"Wagner's music," Mark Twain reassured Americans, "is not as bad as it sounds." And if you enjoy playing the clown, as Twain did, you might say something similarly reassuring—and similarly disquieting in its reassurance—about Shakespeare. His word-music, too, though dreaded by all Americans, and I suspect by most Brits, makes much more sense when you hear it than when you hear about it. There are days when I think the only hope for Shakespeare in America is to remove him entirely from the high school and college curriculum: That way children, primed by growing up on a diet of hiphop and talk radio, would get an even chance to discover how vivid the old obscure words are when you hear them in action, spoken with understanding, instead of laboring over them in a classroom while bent under the twin burdens of cultural piety and critical pedantry. Take those away, and the public will quickly discover that Shakespeare is, in fact, exactly as... More >>>