In How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education, Scott Newstok, a professor at Rhodes College, points out that William Shakespeare never had what we might think of as an “English class.” Instead, he was taught rhetoric, disputation, critical thinking, and more — all in Latin. Newstok says that creative thinking is a craft that can be taught, just like any other. He also points out that a playwright crafts plays, just as a boatwright crafts boats, a wheelwright crafts wheels, and a wainwright fashions wagons. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Shakespeare’s Latin Education”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
There was a time when William Shakespeare wasn’t William Shakespeare.
There was a time when he was just another little seven-year-old going off to school.
So what exactly was he taught, and how did his schooling shape the writer and thinker he would become?
A wonderful new book called How to Think Like Shakespeare, Lessons from a Renaissance Education, has some answers.
It’s by Scott Newstock. He’s a professor of English at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee.
Newstock says Shakespeare never had what we think of as English classes.
Those wouldn’t come along for a few hundred more years.
Instead, Shakespeare’s grammar school in Stratford was conducted in Latin.
He was schooled in compelling stories from ancient sources.
He was taught to take apart, study, and imitate the language of the greats who preceded him.
He was educated in the art of disputation, of taking one side of an argument, making the case,
And then taking the opposite position and doing the same, sort of like to be or not to be.
And it was that regimented curriculum that led to the Bard’s creative achievements.
Newstock shows how many of the educational practices of Shakespeare’s time actually nurtured the mental play and creativity and freedom
That later flourished in Shakespeare’s writing.
And he goes on to describe how even if your classes aren’t in Latin, you can still adapt those approaches to stretch and hone your own mind.
He insists that education must not be just accumulating data, but learning the craft of thinking, a craft that can be taught like any other.
He writes, learning to think means picking up that feel akin to a baker’s awareness of the consistency of dough, a doctor’s gentle pressure on the patient’s body, a sailor’s hand on the tiller.
And Grant, speaking of craft, one aha moment I had while reading this book was about the craft of writing plays.
Because before we had the word playwright, someone who wrote plays was known as a playmaker.
The word playwright came later.
And, of course, it’s not W-R-I-T-E.
It’s W-R-I-G-H-T.
Because, as you know, write was an old word for craftsman or maker,
Like the wheelwright who crafts wheels or the boatwright who builds boats
Or the wainwright who builds wagons.
A playwright crafts plays.
I thought that was so cool.
It was this lightbulb moment for me.
It’s as much about putting pieces together, putting materiel together,
As it is about ideas.
The beginning writer might think it’s about inspiration
When some of it is about the mechanics of it.
Yes, yes, exactly.
And measuring and polishing
And looking at it from all different angles.
I just love that insight.
And the whole book is like that.
It’s actually a joyful book.
I found it exhilarating and witty and amiable and bracing.
It’s like no other book I’ve ever read.
You can tell it’s the distillation of wide reading by somebody who’s a Renaissance man himself.
I also liked your opening thought about Little Billy Shakespeare.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There was a time before when he was just Little Billy.
Little Billy throwing rocks.
Yeah, right.
Playing kick the rock with his kids in the playground.
Yeah.
So I highly recommend this book.
The book is How to Think Like Shakespeare, Lessons from a Renaissance Education,
And it’s by Scott Newstock.
Thank you for that recommendation, Martha.
I will definitely check that out.
And we’d love to hear what you’ve been reading
And what you recommend for us.
Email words@waywordradio.org.
