unrelated data points

[tempestsarekind]

- I always feel dispirited when my students refer to the "universal themes" of Shakespeare in their papers. As though I have had no effect on them at all

Comments

[viomisehunt]

You sound a bit like my Aesthetics Professor. We have to keep in mind that this a "sound bite" generation. They pick up on slogans, and fast answers. And it's ZShakespeare, and that is what people always say about Shakespeare. I would challenge that by asking how certain themes are universal. Cultures are different enough that even within one society, values are different. I don't mean something as simple as Gay marriage; but ideas of duty, ideas of loyalty, of honesty, identity

[tempestsarekind]

That's the point, though--I've been challenging that concept. It just doesn't seem to go *away*.

[viomisehunt]

Ewwww. So even if you ask something like l is the English concept of mercy,justice,equality truly universal" you get a resounding Yes? With examples?

[tempestsarekind]

No, thank goodness! It's more that we all kind of come to the realization that "universal" (or whatever similar thing people say about Shakespeare) is a flawed term, at that moment, and then they just go on using it in their papers anyway.

[viomisehunt]

It is flawed, simply because values are so different, not only in cultures, sometimes from household to household, individual to individual.

[tempestsarekind]

Yes, precisely! It always surprises me that they hang on to the term the way they do, because a few minutes' thought would surely indicate that people think very differently about the same topics. It's possible, I suppose (and I've only just thought of this), that what they mean is relevant: that Shakespeare deals with issues that still matter to us. Maybe they just don't know how else to say that?