Erica Jacobs is the Education columnist for the DC Examiner, and has taught high school and college for 33 years. She has been around the education block! Email her at ejacob1@gmu.edu.
This quote is from a review of Hamlet by Voltaire--who saw a performance in 1768, 167 years after it was written:
It is a vulgar and barbarous drama, which would not be tolerated by the vilest populace of France, or Italy...one would imagine this piece to be the work of a drunken savage.
I think some of my students might agree with Voltaire's assessment. I, on the other hand, think Hamlet has a bit of all of us in him.