Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for January 15, 2012

Dream on ….

True…..Shakespeare is a fictional character

Luann looks like she has a serious hangover. LOL

What is funny is that none of the things that Fogarty said in the strip seem like they could be turned into test questions since he never said if they were fact or false.

Fogarty needs to brush up a little. We DO know who wrote the plays and we’ve known for four hundred years.

Right! Right! Right!!!!!!!

Besides, what does Shakespeare have to do with pumping gas, selling pizza, or pouring concrete? It only gives English teachers a job. Understanding Shakespeare is a full time job, like understanding Chaucer—be aware, but both don’t show up in polite conversation. It’s really too much for a freshman to comprehend. Better to learn the philosophies of American Indian tribes as a freshman, to take with you through life!! Ever try to impress a girl with your understanding of Shakespeare, or put that on a resume? The employer would think you were a snob!!!!! Anyway, you don’t need a resume to deliver pizza!SAD! Besides, Shakespeare is a foreigner!!

Luann takes notes very much like many students I have known. And they are all always surprised at the grades they have earned through their diligence [that was sarcasm, for anyone who doesn’t recognize it].

Oh, Waiter?

I’ll have a Bacon/Egg Omelet and a Danish.

And COFFEE, Please!! I’m getting Misty…..,

Report cards and grades are way over rated. Hell, school was way over rated.

I never had to use Cliff Notes on Shakespeare but I used them for so many poems in school, but not Shakespeare since I actually always liked learning his work. But I agree with you that I hate the fact that EVERY high school has you read his plays. .They weren’t meant to be read on a page, they were written to be performed on stage. You’re never going to get the experience you were supposed to get being forced to read it as you would actually watching the play acted out.

Actually bringing up Shakespeare and high school, Cliff Notes aren’t so much needed as much as they used to be. All a modern teen needs to do to get the basic story in one of his plays is watch a 90’s teen romantic comedy. Pretty much every teen movie from the late 90s through early 2000s played with that formula.

Yes.

So tell me, why are you here?

I always found being forced to read Shakespeare to be much overated. I always prefered something that made a little more sense.

Yes, this was pointed out in 1991.

She should just have copied the notes from the board.

Rockabore, perhaps Fogarty saw Luann dozing and put the “F” atop her notes as “reward” (in typical “bump off messenger” response).

Some commenters need to brush up. It really IS an interesting mystery… and Sir Francis Bacon has been one of the leading candidates as the hidden author for 150 years. AFAIK most historians still strongly believe the true author was Shakespeare… but it is a fun topic for amateur and professional sleuths everywhere :)

@38lowell:EXACTLY!!I fully agree with you. In High school I remember in 11th and 12 grade (more 12th grade) The teacher had lesson plans that we roled played in actual outside life situations. (Sometimes in social studies too.) One lesson was how to look at the job listings in the help wanted ads in the classified. How to fill out job applications. How to dress in a job interview. How to Dress and conduct ourselves in a job interviews. I remember we saw a film on what NOT to do in job interviews. THATS what should be taught. Real life situations. I mean if someone likes shakespere (BORING!!!!!!) just for the joy of reading it then fine have fun reading it. Once or twice the teacher had us do an assignment on what books or genre (comedy, drama love srtory or whatever) and she recommended a few titles to the indivdual students. I remember choosing a time travel book and she told me about The Time Machine by HG Wells and I did a report on it and did pretty well on it. I got a 95 on it (I had a few spelling goofs. Whoops). When we did a report on any kind and there was spelling errors a side assignment was were supossed to look the word up in the dictonary and write it out 10 times so we learned how to spell it right. Thats partially whyI am a good speller today. THATS what we should learn in school—actual situations we will face in the outside world. Sorry to be so long winded but thats what I always saw. Even if some of us wind up pumping gas for a while to go to college or a specialized or trade school to learn a trade or career there are real life situations there too like dealing with coustomers or doing the cash registers and numerous other situations that have to be dealt with. I said my peice, Thank you for your attention and enjoy your day.

@Clark Kent:One friend in high school got an F on one test and a D on another test and he told his mon F was fine and D was for dandy. LOL. She told him dont be a smarty pants and he said I was a smarty pants he would have gotten better grades. Charlie Browns would have said GOOD GRIEF

If only Shakespeare’s breakfast had been on the test!

Leave it alone for a few years, maybe a decade or two. Try it again when you are older in every respect and it may seem much more worthwhile. Truly, at least some of it is rather impressive.

Skipped breakfast, did we?

@Mighty Mouse: regarding yesterday’s coloring – most of the effect is due to Greg’s black and white rendering, which precedes the application of hue.Hypothetically speaking, if some dimwit wanted to get on my case for coloring the strip in an unsafe manner, let’s say this person is a socially inept amphibious basement-dwelling friendless OSHA weenie wannabe, then he would best criticize Greg for drawing such poor lighting conditions in a public school. Not me. Remember back in the day at comics.com when an abusive heckler offered up inflammatory postings of that nature? So glad those days are over and that this forum has collectively learned how to mute such blather. I mean, you’d think it was a conspiracy how coordinated we have become in neutralizing trolls. A persistent lot they are, though ineffective.Color trivia – Crystal’s unique shade of purple for her lipstick and eye shadow has been lightened a bit for a less harsh appearance. This was Greg’s request and indicates the depth of thought he gives to his characters. I think it brings Crystal a little more mainstream, you know, so that she can more “go with the flow” as she grows up and becomes wiser in all aspects of her life. Tiffany, on the other hand, retains her garish coloration which depicts perfectly her self-reflective view of the world. No wonder she is enamored with Hollywood, land of false fronts and make believe lives.

In other words, what Art Vandelay said (and said much better than I did just now!)

“… To sleep, perchance to dream. Ahh, there’s the rub for what dreams may come …”

From his blog picture, Greg is left handed, so it’s appropriate that his baby, Luann, is a lefty too. Maybe, if the teachers were a little younger, Luann might be more awake. How about an art teacher that looks a lot like Greg, himself? Couldn’t we have fun with that character? Would Luann have a crush on him? Would Tiffany suddenly develop an interest in art?.

I’ve been there, drowsy notes are hard to decipher afterwards!

It’s good to be well rounded, but with the price per credit hour in college, can someone really afford Shakespere, or philosophy, or art history? Better to be a little more pragmatic in our approach to education.

Lefties unite – NO to Shakespeare and other crap.

I was always told that if I didn’t at first appreciate Shakespeare, I should read it at least 100 times. But I had enough trouble plowing through it once.

Once again, Luann does not have to put up with any of this. She shouldn’t have to put up with Mr. Fogarty’s prissiness or her parents’ criticizing her or her so-called friends Delta and Bernice backstabbing her in her efforts to get Aaron Hill or Quill.

Luann has a right to be happy and only Aaron Hill can give her the happiness she’s been seeking all her life. Do it, Luann—run away to Hawaii, reunite with Aaron Hill, then run away with him to Mexico so you can get married and have a bazillion kids! IT’S YOUR DESTINY!

LUANN AND AARON HILL WERE MEANT TO BE TOGETHER FOREVER!

The only appreciation (extremely belated) I have at all for the torture of reading and paraphrasing Shakespeare (had to do this for “Hamlet”, probably his most-boring play in 12th-grade—and to top it off, had to actually watch the 1969 Nicol Williamson film which I can sum up as “the only redemption of it was Marianne Faithfull as Ophelia”) is the fact that I could, after becoming Christian, understand King James Bible easily.

@kitty: I am not a shakespear fan either.

@prasrinivara:Try using the new international version. Its in modern day english. Who on earth talks like that except for shakespeare stories.

@38lowell. I know what you mean. The only time I know of when shakespear is ever metioned is in english class or when some one or some company puts on a production. The only other time is when some people just read him and discuss it.

If you cannot read Shakespeare, you will probably have trouble with Jane Austen. If you cannot read Jane Austen, you will probably have trouble with Charles Dickens. If you cannot read Charles Dickens, you will probably have trouble with Mark Twain. If you cannot read Mark Twain, you will probably have trouble with John Steinbeck. If you cannot read John Steinbeck, you might as well stick with The Twilight Saga.

Learning to read is only the beginning of learning to read Literature. As has been noted above, the human heart hasn’t changed in tens of tousands of years, and teenagers particularly need to learn that the world didn’t begin when they showed up, and that the thoughts they are thinking are the same thoughts their parents had, and their grandparents, back through the centuries and millennia. There’ve been the same problems, but a near infinite number of responses to those problems, and Literature is where to find them. Hamlet, in particular, voices just about every question worth asking about the Human Condition, including the Big One: To be, or not to be?

Personally, I believe that God wrote Hamlet because it was essential for human development that Hamlet be written, and that Will Shakespeare, the actor from Stratford, was His vessel. :-)

(Besides, during every day of your life you’re likely to come across a dozen or so references to plots, characters, and dialogue from the Shakespeare plays, and if you don’t have at least a passing familiarity with them you’re going to miss half of what’s going on.)

@legaleagle:I hope you can realize the bigger picture of the preforming arts is the actors actressess and whoever is preforming arts are just doing their JOBS just like any other workaday situation. Only differsnce is that they are doing their jobs in front of an audience. Not only do thay have to apply for the job like everyother workaday job they have to do the extra step of doing an audition also. :)

“Reading Shakespeare outside of a “play” setting is like reading a movie script. It loses a lot that way .”

I wouldn’t say that it’s quite that bad, because in a stage play (moreso then than now) the focus is still on the words (“Words, words, words”)rather than the events; even as people are doing things or events are occurring, it’s usually clear from what the characters are saying, rather than from copious explanatory stage directions. Movies are primarily about “things happening”, and it’s a rare screenplay where the dialogue is particularly memorable (aside from a catch-phrase or two).

The “Stage vs Page” question has been batted back and forth for centuries. I think of the plays as dramas presented in verse (Stage), while a friend of mine thinks of them as poetry written in dramatic form (Page). Of course, I’ll probably never have an opportunity to see “Measure for Measure” done onstage or in a movie, so I HAD to read it first, but I agree that a good production will tell it’s own story well enough even if one has trouble understanding the dialogue (although when you actually HEAR a line spoken by a performer who knows how to deliver it, it’s ever so much more intelligible than it would be on the page).

If I were trying to introduce Hamlet to someone who’d never heard of it before, I’d start them off with the Mel Gibson version. It’s not perfect (I’ve owned a dozen versions of Hamlet on DVD, and NONE of them is “perfect”), but the cuts are judicious, it’s paced like a movie, and after seeing it the viewer would clearly understand what happened. THEN I’d sit them down with a copy of the text (the Arden 2nd Edition is my favorite) and let them savor the language. (After that, they’ll be ready to tackle any and all other productions.)

“If you were bored reading them, then chances are you either had a bad teacher or a bad attitude.”

Unfortunately, both of these conditions are more common than not, and they even reinforce one another.

“God forbid that we should expect to learn anything in our schools except ‘useful stuff’ on how … cross at traffic lights.” One other thing that they don’t appear to teach anymore – walk on the LEFT side of the road facing traffic. I live on a country road (no sidewalks, of course) and it’s amazing how many walkers and joggers walk/run on the right side of the road. And then we wonder why a pedestrian gets run down by a car – if you walk facing traffic, you can tell that the driver doesn’t see you – and jump out of the way to save your life.

“Given that the King James is written in the everyday speech of its time…”

My understanding is that the language of the KJV was already pretty archaic by 1611, when it came out. It was intended to be formal and ceremonial, and not really “everyday speech”…

“Not necessarily useful in day to day functioning (WS’s plays) but if appreciated as literary artwork brings us all some further distance from sitting around campfires & breaking bones on the rocks.”

Not useful? Why, whenever I’m faced with a dilemma of conscience, I ask myself “What would Hamlet do?” And the answer is always the same: Delay, delay, delay…

By the way, “The Klingon Hamlet” has actually been published. I don’t own a copy, but I’ve seen it, and unfortunately it’s not a straight translation; from the side-by-side re-Englishing, it’s an adaptation oh Hamlet, with plot and character points altered to conform to Klingon sensibilities.

Luann: simple comic strip. Makes you smile at young girl’s inability to focus and then think that she did. Really nothing to do with Shakespere because it would have been he same with algebra, trig, or chemistry. As far as the old Bard goes, I’d prefer to waste my own time rather than have him do it for me.

I feel sorry for Fogarty, he must cover the curriculum and she must be exposed to it. If you ever tried to follow Shakespeare, he’s exceedingly difficult to understand, which is why there are so many footnotes. However, he’s part of the american ed system. Same with many other older writers, who use terms unfamiliar to us at this time in history. Best to read outside the system once you get out of high school, like in college. Or, try to educate yourself. There are many great writers, not so many great readers!!

@. .To be honest with you I WAS hit by a car just over 3 years ago. Was I had pressed the button to get the light and walk signal and I did look and saw no cars to the right of me turning left. I was in the crosswalk and next thing I kne I was coming out of the MRI machine and found out I was bleeding internally. Luckily my system reaabsorbed everything. I was so banged up that I was in ICU for 3 days. Took me antoher 2-1/2 months to recoup and get my stregnth back. Turned out that the police report said the sun got into the eyes of the driver turning left. Only thing is that I am kind of hard to miss since I am not the skinnest thing around. But anyways the point I was trying to make is that something like shakespear with the old english that noone speaks anymore is so boring to me anyways. I did read a few charles dicken stories and My most favorite one is Christmas Carol. I even read more modern versions of it also. Shakespear BLECHMark twain is ok too but thats more modern day than shakespeare.

@fritzoidI have no problem reading Austen, Steinbeck, Dickens and certainly not Twain. In fact I have read all of the works of all of them, and love classic lit. But for some reason I cannot read Shakespeare.

@ashburnstadium; did you ever read Twain’s essay on “The Awful German Language”? One of the only things I ever read, maybe the only thing, that made me collapse on the floor laughing, and I couldn’t stop, and I got an awful pain in my stomach. I think I was in high school at the time. But growing up in Montreal, I didn’t have a problem with nouns being masculine or feminine, gender unconnected with meaning in many cases. English doesn’t have gender the way a lot of other languages do.

Not that anyone is reading these comments anymore, but as for fritzoid’s comments, one cannot truly understand the Twilight series without having read Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and the works of the Bronte sisters (seriously – the second book is a parallel of the story of Ophelia from the “Never doubt I love” ambiguity until she falls in the water with unclear intentions, combined with some R&J references all over, and the third book is a giant compare and contrast essay to “Wuthering Heights”. Fourth book lots of references to Midsummer Night’s Dream and Merchant of Venice, and even contains a Shylock character). BTW Shakespeare is fantastic, but is better to seen performed. Kenneth Brannagh’s “Much Ado About Nothing”, anyone? Emma Thompson’s acting is fantastic, and Denzel is totally hot.

Now for the Harry Potter series, you truly can’t understand it without having read Shakespeare’s “A Winter’s Tale” (how many times does Hermione get turned into stone and come back to life again, anyone?), “Jane Eyre” (Harry’s upbringing with the Dursleys = Jane’s upbringing with her Aunt Reed and family), “Pride and Prejudice” (Bennets = Weasleys), “Mansfield Park” (Mrs. Norris), and Dickens’ “Bleak House” (Dumbledore = Mr. Jarndyce in the way that he constantly takes new people into his care, and Filch and Mrs. Norris = Krook and Lady Jane), with a little bit of an Esther/Harry parallel. The classics are great, and show up everywhere, even in literature intended for teens.