Keeping the Bard Happy

This blog does, in its title, include the phrase 'Bard's Place' - my rather limp effort to make an appropriate pun out of the common phrase. I write often about the 'Ruck' but less about the Bard.

Perhaps this is because most of my time these days is on the reading and writing rather than the rugby, a sorry consequence of being the not-so proud owner of the two most impertinent ankles in Devon, if not the whole world.

Shakespeare: not all he is cracked up to be. He is no longer viewed as the "timeless and transhistorical figure" that we have deified him as. The Shakespeare we read today - who actually does this? - is a collaborative effort. The words have been through so many grubby pairs of hands that attributing these words to some genius is impossible. There is little originality in his work, taking old stories, buffing them up, twisting the ending to titillate Queen and pauper alike. He saw no lasting value in his plays and hated how they impacted on his more prestigious reputation as a writer of sonnets.

This is all information that should be crucial to A Level and GCSE syllabi. Currently, many pupils fail to 'get' Shakespeare and then, whilst still accepting that he is the genius, it becomes their problem, never that of the great bard. Disabusing pupils of the outdated view of Shakespeare can only be positive.

Another module, grandly named 'The Poem' takes us on a crash course through poetry and the techniques that the Greats have used. The elephant in the room, however, is that the vast majority of these poets are dead - not surprising, given that more people are now dead than are currently alive, of course. But poetry is dying. Maybe it is still a 'higher art' but consumers don't think so. All the best writers of our age write prose, often exclusively, a state of affairs which was not the case a century ago.

Some casual surfing of the web brought me to this: spoken word poetry. Perhaps this is the future, the saviour? Edinburghscreenworks.co.uk summed it up best in their review of the leading practitioner:

"If you are knowleagble in the works of Seamus Heaney, go to this show. If you're more familiar with Eminem's discography, go to this show"

Mark Grist, a former teacher, tours around the country, on the stage and often competing in 'Rap Battles' with teenagers who dress funny and whose only connection with poetry is through rap. Maybe poetry is alive and well, just not as we know it.