The English classroom in colleges across Kerala, it seems, is no longer the oyster of William Shakespeare, whose 450th birth anniversary the world celebrates on Wednesday. From being seen as “the lone literary giant in a vacuum”, the Bard is now being made to take his place among his contemporaries in the syllabus.
In Kerala University’s BA Honours syllabus, for instance, only two plays of Shakespeare are listed along with a sonnet or two. This is a far cry from around a decade and a half ago when a whole paper was on Shakespeare for those who opted for English literature as their main degree subject.
“Then students had at least five plays for detailed study apart from a few for non-detailed, “ said Khyrunissa A, who retired as professor of English from All Saints College, here.
“Now the final year students just have one of his plays to learn for their drama paper along with a couple of poems. And the paper on Shakespeare has been replaced by English for Communication which students find easy to score marks.”
For her and others of the “old guard”, the study of English literature is not complete without a thorough understanding of the Bard, but the thrust is now on topics like communicative English and media studies. “The study of Bard has considerably come down. There is a school of thought that feels that canonical literature is unncessary and that the likes of Shakespeare and Milton have outlived their time,” said Sajeev Rose, who taught English for 33 years, and retired from Govt Arts College, here.
“But this is not at all true since Shakespeare has addressed almost all possible contemporary issues. A dominant theme in Hamlet, for instance, is corruption, a malaise modern-day India is reeling under,” he added. However, theirs are the “few lone voices” that are sorry for the condensation of Shakespearean works in the degree syllabus. Many others feel that the Bard’s importance is in no way being diminished, and a shift in focus of how his works are being read and taught is taking place.
“Rather than seeing Shakespeare as an icon in a cultural vacuum, he is being reread and his position being reviewed,” said P P Raveendran, professor emeritus, School of Letters, MGU. It is now the study of Literature and English, rather than that of English Literature, adds M D Radhika, former HoD at Providence College, Kozhikode. “The focus has shifted from British literature alone to include more of European and Indian writings as well,” she said.
In the last decade, KU’s Institute of English had even thrown out the Bard completely from their syllabus. “But he has been brought back big,” said B Hariharan, lecturer, Institute of English. “There is now a whole paper on Shakespeare with around nine of his plays and 154 sonnets to learn. These are interspersed with critical readings of his works so we can see how the Bard has been read over the years and how we should read him today.”