Reaction to University of Pennsylvania Removal of Shakespeare Portrait: Supposedly the students at the University of Pennsylvania removed Shakespeare’s portrait from the hallway of the Fisher-Bennett Hall in the name of diversity and replaced it with a photo of a black gay poet, Audre Lorde. If I were running the department, I would remove the students first. They don’t seem to be worthy to graduate from a one-time prestigious institution.
What is wrong with what they did? First of all, Shakespeare is a well-established writer to say the least. “Modern and diverse” is not important. What is important is what has survived the test of the ages, or rather history. If you want to celebrate a black poet, put up a portrait or a bust of Pushkin, the very famous Russian writer. If you want a Lesbian poet, take the most famous of all —- Sappho from ancient Greece. They have survived the test of time. Audre Lorde has not.
This emphasis nowadays on what is contemporary is anti-intellectual and anti-scholarly, and that is what universities are supposed to be about.
Cheops Books LLC will publish an upcoming novel about Shakespeare, Murder in Hamlet’s Castle.
