My Terrifying Introduction to Drama — And How We Could Do Better

For my most recent graduate course, I gleefully read Shakespeare’s King Lear. Unlike historical critics, who hated what Shakespeare did to a story that traditionally has a happy ending, I think King Lear rocks.

Me having this level of enjoyment was not always the case. A poorly chosen assigned reading list turned me off of reading drama and and delayed my gratification by several years.

I’m going to do through the assigned reading list for the Introduction to Reading Drama course and explain, if it’s not immediately obvious just by the titles, why picking these plays was a bad idea.

To be clear, I loved my professor for the course. Adored her. I had taken a course before this one, and took courses from her after this. I hope if she ever sees this she laughs, because she was a very young professor at the time, and she learned so much that she became someone who teaches other professors how to teach. I’m lucky that I got her while she was brilliant but fresh-faced and just starting out.

The Originally Assigned Texts

So here, without further ado, is the reading list. I won’t torture you. Besides, these plays don’t warrant further attention by extolling the plot. Instead, a one sentence summary will do. These plays are either so famous or so infamous and looking up details about them will be easy for you, if you want to satisfy your gruesome curiosity.

Oedipus Rex : A man pokes his eyes out because he had sex with his mom.

How I Learned to Drive : A girl who is sexually abused by her uncle grows up to happily sexually abuse male students in her care as a teacher.

Who Is Sylvia? : A man ruins his family with his bestiality and pedophilia.

Othello : A black man murders his wife, proving the racist villain is absolutely right that interracial marriage is evil.

This is absolutely, relentlessly, the worst that classical drama has to offer. All of these plays are…

By Amanda Melheim

©The Learning Hub 2023

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