Humanists are regrettably diffident, yet our courses attract majors from the sciences and professions because literature vividly displays formative moments of human history and personal experience, whether early definition of European culture in the Trojan War, or its recension in Dante's medieval vision, or the sociological nuances in Austen and Proust. Literature is the co-partner of history; sociology may be a subspecies of the novels of Balzac and Zola; psychology shows Freud's debt to Sophocles.

Shakespeare, Milton, and Chaucer raise issues central to every society. Japan anticipated our reconstruction of the Globe Theatre in London by building its own Globe; the opening-up of Communist China was signaled by a performance of Romeo and Juliet ; since the American Revolution against monarchical tyranny, Julius Caesar has been popular in the United States. Shakespeare deals with ethnicity, multiculturalism, gender, and politics as directly as any modern author. He shows human culture from the prehistoric times of Theseus and Lear, concerned with formative phases of modern family life; and climactic moments such as African encroachments on Rome in Antony and Cleopatra , which shares later ethnic concerns with Othello and The Merchant of Venice . Gender issues appear in the assertive (and historical) women of Love's Labour's Lost and Henry VI .

Teaching is oral performance, and most literature invites such presentation: straight drama, lyricism apt for musical settings, oral epic, or even novelistic dialogue. This kinetic mode has high impact. My classes use performances, either my own readings, or videotapes, or by students themselves. Students' memorization and enactments make literature unforgettable—and videotaping permits re-creation, as in our video documentaries Shakespeare and the Globe and Milton by Himself , distributed by Films for the Humanities. We stage productions unusual for professionals, such as the last plays of Shakespeare: Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen (sequel of A Midsummer Night's Dream ); or the world premiere of Milton's Paradise Lost in play form (as first conceived).

Oral performance teaches career skills, but performances are not only oral: my students write their own Shakespeare sonnets. More sonnets may have been written in Berkeley than anywhere else since Wordsworth, for some students submit cycles of a hundred sonnets (sonnet-writing is compulsive but not life-threatening and is preferable to other student addictions). My goal is to make my ex-students remain aware of the relevance of their literary studies. I warn them that King Lear's ultimate value may be confirmed only on their deathbeds. Such factors may delay the availability of adequate teaching evaluations.