okay I have a confession to make
and I’m just going to get this off my
chest now and then we can just roll
right forward okay sometimes I say
naughty words I know it’s very bad it’s
very unprofessional and so of course
today I wasn’t going to do that but I
realized very quickly that I would have
to I’d have to say one bad word and it’s
the S word I hope it’s okay okay
Shakespeare now I know we laugh but in
my experience telling people that you
study or worse enjoy the work of William
Shakespeare is the fastest way to both
impress and horrify people it might as
well be a bad word here’s what I
typically hear from children and adults
when I drop the notorious s word into
conversation Shakespeare I’m not smart
enough for Shakespeare well Shakespeare
wasn’t writing exclusively for smart
people he wrote for everybody from poor
stable voice all the way up to the Queen
of England
okay but I also can’t read Old English
because it’s old probably read it and
block them line well I read old English
either it’s basically German so it might
be a relief to find out that Shakespeare
wrote in early modern English which
isn’t far from what we speak right now
but Shakespeare is just boring that’s
all I ever hear about is that
Shakespeare is boring hmm this always
serves me first I guess if you consider
war love triangles mistaken identity so
too
paths woody banter slapstick comedy half
animals have humans
I guess it’s none of that interests you
then Shakespeare would be boring but
ultimately what I’m going to say to my
skeptics is it’s wills world and you’re
already living in it ever tell a
knock-knock joke Shakespeare
do you wear your heart upon your sleeve
Shakespeare do you ever want to break
the ice you never felt like you were in
a pickle or that you’ve seen better days
is there a method to your madness do you
hate your parents at a house at home
have you said that love is blind and
even if all of this is Greek to you it’s
still all Shakespeare now maybe I
haven’t convinced you yet that’s okay
you’re sitting here today and you’re
thinking no Shakespeare isn’t for me I
know well first thing is that you’re not
alone in fact I think you can find an
ally here in this very room but present
company aside there were also some other
literary giants writers right up there
with Shakespeare who also didn’t get
what he was doing for instance we have
Voltaire Lord Byron Tolstoy and Shaw all
famous Shakespeare haters in fact
Voltaire over here he went so far as to
say that Shakespeare’s work was an
enormous dunghill how nice but I’ve had
it from name-calling and perhaps a
little bit of jealousy boys people would
go so far as to even diagnose this
crippling fear of a 400 year old ghost
in fact John Stehr Aurra
and Dan Poole call it shake ISM an
irrational aversion to Shakespeare and
his plays now the first time I read that
I wish I had climbed that term because I
see new cases of shakes BISM every day
it’s more contagious than the common
cold and your symptoms will start to
show up before you’ve touched a single
page picture this your English teacher
tells you next class you’ve got to bring
in Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet or The
Tempest and you don’t know when it’s
going to happen but
we’re between getting that assignment
and making it to the next class you will
encounter a person could be one of your
parents it could be a fellow student
could be a teacher could even be your
Starbucks barista they’re going to hear
you say Shakespeare and they’re going to
go my friend you better call out sick
because you’ve already got shakes vism
how was your teacher possibly going to
get you excited about this man or his
works if people have already done that
to you now this is an epidemic that
spreads beyond classroom walls – for
instance back in the summer of 2014 the
New York Public Theater was putting on
its annual Shakespeare in the Park and
that her they ran much ado about nothing
followed by the great tragedy King Lear
and so hundreds of people flocked to the
Delacorte theater in the Central Park
each night to see these free
performances and so one night watching
King Lear was a local celebrity
this is Ira Glass so for those of you
who don’t know mr. glass is the revered
host of NPR’s This American Life he’s an
intellectual big deal well after the
curtain fell on Lear mr. glass did what
every red-blooded American celebrity
does these days he tweeted about it
let’s see what he had to say
Shakespeare not good no stakes not
relatable I think I’m realizing
Shakespeare sucks
now despite that very nice use of
alliteration IRA that’s what I would
have written on his tweet if I was
grading it this was devastating
I mean let’s be real okay I disagree
with what he’s saying but I also admired
him for putting it out there it was
brave but the irony is well so many
people are reading this tweet and glass
is talking about how utterly unrelatable
Shakespeare is so many people can relate
to that sentiment because more often
than not in life you are going to
encounter people who do believe
Shakespeare sucks and people in my
position we could be to blame you see
the reason why I take my job as an
English teacher so seriously is because
of Shakespeare it is fun for me but it’s
ultimately challenging introducing
students to the man the myth the legend
the work and if I don’t approach this
topic as delicately as a surgeon I could
ruin him for you and not just you but
anybody who comes into contact with your
shakes vism cooties can’t have it so I
believe in the real world
I don’t exclusively dwell in Renaissance
drama so I understand that Shakespeare
is intimidating he’s kind of entire
section of Bart’s ennoble just about him
that’s a lot so the question is how do
we begin to break down this mammoth
figure and the question is simple you
have to shake up your understanding of
Shakespeare he’s not Shakespeare this
infallible literary God looking down on
you as you struggle with iambic
pentameter and laughing that’s not him
he’s actually will the Entertainer the
innovative storyteller
a husband a father a man now I’m sure
you’re still not convinced so what I’m
going to do is I’m going to hold up
Shakespeare next to another icon you
might be more comfortable with let’s say
well Disney okay now you might be
thinking for a second no no we do not
start a Snow White in the same way we
look at a fellow pun intended but we do
have some remarkable connections between
these two men my friends will and Walt
so if you were to look at any sort of
average Disney animated feature okay
you are going to see Shakespearean
influence there you might even hear his
words for instance we often write off
Beauty and the Beast Gaston as being a
misogynistic psychopath but did you know
that he manages to quote Lady Macbeth
while he’s singing his big song kill the
Beast now it’s too bad bookish delemus
that reference the movie might have
ended differently now in the same vein
we have Aladdin’s genie quoting Julius
Caesar and hopefully by now someone’s
tipped you off to the fact that the Lion
King is Hamlet said in the African
safari with more music and less death
now allusions aside there’s more
connections between these men okay and
that is because they were kindred
spirits Walt Disney William Shakespeare
took stories that were already familiar
and they made them into something
completely new and their versions became
their own kind of timeless for instance
when you hear the title The Little
Mermaid you think of a splashy
under-the-sea musical you don’t think of
the original dark tragedy but even
though Hans Christian Andersen wrote
that story 152 years before the 1989
film that is what remains relevant in
your psyche and all because a bunch of
people took a story changed it around
and added a happy ending this is
something that Shakespeare did time and
time again he took historical sources
mythology even stories that
contemporaries a visitor to Britain and
it changed them into something new
he gave them worked out he gave words of
poetry he developed characters
especially female characters which he
often doesn’t get in
credit for now in case you’re starting
to think this little analogy is well
cute you might be thinking that there’s
no way Shakespeare could compare to the
corporate jet or not that is the Disney
Corporation I need to be right I mean we
don’t have a Shakespearean theme park
yet but you might be surprised to know
that Shakespeare was a businessman in
fact he was a triple threat writer actor
producer and he didn’t just sit in the
corner right and walk away he would have
been involved with a lot of aspects of
the play from deciding who was going to
be cast in which roles to figuring out
how are we going to create thunder and
lightning on a stage
without the use of special effects
whatever those are theater was a
business just like it is today and
creativity men success so Shakespeare
had to get his finger on the pulse of an
audience to see what they wanted now if
you’re curious about what was an early
modern audience like you need look no
further than us at the movies okay have
you ever noticed how fickle we are we
never know what we want we want
something original and then we flock to
reboots and remakes and sequels in the
summer we want splashy cgi action and in
the winter we want raw we want artsy
lease to make us think if you zero in on
one of our favorite genres the superhero
film we balance between wanting a gritty
award-winning film like a Christopher
Nolan Batman movie and then a few years
later we want the quickly star-studded
Marvel movies what do we want
well Shakespeare had the same problem so
early on in his career people were into
what they called revenge tragedies and
that’s exactly what it sounds like and
in fact the bloodier the better Thomas
Kyd kicked this off and he wrote a play
called the Spanish tragedy Christopher
Marlowe followed suit
naturally up-and-coming writer Will
Shakespeare had to write one so he
writes titus and dronicus you might not
have heard of it now this is a mess of a
play before the end you’ve got 14 deaths
three severed hands one missing tongue
and a pie that’s literally to die for
and the writing well that’s a mess too
well I said it Shakespeare wrote
something that wasn’t perfect you see a
lot of scholars actually discredit this
play as building Shakespeare’s because
it’s bad isn’t that terrible at the same
time that he was working on Titus he was
also writing Richard the third and that
ended up being his first big widespread
hit
it’s a tragedy it’s a history people
love it now if we’re going back to the
movie analogy for second okay imagine
Titus as being a b-movie horror slasher
pit with some inexperienced amateurs and
on the other hand he’s got Richard the
third which is like a sweeping
oscar-winning drama how can one man
right both are you kidding me of course
one man right both we like different
things you can see different movies you
could read different books we like other
things if we like the same thing all the
time we would be bored if you made
another analogy think about the Steven
Spielberg okay he’s responsible for
movies like Schindler’s List and linked
in and Saving Private Ryan and that’s
what we give him awards for but let’s
not forget he’s also responsible for the
Indiana Jones franchise including
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull which I
want my money back for okay now if we
can forgive mr. Spielberg then perhaps
we can forgive mr. Shakespeare okay but
the thing is you weren’t used to seeing
him up on a pedestal like this okay he
didn’t put himself there we did so let’s
go back to the two place you’ve got
Titus right it’s a mess it needs work
seven years later Shakespeare says okay
I’ll run another revenge tragedy and
it’s good it’s really good it’s polished
it’s nearly floor look flawless it’s
Hamlin okay
what happened in seven years of time
Allah first of all the writing gets
better I don’t care if you’re typing on
a Mac or if you’re using a quill writing
is a process and I’m sure you’ve all
heard that before and Shakespeare was no
different he had a room for growth so
writing gets better in seven years
okay but other stuff happened to
Shakespeare wrote other please
he had big hits he became a shareholder
in the King’s Men his production company
but the most important change was that
Shakespeare experienced real tragedy
because in 1596 his young son cabinets
at age 10 died no I don’t care how old
you are if you’re a parent like many of
us are and who have to bury a child I
can’t imagine a lower death can you and
that’s what Shakespeare went through and
all while he was living miles and miles
away from his home in London
it took experiencing true darkness grief
depression for Shakespeare to write
about a play that embodies all of those
and that’s where the magic of
Shakespeare comes into play good friend
of Shakespeare’s Ben Jonson once said
that his friend was not of an age but
for all time how could Jonson have known
that over 400 years later we would still
be tied to one man and the answer is
that Shakespeare is everywhere okay we
are drawn to characters and stories that
are Shakespearean in nature it is what
we want we can turn on in a news channel
and see the Montagues and the Capulets
fighting in any kind of city we can
imagine a war like a fellow’s as being a
championship basketball game we can hear
the words of a villain coming
from a face that we trust Shakespeare
scares us because we hear words like
Addie and I and often an on but if you
did beneath those words you will find
characters that you can see in any
reflection of any mirror have you ever
been in love with someone who doesn’t
love you back you might want to talk to
Helena or Rodrigo for advice do you want
to prove yourself that you’re more than
what you seem especially to mom and dad
they might talk to Prince how he later
became henry v maybe you felt like an
outsider you might identify with viola
or a fellow or Shylock and finally if
life ever becomes a series of slings and
arrows that you need to fend off or it
looks like an overwhelming sea of
troubles about to swallow you whole you
might want to pick up that copy of
Hamlet from high school dust it off and
give Shakespeare another try thank you
and I’m just going to get this off my
chest now and then we can just roll
right forward okay sometimes I say
naughty words I know it’s very bad it’s
very unprofessional and so of course
today I wasn’t going to do that but I
realized very quickly that I would have
to I’d have to say one bad word and it’s
the S word I hope it’s okay okay
Shakespeare now I know we laugh but in
my experience telling people that you
study or worse enjoy the work of William
Shakespeare is the fastest way to both
impress and horrify people it might as
well be a bad word here’s what I
typically hear from children and adults
when I drop the notorious s word into
conversation Shakespeare I’m not smart
enough for Shakespeare well Shakespeare
wasn’t writing exclusively for smart
people he wrote for everybody from poor
stable voice all the way up to the Queen
of England
okay but I also can’t read Old English
because it’s old probably read it and
block them line well I read old English
either it’s basically German so it might
be a relief to find out that Shakespeare
wrote in early modern English which
isn’t far from what we speak right now
but Shakespeare is just boring that’s
all I ever hear about is that
Shakespeare is boring hmm this always
serves me first I guess if you consider
war love triangles mistaken identity so
too
paths woody banter slapstick comedy half
animals have humans
I guess it’s none of that interests you
then Shakespeare would be boring but
ultimately what I’m going to say to my
skeptics is it’s wills world and you’re
already living in it ever tell a
knock-knock joke Shakespeare
do you wear your heart upon your sleeve
Shakespeare do you ever want to break
the ice you never felt like you were in
a pickle or that you’ve seen better days
is there a method to your madness do you
hate your parents at a house at home
have you said that love is blind and
even if all of this is Greek to you it’s
still all Shakespeare now maybe I
haven’t convinced you yet that’s okay
you’re sitting here today and you’re
thinking no Shakespeare isn’t for me I
know well first thing is that you’re not
alone in fact I think you can find an
ally here in this very room but present
company aside there were also some other
literary giants writers right up there
with Shakespeare who also didn’t get
what he was doing for instance we have
Voltaire Lord Byron Tolstoy and Shaw all
famous Shakespeare haters in fact
Voltaire over here he went so far as to
say that Shakespeare’s work was an
enormous dunghill how nice but I’ve had
it from name-calling and perhaps a
little bit of jealousy boys people would
go so far as to even diagnose this
crippling fear of a 400 year old ghost
in fact John Stehr Aurra
and Dan Poole call it shake ISM an
irrational aversion to Shakespeare and
his plays now the first time I read that
I wish I had climbed that term because I
see new cases of shakes BISM every day
it’s more contagious than the common
cold and your symptoms will start to
show up before you’ve touched a single
page picture this your English teacher
tells you next class you’ve got to bring
in Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet or The
Tempest and you don’t know when it’s
going to happen but
we’re between getting that assignment
and making it to the next class you will
encounter a person could be one of your
parents it could be a fellow student
could be a teacher could even be your
Starbucks barista they’re going to hear
you say Shakespeare and they’re going to
go my friend you better call out sick
because you’ve already got shakes vism
how was your teacher possibly going to
get you excited about this man or his
works if people have already done that
to you now this is an epidemic that
spreads beyond classroom walls – for
instance back in the summer of 2014 the
New York Public Theater was putting on
its annual Shakespeare in the Park and
that her they ran much ado about nothing
followed by the great tragedy King Lear
and so hundreds of people flocked to the
Delacorte theater in the Central Park
each night to see these free
performances and so one night watching
King Lear was a local celebrity
this is Ira Glass so for those of you
who don’t know mr. glass is the revered
host of NPR’s This American Life he’s an
intellectual big deal well after the
curtain fell on Lear mr. glass did what
every red-blooded American celebrity
does these days he tweeted about it
let’s see what he had to say
Shakespeare not good no stakes not
relatable I think I’m realizing
Shakespeare sucks
now despite that very nice use of
alliteration IRA that’s what I would
have written on his tweet if I was
grading it this was devastating
I mean let’s be real okay I disagree
with what he’s saying but I also admired
him for putting it out there it was
brave but the irony is well so many
people are reading this tweet and glass
is talking about how utterly unrelatable
Shakespeare is so many people can relate
to that sentiment because more often
than not in life you are going to
encounter people who do believe
Shakespeare sucks and people in my
position we could be to blame you see
the reason why I take my job as an
English teacher so seriously is because
of Shakespeare it is fun for me but it’s
ultimately challenging introducing
students to the man the myth the legend
the work and if I don’t approach this
topic as delicately as a surgeon I could
ruin him for you and not just you but
anybody who comes into contact with your
shakes vism cooties can’t have it so I
believe in the real world
I don’t exclusively dwell in Renaissance
drama so I understand that Shakespeare
is intimidating he’s kind of entire
section of Bart’s ennoble just about him
that’s a lot so the question is how do
we begin to break down this mammoth
figure and the question is simple you
have to shake up your understanding of
Shakespeare he’s not Shakespeare this
infallible literary God looking down on
you as you struggle with iambic
pentameter and laughing that’s not him
he’s actually will the Entertainer the
innovative storyteller
a husband a father a man now I’m sure
you’re still not convinced so what I’m
going to do is I’m going to hold up
Shakespeare next to another icon you
might be more comfortable with let’s say
well Disney okay now you might be
thinking for a second no no we do not
start a Snow White in the same way we
look at a fellow pun intended but we do
have some remarkable connections between
these two men my friends will and Walt
so if you were to look at any sort of
average Disney animated feature okay
you are going to see Shakespearean
influence there you might even hear his
words for instance we often write off
Beauty and the Beast Gaston as being a
misogynistic psychopath but did you know
that he manages to quote Lady Macbeth
while he’s singing his big song kill the
Beast now it’s too bad bookish delemus
that reference the movie might have
ended differently now in the same vein
we have Aladdin’s genie quoting Julius
Caesar and hopefully by now someone’s
tipped you off to the fact that the Lion
King is Hamlet said in the African
safari with more music and less death
now allusions aside there’s more
connections between these men okay and
that is because they were kindred
spirits Walt Disney William Shakespeare
took stories that were already familiar
and they made them into something
completely new and their versions became
their own kind of timeless for instance
when you hear the title The Little
Mermaid you think of a splashy
under-the-sea musical you don’t think of
the original dark tragedy but even
though Hans Christian Andersen wrote
that story 152 years before the 1989
film that is what remains relevant in
your psyche and all because a bunch of
people took a story changed it around
and added a happy ending this is
something that Shakespeare did time and
time again he took historical sources
mythology even stories that
contemporaries a visitor to Britain and
it changed them into something new
he gave them worked out he gave words of
poetry he developed characters
especially female characters which he
often doesn’t get in
credit for now in case you’re starting
to think this little analogy is well
cute you might be thinking that there’s
no way Shakespeare could compare to the
corporate jet or not that is the Disney
Corporation I need to be right I mean we
don’t have a Shakespearean theme park
yet but you might be surprised to know
that Shakespeare was a businessman in
fact he was a triple threat writer actor
producer and he didn’t just sit in the
corner right and walk away he would have
been involved with a lot of aspects of
the play from deciding who was going to
be cast in which roles to figuring out
how are we going to create thunder and
lightning on a stage
without the use of special effects
whatever those are theater was a
business just like it is today and
creativity men success so Shakespeare
had to get his finger on the pulse of an
audience to see what they wanted now if
you’re curious about what was an early
modern audience like you need look no
further than us at the movies okay have
you ever noticed how fickle we are we
never know what we want we want
something original and then we flock to
reboots and remakes and sequels in the
summer we want splashy cgi action and in
the winter we want raw we want artsy
lease to make us think if you zero in on
one of our favorite genres the superhero
film we balance between wanting a gritty
award-winning film like a Christopher
Nolan Batman movie and then a few years
later we want the quickly star-studded
Marvel movies what do we want
well Shakespeare had the same problem so
early on in his career people were into
what they called revenge tragedies and
that’s exactly what it sounds like and
in fact the bloodier the better Thomas
Kyd kicked this off and he wrote a play
called the Spanish tragedy Christopher
Marlowe followed suit
naturally up-and-coming writer Will
Shakespeare had to write one so he
writes titus and dronicus you might not
have heard of it now this is a mess of a
play before the end you’ve got 14 deaths
three severed hands one missing tongue
and a pie that’s literally to die for
and the writing well that’s a mess too
well I said it Shakespeare wrote
something that wasn’t perfect you see a
lot of scholars actually discredit this
play as building Shakespeare’s because
it’s bad isn’t that terrible at the same
time that he was working on Titus he was
also writing Richard the third and that
ended up being his first big widespread
hit
it’s a tragedy it’s a history people
love it now if we’re going back to the
movie analogy for second okay imagine
Titus as being a b-movie horror slasher
pit with some inexperienced amateurs and
on the other hand he’s got Richard the
third which is like a sweeping
oscar-winning drama how can one man
right both are you kidding me of course
one man right both we like different
things you can see different movies you
could read different books we like other
things if we like the same thing all the
time we would be bored if you made
another analogy think about the Steven
Spielberg okay he’s responsible for
movies like Schindler’s List and linked
in and Saving Private Ryan and that’s
what we give him awards for but let’s
not forget he’s also responsible for the
Indiana Jones franchise including
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull which I
want my money back for okay now if we
can forgive mr. Spielberg then perhaps
we can forgive mr. Shakespeare okay but
the thing is you weren’t used to seeing
him up on a pedestal like this okay he
didn’t put himself there we did so let’s
go back to the two place you’ve got
Titus right it’s a mess it needs work
seven years later Shakespeare says okay
I’ll run another revenge tragedy and
it’s good it’s really good it’s polished
it’s nearly floor look flawless it’s
Hamlin okay
what happened in seven years of time
Allah first of all the writing gets
better I don’t care if you’re typing on
a Mac or if you’re using a quill writing
is a process and I’m sure you’ve all
heard that before and Shakespeare was no
different he had a room for growth so
writing gets better in seven years
okay but other stuff happened to
Shakespeare wrote other please
he had big hits he became a shareholder
in the King’s Men his production company
but the most important change was that
Shakespeare experienced real tragedy
because in 1596 his young son cabinets
at age 10 died no I don’t care how old
you are if you’re a parent like many of
us are and who have to bury a child I
can’t imagine a lower death can you and
that’s what Shakespeare went through and
all while he was living miles and miles
away from his home in London
it took experiencing true darkness grief
depression for Shakespeare to write
about a play that embodies all of those
and that’s where the magic of
Shakespeare comes into play good friend
of Shakespeare’s Ben Jonson once said
that his friend was not of an age but
for all time how could Jonson have known
that over 400 years later we would still
be tied to one man and the answer is
that Shakespeare is everywhere okay we
are drawn to characters and stories that
are Shakespearean in nature it is what
we want we can turn on in a news channel
and see the Montagues and the Capulets
fighting in any kind of city we can
imagine a war like a fellow’s as being a
championship basketball game we can hear
the words of a villain coming
from a face that we trust Shakespeare
scares us because we hear words like
Addie and I and often an on but if you
did beneath those words you will find
characters that you can see in any
reflection of any mirror have you ever
been in love with someone who doesn’t
love you back you might want to talk to
Helena or Rodrigo for advice do you want
to prove yourself that you’re more than
what you seem especially to mom and dad
they might talk to Prince how he later
became henry v maybe you felt like an
outsider you might identify with viola
or a fellow or Shylock and finally if
life ever becomes a series of slings and
arrows that you need to fend off or it
looks like an overwhelming sea of
troubles about to swallow you whole you
might want to pick up that copy of
Hamlet from high school dust it off and
give Shakespeare another try thank you
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