While growing up, everyone around me who’d done M.A English would be all praise for Shakespeare and his plays. They would always recommend him to me, to go read Hamlet, A Merchant of Venice because Shakespeare is the best and no one can write better than him. This shows that how Shakespeare has been set as the standard, the ‘canon’ for English literature and what he writes is the pinnacle of good writing. This raises a very important question; Why for the longest time has the widely read ‘canonical’ literature centred around white, European guys who uphold racial prejudices, perpetuate colonial ideologies, and reinforced problematic cultural capital. In 2016, students at Yale University petitioned the school to “decolonize” its reading lists, including by removing its Shakespeare requirement. The idea that Shakespeare is ‘Not for an age but for all Times’ is problematic because it takes away the historical and social context of the time he was writing in. Some examples for you to understand the point I’m trying to make here (I’ve attached the sources as well if you want to learn more) 1. In ‘The Merchant of Venice’ the character of Shylock is anti-semitic. 2. The langauge that has been used in ‘Othello’ is racist and regressive. (Haply I am black / A green-eyed monster) 3. ‘Hamlet’ portrays a very chauvinistic and anti-feminist treatment of Ophelia and Gertrude. The reinforcement of such problematic views through incessant and uninterrupted teaching of an author can become a hurdle in unlearning the colonial legacy and building anti-racist mindset. The idea of ‘cultural capital’ needs to be contested for us to come out of the cycle. There are two sides to this conversation: people who still teach Shakespeare will zeal and those who’ve stripped him off his superior standing. There needs to be a systematic change for de-colonial mindset to prevail and topple down the set narrative. We have to strive towards that, yet, meanwhile, also continue to teach ourselves and people around us. There are few questions with which I will end this post so I can keep coming back to them myself as well.
Hafsa Usmani 