Shakespeare

 

I wonder how many listeners recognized the Shakespearean line in the King’s moving tribute to his mother. The line is so beautiful it brings tears to the eyes. My generation would likely have recognized it, for in those days, studying Shakespeare was a part of going to school.

Not so, for the current generation of graduates, it seems. Recently I heard tell of an English teacher who declined to teach Shakespeare because she thought that teaching an indigenous novel was more important. Surely one can teach Shakespeare as well as the indigenous novel: to deprive students of exposure to the greatest writer of all is to miss the purpose of education.

Fortunate are those students whose teachers lead them not only to books with a moral or political message, but to the great works of poetry as well.

May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.