By Eugene Wolters for Critical Theory, 11 April 2015

Making the rounds on social media today is an essay that then-student Jacques Derrida had written in English class entitled “Shakespeare’s Idea of Kingship.” While Derrida’s writing as a student may interest many, his teacher’s remarks are drawing far more attention.

“In this essay you seem to be constantly on the verge of something interesting,” the unknown grader wrote, “but, somewhat, you always fail to explain it clearly. A few paragraphs are indeed totally incomprehensible – Probably this essay would have been good with just a little more work in it. As regards language, your English is not idiomatic enough (if generally correct). My advice is: read a lot of English, pen in hand.” Elsewhere on the paper is scribbled “quite unintelligible” over an entire paragraph.

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