The works of Shakespeare are astonishing for their psychological insight and soaring literary beauty. They are nonpareil works in the field not only of literature but of psychology.
I first utilized the works of Shakespeare
while teaching psychology at a Dakota county alternative high school in the
1990s. When I told the English teachers
that I was going to teach King Lear,
they asked me what contemporary adaptation I was going to use. When I told them that I was going to use the
original text 9and never abominations such as No Fear Shakespeare), they looked at me like I was hopelessly
naïve. I could see in their eyes that they
were saying to themselves something like, “What a fool--- doesn’t he know that these are whipped up on
kids, castaways, burdened by family struggles, drugs, and community
environment? Good luck, dude--- check back with us when the students bring
you to your senses."
I proceeded to present every word of King Lear, having the students read,
line by line. We took it slowly. I let no word go without definition, no
opportunity to promote discussion pass, which meant an opportunity in almost
every psychologically profound stanza. The
20 or so putative ruffians I had in these classes loved the play. After we had finished reading the classic, I
took them to a performance at the Guthrie---
a major reason why I had selected Lear
to read in class. Many of the
students had become attached to certain parts that they had often taken in class. They came to the Guthrie staging with fiery
curiosity >>>>>
>>>>> How would Lear lay into his loving daughter
Cordelia for not mustering the fawning words that he sought at the division of
his property among her and her sisters?
>>>>> How would the Fool (jester) handle her
remarks to Kent (confined in stocks for telling the truth to King Lear about the
probable consequences of his rash actions) when the latter asked her where she
had learned a witticism, to which the
Fool replied, consonant with her knowing who the real fools were: “Not in the stocks, fool.”
>>>>> How would the sensitive scene be handled in
which ruffians gouge out Glouchester’s eyes at the behest of his wayward son,
Edmund?
My students were on the edge of their
seats, listening to everyone. I reveled
in seeing this sight while others at this special staging for high school
students, some from highly touted suburban Minnetonka High School, were
inattentive and acting the fools themselves--- while my supposedly whipped up on,
life-burdened, can’t succeed students could not have been more attentive if
they had been graduate students in Elizabethan literature. This was one of my best moments as a teacher.
……………………………………………………………………………..
The question should never be,
“How do you get students interested in
Shakespeare?”
The question should instead be,
“How would a teacher present the Bard
without mesmerizing students?”
I have continued to teach Shakespeare into
my students in the New Salem Educational Initiative, reading the plays in full,
then compressing them for presentation at our annual banquet. Thus far I have compressed for presentation
the plays King Lear, Hamlet, Othello, Julius Caesar, Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, and Comedy of
Errors. Every summer I take those
with major roles to see the same play we have performed at the banquet (having
selected the play to be performed accordingly) at the Great River Shakespeare
Festival in Winona.
In considering the intense relevance of
Shakespeare to the lives of these young people, examine again the sentiments of
the hired assassins of Macbeth, guys who have been kicked around by life much
as have my students and their families >>>>>
>>>>>
Second Murderer:
I am one, my liege,
Whom the vile blows and buffets of the
world
Have so incensed that I am reckless what
I do to spite the world.
First Murderer:
And I another,
So weary with disasters, tugg’d with
fortune,
That I would set my life on any chance,
To mend it, or be rid on’t.
And for students who have known or known of
people who have been caught up in circumstances in which they have committed
grave criminal offenses, imagine the power of this guilt-ridden soliloquy of Claudius
in Hamlet >>>>>
>>>>>
King (Claudius)
O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,
A brother’s murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as
will;
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect.
What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood,
Is there not rain enough in the sweet
heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offense?
And what’s in prayer but this two-fold
force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardoned being down? Then I’ll look up;
My fault is past.
But, O, what force of prayer
Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder?
That cannot be; since I am still possess’d
Of those effects for which I did the
murder,
My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.
May one be pardon’d and retain the offense?
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offense’s gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft ‘tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law: but ‘tis not so above;
There is no shuffling, there the action
lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves
compell’d
Even to the teeth and forehead of our
faults,
To give evidence.
What then?
what rests?
Try what repentance can; what can it not?
Yet what can it when one can not repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged! Help, angels!
Make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!!
All may be well.
[Kneels]
Rising
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven
go.
…………………………………………………………………..
Teaching Shakespeare sends powerful messages to students about the impact
of one’s social environment as a generator of human behavior, encouraging them
to examine their actions before proceeding with deeds for which they would forever
pay.
I do this, then I show them a better way
via the power of knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education, the path to a
life not leading to mean streets or to incarceration but to cultural
fulfillment, civic engagement, and professional satisfaction.
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