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The Shakespeare buzz, contd.
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
What fools these mortals be
Some birthday present. On Monday, the putative birthday of William Shakespeare, a national academic watchdog group released a survey lamenting the decline in the number of the most prestigious American universities that require a course in Shakespeare for English majors. The findings are truly lamentable. Of the 70 "top colleges" surveyed by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, just 15 require a course in the works of the most influential author and most popular playwright of all time -- and many of those who graduate without such a background will become the high school and college English teachers of tomorrow.
First, let's clear up that matter of birthdays. April 23 is the generally agreed upon date for Shakespeare's birth, based on two known dates. He was baptized April 26, 1564, and would most likely have been born within a week before that. When he died, on April 23, 1616, his age was given as 53 -- meaning, in those days, that he was in his 53rd year, and thus had to have been born on or before the 23rd. Some scholars prefer April 22 as more likely, but the serendipity of identical birth and death dates, and of England's literary giant being born on St. George's Day, trump all other factors.
Now the good news: Only two Bay Area universities were even surveyed -- UC Berkeley and Stanford, obviously -- and both are among the minority maintaining higher standards. Harvard remains credible, as well, as do Wellesley, Smith and UCLA. But the schools that have let things slide include such notable names as Amherst, Cornell, Northwestern, Dartmouth, Oberlin, Purdue, Vassar and Bryn Mawr. As the report states, "A degree in English without Shakespeare is like an M.D. without a course in anatomy. ... It is tantamount to fraud."
Not that Shakespeare is in any danger of disappearing from our cultural landscape. His works continue to dominate American stages by a factor of at least 10-to-1 over any other playwright. There are summer Shakespeare festivals just about everywhere you look, with at least 18 in Northern California alone. But parents of college-age sons and daughters should take heed: Looks as if your literary-minded scholar-to-be can get a better education at Stanford or Berkeley than at Bard-snubbing Columbia, Princeton or Yale.
It's easy enough to follow the advice above. Every English department in the country has a website--and most of them post detailed descriptions of their major requirements as well as their course offerings. Parents and prospective students should be selective, proactive, and persistent in their search for academic settings that live up to their promises--and they should not be fooled into assuming that an elite institutional "brand name" guarantees quality.
Posted by acta online at April 29, 2007 08:25 AM
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