy, revenge, sorrow, secrecy, and humor. Character emotions are like firecrackers and could flare, flying out at any moment. With these ideas in mind, I would try in invoke feelings in my students with these themes. This is where Christensen could come into play. She preaches about social injustices, so let’s draw on these ideas that make us angry or disgruntled. I could have my students do some prewriting on a time in which the felt these themes or emotions. But the thing I would want to stress that this isn’t a rant or a put down secession. The idea of the assignment is to draw out a theme and write. To even show that this isn’t just busy writing, I could write as well. Now the experience is more apparent seeing how I would be doing it too.
Once we’re done with the prewriting, we can do a group circle read (another Christensen ideal) or we could do mini groups to talk about these emotions. This would be my transition into Cymbeline.
Cymbeline is one of those plays that I think I would keep in the attic when it comes to my classroom. Shapiro had made the comment of how the audience would either love or hate the play. I couldn’t stand Cymbeline; it was too predictable and for the first 45 minutes of the play I had no idea what was going on. The ending was pretty much like Huck Finn where Twain nicely tied all the story up. Shakespeare quickly lumped some 15 revelations into a scene that was supposed to leave the audience with an “Oh no you didn’t” expression. All the plays are either lets all die or lets all be happy.
If the worst came to worst and I had to teach Cymbeline, I would pull out some other examples of Shakespearian work to show a comparison in them. I could use Romeo and Juliet as an example of schemes that characters have due to problems in their lives. Posthumus has married Imogen in secret and King Cymbeline banishes Posthumus. This is similar to Romeo and Juliet because they are secretly in love and neither father likes each other. There is a “poison” in Cymbeline like Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet.
When we (the class) read the play itself, I will assign a cast of students to read for the day. I would like everyone to read a part from day to day, but if there are some students who just rock, I may have them keep doing it. I think that I may read the part Cymbeline. I don’t know because there needs to be interjector at points for clarification. So it may be a good idea of not, I suppose I would have to actually do this in order to see.
I am not sure it I would have them write a paper on this play after we finish it or a test. The test is the write-memorization where the paper would be drawing from internal themes. I think a test would probably be the best bet because then I could ask very directional questions to see if the students understood. A paper would be more prudent if I was working with a novel. Then they could draw more from passages, themes, and symbols.
I think that, depending on the grade I teach, I will stick to the main Shakespeare plays: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream
2 responses so far ↓
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kayda
// Dec 3, 2007 at 12:39 am
Eric, I feel that same way about Cymbeline as you, and I actually had to go through the displeasure of reading the play for my ENG 313 class. I share your sentiments on the play, and it makes me wonder if, at the late point in his career when the play was written, Shakespeare just decided to throw every trick he knew into one play and see how it turned out.
I think putting the play in the American Civil War made the play worse because it made the play even less believable, whereas an audience member could at least play along if it had been set in ancient Britain as it was originally. The only good thing that came of putting the play during the Civil War was the interesting costuming, which was the only thing that kept me from falling asleep.
The play must have been terribly boring and confusing for someone who hadn’t read it beforehand. I suppose using Cymbeline in the classroom would lead to good discussions critiquing Shakespeare’s style and show the students that not even the great playwrights are perfect. In my ENG 313 class, the play inspired a pretty heated debate, with the class pretty evenly split between loving and hating the play, which would probably be a good exercise to do in a high school class.
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I’d rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God’s sake.
// Dec 5, 2007 at 9:46 pm
[...] Eric [...]
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