What do you remember from your 9th Grade English Class?

I remember a shriveled up, sixty eight year old, red-wigged old maid in her last year of teaching who taught Shakespeare to a class of 36 14 year olds, mostly boys who had been routy and/or poorly managed in 7th and 8th grades in elementary school.   I had no clue of the character of this class either of its offerings or how one earned his role as a member student.

It was a simple class.   She lectured, read the texts aloud,  and gave assignments.  We listened both by training and by interest, for we were to  ‘learn’  Shakespeare, a requirement……The Merchant of Venice, Macbeth, and Julius Caesar were the texts…..and this shadow of a living being  its priestess.    I learned and have not forgotten:

“The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven,
Upon the place beneath.
It is twice blessed.
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
It is mightiest in the mightiest,
It becomes the throned monarch better than his crown.
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
An attribute to awe and majesty.
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself.
And earthly power doth  then show  likest God’s,
Where mercy seasons justice.
Therefore Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us should  see salvation,
We all do pray for mercy
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy.
I have spoke thus much to mittgate the justice of thy plea,
Which if thou dost follow,
This strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentance gainst the merchant there.”

 

I also learned from the Bible, King James Version, the Shakespeare of  religious texts:

As for man, his days are as grass.

As the flower of  the field so he flourisheth.  For the wind passeth over it and it is gone;

And the place thereof shall know it no more.

But the mercy of the Lord is everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him.

(I attended public high  school in St. Paul, Minnesota from September, 1948 – 1952.

I could continue with pages of other learnings from that particular English class.

P.S.   I was dyslexic.  Do you think for a moment I am not grateful to have been taught  to remember such learning?)

Friend, former teacher colleage who taught English in high school, Mark Waldeland sent the following regarding the state of Shakespeare in today’s ObamaWorld:

 

http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=27-04-026-i