ABSTRACT
Shakespeare was a man who conducted or composed classical music and he made up the play Romeo & Juliet. The authorship of the Bible was quickly reconsidered, but the pupils were less certain about classical music and painting. Clearly Shakespeare was linked to the notion of the great arts, even if these were only dimly perceived. In spite of the economic and social conditions of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and the constraints of form and convention, there is no consistent single ideological position adopted in Shakespeare’s plays: in their critique of values they are neither uniformly radical nor reactionary. During the last twenty-five years teaching and learning in schools in general has been radically transformed. Recent developments in the arts in schools have encouraged teachers of art, music, dance, and drama to work more closely together in collaborative schemes, based on particular arts skills or concepts, agreed themes, or narrative/dramatic texts.
