ABSTRACT
In the 1960s Frank Whitehead posed a question about Shakespeare in secondary schools that continues to deserve consideration: ‘how many of his plays … really come within the linguistic and emotional range of the young adolescent?’1 While we may feel inclined to retort that education requires us to extend the linguistic and emotional range of our pupils and students precisely by introducing them to texts that lie beyond their present range, or that develop areas of their present intuitions, his question has a real point and should not be evaded. If the text lies too far beyond the linguistic and emotional range of our pupils and students, the connection necessary for development is unlikely to take place. Leaving aside how far ‘linguistic’ and ‘emotional’ range can be separated, I want to concentrate in this first chapter on the questions raised for teachers and their classes by the difficulties of Shakespeare’s language.
