[ArrogantBustard]

Hmmm ... so reading The Bard induced you to drag out a dictionary and learn something. Excellent!!! That't part of the reason for teaching English Literature.

Now, you want to spare the next generation the awful strain of thinking? Pathetic. This is indeed the very definition of 'dumbing down'.

[Mikey_1962]

Hmmm ... so reading The Bard induced you to drag out a dictionary and learn something....

I HAD to read it: listening to it was a waste of time. It was written in the language of the time for the people of the time.

And I did learn some words like: bodkin, petard, russet, periwig-pated, all of which to this day, unlike other things I learned simultaneously, differential equations or thermodynamics for example, I have never used again.

Will I demand my children read it? Absolutely.