Primrose Road

My department prefers that we use "readers" for introductory lit classes, so I use the Bedford Compact Introduction to Literature, which is probably the least of several evils because its pages aren't as thin as Norton's. ;)

This semester, on a dare, I'm teaching as part of the drama unit Othello, the one Shakespeare play that the Bedford reader anthologizes.

The reader offers students "A Note on Reading Shakespeare," which advises:

"If you find the reading difficult, try listening to a recording of the play. (Most college libraries have recordings of Shakespeare's plays.) Allowing professional actors to do the reading aloud for you can enrich your imaginative reconstruction of the action and chaacters. Hearing a play can help you with subsequent readings of it."

While audio recordings may be used while you're reading, films may only be used after you've read the play:

"It is important to view the performance after your reading, though, so that your own mental re-creation of the play is not short-circuited by a director's production."

Because, after all, Will wrote plays specifically so that they might be anthologized and read by college students; he never intended them to be performed or anything. ;)