Why Do We Force Students to Read Shakespeare?

[marco]

English teachers seem to adore Shakespeare....
Students seem to chug through it....

Everyone else in society sits questioning why our English teachers force
our students to read literature by a guy who lived 500 years ago, who
writes in barely recognizable English, and whose plays are
painfully predictable?


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rajat-bhageria/why-do-our-schools-force-_b_6443672.html

marc

[Arthur Neuendorffer]

--------------------------------------------------------
https://osuasyoulikeit.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/ayli-soap.jpg

http://libweb5.princeton.edu/Visual_Materials/gallery/martin/jpeg/martin6.jpeg
--------------------------------------------------------
. As You Like It Act 2, Scene 7

JAQUES: All the world's a stage,
. And all the men and women, meerely Players;
. They haue their Exits and their Entrances,
. And one man in his time playes many parts,
. His Acts being seuen ages. At first the Infant,
. Mewling, and puking in the Nurses armes:
. Then, the whining Schoole-boy with his Satchell
. And shining morning face, creeping like snaile
. Unwillingly to schoole. And then the Louer,
. Sighing like Furnace, with a wofull ballad
. Made to his Mistresse eye-brow. Then, a Soldier,
. Full of *STRANGE oaths*, and bearded like the Pard,
. Ielous in honor, sodaine, and quicke in quarrell,
. Seeking the bubble Reputation
. Euen in the Canons mouth: And then, the Iustice
. In faire round belly, with good Capon lin'd,
. With eyes s[EVERE], and beard of formall cut,
. Full of wise sawes, and moderne instances,
. And so he playes his part. The sixt age shifts
. Into the leane and slipper'd Pantaloone,
. With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,
. His youthfull hose well sau'd, a world too wide,
. For his shrunke shanke, and his bigge manly voice,
. Turning againe toward childish trebble pipes,
. And whistles in his sound. Last Scene of all,
. That ends this *STRANGE* euentfull historie,
. Is second childishnesse, and meere obliuion,
. Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans EVERy thing.
--------------------------------------------------------

[BCD]

***Students are forced to read Shakespeare solely as a means of
perpetuating interest in the supposed authorship question. If we didn't
have anti-Strats around, life would be weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable.

Best Wishes,

--BCD

[Arthur Neuendorffer]

Brent wrote:

> ***Students are forced to read Shakespeare solely as a means of
> perpetuating interest in the supposed authorship question. If we didn't
> have anti-Strats around, life would be weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable.

Anti-Strats make the works of Shake-speare *LESS*
weary, flat, and stale than they might be otherwise.
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.theguardian.com/unsolvedmysteries/story/0,14238,1155649,00.html

The search for Shakespeare - mystery

"The life of Shakespeare is a fine mystery and I tremble EVERy day lest something should turn up" - Charles Dickens (1847)

<<It is the greatest mystery in literature and it's been rumbling on for centuries. Who was William Shakespeare? Or, rather, who wrote the plays and sonnets that we commonly assume were penned by the bard from Stratford?

Shakespeare presents a unique enigma in western literature. There is no doubt that a man of that name existed and we know the bare bones of his life. He was born in 1564, raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, and after 1585 became a member of a leading London theatre company. He died in April 1616. But was this same man the author of the plays that bear his name?

An illustrious band of sceptics, including Walt Whitman, Sir John Gielgud, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and Sigmund Freud think not.

In this curious case there is nothing to connect the man from Stratford with the plays and poems he is supposed to have written - no manuscripts or letters or any documentation of any literary life. The early plays did not even have his name on them. He left no manuscripts or libraries in his otherwise detailed will and, in a time of great public eulogies, his death went unremarked.

The clear mismatch between the man and his work adds to the mystery. 'Shakespeare's' plays depict in detail Elizabethan court life, displaying a wide knowledge of law, music, the arts, classics, foreign languages and travel. Yet our Stratford man was no nobleman. He was of lower middle class stock, coming from a provincial background and possessing no university education.

So, if Shakespeare didn't write the plays attributed to him, who did? The mystery deepens further.

The names of more than 80 Elizabethans have been put forward since the middle of the eighteenth century but three contenders stand out.

Was it Francis Bacon - the Elizabethan philosopher and great legal mind of the age?

Or perhaps Christopher Marlowe, to heap intrigue upon mystery? Marlowe supposedly died in 1593 in Deptford, murdered in a brawl while on bail for charges of atheism, long before the first of the 'Shakespeare' plays. But did he fake his own death to avoid his future trial at the dreaded court of the Star Chamber and flee to Italy to write the plays? Scholars point to the similarities in phrasings and language in the work attributed to him and the writings of 'Shakespeare'.

However, the strongest contender in the greatest manhunt in literary history is one Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. He was a poet and courtier with intimate knowledge of the court life of Elizabeth I, a highly educated prominent patron of the arts who travelled widely. Strangely, he was praised as a playwright by his contemporaries, yet all his plays are unknown, even the titles. The adoption of a pseudonym would have been essential to avoid public scandal; 'Shakespeare's' plays were laced with topical gossip with political relationships often lampooned and an aristocrat like De Vere could not afford to be directly associated with such work.

Supporters of de Vere's claim - Oxfordians - point to the evidence that his father-in law, Lord Burghley, was satirised in Hamlet as Polonius and details of the play relate so closely to De Vere's life that it cannot be a coincidence. To cap it all, his coat of arms shows a lion shaking a spear!

True, he died in 1604, before many of Shakespeare's works were written, but the chronology of the plays is itself a matter of dispute, with only two, The Tempest and Henry VIII, thought to be dated after 1604 and even those dates are shrouded in mystery.>>
-------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer

[Don]

I question whether "students" are forced to read Shakespeare. The
state of student literacy these days doesn't permit much exposure to
the Bard.

Used to be grades ten and twelve would get one of the plays to read,
usually Macbeth, Othello, JC, Hamlet, or RJ, but the average
situatiion probably limits teaching in Modern English, not the
original language, with some broadening "activities," such as acting
out a scene or two in class, visit by an actor, seeing the movie,
etc..

Like Shakespeare, teachers have to decide how much his/her audience
can profitably absorb, and always there is a bell-shaped curve on how
many are turned off or on.

Huffington Post, as usual, wants to play "hide the football," Lucy and
Charlie Brown style, as if human foibles are always with us.

[Arthur Neuendorffer]

Don wrote:
>
> I question whether "students" are forced to read Shakespeare.

----------------------------------------------
http://bloggingshakespeare.com/should-shakespeare-be-compulsory-in-schools

Should Shakespeare be compulsory in schools?
by Andrew Cowie is an actor, director and freelance
drama facilitator living in Birmingham, England

<<Shakespeare is the only prescribed author in the UK schools' National Curriculum but not everyone thinks compulsory Shakespeare is a good idea, least of all teachers. Before the launch of the National Curriculum in 1988 examining boards advised teachers to steer low achieving students away from Shakespeare and in 1993, after he became required reading, five hundred academics signed a letter to the Times Educational Supplement saying, 'We are all committed to the study of Shakespeare; but to make such study compulsory for 14 year olds [...] is to risk permanently alienating a large number of children from the pleasurable understanding of classical literary works.

Knowledge of Shakespeare constitutes what Pierre Bourdieu called 'cultural capital', part of the built-in advantage which children from educated, middle class families have over those from less privileged homes. Education is a key enabler for social mobility and including cultural education as well as practical learning in the National Curriculum is intended to level the playing field and help give every child a fair start in life. But the National Curriculum is not as national as it sounds and it hasn't had the impact politicians hoped for. Scotland was always exempt, as are academies and independent schools in England and Wales, free schools will be and Shakespeare is not required for either the English Baccalaureate nor IGCSEs.

And for EVERy person who discovered a love of Shakespeare in school someone else was turned off him. Helen Mirren doesn't think students should have to read Shakespeare in school, 'Honestly, I don't think kids should be made to read Shakespeare at all. I think children's first experience of Shakespeare should always be in performance in the theatre or in film - mostly in theatre, but it should be a performance because that makes it alive and real.' But theatre attendance is heavily skewed by class, ethnicity and region so if you wait for young people to discover Shakespeare in the theatre then the most socially deprived nEVER will and you're in danger of reinforcing rather than breaking down social inequality. Mirren also seems to have forgotten about her own English teacher whom she had previously credited with introducing her to Shakespeare. Patrick Stewart was another clEVER, working class child who owes his love of Shakespeare, and subsequent career, to an inspiring English teacher rather than a theatre visit, 'It was the first time I EVER held a copy of Shakespeare in my hand and it was certainly the first time I EVER had Shakespeare's words in my mouth. That's when it happened for me.'

When the RSC launched its Stand Up For Shakespeare campaign the then director of learning, Maria Evans, said boring lessons were putting students off Shakespeare for life. The Government is currently reviewing the National Curriculum so do we need to teach him better, make him optional so teachers can decide when and if he's right for their students, or should we think the unthinkable and drop him altogether?>>
----------------------------------------------
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-01-02/opinion/ct-perspec-shakespeare-public-schools-0102-20140102_1_illinois-shakespeare-festival-shakespeare-play-west-side-story

Reading Shakespeare: Something is rotten in Common Core

By Ralph E. Shaffer professor emeritus of history at Cal Poly Pomona.
Chicago Tribune, January 02, 2014

<<William Shakespeare enjoyed a remarkable 2013 in Illinois, especially in the Chicago area. The successful "Illinois Shakespeare Festival" at the Ewing Cultural Center in Bloomington last summer was matched by an expanded season of Chicago's "Shakespeare in the Parks" and the Shakespeare Project of Chicago performed "Merchant of Venice" at several sites. Yes, The Bard thrives in Illinois' adult world. What, however, is his future in America's public schools?

He seems to have it made. Shakespeare is the only author that America's public high school students must read. That's specifically mandated in the new federally imposed English requirements, misnamed the Common Core state standards. America's classic writers, such as Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and John Steinbeck, may be included in some English teacher's reading assignments, but the only one required is that Englishman.

Kids will read Shakespeare, but in what form? They will probably prefer to read a comic graphic novel titled "Kill Shakespeare," one of the books on Common Core's approved reading list. Even a synopsis of "Kill Shakespeare" makes for exhilarating reading. That book will have more appeal to students than Shakespeare's own works.

Since no specific work by Shakespeare is required, teachers can assign any one they choose. Consequently, it's unlikely that the standardized test will ask students much more than to correctly select the name of one of his plays. First we memorize our presidents in order, then we memorize the titles of each Shakespeare play.

I'm not a Shakespeare fan. I think I read Macbeth in the eighth grade at a California junior high school. I asked seven of my classmates, now all in their mid-80s, if they remembered reading Shakespeare. Not one of them could tell me that we had. But I recall something about Birnam Wood moving to somewhere.

I tried to read another Shakespeare play in junior high. I couldn't stand his old English and the unusual rhythm of his sentences. I gave it up quickly. The short newspaper pieces every Sunday by Mark Hellinger, sort of an O. Henry for the 1940s, were more my style.

I never saw a Shakespeare play, unless you count "West Side Story" or "Kiss Me Kate." The worst parts of the latter musical occurred when they actually performed scenes from "The Taming of the Shrew." If Shakespeare had written stuff with the appeal and clarity of Stephen Sondheim's lyrics for "West Side Story," I might have enjoyed him.

Instead, I've turned to writing parodies and puns of his most-quoted lines. RhymeZone has a list of 500 of those lines on the Internet. I'm slowly working my way through the list.

Sample: What was the response of the surrogate mother, hired by Julius and Calpurnia to bear their child, when told by Calpurnia on the eve of birth that they no longer wanted the baby and that the expectant mother would have to keep the child?

"I come to bear a Caesar, not to raise him."

Or, Julius' comment after he abruptly ended a distasteful phone conversation with a persistently nagging neighbor about a timber company's plan to log the woodlot near their residences, which Julius opposed:

"The pest is pro-log."

That's a lot more fun than struggling through Shakespeare's outdated language. Perhaps that's how Shakespeare will come into the Common Core. We won't force the kids to read any one particular play. Instead, let them pick one, go to RhymeZone, and pun the play's quotable lines. Turn it into a contest.

If today's secondary students don't read Shakespeare they won't be much worse off than my generation. Critics of today's schools often cite the students of my era as the products of a great educational system that has declined in the last three-quarters of a century. Actually, the kids of the 1930s and '40s were a lot less savvy than today's youngsters.>>
----------------------------------------------

[marco]

The Shake-speare group authors had the means, motive & opportunity to embed their names (and/or the names of their dedicatees) into Ciphers & Codes.

Besides, my REVElations continue to improve in both quantity & quality
and I find satisfaction in that alone.

Art N.


Seeing an intelligent post addressed to Art Neuendorffer (from Sabrina)
I took Art out of my kill-file -- the first time in Ten years or more.
But then -- in the space of a couple of hours-- FIVE long posts of unreadable garbage landed in my in-box.

> I heard the real key was in the Ciphers & Codes...
Whoever told you that is an idiot.
There is no need for codes or ciphers -- just plain common sense
is enough to tell you who the poet isn't, and who he must be.

So Neuendorffer goes back where he belongs--the kill-file, as a [boring] Troll.

Paul Crowley

[BCD]

***The author of the article seems to take the position that the
teaching or reading of literature is to comprise a course of training
for everyday life, presumably to be assessed on its success in that
endeavor. Quoth he: "But what scientific evidence is there that reading
Shakespeare helps students in the modern age survive the work
environment, live without government aid, and achieve familial goals?
Very little."

***What are we to make of this attitude, that what we experience or
choose to experience is to be set to work for our practical lifetime
goals?--and we can assure ourselves that he does not look on this
"practical" as a Stoic might look on it, as providing us with hints as
to how the vast mechanism of the Universe as a whole works and so
allowing us to learn how to be sapiently content and in harmony with the
Music of the Spheres; no, he wants our bedtime reading to get us a job,
and doubtless would have us look at a Van Gogh only if it would help one
fix one's car, and listen to Beethoven only with a mind to facilitating
a balanced check-book.

***This attitude is symptomatic of what I see coming on in society--an
increase in shallow self-absorption, a narrowing of view, an
invalidation of anything which is /not/ an artifact or tool of the
above. Yes, people have been shallow enough long enough, time out of
mind! But now they have added sanctimoniousness to their shallowness,
as if to say, "How dare you suggest that there is anything more profound
than serving my personal wants and facilitating my everyday life!?!"
And it is here that what I call the problem comes into sharp relief: We
turn to the Arts not for their pragmatic day-to-day usefulness but
because they give us deeper insights, more or less abstract, into
ourselves and the world around us--very useful indeed, I would say, but
not useful in the way the modern shallowites would have it, because they
do not have the penetration to see what true usefulness is.

***And so why teach Shakespeare? Why teach any author, any artist, who
is, on the surface, uncontemporary? Why teach something that, as the
article's author essentially tells us, is difficult as not being part of
the student's everyday life? Maybe, rather than the usefulness of
pandering to students' shallow self-absorption, there might be a higher
usefulness of teaching students that a fulfilling life is more than a
string of easy and successive ME ME ME moments is capable of providing,
and that maybe, just maybe, a little mind-stretching, a little
accommodating of the unfamiliar, might comprise a worthwhile investment.
Maybe students must be taught to penetrate through the outward
dressing to realize that Shakespeare, and much much more, truly is
contemporary.

Best Wishes,

--BCD

"She confessed subsequently to Cottard that she found me remarkably
enthusiastic; he replied that I was too emotional, that I needed
sedatives, and that I ought to take up knitting." —Marcel Proust (Cities
of the Plain).

Web Site: http://www.csulb.edu/~odinthor/index.html

[Arthur Neuendorffer]

Brent wrote:

<<Students are forced to read Shakespeare solely as a means of
perpetuating interest in the supposed authorship question. If we didn't
have anti-Strats around, life would be weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable.>>

.........................................
It's a well known fact that *no one* has EVER made
any money from promoting anti-Stratfordianism.

Anti-Stratfordian professors who depend upon publishing in Journals
and anti-Stratfordian actors who depend upon getting hired
risk lossing considerable income due to their beliefs.
------------------------------------------------

Brent wrote:

<<And so why teach Shakespeare? Why teach any author, any artist, who
is, on the surface, uncontemporary? Why teach something that, as the
article's author essentially tells us, is difficult as not being part
of the student's everyday life? Maybe, rather than the usefulness of
pandering to students' shallow self-absorption, there might be a higher
usefulness of teaching students that a fulfilling life is more than a
string of easy and successive ME ME ME moments is capable of providing,
and that maybe, just maybe, a little mind-stretching, a little
accommodating of the unfamiliar, might comprise a worthwhile investment.>>

.........................................
Maybe, rather than the convenience of simply pandering to
The Stratford Birthplace Trust's shallow self-absorption

there might be a higher usefulness of teaching students

that the scientific method of actually verifying things
for themselves is often the best approach.

Art Neuendorffer

"Anybody who's not paranoid is not in full possession of the facts."
- Gore Vidal

[marco]

I took a WS class in college, and wasn't into Shakespeare at the time,
so I found it uninteresting. It wasn't a requirement though

marc

[Don]

Sounds like the author is of the "problem solving" conspiracy. Usually
they advocate social programming along with their evidence of
provincial short-comings.

>***What are we to make of this attitude, that what we experience or
>choose to experience is to be set to work for our practical lifetime
>goals?--and we can assure ourselves that he does not look on this
>"practical" as a Stoic might look on it, as providing us with hints as
>to how the vast mechanism of the Universe as a whole works and so
>allowing us to learn how to be sapiently content and in harmony with the
>Music of the Spheres; no, he wants our bedtime reading to get us a job,
>and doubtless would have us look at a Van Gogh only if it would help one
>fix one's car, and listen to Beethoven only with a mind to facilitating
>a balanced check-book.

I recommend a "Dr Who" treatment.

Suggestion: All the above might be discussed as part of the decision
about college, whether to get a liberal arts education or go to the
State College. Supposedly, education is life-long, and we get
grounded in the well-rounded. This could result in asking questions,
instead of always describing problems in different ways?

>
>Best Wishes,
>
>--BCD
>
>"She confessed subsequently to Cottard that she found me remarkably
>enthusiastic; he replied that I was too emotional, that I needed

>sedatives, and that I ought to take up knitting." 柚arcel Proust (Cities

[BCD]

***Yes, I took my cue from the focus of the original article ("teachers
force our students..."). Most certainly, education is life-long, and
the potential of appreciation of the Arts and the abstract always there
to urge us on to enlightenment. Asking questions, describing problems
in different ways--both are to the good. Even (or indeed especially)
asking questions about Shakespearean authorship is to the good; but we
await a yield from that crop...

Best Wishes,

--BCD

[Arthur Neuendorffer]

> Don wrote:
>>
>> Suggestion: All the above might be discussed as part of the decision
>> about college, whether to get a liberal arts education or go to the
>> State College. Supposedly, education is life-long, and we get
>> grounded in the well-rounded. This could result in asking questions,
>> instead of always describing problems in different ways?

BCD wrote:
>
> ***Yes, I took my cue from the focus of the original article ("teachers
> force our students..."). Most certainly, education is life-long, and
> the potential of appreciation of the Arts and the abstract always there
> to urge us on to enlightenment. Asking questions, describing problems
> in different ways--both are to the good. Even (or indeed especially)
> asking questions about Shakespearean authorship is to the good; but we
> await a yield from that crop...

Then you should have no qualms at all about signing the:

Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare

https://doubtaboutwill.org/declaration

https://doubtaboutwill.org/sign

(You Will be the 3rd Brent to sign.)
-----------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer

[david....@dartmouth.edu]

In article <m99vjt$q4s$1...@dont-email.me>, BCD <pilt...@verizon.net>
wrote:
[...]

> ***Yes, I took my cue from the focus of the original article ("teachers
> force our students..."). Most certainly, education is life-long, and
> the potential of appreciation of the Arts and the abstract always there
> to urge us on to enlightenment. Asking questions, describing problems
> in different ways--both are to the good. Even (or indeed especially)
> asking questions about Shakespearean authorship is to the good; but we
> await a yield from that crop...

I agree -- especially if the vowel in that final word was intended to
be an "a" but was mistyped.

> Best Wishes,
>
> --BCD

[Arthur Neuendorffer]

> BCD <pilt...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> ***Yes, I took my cue from the focus of the original article ("teachers
>> force our students..."). Most certainly, education is life-long, and
>> the potential of appreciation of the Arts and the abstract always there
>> to urge us on to enlightenment. Asking questions, describing problems
>> in different ways--both are to the good. Even (or indeed especially)
>> asking questions about Shakespearean authorship is to the good; but we
>> await a yield from that crop...

nordicskiv2 wrote:
>
> I agree -- especially if the vowel in that final
> word was intended to be an "a" but was mistyped.

Which is the reason why Brent was assigned to be
the good crop and you the bad (or is it the ugly?).
-----------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer

[david....@dartmouth.edu]

In article <b8986353-4d49-4168...@googlegroups.com>,
Arthur Neuendorffer <acne...@gmail.com> (aka Noonedafter) wrote:

[...]

> BCD wrote:
> >
> > ***Yes, I took my cue from the focus of the original article ("teachers
> > force our students..."). Most certainly, education is life-long, and
> > the potential of appreciation of the Arts and the abstract always there
> > to urge us on to enlightenment. Asking questions, describing problems
> > in different ways--both are to the good. Even (or indeed especially)
> > asking questions about Shakespearean authorship is to the good; but we
> > await a yield from that crop...

> Then you should have no qualms at all about signing the:
>
> Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare
>
> https://doubtaboutwill.org/declaration
>
> https://doubtaboutwill.org/sign
>
> (You Will be the 3rd Brent to sign.)

How do you know that he hasn't signed already, Art? Don't forget
some of the VERy amusing signatories like Prof. Voluntad San Juan
Sacudón de Lanza.

> -----------------------------------------
> Art Neuendorffer

[Arthur Neuendorffer]

>> BCD wrote:
>>>
>>> ***Yes, I took my cue from the focus of the original article ("teachers
>>> force our students..."). Most certainly, education is life-long, and
>>> the potential of appreciation of the Arts and the abstract always there
>>> to urge us on to enlightenment. Asking questions, describing problems
>>> in different ways--both are to the good. Even (or indeed especially)
>>> asking questions about Shakespearean authorship is to the good; but we
>>> await a yield from that crop...

> Arthur Neuendorffer <acne...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Then you should have no qualms at all about signing the:
>>
>> Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare
>>
>> https://doubtaboutwill.org/declaration
>>
>> https://doubtaboutwill.org/sign
>>
>> (You Will be the 3rd Brent to sign.)

nordicskiv2 wrote:
>
> How do you know that he hasn't signed already, Art?

Well, he's not Brent Miller.

But I suppose he could be Brent Chambers, Ph.D. .

(Is he?)

Art Neuendorffer

[david....@dartmouth.edu]

In article <da09f47f-a53f-4931...@googlegroups.com>,

Arthur Neuendorffer <acne...@gmail.com> (aka Noonedafter) wrote:

> Brent wrote:
>
> <<Students are forced to read Shakespeare solely as a means of
> perpetuating interest in the supposed authorship question. If we didn't
> have anti-Strats around, life would be weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable.>>
> .........................................
> It's a well known fact that *no one* has EVER made
> any money from promoting anti-Stratfordianism.

That is far from clear, Art. Recall that Stephanie Caruana remarked
that Streitz uses "selling techniques":

"So what's wrong with Scratchmatter's hiring Streitz to try and get
the big bucks for his thesis? Streitz told me the first (and only)
time I met him that he was in it for the money. He showed it early
on Phaeton when he proposed a dinner at the NYC Player's Club for
something around $125 a head, where the proposed 'entertainment'
would be a Harold Bloom imitator who would be chased around by
'Oxfordians' beating him with inflated pig's bladders, or something
like that. Streitz uses 'selling techniques.' You may have noted
his relatively discreet remark that Scratchmatter's 'first edition'
'sold out.'. Obvious enough, when it had been previously stated
that only enough copies would be printed to fill the prepaid
orders."

In fact, Stephanie wrote:

"Streitz's preference appears to be for the sensational. I think
he fancies himself as the P.T. Barnum of Oxfordianism, because he
seems to accept all the speculations as true, and plans his
presentations accordingly, no matter how mutually exclusive these
speculations appear to be, and probably are."

And don't forget that Streitz vanity-published -- *and* marketed and
sold -- his magnum opus _Oxford: Son of Queen Elizabeth I_. Whether he
actually made any money on the enterprise is another question, but one
having more to do with his innate ineptness than with the intrinsic
mass-marketability of the Oxfordian cult.

> Anti-Stratfordian professors who depend upon publishing in Journals
> and anti-Stratfordian actors who depend upon getting hired
> risk lossing considerable income due to their beliefs.

That's *complete* rubbish, Art!

First, neither Dr. Stritmatter nor Dr. Dan Wright has eVER seemed
particularly worried about the issue of publishing. Nor, for that
matter, did Benezet. The paucity of Oxfordians in the professoriate has
nothing to do with academic publishing -- indeed, the history of the
Academy is replete with examples of faculty members with tenure
embracing some craziness outside their academic specialties and
suffering no consequences whateVER other than the self-inflicted damage
to their professional reputations, as the exemplary case of John Mack
illustrates. Of course, the paucity of Oxfordians in English
departments is more easily explained -- it would be rather like having a
Flat Earth proponent in a planetary science department, or a
circle-squarer in a mathematics department.

Nor are actors especially likely to suffer reprisals for affiliating
with bizarre cults like Oxfordianism -- indeed, Oxfordianism boasts
among its adherents distinguished actors like Sir Derek Jacobi, Jeremy
Irons, Mark Rylance, and Michael York, as Oxfordians themselves neVER
tire of pointing out. Not one of these actors seems to have suffered
any conspicuous career setbacks as a result of his embrace of the
Oxfordian delusion. Similarly, Scientology boasts among its adherents
stars like Tom Cruise and John Travolta. Shirley MacLaine has claimed
that during a previous life in Atlantis, she was the brother of a spirit
named channeled by a self-styled mystic, and she has described various
encounters with UFOs, yet her acting career does not seem to have
suffered appreciably.

> Brent wrote:
>
> <<And so why teach Shakespeare? Why teach any author, any artist, who
> is, on the surface, uncontemporary? Why teach something that, as the
> article's author essentially tells us, is difficult as not being part
> of the student's everyday life? Maybe, rather than the usefulness of
> pandering to students' shallow self-absorption, there might be a higher
> usefulness of teaching students that a fulfilling life is more than a
> string of easy and successive ME ME ME moments is capable of providing,
> and that maybe, just maybe, a little mind-stretching, a little
> accommodating of the unfamiliar, might comprise a worthwhile investment.>>
> .........................................
> Maybe, rather than the convenience of simply pandering to
> The Stratford Birthplace Trust's shallow self-absorption
> there might be a higher usefulness of teaching students
> that the scientific method of actually verifying things
> for themselves is often the best approach.

There is nothing even remotely resembling the scientific method in
the work of Oxfordians, as far as I am aware. The discredited
statistics in Dr. Stritmatter's thesis -- and, for that matter, in your
posts, Art -- furnish a salient example of Oxfordian ideas (usual
disclaimer) concerning the "scientific method".

As for the "scientific method" of "actually verifying things", how
hard could be -- for a literate reader, at any rate -- to VERify for
himself that the Peter A. Gay, aged 54, who worked as an industrial
plant manager for Raytheon and lived in Tewkesbury, MA, was *not* the
same person as the Peter J. Gay, aged 78, the distinguished Yale
historian and director of the New York Public Library's Center for
Scholars and Writers?! How hard could it be -- for a literate reader
aware of the existence of Russian-English dictionaries, at any rate --
to VERify for himself that _taerin_ is *not* Russian for "youth", and
indeed that the word is not even Russian *at all*?! How hard could it
be -- for anyone possessing modest, middle school-level competence in
rudimentary algebra, at any rate -- to VERify for himself that the
number 19 is *not* in any way remarkable as both the sum of two
consecutive integers and the difference of their squares?! And how hard
could it be -- for a literate reader, at any rate -- to VERify for
himself that Coleridge was *not* the author of William Wordsworth's poem
"The Idiot Boy"?! For that matter, how hard could it be -- for a
literate reader, at any rate -- to VERify for himself that neither
Prince Albert not Mary Wollstonecraft was born on May 26?!

Yet in many of the above instances, at least one Oxfordian not only
failed to VERify the information in the first place, but actually
*continued* to post the *same idiotic crap* -- oVER and oVER -- *after*
others had VERified and proved conclusively that said "information" was
completely bogus!!!

The problem, of course, lies in the uncanny similarity of Oxfordians'
notions of the "scientific method" to h.l.a.s's Idiot Boy's bizarre idea
(usual disclaimer) of what constitutes the "scientific method".

> Art Neuendorffer
>
> "Anybody who's not paranoid is not in full possession of the facts."

Even if one granted that, Art, it does *not* follow that someone who
is paranoid is in full -- or even partial -- possession of the facts, as
you have obligingly shown by example.

> - Gore Vidal

[marco]

[BCD]

***But it would be necessary for me to have a reasonable doubt. Having
"reason" and having "doubt about the identity of William Shakespeare"
would seem at present to be hovering around mutual exclusivity.
Nevertheless, asking questions is never a bad thing. We may indeed ask
questions concerning whether a good many signatories to the Reasonable
Doubt declaration are perhaps basking in /Un/reasonable Doubt.

Best Wishes,

--BCD

[Don]

Coincidentally, I happened upon an essay by Aldous Huxley,
"Shakespeare and Religion," at
http://www.sirbacon.org/links/huxley2.htm

"This essay, the last Huxley wrote (it was actually dictated on his
death bed), was published in Show Magazine in 1964 soon after his
death.

Here he uses the "questions" approach very well, IMO.

bookburn

[Arthur Neuendorffer]

>> Don wrote:
>>>
>>> Suggestion: All the above might be discussed as part of the decision
>>> about college, whether to get a liberal arts education or go to the
>>> State College. Supposedly, education is life-long, and we get
>>> grounded in the well-rounded. This could result in asking questions,
>>> instead of always describing problems in different ways?
>
> BCD wrote:
>>
>> ***Yes, I took my cue from the focus of the original article ("teachers
>> force our students..."). Most certainly, education is life-long, and
>> the potential of appreciation of the Arts and the abstract always there
>> to urge us on to enlightenment. Asking questions, describing problems
>> in different ways--both are to the good. Even (or indeed especially)
>> asking questions about Shakespearean authorship is to the good;
>> but we await a yield from that crop...

Arthur Neuendorffer wrote:
>
> Then you should have no qualms at all about signing the:
>
> Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare
>
> https://doubtaboutwill.org/declaration
>
> https://doubtaboutwill.org/sign
>
> (You Will be the 3rd Brent to sign.)

BCD wrote:

<<But it would be necessary for me to have a reasonable doubt. Having
"reason" and having "doubt about the identity of William Shakespeare"
would seem at present to be hovering around mutual exclusivity.

Nevertheless, asking questions is never a bad thing.>>

--------------------------------------------
The declaration does *NOT* state that you personally need
"to have a reasonable doubt" about the identity of William Shakespeare.

The declaration states simply that
"there is *ROOM* for reasonable doubt"
about the identity of William Shakespeare.
--------------------------------------------
https://doubtaboutwill.org/declaration

<<We, the undersigned, hereby declare our view that there is *ROOM* for reasonable doubt about the identity of William Shakespeare, and that it is an important question for anyone seeking to understand the works, the formative literary culture in which they were produced, or the nature of literary creativity and genius.>>
--------------------------------------------
In other words: asking questions about

the identity of William Shakespeare

is *NOT* a bad thing.

Art N.

[BCD]

***But . . . but that is the world's best set-up for a cheap joke about
the nature of the rubber-walled room appropriate for those who entertain
doubts. And I would never stoop to such depths. It is especially
trying when they are entirely justified. Anti-strats should be ashamed
of themselves for constantly putting temptation in the way of good
honest commonsensical folk, and me too.

> about the identity of William Shakespeare, and that it is an important question for anyone seeking to understand the works, the formative literary culture in which they were produced, or the nature of literary creativity and genius.>>
> --------------------------------------------
> In other words: asking questions about
> the identity of William Shakespeare
> is *NOT* a bad thing.

***"Bridey, don't be so Jesuitical," said Sebastian.

Best Wishes,

--BCD

[david....@dartmouth.edu]

In article <m9kq0b$gtt$1...@dont-email.me>, BCD <pilt...@verizon.net>
wrote:
[...]

> >> BCD wrote:
> >>>
> >>> ***Yes, I took my cue from the focus of the original article ("teachers
> >>> force our students..."). Most certainly, education is life-long, and
> >>> the potential of appreciation of the Arts and the abstract always there
> >>> to urge us on to enlightenment. Asking questions, describing problems
> >>> in different ways--both are to the good. Even (or indeed especially)
> >>> asking questions about Shakespearean authorship is to the good;
> >>> but we await a yield from that crop...

> > Arthur Neuendorffer (aka Noonedafter) wrote:
> >>
> >> Then you should have no qualms at all about signing the:
> >>

> >> Declaration of Reasonable [sic] Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare

> >>
> >> https://doubtaboutwill.org/declaration
> >>
> >> https://doubtaboutwill.org/sign
> >>
> >> (You Will be the 3rd Brent to sign.)

> > BCD wrote:
> >
> > <<But it would be necessary for me to have a reasonable doubt. Having
> > "reason" and having "doubt about the identity of William Shakespeare"
> > would seem at present to be hovering around mutual exclusivity.

Very well put. But have a care with the use of the word "hovering"
-- Oxfordian crackpot cryptographers like Art will note that the word is
an anagram of "Ver ho'ing", a succinct summary of Oxford's activity in
Venice with the courtesan Virginia Padoana.

> > Nevertheless, asking questions is never a bad thing.>>
> > --------------------------------------------
> > The declaration does *NOT* state that you personally need
> > "to have a reasonable doubt" about the identity of William Shakespeare.
> >
> > The declaration states simply that
> > "there is *ROOM* for reasonable doubt"
> > about the identity of William Shakespeare.
> > --------------------------------------------
> > https://doubtaboutwill.org/declaration
> >
> > <<We, the undersigned, hereby declare our view that there is *ROOM* for
> > reasonable doubt

> ***But . . . but that is the world's best set-up for a cheap joke about
> the nature of the rubber-walled room appropriate for those who entertain
> doubts. And I would never stoop to such depths.

I would. Seriously, Brent -- how can you pass up such a golden
opportunity?!

> It is especially
> trying when they are entirely justified.

Indeed!

> Anti-strats should be ashamed
> of themselves for constantly putting temptation in the way of good
> honest commonsensical folk, and me too.

> > about the identity of William Shakespeare, and that it is an important
> > question for anyone seeking to understand the works, the formative literary
> > culture in which they were produced, or the nature of literary creativity
> > and genius.>>
> > --------------------------------------------
> > In other words: asking questions about
> > the identity of William Shakespeare
> > is *NOT* a bad thing.

Asking interesting questions is a praiseworthy pursuit; asking stupid
questions is less so, particularly when many of those questions have
already been answered, in some cases many times.

> ***"Bridey, don't be so Jesuitical," said Sebastian.

Where would anti-Stratfordians be without casuistry? John Kennedy
aptly summarized one such classic instance of anti-Stratfordian
"reasoning" on his delightful web page,

<http://www.john-w-kennedy.name/antistrats.php>:

"Pasting together phrases twenty chapters apart to make a new
sentence constitutes 'clarification'."

> Best Wishes,
>
> --BCD

[david....@dartmouth.edu]

In article <46060833-98bd-45f0...@googlegroups.com>,

Arthur Neuendorffer <acne...@gmail.com> (aka Noonedafter) wrote:

> >> BCD wrote:
> >>>
> >>> ***Yes, I took my cue from the focus of the original article ("teachers
> >>> force our students..."). Most certainly, education is life-long, and
> >>> the potential of appreciation of the Arts and the abstract always there
> >>> to urge us on to enlightenment. Asking questions, describing problems
> >>> in different ways--both are to the good. Even (or indeed especially)
> >>> asking questions about Shakespearean authorship is to the good; but we
> >>> await a yield from that crop...

> > Arthur Neuendorffer <acne...@gmail.com> (aka Noonedafter) wrote:
> >>
> >> Then you should have no qualms at all about signing the:
> >>
> >> Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare
> >>
> >> https://doubtaboutwill.org/declaration
> >>
> >> https://doubtaboutwill.org/sign
> >>
> >> (You Will be the 3rd Brent to sign.)

> nordicskiv2 wrote:
> >
> > How do you know that he hasn't signed already, Art?

> Well, he's not Brent Miller.
>
> But I suppose he could be Brent Chambers, Ph.D. .
>
> (Is he?)

No, Art; you're committing an even more egregious instance of your
celebrated Peter Gay blunder! Brent doesn't even have the same
*surname* as Brent Chambers, Ph.D. -- at least the two Peter Gays had
the same surname, although they followed vastly different professions,
resided in different states, and were nearly a quarter century apart in
age.

Rather, I was suggesting that Brent might have used a (gasp)
*pseudonym* and signed with tongue firmly planted in cheek, as Professor
Voluntad San Juan Sacudón de Lanza evidently did.

> Art Neuendorffer

[Arthur Neuendorffer]

BCD wrote:

<<But . . . but that is the world's best set-up for a cheap joke about
the nature of the rubber-walled room appropriate for those who entertain
doubts. And I would never stoop to such depths. It is especially
trying when they are entirely justified. Anti-strats should be ashamed
of themselves for constantly putting temptation in the way of good
honest commonsensical folk, and me too.>>

The *ROOM* that really spooks anti-Strats is the *ROOM*
visited by Al Pacino in _Looking for Richard_ (1996):
-----------------------------------------------
http://flatwatershakespeare.blogspot.com/2008/12/looking-at-richard-one-more-time.html

<<Al Pacino's 1996 film Looking for Richard addresses the perennial "problem" that Shakespeare presents for American actors. Pacino visits the recreated Globe Theatre in London, only to find it still in the midst of construction; he goes to the shrine that is Stratford-upon-Avon, only to be asked "what the fuck" he knows about the Bard and later to set off fire alarms in what the town presents as Shakespeare's birthplace.>>
................................................
It'd be interesting to see where he...

- Is that possibly...?

- Where Shakespeare was born.

I think that's Shakespeare up there in the window.

Knock first. Knock, Frederic.

Hello. Frederic, you've...

Okay.

- Where was William Shakespeare born?

- There's the bed of birth.

- You gotta be kidding.

- I wouldn't kid about a thing like that.

It's too late.

It's a very, very small bed.

I was expecting to have an epiphany...

...an outpouring of the soul

upon seeing...

- Go out and come in again.

- Where he was born.

If you're really an actor, you can come back and have an epiphany. I did.

- Only...

- Did you have one?

- I did not see it.

- I'm not showing it. It's an inner one.

We're not alone.

- Every once in a while...

- There's a fire truck out there.

- I think we tripped an alarm.

- We should pause and think...

You talked too loud

and it set off an alarm.

Fire alarm. I got the fire officer.

We set it off.

- There's a fireman. Oh, yes.

- Hello.

Unfortunately, the sensor head is here.

There.

That's going to be the problem.

Yeah? What is it? Is it...?

That's a real bummer.

We come miles to see

where he was born...
> --------------------------------------------
> https://doubtaboutwill.org/declaration

>
> <<about the identity of William Shakespeare, and that it is an important question for anyone seeking to understand the works, the formative literary culture in which they were produced, or the nature of literary creativity and genius.>>
> --------------------------------------------
> In other words: asking questions about
> the identity of William Shakespeare
> is *NOT* a bad thing.

***"Bridey, don't be so Jesuitical," said Sebastian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVpjyboXiWI

Art Neuendorffer

[wexford....@gmail.com]

You had the wrong teacher.

[Melanie Sands]

Am Donnerstag, 15. Januar 2015 17:47:14 UTC+1 schrieb marco:
> English teachers seem to adore Shakespeare....
> Students seem to chug through it....
>
> Everyone else in society sits questioning why our English teachers force
> our students to read literature by a guy who lived 500 years ago, who
> writes in barely recognizable English, and whose plays are
> painfully predictable?
>
>
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rajat-bhageria/why-do-our-schools-force-_b_6443672.html
>

> marc


"Barely recognizable English"?

Yup. That's exACTLY why students are "forced" to read
Shakespeare, yo man, what's popping? Dis Shakespeare,
he don't sweat me, geddit?
Hey,that's so BAD, man, guyz in da hood, yo mah bitch,
yeah, yo mah bestie!

Say what?!

Melanie