Imagine you are buying a house. The realtor gives you two options: a new, polished, modern home or a beaten-up 500-year-old house. Obviously, you would choose the newer house because it has the amenities you need in today’s society. This relates to our school’s required Shakespeare units in the English department. We think that Parkway should eliminate Shakespeare from the English curriculum.
First, Shakespeare is basically another form of poetry. We already have another poetry unit, at least for freshman year, if not all years of English, so why do we need to relearn an outdated, irrelevant form of poetry? For example, in Honors English 1, we spend six weeks analyzing, creating, and reading poem after poem. And then, just as we think the poetry unit is over, we have to sit through another six weeks of Shakespeare poetry. Why? Shakespeare and poetry both serve the same purpose: to show a theme through artistic language. The only difference is that poetry is relevant to today’s society. Shakespeare’s plays are very outdated and do not apply to today at all. Macbeth was written more than 420 years ago, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream was written 430 years ago. What relevance does 1600s poetry have on today’s English classes? It doesn’t. So we don’t need Shakespeare in English.
Also, today’s generation does not experience or undergo the themes Shakespeare writes about. For example, in Romeo and Juliet, the whole play is about teenagers who get married after one day and go to drastic extremes so they can ‘be together forever.’ How many people today will harm themselves for a relationship, like in Romeo and Juliet? Most people now don’t even believe in love at first sight, let alone marry someone they just met. The kind of intense, dramatic love and tragedies Shakespeare wrote just don’t happen the same way anymore. Society and culture have changed a lot since the 1600s; people today are more independent and usually think things through more before making huge decisions like marriage. Plus, families don’t usually have that kind of control over who someone can love or be with, which was a big part of the culture in the play. So while the story might still be interesting or emotional, it doesn’t feel realistic for most people living in today’s world.
Lastly, the topics that Shakespeare’s plays were about are highly inappropriate. We have no reason to try to analyze and casually talk about these topics, like mental health and suicide, just to learn about Shakespeare. In Romeo and Juliet, we see their impulsive decisions, yet Shakespeare’s plays romanticize their actions. So many students struggle with mental health and suicide; talking about it and trying to analyze it doesn’t help at all. Why should we learn about sensitive topics casually? We shouldn’t. It is disrespectful to people suffering from mental health issues (and more), and English class should not be a place where we poke at these issues.
Some might say that Shakespeare “explores the depths of human emotions, motivations, and moral dilemmas,”(Cincinnati Classical Academy). While this is true for Shakespeare’s time, the problems that the characters face are very outdated, and don’t represent the issues of our world today. Also, students can learn about these human emotions by reading other forms of poetry, or newer plays of this generation. For example, in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Romeo gets “banished” from his town for killing his wife’s cousin. Now although that’s a good storyline, that does not happen at all today. Overall, Shakespeare can very well portray human emotions of his time, but when it comes to new generations, we need new and modern ways of portraying human emotions.
All in all, Shakespeare is an unnecessary unit in English, and should not be required to learn in Parkway. Shakespeare doesn’t teach students anything, since it is literally another unit of poetry. The themes that Shakespeare plays have are also irrelevant to today’s generation, as culture and society have changed greatly. Lastly, Shakespeare’s plays make serious issues casual, something we need to stop immediately. We have to stop mandating Shakespeare in Parkway!
