Starting a Child on the Appreciation of Shakespeare

Many young people have their appreciation of Shakespeare "ruined"- (a word by the way that Shakespeare first coined but more about this later) because they are forced to read the text without much of a background. For countless millions of students sitting down in a classroom and reading the Bard is a chore akin to reading in a foreign language. No wonder many are turned off--and never want to pick up a text again or see a performance!To avoid this outcome it would pay for you to do some "work" as a parent to prepare your child. I suggest you start by asking your child what would they like to know about Shakespeare:

1) How a working class kid made it big in London when there were few opportunities for anyone to do anything but continue their father's trade?

2) Why his stories are still being made into Hollywood films today--films like Romeo and Juliet, Midsummers Nights Dream, Othello etc?

3) How his words have entered the language and are now part of our everyday speech?

4) Why he can be considered perhaps the world's greatest literary artist?

5) Why famous and not so famous actors lust after his roles?

What to do about any of these entry points? How are any of them educational in the best sense--how do they lead us back into the plays where the real educational experience can really be ignited?

Let's take them each one by one:

1) The great life--ask your student to imagine a world without the internet, without phones (never mind cell phones)and just with old mud strewn dangerous highways connecting towns. Ask him or jher to imagine a school where the texts were in Latin. Then ask him to imagine the chances for the son of a glove maker to make it big, become a star in London world. What skills did he need? How might have he acquired them? Read together any one of the latest highly readable biographies. Authors like Schoenbaum and Greenblatt in particular write well about that early life and will hopefully get your child to want to read more.

2) See those Hollywood films and ask what makes them so watchable--yes the story--then go to rent Shakespeare in Love and get excited about Romeo and Juliet and then discuss the other ingredient Shakespeare brings to the table his insane love for language.

3) Ever wondered where familiar with the phrases "Live long day", "Fell swoop", "Rhyme and reason" came from? Shakespeare of course-as a game look for all the words and phrases we still use and might want to use today when reading through a play like Hamlet or Romeo& Juliet.

4) Why the greatest literary artist? Harold Bloom goes so far that Shakespeare invented modern character--whether you agree with that assessment or not--no one before or since has developed deeper tragic characters than Hamlet and Lear or comedic characters like Falstaff or brought historical figures like Henry V to life. Who else has created stories that define the way ambition undermines morality in works like Macbeth and Julius Ceaser? Who has examined the causes and consequences of war in such depth as he does in Henry V and the history plays? Who has developed as penetrating view of old age and power as he does in King Lear? His range of language and theme is simply far greater than any other artist. Watch Branagh's Henry V or his Hamlet with your child and see how they get entranced--notwithstanding their diet of video games and other fare.

5) Rent Looking for Richard by Al Pacino to see how a great actor prepares for this difficult but highly entertaining role and then you begin to understand the way all actors love the challenge of playing Shakespeare. Actors like to challenge themselves to enter into their characters--while most of their parts are often thinly written and have fairly straightforward logical motivations --few of Shakespeare's great character roles are easily understood. There are dark areas where their motivation is unclear and their essential selves are hidden behind many masks. Richard is such a figure. He is a complex rogue--self hating and envious--manipulative but self aware-he lets the audience as so many of Shakespeare's flawed characters do, on his inner drama. The great actors all want to go after the major classic roles--do Hamlet as Gielgud and Oliver did when they were relatively young and Lear when they become senior statesmen. In an age when womens' roles were played by boys and women were largely second class citizens--Shakespeare manages to bring women fully to life in a way that has arguably never been equalled. Not surprisingly, the female roles are also sought after--Cleopatra, Ophelia and Juliet represent women who still communicate their complex natures today. Actors know they need to work hard to play these roles--but they also know the extensive preparation it takes is well worth the sense of accomplishment they feel when they master them and are able to excite an audience into believing their reality.

Get your child started when they are in 8,9 or 10 on a process of discovering Shakespeare and most of all take them to performances--there are many many Shakespeare plays being performed throughout the world. He is the most performed playwright for a reason. Prepare them before hand with a synopsis of the setting for the story and a review of the characters--but don't tell them how it ends!