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Literature Teeters on the Edge of a 'Gr8 Fall'
aicrules writes "Yahoo news is reporting that the great works of literature often read and discussed by the brighter of our up-and-comers could be the latest victim of reaching the lowest common denominator at the potential expense of everyone. The article describes the efforts of Dot Mobile to make such literary masterpieces as Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet more accessible. From the article, 'We are confident that our version of 'text' books will genuinely help thousands of students remember key plots and quotes, and raise up educational standards rather than decrease levels of literacy,'"
And this mindlessness is exactly the sort of thing that will push it over...
Here's a message for them: Lrn2RdFlBks. UGtMrFrmIt.
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
People have been condensing things like this for humor for years. Ophelia's last line: "Glub!" And remember the story about consensing the Lord's Prayer into a text message? (I think it had lines like "God, UR GR8")
So we take something that's been used for humor, and use it for Cliffs Notes instead. Big whoop. No one is going to think that the summaries are the original works. I mean, anyone who has taken a logic class has come up with "2B v ~2B"
Although it does remind me of the time in high school when we were reading Romeo and Juliet aloud in class. I read Mercutio's "Queen Mab" speech, got through the whole thing, then looked at the footnotes, and had the reaction, "I said what?!?!?" (From then on, I read the footnotes with the text, not afterward.)
The article describes the efforts of Dot Mobile to make such literary masterpieces as Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet more accessible.
Perhaps Professor Sutherland ought to check out the following links:
Romeo & Juliet
Hamlet
Kudos to Chris Coutts...they're still damned funny, although the idea of Professor Sutherland pitching this sort of thing for real is just ludicrous. As the epitath on the Bard's tombstone reads:Does this mean that Professor Sutherland is cursed, since he's caused Shakespeare's corpse to spin at such a rapid rate? ^_^
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
wtf wallhax0r cl4n?
the net impact of this will be nil. What person who was going to read some classic piece of literature is going to forego that experience after checking out the text message summary?
And who will go read the real thing after getting one of these?
In fact I also will go out on a limb and predict that this marketing ploy by the cell phone company will fail. Kids will not want these phones and that will greatly overwhelm the couple idiot parents who might think this would be a good idea.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Make them into games.
Can you imagine a more violent game than Romeo and Juliet?
Two gang waring mafia type families and a plot where the two main characters die?
Have the full text and add a game requirement that you have to talk to people with the accent and all. actually walk up to people and ask them questions and make statements that forward the game, rather than the standard now where you just button mash to get through the plot and power up.
Mix the two areas, good games need good plot, and good books need to be read by later generations.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
"brevity is... wit." ;-)
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
I, for one, am starting to root for the asteroids.
There's a type of home game where you can spell things out in "leet" speak, or you get cards with strange letter and number cominations and you have to decipher the meaning. Anyone remember what it's called? That's what I think of when I see someone writing "R U Their".
I can't understand the vast numbers of kids and people my age even that write with such sheer illiteracy that it makes me think twice about talking to them. Should I really expect someone who asks "How RU", to understand me when I talk about solar flares, or which car gets the best milage? Sure there are bright people that have given in to pretending they're typing on a cell phone, but why would someone try to initiate communication with other english reading person, with a line like "Hey Jou wat u doin?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Don't we get warnings about this every decade for the last several centuries? Wasn't writing in the vernacular going to ruin writing back ever since writing was invented?
is competition good, or is duplication of effort bad?
While I am sure there will be plenty of purists out there that will be up in arms at this I think it might be quite a good thing. Anything that gets people interested in reading and expanding their mind has got to be good even if it means dumbing down some old masterpieces to get them interested. What concerns me about this, however, is their stated reason for doing it:
remember key plots and quotes, and raise up educational standards
Surely remembering plots and quotes isn't why we get our students to read these works. Many modern works have plots that are just a involved, often more involved. Quotes are good if you're a bit dim and need to sound intelligent for 30 seconds but not a lot else.
As for their choice of material, well, I'm sure it will mostly be Shakespeare simce he's the only person most people seem to be able to name. That's a real shame because, personally, I don't enjoy reading Shakespeare. He wrote plays - plays are supposed to be watched. There are plenty of people who wrote books why not try promoting them instead?
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
In more modern spelling this becomes:
Was this considered a radical watering-down, back in the day?
I've also considered what Shakespeare's plays would look like as IRC logs; I suspect such an approach would work at least as well as the blog version of Pepys' Diaries
Okay, maybe I will say more.
I've only read a very small sampling of great literature. A bit of Charles Dickens, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Leo Tolstoy, and a few others. I can't claim to be well-read in this regard.
However, the little that I have read has had substantial benefit to me. I have been exposed to life circumstances, themes, thoughts, philosophies in a depth that has expanded my ability to see outside my own limited experiences, empathize and sympathize with other people, see the possibility that I might be wrong or prejudiced. As well, my use of language has improved in terms of vocabulary, style and metaphor.
There is no way that anyone can convince me that simplifying and making this literature "more accessible" is in any way beneficial except in the most limited fact-retention sense. Knowing the facts of a plot comes nowhere close to experiencing the expression of those facts in a sublime piece of literature.
That said, I appreciate the sentiment. I think there is a lot of legitimate concern that students do not get exposed to these sorts of literary works. However, this approach is at best a bandaid over a minor symptom of a much deeper problem. How much better would it be to address the real problems of the quality of our education and child-raising? I'm not saying that I know the real solution... that is beyond me... but I can see when something is missing the mark, and possibly harmful.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
I don't see why it is so important to read Romeo and Juliet and other plays. They are meant to be watched. The actors are supposed to play a major role in how the characters are precieved. Take the students to see the play performed or bring in the movie. What really made me think Shakespear was awesome, was the Romeo and Juliet movie with Leonardo Dicaprio.
If you are going to just bring in scripts for you class to read, why not It's A Wonderful Life or Star Wars? That is only half the experience, and one not meant to be thrust upon the audience.
The point of Shakespeare and Dickens is not to memorize what happens. It's not history class. The Picture of Dorian Gray isn't a story about a portrait, it isn't a history lesson about what crazy stuff happened to some rich guy in the 19th century, it's a wonderful work of literature about a man and a time period.
Memorizing a few plot points and quotes from Faulkner does absolutely squat for learning anything whatsoever about these works of art. This isn't raising educational standards.
Turning Hamlet into a text message removes 100% of what makes it important. There's no point to it anymore at all.
We put far too much devotion into the "classics' and developing our "canon recognition", and not enough time into actual thinking up new and interesting ideas.
Because "the classics", if not actually defining our culture, give us a common foundation on which to build a shared cultural experience.
Did a dead semi-anonymous 16th century hack pop-poet/playwright really create the best-ever-and-always set of English writings? Of course not! He wrote the equivalent of "Seinfeld" for the televidiots of his day. But like it or not, that does give us a certain common ground on which to relate to one another socially. We like "lowbrow" humor. We prefer the good guy to win. We want blood and guts and gore and veins in our teeth. We enjoy Moe getting poked in the eyes by Larry. We want to see the queen kiss a Federline, everyone to tragically die at the end, and the servants to get away with a good practical joke on their bosses.
Now, based on the above, does it commit some grievous sin to "translate" the works of this ancient hack into a more modern form? To that, I would say no, with a qualification - One can modernize without butchering. Converting Hamlet to the style of texting fails to make the work more accessible, instead tailoring it to a very niche subculture of rebellion-without-a-clue (and likely a short-lived subculture at that, as it only even exists as the fleeting intersection of a technological limitation with an economic convenience).
From the Fine Article (and the summary):
'We are confident that our version of 'text' books will... raise up educational standards rather than decrease levels of literacy"
Wow, that's good news. I was afraid they would raise the standards down.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Why dont you actually learn what a fake book is before commenting? A proper fake book takes *skill* to play well. You don't get the "dumb chords"...in fact, all you're given is the melody line - a single tune, along with chords in text running along the top. It's up to you, the (typically piano) player to improvise the accompianment, harmony, vamps, and the like. There's a pretty big difference between a proper jazz fake book and the dumbed down classical books you're describing - nobody actually wrote down many of the jazz tunes in the fake books properly, and they're often carefully (and it used to be illegally) transcriped and published by jazz players.
I guess Dostoevsky's The Idiot will be appropriately titled.
The Skinhead Hamlet - Shakespeare's play translated into modern English
Circumcision is child abuse.
So what if people don't learn the old classics. Quite frankly they aren't of great relevance to modern life and for most kids being forced to read them encourages a dislike of literature and reading.
High Literature is a type of art that appeals to a certain small class of people. This is great and fine for them but there is little reason to inflict it on those who don't enjoy it.
Ultimately the reasons given for reading literature simply don't apply to forcing great literature on unappreciative audiences. The reason we read literature rather than just essays is that it should entertain as it teaches. If the audience doesn't appreciate it then it fails at this task.
Reading literature under duress just generates resentment and dislike it doesn't encourage a lifelong love of literature. We would be better off choosing books that had action and other aspects the students liked but combined this with sophisticated issues and interesting questions. There is no objective reason Ender's game isn't just as appropriate to teach in class as Shakespeare and the students will like it way more.
Making students remember quotes is just dumb and if literature is taught well the students will *want* to read the books and notes or little helpers won't be relevant. If the book needs outside help or encourages the use of cliff notes then something is wrong with the course or the book isn't appropriate for the audience.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too: