Garth George: Shakespearean studies are not to be, no question

Opinion

So studies of William Shakespeare, the most prolific and enduring playwright/poet the world has even seen, are to be consigned to history by those who administer our ever-deteriorating standards of education.

As of next year changes to the Level 3 English component of the ridiculous National Certificate of Educational Achievement, which asks students to respond critically to a Shakespearean drama, will expire and not be replaced.

It is the last Shakespeare-specific unit in the curriculum and its demise will mean that studying the Bard will be entirely up to individual teachers. Not much hope for him, then, since I suspect that one reason for this is that far too many English teachers today are simply incapable of interpreting him to their students,

Teachers, however, who are never prepared to admit to any incompetence, are blaming the students. One head of English at an Auckland high school says students have been voting with their feet by walking away from the Shakespearean unit. He reckons it was inevitable, and I suppose it is. In today's dumbed-down ways of teaching and learning I guess Shakespeare is just too difficult.

I was never a great fan of him in my schooldays. I learned what I had to of the man my generation of schoolboys - and no doubt some before and since - referred to as Bill Rattledagger.

There were far more interesting authors to capture my attention - Edward Stratemeyer (Hardy Boys), C.S. Forester (Hornblower), Denis Wheatley, Twain, Hemingway, James Hadley Chase. And, of course, in those days of strict censorship, D.H. Lawrence and Mickey Spillane, odd copies of whose works, particularly Lady Chatterley's Lover, were handed round, always in a plain wrapper.

But, strangely enough, even today 55 years later, I can recite without thinking at least the beginnings of a couple of Hamlet's soliloquies: "To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them ..." And: "Oh that this too too sullied flesh would melt. Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew ..."

And Marc Anthony's eulogy at the grave of Caesar: "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones ..."

But I wonder if today's students and educationists appreciate just how profoundly the Bard influenced the way we express ourselves even today. Consult any quotations website and you'll get the point.

We might say of Shakespeare's writing that "it was Greek to me" or "there's method in his madness" or "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and that's "the short and the long of it". We might even "give the devil his due".

We might agree that "a friend in need is a friend indeed" and that we "have seen better days". We may have discovered that "absence makes the heart grow fonder" and that "all that glisters is not gold".

We soon learn that "What's done is done" and on that we'll "not budge an inch", that sometimes we must "be cruel to be kind" and that can be "the unkindest cut of all".

We might concede that "all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players".

We might venture "once more unto the breach, dear friends" to find that "the quality of mercy is not strained", that "love is blind" but all will be well if we are "true to ourselves".

We might discover that "brevity is the soul of wit", that "honesty is the best policy", that "the course of true love never did run smooth" even if we are "birds of a feather" or "wear my heart upon my sleeve" which is the "stuff as dreams are made of".

I might sit down to "a dish fit for the gods" while enjoying my "salad days" and proclaim that "the world's my oyster", that "all's well that ends well" and "I lead a charmed life", even if only "in my mind's eye".

While throughout the world men "Cry 'Havoc', and let slip the dogs of war" and "the weakest goes to the wall", the "worm will turn" and "the dog will have his day".

And so it goes on. Shakespeare's contribution to our language has been stupendous. What a shame his immortality is about to diminish.

You can't fault his wisdom, either. I wonder if Allan Hubbard ever read that "He that dies pays all debts", or the legal fraternity that "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" or MPs that "a politician is one that would circumvent God".

Any man worth the name knows that "women speak two languages - one of which is verbal", but I really wonder about the truth of "old fools are babes again" and "an old man is twice a child".