Shakespeare or not?

Back out, nursery rhymes and purees for babies!

Make place for Macbeth and his Lady, Hamlet, Lear, Othello, Titus Andronicus, Coriolanus, Romeo and Juliet. All died in blood and tears, all died from the very hand of William Shakespeare. And all died pretty violently since dagguers plundged in hearts follow those piercing eyes and cutting throats open.

Violence, violence, do I hear violence?

Yes indeed, I do. Shakespearian plays give us violence, anger, jealousy, vengeance, despair, dementia and ambition. We surely should keep closed the doors to this nightmare where human psyche is doomed by its worst inclinations.

Or shouldn't we? (Beware, spoilers) Bambi's mother is killed to let him an orphan. Simba's father is killed by his own brother who then demands his nephew's murder. Snow-White's stepmother pays a henchman to tear off the young girl's heart. Rox and Rouky will part forever, because their distinct conditions create an unbridgeable gulf between them once they grow up. Dumbo's mother is unjustly jailed, letting him become victim of moquery and intidimation under the protection of a circus mouse.

And yet, do we stop taking children to the amazing enchanted kingdom?

Shakespeare's characters are haunted by same passions than the one experienced by our childhood's heroes  Maybe should be contempted with the soft version, then? An easy answer to that would be that quoting Shakespeare in any essay will always be more rewarding that quoting Dumbo.

Morover, Good Ol'Willie has three sigificant assets in making his work, if not eternal and universal, at least strong enough to remain pertinent all through the seven ages of man. He is a remarkable story-teller. The Shrew won't get married: we are fascinated. Coriolanus insults the people: we get his back. Romeo declares his love to Juliet: we sigh. All that in plays that last an average of three hours, all that in a 400-year-old English. He forges complex and realistic portraits that have become iconic without losing their subtleties. He stages pulsions and emotions we will all end up experiencing willingly or not: passionnate love, filial love, egoism, jealousy, blindness, grief, oblivion, powerlessnes, the feeling of not belonging, anger, hatred. Yeah, I know you do too…

Why should one be confronted to such a dark and violent theater, and the younger the better? Because when growing old, one risks to fall into the pit of prejudices. Gregory Doran, Artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Gregory Doran, summarizes our thought about that:
“You have to let the bug bite before kids get cynical. Letting them get involved when they are 13 is much harder than getting to kids earlier, without all the prejudices and stresses and strains of the idea that Shakespeare is somehow difficult or boring or academic,” Mr Doran said. “What Shakespeare is brilliant at is speaking to a lot of audiences at the same time and we can appreciate it on many different levels. And it doesn't just have to be A Midsummer Night's Dream or Romeo and Juliet.
“With my own experience of getting to know Shakespeare as a child, I was grabbed by the stories first of all. Then you grow up and become engaged by the language. But it's more than just good stories and nice language. It's about ethics and morality.”
“If you're reading Shakespeare you can get baffled by the language, but if you see actors deliver it with passion and engagement, even if you don't pick up every word, you can follow a story and be transported to a different world.”
(Reference: Telegraph, 9 février 2014
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Maybe we should give Shakespeare a chance, after all?