ABSTRACT
I think most specialists in Elizabethan and Jacobean literature who teach at state colleges must at times have a sense of futility about teaching English majors, as I do, because so very few of our students take our courses out of particular interest in the subject, and even fewer will go on to graduate school. Few have ever read Utopia, Doctor Faustus, or even the poetry of Donne before, and few will ever reread them. In this context, how different teaching a Shakespeare course is! Not only have students read a play or two and maybe even seen a movie or a production of one of them before taking the class, but many of them have a very immediate and practical interest in the material: they are future high school teachers and will frequently be called on to teach Shakespeare’s plays throughout their careers. Rhode Island College, where I teach, is a former normal school and still educates most of the teachers in the state. Half of all English majors are also secondary education majors, and they are required to take a Shakespeare course; thus, even though my Shakespeare courses are not based in the College of Education, I routinely teach students who want to be able to rely on my course to prepare them to teach the plays. If I do it right, they will hand on their knowledge and draw on what they have learned year after year, so I feel that the quality of the job I do really matters. I am not just pouring water into sand. What I teach will have a very long-lasting effect.
