Thursday, July 27, 2017

My Shakespear-ience: Not-Your-Average Shakespeare Course


by Katy Rosen
Summer 2017 Intern

At seven o’clock on a rainy November night, I headed back to class to start a five-hour screening of King Lear, where my professor met me and my classmates with a bag of secret-recipe homemade popcorn.

As an English major at Smith College, I was required to take an intensive course. I got the very last spot in a class that meant 15 straight weeks of Shakespeare, which was taught by the most established professor in the English department. To say I was terrified was an understatement.

The professor’s eccentricity preceded him, and the popcorn story is only one of many. My class became well-known for getting way off topic. My favorite tangent was a discussion when the class agreed that comparing your romantic relationship to Romeo and Juliet’s is kind of like using Hamlet to demonstrate how close and well-adjusted your family life is.

When it came down to the serious stuff, this class was by far one of the most intense and challenging things I’ve ever done, but I can confidently look back and say it was the best class experience I’ve ever had—and that popcorn was pretty good too.



Image Credit: Thought to be John Taylor, Photo From National Portrait Gallery of London.


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