As someone who once taught Introduction
to Literature at a local college, I was always
amazed to learn how little my students
seemed to know about the great canon of work
that was the foundation of all they read.
Some at least recognized that the West Side Story
their parents had forced them to watch,
and worse, to listen to, was based on something
possibly Shakepeare, and some had even
“read” Romeo and Juliet in High School
but the connection was tenuous at best.
But having them read Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern Are Dead did come to many
as revelatory, some even noting that they
remembered something about the major
characters including the Danish Prince.
And one, to my shock, reported that it
was her view that Stoppard’s play was one
set in the wings of Shakespeare’s original,
a wonderful connection I had failed to make.
But I got even when I noted that if they
were Clueless, they had Jane Austen to thank.