Teaching Shakespeare Beyond the Centre

Australasian Perspectives

K. Flaherty, P. Gay, L. Semler, K. Flaherty, P. Gay, L. Semler

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137275073
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Crítica literaria europea

Showcasing a wide array of recent, innovative and original research into Shakespeare and learning in Australasia and beyond, this volume argues the value of the 'local' and provides transferable and adaptable models of educational theory and practice.

Part I
Shakespeare and the Colonial Student

1

From Domestic Didacticism to Compulsory Examination

School Shakespeare from 1850 to the present

Linzy Brady

An interest in the way Shakespeare’s plays are taught in secondary schools today is not confined to a small number of English and Drama teachers in secondary schools, nor are the debates surrounding pedagogy and assessment procedures limited to teachers and parents or education departments, teacher unions and examination boards. The way young people in England, Australia and America experience Shakespeare is of interest to a large number of other people including actors, directors, businessmen and entrepreneurs who often reflect negatively on their own school days. While such reflections aim to encourage teachers and students to supplement their study of Shakespeare with visits to the theatre, they can at times expose a worrying idea that exciting ways of experiencing and interpreting Shakespeare occur outside the classroom and if they happen inside the classroom, it is because films, performances or resources have been brought in from elsewhere. This idea that creative Shakespeare happens outside the classroom is something of a nineteenth-century legacy, an idea forged when a tradition of informal education and domestic instruction combined with an emerging system of public examinations and compulsory schooling.

This legacy resonates into the twenty-first century, fuelling some of the debates and obscuring the nuances of developments in pedagogy and education in the past one hundred and fifty years. It echoes the idea that the classroom study of Shakespeare is seen as synonymous with preparation for examinations, and where innovations from the film industry and rehearsal studio need to be imported into classrooms in order to ‘improve’ otherwise limited and limiting teaching practices. Despite the bifurcated view this assumption promotes, a significant feature of teaching and learning about Shakespeare in schools today is collaboration between teachers, actors, arts practitioners and academics. This chapter will end with a consideration of the ways in which such collaborations challenge this legacy.

Shakespeare and didacticism in the nineteenth century: Readers, speakers and prose adaptations

Two important events in the UK during the second half of the nineteenth century had a significant impact on the way Shakespeare was used for educative purposes: the introduction of public examinations with the Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate in 1858, and compulsory free education for all children through a series of legislation. The Education Act of 1870 established a national system of education, the National Board of Education Act (1899) established free public education for all, and a further Act established public secondary education in 1902. The mid-nineteenth century was an important period for the movement of Shakespeare’s plays from a sphere of domestic didacticism into the realm of formal education.

The strong tradition of domestic instruction that used extracts from Shakespeare’s plays to engage and educate young readers is evident in textbooks such as Enfield’s The Speaker (1774) and Barbauld’s The Female Speaker (1816) and in anthologies and collections of stories and poems for children. In 1807, with the publication of Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare, collections of adaptations, which combined the original language of the plays with simple prose narratives, became increasingly popular as a way to introduce young readers to Shakespeare and to motivate their future reading. During the nineteenth century Shakespeare was used more overtly as a vehicle for teaching young readers, particularly in terms of moral education. Seeing Victorian children’s periodicals as other instances of the cultural value placed on Shakespeare, Kathryn Prince writes that chapbook publications and periodicals published similar prose adaptations in recognition of the popularity of Tales from Shakespeare and that the stories inspired by Shakespeare had ‘children as the chief protagonists in plots that promote clearly-articulated moral values in an entertaining format’ (Prince, 2008, 39). The popularity of these collections of prose adaptations continued into the twentieth century, with the Lambs’ Tales and other similar collections rarely out of print. Naturally, these books made their way to Australia and other colonial outposts where the middle and upper classes of the new societies aspired to replicate English educational ideals. The pattern was repeated in the modelling of public education throughout the Empire.

Shakespeare in schools: Examinations and pedagogy from the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century

In 1917, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch delivered a lecture at the University of Cambridge on the study of Shakespeare in schools, and warned of the dangers of overwhelming the literary text and students’ responses to it with adult commentary and explanation. He advocated a ‘simple method’ of teaching in which the teacher reads ‘aloud, and persuasively as he can’ at times pausing to ‘indicate some particular beauty’ and ‘repeating the line before he proceeds’. He advises the teacher to be ‘sparing of these interruptions’ because:

it just lets the author – Chaucer or Shakespeare or Milton or Coler idge – have his own way with the young plant – just lets them drop ‘like gentle rain from heaven’, and soak in. (Quiller-Couch, 1921, 65)

This was much-needed advice, given the influence examinations were having in the classroom and the kind of teaching practices that were evolving to ensure that students were well prepared to be examined on Shakespeare’s plays. Timely advice, as well, given that increasing numbers of boys and girls were encountering Shakespeare through rigorous study of the plays in institutions of formal education rather than in the comfortable sphere of domestic instruction.

Although examination systems could build on the knowledge of Shakespeare’s plays that young readers gained through familiarity with the Tales and with extracts from the plays in readers and speakers, such knowledge contrasted with the kind of philological and grammatical study that was required for educational success. The introduction of public exami nations for entry into the British-Indian civil service and standard examinations for secondary school students set by the Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate in the late 1850s necessitated a more rigorous and systematic study of Shakespeare’s plays.¹ The focus on grammatical and biographical detail in examinations was also reflected in published textbooks for students and teachers that addressed the prescriptions of these examinations and showed, according to Ian Michael, an effusion of ‘gratuitous’ and ‘irrelevant’ notes on grammar and etymology:

This kind of irrelevance was encouraged by the examiners. They emphasised etymology because they shared the contemporary academic interest in philology. They used (one could say exploited) this interest in language, as a means of stiffening the study of English literature. They believed that stiffening was necessary because, a few individuals apart, they still thought that the intellectually disciplined study of any literature required the kind of close linguistic analysis through which their own success in Latin and Greek had been achieved. (Michael, 1987, 263)

The impact of these notes on students was somewhat stultifying and, according to an examiner’s report from 1876, their papers gave ‘evidence of being the result of an inaccurate study of the notes in the Clarendon Press edition’ (quoted in Roach, 1971, 161). Such was the pressure exerted by examination papers and magnified by school editions of Shakespeare laden with detailed notes that it was still of concern for Sydney pedagogue George Mackaness well into the next century:

There are still too many practitioners who cannot see the wood for the trees, and are quite satisfied if their pupils have learnt by heart all the notes at the back of Verity’s Richard III, even though they were unable to quote a single instance of Gloucester’s hypocrisy. (1928, 66)

Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (CLES) examined young people up to the age of 18 with questions on historical facts, etymology, and textual analysis, as is shown in the following examples from an examination paper on Julius Caesar. This examination was held in 1859 on the week starting Friday 16th December, in Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Cambridge, Grantham, London and Norwich, and the paper required candidates to answer such questions as:

1. In what points does Shakespeare’s immense superiority to the other dramatists of the Elizabethan period mainly consist?

2. How many plays on Roman history did Shakespeare write? How far was he capable of drawing his knowledge of that history from original sources? What are the exact words of Ben Jonson in regard to the amount of his classical learning?

3. Mention the book to which Shakespeare owes the most in his Julius Caesar; and the character of the use he makes of it.

4. What editions of Shakespeare possess any authority in the formation of the text? And how far are conjectural readings admissible?

5. “A curse shall light upon the limbs of men.”

“one that feeds / On objects, arts, and imitations.”

In both these places other readings have been proposed. Mention them, and defend the reading which you prefer.

6. In what respects has Shakespeare drawn the character of Cassius more favourably than history would warrant?

7. Quote from memory any passage from this play (not consisting of more than twenty lines) which you remember.

8. Can we trace any remarkable differences in Shakespeare’s construction of his blank verse at different periods of his life?

9. What changes in meaning have the following words, namely, apparent, creature, fondling, knave, health, censure, emulation, undergone since the time of Shakespeare?

10. “You ought not walk.” Explain this idiom, and give instance in which it still holds place in our popular language.

11. Give the probable etymology of the words, companion, shrewd and clever; and trace the changes of meaning which they have undergone. (UCLES, 1860, 77–8)

Such questions required a detailed knowledge of the play and of Shakespeare’s life, as well as proficiency in grammatical, etymological and textual analysis, and the ability to memorise and reproduce large quotations verbatim. They contrast with today’s examination questions which tend to require students to engage with thematic as well as literary analyses, to explore their personal response in the light of other critical responses, and to understand the dramatic impact and staging of Shakespeare’s plays.

The study of Shakespeare and English Literature in Sydney at the beginning of the twentieth century highlighted a contradiction between imaginative teaching practices encouraged by syllabuses, such as the 1911 syllabus Courses of Study for High Schools, and the restrictions of examination requirements and procedures. This syllabus encouraged teachers to teach to ‘arouse interest in the play’ through historical details and dramatic readings, and encouraged prepared dramatic readings of the ‘finest scenes in the play’. It recommended that students would ‘study the chief characters, dramatic situation, setting and language of difficult passages’ in order to give ‘an effective oral interpretation’ and suggested that older students might be encouraged to ‘read some Shakespearean criticism by good writers’ (Watson, 1987, 32–3). However, this wide-ranging syllabus was restricted by less forward-looking examination papers. One such paper was the 1915 Intermediate Certificate (English) which required a ‘thorough explanation’ of selected passages from the play students had studied and, requiring a more specialised knowledge than the syllabus specified, focusing attention back on the close study of language, form and etymology (Watson, 1987, 33–4).

While examination papers give a glimpse into the classroom, they do not tell the whole story. Systems of examination and assessment that impose upon teaching practices often exist in tension with creative pedagogy and imaginative syllabuses. The success of individual students ranked against each other in high stakes examinations is often pitted against a broader focus on the interests and individual development of each student. Increasingly, by the beginning of the twentieth century, concerns about the effect this was having on teaching practices were heard from various quarters. In England in 1908 a leaflet published by the English Association advised teachers to explore the ‘living voice’ and more ‘dramatic’ approaches in the classroom:

There is a serious danger in the class-room, with text-books open before us, of our forgetting what drama really means, and burying the poet beneath a mass of comments, conundrums, and morals . . . Let us avail ourselves, as far as means admit, of the actor’s art to touch the text with life and set before our pupils a vivid aspect of criticism, a new and delightful form of appreciation. (The English Association, 1908, 7)

One teacher who did not need such advice was Henry Caldwell Cook (1885–1939), English Master at the Perse School for boys in Cambridge from 1911 to 1933. He developed a new method of learning through performance which was published as Play Way: An Essay in Educational Method (1917). A drama room, called the ‘Mummery’, was built to provide an appropriate space for the exploration and performance of Shakespeare’s plays, allowing freedom from the ‘tyranny of print’ (Cook, 1917, 8). In the ‘Mummery’ Cook’s students not only studied Shakespeare’s plays with regard to ‘the literary aspect, the archaeological aspect, the aspect of the craftsmanship of dramatic art, or the mere technicalities of stage procedure’, but with their study ‘based upon, and most intimately bound up with, the actual living familiarity which the boys had made with the plays by acting them’ (Cook, 1917, 187). Such ‘actual living familiarity’ with Shakespeare’s plays was what Cook hoped would prompt his students to pursue their own interests in the plays and to micromanage their own education. As he reflected, ‘a fellow so primed with the means of appreciative study as this acting gives simply demands lectures by a master’, and his students who had the opportunity to be involved in acting and creating encountered his ‘active philosophy of making pleasurable pursuits valuable’ (Cook, 1917, 187–8). John Lester, a visitor to the school in 1926, described Cook’s ‘Mummery’ and the day’s programme in terms of admiration for the ‘cohesive and largely self-organized group with the common object of self-instruction’:

Cook showed a subtle and wise deference to the opinion expressed by the lad who had identified himself with the particular character under discussion, and in general these interpretations were delightfully frank, direct, and boyish. (Lester, 1926, 447–8)

Cook’s opinions and teaching practices were emulated by George Mackaness, a Sydney English master and later Senior Lecturer in English at Sydney Teachers’ College, who adapted Cook’s practices to an Australian context in the early twentieth century. In Inspirational Teaching: A Record of Experimental Work in the Teaching of English (1928), he published an account of his ‘modern methods of studying Shakespeare’ and how his dramatic method enabled students to improve their ‘powers of speech’, gave them a ‘mastery of the text’ and helped them to refer to the ‘authority of the text’ to support their opinions (Mackaness, 1928, 65–6).

The ‘natural culmination and corollary’ of his dramatic method was the annual Shakespeare Play Day, in which students presented vocal items or songs, dances, dramatic presentations of the whole play or parts of different plays, tableaux or dumb shows, and other individual items (Mackaness, 1928, 74). He wrote:

Play-making, to be a real educational success, must be a community, or, at any rate, a group effort, with intimate study of the models, with frequent readings and class discussions of the group versions, with actual performances of scenes that are acclaimed worthy of that honour. (Mackaness, 1928, 164)

While Mackaness argued for the supremacy of Shakespeare’s plays in play-making at school, writing that ‘the careful study and school production of his plays must always constitute the backbone of our English text-work’, his ‘dramatic creed’ had far wider-reaching educational objectives (Mackaness, 1928, 148). From the use of mime as ‘a fundamental psychological process of emotional release and self-expression’ to the use of voiced drama as ‘one of the most powerful instruments for the improvement of the spoken tongue’, he envisaged his dramatic method and annual Shakespeare Play Day as being as important an educational instrument as ‘the Speech Day or the Sports Carnival or the local Show’ (Mackaness, 1928, 149). There is little evidence that Cook and Mackaness had much impact outside their own classrooms or on other teachers. Despite an enthusiastic visit from John Lester who wrote about what he saw at the Mummery in glowing terms, Cook’s innovations were stifled when a new headmaster at the Perse School failed to appreciate his methods. His impact on Mackaness, acknowledged by him in the preface to Inspirational Teaching, was significant but not transferred so easily to other classrooms or adopted so readily by other teachers. An American reviewer of the book noted that it was ‘hardly suitable for a textbook on methods’, but recognised that Mackaness’s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: Learning locally
• Part I Shakespeare and the Colonial Student
• Part II New Paradigms
• Part III Meeting Twenty-First Century Students
• Afterword
• Bibliography
• Index