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Post by Mari on Jul 23, 2014 19:33:41 GMT
I did As you like it and Midsummer Night's Dream with my 15 year-olds and they loved it. I did prepare them by telling them in modern soap opera terms who was in love with who and what the problems were (did a nice little graph too), but basically it's a soap opera like they watch every day in old English.
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Post by Moose on Jul 23, 2014 19:58:10 GMT
I read Henry V and Julius Caesar in school at before age fourteen and it did put me off because it was dull for me. I was in my final year of high school before I appreciated reading Shakespeare - tho of course he was not meant to be READ anyway. But I grew up seeing certain BBC adaptations from being very very young as my dad loved them - by age eight I probably knew Romeo and Juliet off by heart. WATCHING them brought to life is easy no matter how young a person is. But being forced to study .. not so good till a student is older.
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Post by Mari on Jul 23, 2014 20:25:48 GMT
I actually found a 15-minute version of Midsummer Night's Dream, so I explained the story to my kids and then had them act out their roles. They loved it.
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Post by Moose on Jul 23, 2014 20:28:56 GMT
It's one of my favourites
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Post by Alvamiga on Jul 23, 2014 21:12:20 GMT
I was interested when I went to watch Hamlet, starring Dr Who and Jean-Luke Picard, but I find reading the stories very dull.
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Post by whollygoats on Jul 23, 2014 21:55:13 GMT
I must admit that I really did not appreciate much of Shakespeare until I took on acting in some of the plays as part of 'Shakespeare-in-the-Parks' free outdoor theater. Hey....I started with Cymbeline, which is about as obscure as they come...and long. I had two smallish roles, one as the 'Fifth Business' and the other as a supernumerary-like Roman captain with two lines. Learning the background for the play was the most interesting for me - the Roman subjugation of Britain.
I played Demetrius in Midsummer Night's Dream, Boyet in Love's Labour's Lost and Touchstone in As You Like It, along with bit roles in Comedy of Errors, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Romeo and Juliet. My favorite of that bunch is still As You Like It.
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Post by Moose on Jul 23, 2014 23:03:16 GMT
I can't act but I enjoy watching others do so . I saw an Edwardian themed take on Twelfth Night when I was fifteen which was quite interesting ... all done outdoors and you had to run around from scene to scene
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Post by whollygoats on Jul 24, 2014 16:49:50 GMT
I can't act but I enjoy watching others do so . I saw an Edwardian themed take on Twelfth Night when I was fifteen which was quite interesting ... all done outdoors and you had to run around from scene to scene Oh, yeah...There are some inspired interpretations. Like the Shakespearean theater here in Ashland (reputedly one of the best in North America) did a production of Julius Caesar with the leads decked out in olive drab fatigues and ratty beards, a la Fidel Castro. The group I was associated did an inspired version of Pericles in which Gower, the 'narrator outside the story' was portrayed as a park ranger with trash satchel and nail-tipped staff and the 'jousting competition' was recast as a baseball game. All of this was much easier because they were all performed outdoors on grassy areas. Our production of Two Gentlemen of Verona called for a dog. We didn't want to deal with an actual canine and one of the actors actually auditioned for, and got, the part. He stole several shows with his impromptu dog doings (crotch sniffing fellow actors, 'urinating' on front row audience members and the like) without a single line. We cast our production of Comedy of Errors as 'Levantine' (Middle Eastern) and had a snake-wielding belly-dancer as part of our side entertainments. The belly-dancer was quite popular.
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Post by ProdigalAlan on Jul 24, 2014 19:27:51 GMT
Well the original post was about students at university. If you have made a conscious decision to attend university and study literature I would expect anyone to have a basic understanding of the subject.
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Post by Moose on Jul 24, 2014 20:38:46 GMT
WG - I heard of a theatre in London that puts on productions of S's plays in different - and often rather obscure - languages. That must be visually quite interesting.
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Post by whollygoats on Jul 24, 2014 21:41:57 GMT
Ah, yes....The greatest writer in the English language...in Romansch. Or, Swahili. Or, Tagalog.
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Post by Alvamiga on Jul 24, 2014 23:49:34 GMT
I saw an operatic version of Macbeth in Italian once!
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Post by whollygoats on Jul 24, 2014 23:56:37 GMT
I saw an operatic version of Macbeth in Italian once! I saw a movie of Macbeth in Japanese...it was called Throne of Blood. Akira Kurasawa was evidently a big fan of Billy.
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Post by Alvamiga on Jul 25, 2014 8:06:35 GMT
...and was I given a warning about the treachery and murder before watching The Lion King?
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Post by Mari on Jul 25, 2014 9:22:42 GMT
How about before watching Bambi? It has traumatized me for life!
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Post by jayme on Jul 25, 2014 11:43:47 GMT
Not so much the U of MI, but the other universities mentioned in the OP - Oberlin, Rutgers, and Georgetown - are very expensive private schools. So it is quite possible that the students who came up with this are spoiled, rich kids who've forgotten all about the not so affluent kids their own age who are off fighting in Afghanistan. I hope the poor things aren't having nightmares about Virginia Woolf while the others get shot.
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Post by Moose on Jul 25, 2014 18:19:12 GMT
Good point MJK. Wonder what would happen to them if anything truly dreadful actually happened
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Post by tangent on Jul 26, 2014 21:15:47 GMT
Yer know, I've a suspicion all those who have been through the mill and read all these books are hardened to the psychological damage they can cause. Fortunately, I haven't and don't intend to.
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Post by Mari on Jul 27, 2014 7:40:42 GMT
I doubt it, but however bad it is in a book, I'm sure it's worse in reality. If you just take a look in the slums in whatever country, I'm sure you'll find the same situations or worse. The books are merely a reflection of reality: the situation in life of some people and human character, sometimes as a caricature, but only too real in most cases.
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Post by Moose on Jul 28, 2014 21:30:07 GMT
You're doing it again Steve . Really, there is nothing scary in most of that stuff that I can see, and neither did I think that there was when I was considerably younger.
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Post by jayme on Jul 28, 2014 21:46:50 GMT
I can't honestly say I've ever been "psychologically damaged" by reading a book.
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Post by juju on Jul 29, 2014 7:51:57 GMT
How does one decide which books should have warnings? 'Triggers' come in a million different ways, depending on your life experiences.
For example, I've just re-read 'The Subtle Knife' (a fantasy book for teenagers) with some trepidation, because of this passage, when one of the characters gets caught by a 'Spectre' which are a bit like a dementors from Harry Potter:
'She felt a nausea of the soul, a hideous and sickening despair, a melancholy weariness so profound she though she was going to die of it. Her last conscious thought was disgust at life: her senses had lied to her; the world was not made of energy and delight but of foulness, betrayal and lassitude. Living was hateful and death was no better, and from end to end of the universe, this was the first and last and only truth.'
I first read that years ago when I happened to be coming out of a period of depression. It shook me up badly at the time, as it was closest description of depression I've ever read. Should it have come with a 'trigger' warning?
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Post by tangent on Jul 29, 2014 9:01:56 GMT
You're doing it again Steve . It's probably because I haven't changed my mind
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Post by juju on Jul 29, 2014 10:11:13 GMT
You're doing it again Steve . It's probably because I haven't changed my mind So do you think the passage I quoted above needs a trigger warning, Steve? It's one of the most disturbing things I've ever read, because of my particular life experiences.
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Post by JoeP on Jul 29, 2014 10:28:36 GMT
I know exactly what you mean about that passage. And I say no, a trigger warning would not help at all.
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Post by jayme on Jul 29, 2014 11:22:36 GMT
Trigger warnings would be spoilers, and spoilers make me very angry. Should there be a trigger warning for trigger warnings?
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Post by tangent on Jul 29, 2014 18:58:21 GMT
It's probably because I haven't changed my mind So do you think the passage I quoted above needs a trigger warning, Steve? It's one of the most disturbing things I've ever read, because of my particular life experiences. I'm not the best judge but for a 15-year-old, possibly yes (I don't know how old you were). Every book needs to be geared to the reader. If the young person is susceptible, then the person recommending it needs to be wary. I'm not in favour of blanket trigger warnings but on the other hand I don't believe 'anything goes'.
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Post by Mari on Jul 29, 2014 19:23:58 GMT
Seriously, those kids read and watch far more gruesome things by themselves. I'm careful in what I read and watch with them, but in general they think I'm too conservative. I also think they can learn a lot about life from literature. As I said before, literature shows life and people for what they really are. You may not like it, but it gives them a chance to talk about the world and changing it. I think that's one of the best conversations (and achievements) you can have as a teacher.
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Post by whollygoats on Jul 29, 2014 20:33:59 GMT
Yes...I don't think that our literary works need to express the sensibilities of sanitized Disney dreck. Hiding ugly truths educates no one at all....
OH MY DAWG! THEY SHOT OLD YELLER!
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Post by juju on Jul 29, 2014 21:59:11 GMT
So do you think the passage I quoted above needs a trigger warning, Steve? It's one of the most disturbing things I've ever read, because of my particular life experiences. I'm not the best judge but for a 15-year-old, possibly yes (I don't know how old you were). Every book needs to be geared to the reader. If the young person is susceptible, then the person recommending it needs to be wary. I'm not in favour of blanket trigger warnings but on the other hand I don't believe 'anything goes'. I was 36. A fifteen year old would probably read it with no problems, if they hadn't yet experienced depression. Which just goes to show how ridiculous trigger warnings are. You cannot possibly protect every single person from things they read or watch - who knows where personal triggers lie?
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