The Shakes

I know there are many many people who would disagree, but I think there is such thing as too much Shakespeare.

Currently, we are reading A Midsummer Night's Dream in my 5^th grade class. Previously never a huge Shakespeare fan, I was a little worried about teaching it. How would my students be able to make sense of his language? Would they pick up on the sexual innuendos? Racist comments? How am I going to handle the word ass being on every page of Act III?

I'm honestly so impressed with how they are progressing, and am really enjoying Shakespeare myself. The play is about love and it's complications—how “the course of true love never did run smooth.” This topic obviously makes the 10 and 11 year olds red-faced and giggly. The boy cast as Lysander for the day inevitably is wondering what girl (or guy—we embrace the Shakespearean model of having men play woman in high falsetto voices) will play his Hermia, and vice versa. I try my best to ask for serious acting so they feel less embarrassed talking about romance and love. I emphatically proclaim, “You are not Brooke declaring your love to Bottom who magically has the head of an ass, today you are Titania!”

Recently we discussed the concept of a “fool” and what behaviors and characters in the play we would deem foolish. I asked them to pick a character and write a paragraph supporting their argument. The standard answers went something like this:

“Helena, because she compares herself to a dog and follows around Demetrius even though he tells her that looking at her makes him sick and leaves her to be eaten by wild animals in the forrest.”

Valid answer. Oh Helena.

Or,

“Hermia because she is disobedient to her father and could be put to death or thrown in a convent for running away with Lysander.”

Yes, it pays to be obedient, class.

A couple, however, under what I believe to be the influence of excessive amounts of Shakespearean no-other-option-ism, aka The Shakes, answered thusly:

“I think Hippolyta is a fool because she is willing to marry Theseus even though he destroyed her town and people and family. She should've gone down with her town. But she decided to just go with him instead of dying. Even if she did have to go with him, she could've killed herself.”

And,

“I think Helena is foolish because it seems like the more she follows Demetrius the more he hates her. And she is foolish because she just should love Lysander because he now loves her and Demetrius doesn't. Why can't she just have a conversation with Demetrius and have Hermia in it and she could say, 'love me Demetrius or elts (else) I will kill Hermia!'”

*Above is verbatim from their adorable cursive-written papers.

As I mentioned earlier, I believe this is a manifestation of a oft o'erlooked malady referred to in the medical community as The Shakes. That is, the reaction when one is digesting more than the recommended dose of William Shakespeare's works within a certain time period. Akin to imbibing too much whiskey or a Celine Dion music marathon, the body has no other choice but to react in mysterious ways as it seeks homeostasis. The Shakes take many different forms, usually falling into the predictable yet appropriate categories of Comedy and Tragedy (including but not limited to fifth grade children flippantly entertaining murderous acts).

Other symptoms include:

Speaking in iambic pentameter.

Speaking in a manner that is unintelligible for the first two or three times heard. 

Tacit compliance to extreme and ill conceived plans.

Attraction to humans with one or more appendage belonging to an animal.

Thinking that humans with one or more appendage belonging to an animal exist. 

Markèd absence of marital trust.

Tough parental love, with manifestations such as death threats.

Inexplicable possessiveness over Indian boys.

Proclivity to enter into duels and then more duels.

Belief in fairies.

An ability to plop down and sleep anywhere at any time (not to be confused with narcolepsy).

Dry mouth, blindness, and sometimes, yes, death.

By my troth, I do urge thee--Shakespeare in moderation.