Much ado about Shakespeare

English 2 classes should continue reading ‘Macbeth’

This year, sophomores will not be reading William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.” Instead, the English Department switched Shakespeare’s world-famous tragedy for perhaps a lesserknown play – “Much Ado About Nothing.” Additionally, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was removed from the English 1 curriculum.

As someone who has been invested in Shakespeare since seventh grade, I am glad the sophomore class is getting to read “Much Ado About Nothing,” but I think it’s unfortunate it had to replace “Macbeth,” which I consider to be one of Shakespeare’s most influential plays.

It’s important to note why the change happened. Cistercian’s Literary Colloquium, is set for Feb. 17. According to the Hockaday English Department, the change was made because the colloquium will be focusing on “Much Ado About Nothing” and to encourage participation and spare students the trouble of reading two plays.

I have read both “Macbeth” and “Much Ado About Nothing,” and I have also seen films based on both plays. Even with the Colloquium in mind, I think Hockaday should have kept “Macbeth” in the reading list, simply because it’s the better play. The nuance of “Macbeth” is what makes it so interesting to read – in my English class last year we analyzed the play from all sorts of viewpoints: feminist, contemporary and even Shakespearean.

Something else we did in English 2 with “Macbeth” that I don’t think we would be able to do as smoothly with “Much Ado About Nothing” is watch film adaptations. Watching other interpretations of the books we read in English 2 was a huge part of the class and for me, and one of the most entertaining. As we read other books, such as “A Room With A View” and “Jane Eyre,” we watched film versions to gain another perspective.

Last year in English, we specifically took the time to watch many different film adaptations of “Macbeth” to study how different people interpreted the play. Among those were Sir Ian McKellen’s stage version of “Macbeth,” “Macbeth” (2015), “Macbeth (2010), “Macbeth” (1978) and even the version that released last year featuring Denzel Washington.

“Much Ado About Nothing” has noticeably fewer film adaptations, and although the 1993 movie is exciting to watch, it would be difficult to recreate the movie-based learning we did in English 2 last year.

As for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” I am glad freshmen no longer have to read it. Although my English 1 class didn’t read “Midsummer” because of timing issues, I studied it in all three