Ignorance is Strength

For some people being told they have to spend an entire Friday evening and afternoon at a Shakespeare festival would be quite a drag. And I must admit that I was a bit hesitant about the whole situation, but I am extremely glad I went. It was an experience I have never had before. From intriguing lectures to a brilliant play, my evening was filled with excitement.

The first item that was on my schedule was a lecture by Dr. James Shapiro. Dr. Shapiro gave me a view into the world of Shakespeare that I had never before received. Several times throughout the lecture he said that he could live in the year 1599 and to be honest I believed him. His disruptions and explanations were vivid and elegant. The lecture itself contained mostly historic facts about the life and times of Shakespeare. These were some of the things that intrigued me the most, because it gave me a different perspective into Shakespeare’s world. To me it makes sense that we should know the history of an author’s world, for in order to really understand the text we should to some respect understand the time.

This is an important aspect that I would like to incorporate into my teaching of literature. I think it’s important for students to have some understanding of the history behind the text. I know that it always has helped my to better understand and better appreciate whatever I am reading. I also think it will make my students more aware of what is truly going on inside that particular piece. If they learn certain things about the other and his life they may begin to see things in the piece that they hadn’t seen before.

Attending the lecture, casting call, and play was a new experience for me, because I had never really taken the time to look into things that were happening on campus. I thought that it was so interesting that I could be apart of something such as this. I refer mostly to the fact that I could attend this lecture by a Columbian scholar and later on in the night ask him questions as if in a classroom. That is what the casting call was like, I found that it was fantastic that I had the opportunity to probe the mind of such a great thinker. When I think about my experience that Friday night I realize that I would think to provide this same feeling for my students. I have to admit that I don’t know what that would look like right now. I also wonder if they would be interested being that they would only be teenagers and English is not necessarily their passion. I think though that it would be great to provide some sort real life example of English in motion.