Competition time! As some of you may know, I work at Shakespeare’s Globe to fund my PhD. In said Globe, there is a poster written by Bernard Levin called ‘Quoting Shakespeare’, all about the impact of Shakespeare on the English language see here. Below I have ‘found’ a rebuttal to it;
Dear Reader,
Shakespeare’s work is out of date, it has no meaning that we today can comprehend. He is not the be all and end all of English diction, no matter what the teachers say. They may try and break the ice with their old fashioned sayings like “It’s all Greek to me” and think themselves amusing, but I think they are sanctimonious and their reliance upon the Bard fills me with amazement. People say school without Shakespeare would be a sorry sight, but I say what is in a name? Can we not fight fire with fire and make the same claims of Marlowe or Chaucer? I may be hot blooded in my words but this is no character assassination; however, this laughable exposure to what is more pomp and circumstance than auspicious talent, is suspicious. The game is up with regards to the Bard, good riddance I say and it was high time someone said it. We are a laughing stock to other nations, and although teachers will be in a pickle for a while, in one fell swoop we will be able to look our neighbours in the eyeball once again. Our educational system has seen better days, and rather than descend into idle gossip I shall come full circle and proclaim that this wild goose chase on which we have been led, searching for a lost linguistic genius, has been done on purpose to make us over rate one man and ultimately undervalue future generations to come. His presence is an eye sore and his clichés have been done to death, to the point of nonsense, they are no longer house hold words due to the evolution of the English language. And if you believe that he still belongs on the syllabus then more fool you. How good he once was is neither here nor there, no one uses his quotes in everyday language and so his work is becoming more and more irrelevant, that is the long and short of it!
Yours,
Disgruntled Youth
Question; how many times has our disgruntled youth made a fool of himself within this passage? In other words, how many quotes/’original’ words of Shakespeare’s has he used?
The Prize: Well, there isn’t one except a heartfelt congratulations! Think of it more like a puzzle, like a Sudoku or crossword for one’s own perverse sense of enjoyment.
Right, back to research!