tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378807093271153119.post3662365843662403423..comments2023-06-20T02:25:36.578-07:00Comments on The Scholar's Stage: Shakespeare in American Politics T. Greerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04621529800248145193noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378807093271153119.post-83962801878711422052019-10-31T17:07:30.248-07:002019-10-31T17:07:30.248-07:00Lexington Green nailed it in one. The conscious d...Lexington Green nailed it in one. The conscious decision to dumb down the curriculum; the decision to define educational success as keeping all children in school through 12 grade, if not beyond, regardless of their ability to profit from any additional schooling; the decision to keep children in the classroom even if they were a danger to other children or if they were so disruptive they madeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378807093271153119.post-29651185696775518312015-10-03T01:47:59.121-07:002015-10-03T01:47:59.121-07:00This essay was reposted at Ordinary Times, where i...This essay was reposted at <i>Ordinary Times</i>, where it has garnered some 70+ comments. Readers here may be interested in that discussion:<br /><br />http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2015/10/02/shakespeare-in-american-politics/T. Greerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04621529800248145193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378807093271153119.post-17282715103388785752015-10-01T09:42:13.359-07:002015-10-01T09:42:13.359-07:00Note: A reader forwarded this NYT article on the r...Note: A reader forwarded this <i>NYT</i> article on the role of Shakespearean rhetoric in the run up to the Civil War. It echoes some of my themes:<br /><br /><b><a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/cry-havoc/?_r=0" rel="nofollow">"Cry Havoc"</a></b><br /><br /> John Andrews and Dwight Pitcaithley. <i>new York Times</i>. 19 February 2011.T. Greerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04621529800248145193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378807093271153119.post-74960754020196821642015-10-01T09:29:54.322-07:002015-10-01T09:29:54.322-07:00I agree about the death of poetry as a living forc...I agree about the death of poetry as a living force in the lives of masses of people, but I disagree about the timing. The change occurred rapidly during and after the 1960s. Up to the 1960s poets treated as significant artists and intellectuals. Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost and W.H. Auden were all well known. Kennedy had Carl Sandburg visit the White House. Even the Beat Poets of the 1950s Lexington Greenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14413546490641321620noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378807093271153119.post-85707031074468223672015-10-01T09:06:49.884-07:002015-10-01T09:06:49.884-07:00@Lexington Green--
You are right. Though in many...@Lexington Green--<br /><br /><br />You are right. Though in many ways the effort has been self defeating, for the more "critical" the humanities have become the less relevant and treasured they are in the minds of the people writ large. Attempts to defund English departments are evidence of this. <br /><br /><br />But there is something deeper going on here. I think particularly of theT. Greerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04621529800248145193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378807093271153119.post-91363866446332311182015-10-01T05:00:29.120-07:002015-10-01T05:00:29.120-07:00A magnificent post.A magnificent post.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06828198322584952829noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7378807093271153119.post-63067940758645831492015-10-01T04:54:01.225-07:002015-10-01T04:54:01.225-07:00You left out a conscious decision for the last 60 ...You left out a conscious decision for the last 60 or so years by the educational establishment to downgrade the curricula of all of our schools, K-12-colllege. An ideological rejection of any literary canon composed of dead, white, European males was a conscious decision, aggressively and relentlessly maintained fro decades. It was and is a policy. Three entire generations of Americans were Lexington Greenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14413546490641321620noreply@blogger.com