Opinion: It’s time to stop reading Shakespeare, but not the way you think.
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I can still practically hear the groans from my high school English class when the teacher announced we would be reading Shakespeare. I remember being affronted at the time (I was kind of the worst, don’t tell anyone) as the proud owner of a Shakespearean insults book. How could anyone not like his work? But when I made it to college, I finally started to get it. The way that his plays are taught now goes completely against his original intention and, as a result, students see reading his work as a chore.

I was dismayed in one of my English classes last fall when Hamlet popped up on the syllabus. Instead of reading the play aloud or watching a performance of it like I had done in previous classes, we were supposed to read it on our own before class and then come together to be pedantic about various parts of the text. I know there are those who would argue that that’s essentially what being an English major is, but trust me when I say it was a lot less engaging than other assignments I’ve had. I remember the professor encouraging us to read out loud to ourselves, but obviously there was no way to make sure everyone was doing this.

So what made the experience so uninspiring for me? Part of it is that it was the complete opposite of how the play was meant to be consumed. Shakespeare’s plays, as the name suggests, were meant to be performed for an audience. Particularly during his lifetime, the audience was a very active part of the experience. Watching a play at the time was not something that happened to you, but something you participated in. Additionally, organic interactions between the performers were emphasized. In other words, plays were active displays of writing, not passive.

And instead of experiencing any of the spectacle that makes the work so interesting, students today are assigned to read Shakespeare’s plays silently, alone and in small chunks. Does it even count as a play if it takes you two weeks to get through it? It makes at least some sense to read a regular book this way, giving students time to focus on small details and their impact while still enjoying the plot of the story. But the very nature of plays is short and active, two qualities that are completely ignored by the current system. All of the excitement is completely removed.

I was recently reading a paper by an instructor who uses pop culture to teach Shakespeare to his students, and I would encourage other educators to adopt this approach. To really make the words come alive as intended, we should emphasize not only the innovative ways Shakespeare used and furthered the English language, but also the performance aspect of his work. I have a theory that most students wouldn’t “hate” Shakespeare like they say if they were enabled to experience his work as intended. I hope that going forward, the standard English class curriculum will change enough to allow that theory to be proven right.