Yes

by Chris Allen

Created on: May 13, 2010   Last Updated: August 11, 2010

William Shakespeare. Widely regarded as the best writer, poet, playwright - call him what you will - to ever tread the boards that is our planet. To perform his works have, for centuries, been an enormous privilege, with the RSC and other such organisations taking the burden of performing the classics very seriously indeed. Criticising his works has become a very difficult and unimaginable thing to attempt to justify, almost on a scale of when somebody tells you climate change does not exist, or that the British National Party work for the best interests of Britain. The looks you get are extraordinary, considering most of the words he uses, in modern tongue, make no sense.

Shakespeare lived between 1564 and 1616, and as such wrote in the way people spoke at that time; I'm not going to criticise him for not being able to see into the future and write how we talk to now, just to make things convenient for his followers 394 years after his death. At the time, he wrote in the tongue that made sense to those that would read or watch his works. At that time. But we are not in his time, we are in David Cameron and Jedward's time. If you came across a man speaking in the language to which Shakespeare was accustomed, you would look nervously around for the nearest policeman.

Please don't think that I am some kind of common, uneducated, uncultured philistine who doesn't understand anything if it doesn't come with fries or can be connected to a laptop. I have been an avid lover of the arts all my life, and have seen many plays, concerts and dances, read many novels and have performed a great deal. Performing means the world to me and I know Shakespeare's style, techniques and works very well. But I still find the large majority of his works to be unfathomable, irrelevant scribblings. I recently saw an amateur production of Macbeth with my school. Now, I know the plot to Macbeth, and have done for quite a while now, yet I still came out of the auditorium scratching my head. I would have understood a Derren Brown performance more than this Macbeth. I know what I think they tried to do, yet was completely baffled by what went on, because I learnt the plot to Macbeth using words I actually speak, not that I have read in a 400 year old book.

I have great respect for Shakespeare. He was obviously a terrific writer and deserves his place on the GCSE English Literature syllabus. But today, with the culture we have built up, there is no place for Tudor-talk. Short attention spans and ignorance have replaced attentive, cultured discussions, and it is impossible for Shakespeare to fit in todays society, as is. Kids will be considerably more interested in explosions, guns and Leonardo DiCaprio than a book with words that they don't understand. To make children more intelligent and cultured, we must first dumb down Shakespeare, as it will cause greater interest, and an increased desire to learn about the actual, old-fashioned script, resulting in greater appreciation of the Bard's common tongue.

Sorry Will, you had your glory 400 years ago, but now I don't know what you're saying. Hand me that copy of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code on your way out.

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