Thursday, March 06, 2008

Thou Doest Scoff at Shakespeare for Young Ones?


Nay! The New York Times has a brief story discussing how children should be introduced to Shakespeare at the age of 4, which, in some ways makes good sense. Those little ones are sponges! My daughter, in a French immersion preschool, knows more French than anyone I know. If she had gone to Paris with me recently I would have been much better off. She's also enjoyed a Shakespeare play or two in that I've been a part of, in the last couple of years, Bard in the Yard and she always finds the spectacle of spectacularly bad Shakespearean acting great. So, perhaps I'll start reading her A Midsummer Night's Dream tonight before she goes to bed. Perhaps we shall wait, however, on reading Titus Andronicus. How do you explain to a preschooler why Chiron and Demetrius have take Lavinia away and sexually ravaged her over her husband's dead body? Yes, I think I'll wait on that one.

No comments: