Shakespearean English, or "Why is misunderstanding easier than learning?"

[Scarlet Knight]

Absolutely agree on blaming the teachers. Learning the language is absolutely a thing they should be doing in advance, and I agree with your assertion on how terrible terrible teaching is...

If anything COVID has taught us it's that teaching WELL is #@%* hard.

I very much like Shakespeare. However reading Shakespeare is nearly always a mistake, particularly for a first exposure. It's a play, it should be seen. Having actual actors makes the language much less of a bother, because of all the context clues from the stage direction and performances. The archaic language also stands out less, because of the strange shared act of imagination that watching a stage play requires…
Being spoken also makes the beauty of the writing come alive in a way it just doesn't on a page. In that sense I would say Shakespeare is the opposite of a lot of what's considered good writing today, where it scans ok on the page, but is just a complete hot mess if read aloud. No rhythm or cadence, metaphors that go nowhere and make no sense, just wretched.

Hear ! Hear!

Specifically as to the quote brought up by OP. Let me make this clear, for a lot of us the first contact we have with the quote is either 1) devoid of context and 2) especially confusing as the context of the snippet of the scene would lead us to think otherwise….
"Wherefore art thou, Romeo?. It is easy to break down. Where. Are. You. Romeo. The scene is a lovesick young woman running around looking for something and then peering out from a balcony. (If I remember my scene snippets she even *finds* him just after doesn't she?) Bam! Analysis done. We got the correct answer. Hurray, everyone goes home for the day. It all makes sense and only the conspiratorially insane people are going to start looking at the words and tihnk, "gee, maybe they do *not* mean exactly what they look like they mean". There's no need to go looking deeper for most as they have already decoded the scene. ..
@OP it is not wilful ignorance, this is how people work, they see a pattern that fits good enough and we go with it. It may not be right all the time. But confirmation bias is a thing, we see what we expect to see. It takes considerable effort to get past it.

Yes!

Context will matter. But trying to cram Shakespear on teens is not going to induce a will to learn more.

Teens NEED Shakespeare because he teaches us about the human condition. About tragic love, miscommunication, poor friends, divided loyalties, thirst for revenge above peace… this is also why it is the best known love story in the history of the human language.

[Murk]

I must say that this thread has been a prime example of why "misunderstanding is easier than learning".

My old-English isn't very good. I had no idea that "wherefore" was supposed to be a counterpart of "therefore", and honestly, I still don't understand. "Why are you Romeo?" seems a ridiculous question.

You are right that this would normally pique my curiosity. What did I do wrong? What is the context? In most situations, I would be off to Google by now.
But then I read this thread.

I learn that reading Shakespeare requires you to think about every word, even if it seems obvious. I learn that Shakespeare should be deciphered, rather than read. I learn that I am stupid and lazy for not knowing the meaning already. I learn that appreciating Shakespeare as text is futile, and that I should actually go to the theatre. I learn that, even in the theatre, I might not be able to appreciate it because it is rooted in an entirely different societal context.
I learn that if I make a mistake, I will be blamed; that if I think "eh, close enough", I will be blamed; and if I come across a passage that makes me think "I'll just skip it", I will be blamed.
Moreover, I learn that despite all of the above I should enjoy it, and if I don't, it's my own fault.

None of which entices me in the slightest to grab some Shakespeare and read it.
It sounds like an awful lot of work, about which I should willingly open myself up to harsh judgement, for very little gain.



I will readily admit I'm a bit lazy and culturally insensitive, but OP, if you want your opening question answered ("why is misunderstanding easier than learning?"), you only need to take a look at this very thread!

[BisectedBrioche]

I also don't hold any love for Shakespeare (and flat-out loathe Romeo and Juliet in particular), but not for this reason. The language is incredibly outdated, and there is little to no reason to not update it to modern vernacular other than "reverence" for the original. As you point out, it is easy to misconstrue, and as Kyberwolf points out, such misconstructions are easy to occur because Shakespeare's version of English is archaic and largely not used anymore. Shakespeare himself invented new words for his plays, so he clearly didn't hold prescriptivist ideals, which just makes the whole thing just that much sillier.

Small note, but a lot of historians actually think he wasn't making words up, as much as using the words that people would use on the street (which weren't used in formal texts which made up the bulk of recorded writings).

Obviously the point about prescriptivism still stands, I just thought it was interesting.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

this is also why it is the best known love story in the history of the human language.

That's a bold claim there. Which I don't buy for a minute. It is, at best, the best known love story in the history of the English language. And even then, Arthur - Guinevere - Lancelot might be in contention.

None of which entices me in the slightest to grab some Shakespeare and read it.
It sounds like an awful lot of work, about which I should willingly open myself up to harsh judgement, for very little gain.

This. As an ESL speaker, it makes me glad I'm under no pressure to read, understand or enjoy Shakespeare.

Grey Wolf

[warty goblin]

I must say that this thread has been a prime example of why "misunderstanding is easier than learning".

My old-English isn't very good. I had no idea that "wherefore" was supposed to be a counterpart of "therefore", and honestly, I still don't understand. "Why are you Romeo?" seems a ridiculous question.

It only seems confusing because people are obsessing over this one single word from half of a single line, devoid of all context. Nothing on Earth ever comes off well when dissected this way, which is why we shouldn't do this.

Add context (the Capulets and Montagues are feuding, which the play straight up says in the prologue) and the entire spoken line (or even the next written line) and it's really not remotely confusing.

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore are though Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet

Juliet is upset because she's falling for a dude that basically her entire family wants to murder. She wishes he would give up his name, or if he wouldn't, she will.

I learn that reading Shakespeare requires you to think about every word, even if it seems obvious. I learn that Shakespeare should be deciphered, rather than read. I learn that I am stupid and lazy for not knowing the meaning already. I learn that appreciating Shakespeare as text is futile, and that I should actually go to the theatre. I learn that, even in the theatre, I might not be able to appreciate it because it is rooted in an entirely different societal context.
I learn that if I make a mistake, I will be blamed; that if I think "eh, close enough", I will be blamed; and if I come across a passage that makes me think "I'll just skip it", I will be blamed.
Moreover, I learn that despite all of the above I should enjoy it, and if I don't, it's my own fault.

Most people engage with movies by watching them, not reading the script, just like they listen to music instead of reading the sheet music to themselves. The idea that a play should be watched is, I don't think, either particularly onerous or strange. For most of the better-known plays there's tons of filmed versions available; either as filmed stage plays or actually produced as movies. I don't think these are as fun* as seeing them live - think of the difference between a studio album, a concert album and actually being in the audience at a concert - but many film versions of Shakespeare are still very good.

Absent that, you can definitely approach Shakespeare as words on a page. I recommend reading it aloud with a partner, taking turns between speakers. This is rather fun if you get into it a bit. Or you can just read it like a book. In which case, yes, it does require some actual thought and effort on the part of the reader. Most modern versions are annotated, which clarifies the meaning of the more arcane vocabulary. It's not exactly a read it for fifteen minutes before bed sort of book, but with a good annotated version we aren't talking something available only to galaxy-brained geniuses with Ph.D.s in drama, history and pretentiousness. It's a read that takes some work, and probably isn't as rewarding as watching the play, but it can still be quite enjoyable.


*And fun really is the word. I go see live Shakespeare every summer, and have never had less than an excellent time; including outdoor performances in hourslong cold drizzle. I've been going since I was like 8 or 9, it really is that accessible if you mentally engage with it at all.

[Murk]

*And fun really is the word. I go see live Shakespeare every summer, and have never had less than an excellent time; including outdoor performances in hourslong cold drizzle. I've been going since I was like 8 or 9, it really is that accessible if you mentally engage with it at all.

See - I think this is the first time in two pages of discussion that someone has said "It is fun!".

That changes the equation a lot. You still present Shakespeare as work, as something that requires my analysis, and that is best enjoyed by going out to theatre or getting someone else to read it with you - as something that requires effort - but at least you offer something in return: fun.

For most of this thread (and my education in general, I guess), that second part of the equation was sorely missing. Shakespeare was only offered as something that required effort, and my effort would be placed under great scrutiny (once again, as this thread illustrates), but it gave nothing in return.

I think people are very willing to learn, but it must give them some enjoyment in return. All these expectations, and pressure, and criticism, and complaints... it doesn't help.

[Aedilred]

I thought it might be helpful to put the line in context, and in performance. So here are two versions scene from probably the two best-known films of the play (Zeffirelli's from 1968, and Luhrmann's from 1996).

For the complaints about WS's writing being difficult to decipher, I hope that this will help to dispel that. The language is poetic, and what we might think of as formal, but aside from "wherefore" I'm not sure there's any archaic vocabulary in there, and it should be perfectly easy to follow.



Regarding the line in question, the delivery on each occasion is different. In the first, confusion with "where" is perhaps more understandable, given the cadence; in the second, it would be a real stretch. But in either case, given the context and the rest of the scene, even if you don't know what "wherefore" means in isolation it's hard to see how the line's being interpreted as "where are you?" would really make any sense.

As to the question of why use "wherefore" when "why" will do, I think it's straightforwardly about rhythm. The additional syllable allows a maintenance of the iambic meter (WHEREfore ART thou ROMeO" but remove it and replace with "why" and you need to find another syllable from somewhere so that the rest of the phrase falls into place. Otherwise you have too many strong syllables abutting, which sounds awkward, or have "WHY art THOU RomEo" which is all wrong.

[Aedilred]

Apparently I can't put two videos in one post, so here's the second one.

[Peelee]

Of course there's been a lot based on Shakespeare's plays, but with only a handful of exceptions, none of his plots or stories are really at all original. Of the 39 plays generally attributed to him, around half draw their plots directly from history (as then understood) (the eleven "Histories", plus Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus), or from legend. A couple more, like Othello, borrow their plots entirely from other plays. Most of the remainder are comedies using stock farcical plots which rely heavily on cross-dressing, comical misunderstanding and, yes, knob gags.

From a storytelling perspective, there are probably about five or six which are really interesting original stories - and, with the exception of Macbeth (which I am exempting from the history-lift because it bears no relation to history) - they're not plays which get commonly re-adapted for new media.

In most cases it's fair to say that Shakespeare's plays are really just the best-known versions of stories that were already in circulation. Compare for instance the 1959 Ben-Hur: it's by far the best-known version of the story, but it didn't create that story or those characters, and was in itself a remake of a remake of a book adaptation.

In order for Shakespeare's plays to have become the dominant memetic form of the story, their merit must elsewhere than the story itself. And sure, there are other things going on - characterisation, themes, and so on, but a lot of that lies in the language anyway. The characters are characterised through the vocabulary and the style that they use, which is all part of the language that would inevitably get at the very least altered if not mangled in translation. The themes often rely on wordplay which again would be hard to replicate in translation. The language isn't necessarily the only thing the plays have going for them, but it's what elevates them to the point where they have the reputation they do.



Besides which, as you point out, we already have perfectly serviceable modern adaptations of Shakespeare's work, which are worth watching in their own right. So why mess about with the originals?

I'm not saying that nobody should bother to update Shakespeare to modern English. Indeed, plenty have tried (and that there isn't a standard updated version of any of his plays goes to show how difficult it is to produce worthwhile results doing so). But such versions shouldn't replace the originals, unless they are so good that they do so on merit alone.

As to whether Shakespeare should be taught, and if so at what level... I'm glad I was introduced to it when I was, because I really enjoyed it, but I know a lot of people aren't. Maybe it could be reserved for later in the curriculum, but not so late that you have to be an English-lit major to encounter it at all. I'd never have read any of it, except on an extracurricular basis, and then I'd have struggled to make sense of it. That's only going to make it more elitist and less accessible.

The other thing is that, taken in the round, Shakespeare has been such a massive influence on the subsequent development of English literature that it's difficult to teach English lit to any meaningful extent without including him. And the versions of Shakespeare which had that influence were the originals, not any modern-language versions, so it seems sensible to teach those.

And really? I'm not so taken with the idea that Shakespeare is so impenetrable that nobody can understand it anyway. I've been to his plays all over the place, and I've yet to see more than a handful of empty seats at any performance, even at small am-dram showings. Many of them sell out months in advance. People clearly still want to go to see these plays performed in their original language, so it's hardly for ivory-tower-dwellers only.


There may be an element of the subtitles-versus-dubbing debate in all of this. I know pretty firmly where I stand on that, but I know others differ.

The adaptations are adaptations. Modern translations of the originals would be the originals, better suited to grade school and high school. And un-translated versions of the originals could still be used for college/postgrad programs. Nobody is suggesting that the untranslated versions be banned - I am explicitly in favor of studying the originals. Just at the levels where the actual use of studying the originals would be more effective (don't get me started on grade school and high school English teachers. A necessary evil, I say!).

As for "not messing with originals," do you similarly insist that Beowulf should only be taught in its original text?

Spoiler: After all, it IS written in English.

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[Scarlet Knight]

That's a bold claim there. Which I don't buy for a minute. It is, at best, the best known love story in the history of the English language. And even then, Arthur - Guinevere - Lancelot might be in contention.

I stand corrected; I meant to say English.

Perhaps David and Bathsheba is better known due to it's head start but it's not a love story. Plus I bet more people know David and Goliath than David and Bathsheba.

While I have no numbers to support me, I truly believe Romeo & Juliet is the first love story most people will think of: before Guinevere - Lancelot , Tristan & Isolde, Anthony and Cleopatra, or Orpheus & Euridice. Before anything written by Tolstoy, Bronte or Austin.

Dare I say: even before ...Wesley & Buttercup!

[InvisibleBison]

As for "not messing with originals," do you similarly insist that Beowulf should only be taught in its original text? After all, it IS written in English.

Beowulf is written in Old English, which is no more the same language as Modern English than Italian is the same language as Latin.

[Vinyadan]

By the way, I took a look at the original spelling in one of the first editions (1597):

Iul: Ah Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?

In this edition there is "ah" instead of "o", which is very expressive (the other editions have a o, however).

But I am surprised at how easy it is to understand this spelling. To make a comparison with Thomas More:

"Kyng Edwarde of that name the fowrth, after that hee hadde lyued fiftie and three yeares, seven monethes, and five dayes, and thereof reygned two and twentye yeres, one moneth, and eighte dayes, dyed at Westmynster..."

[Aedilred]

The adaptations are adaptations. Modern translations of the originals would be the originals, better suited to grade school and high school.

No they wouldn't, any more than a dubbed version of a film uses the original dialogue, or a cover version of a classic track is the original.

And un-translated versions of the originals could still be used for college/postgrad programs. Nobody is suggesting that the untranslated versions be banned - I am explicitly in favor of studying the originals. Just at the levels where the actual use of studying the originals would be more effective (don't get me started on grade school and high school English teachers. A necessary evil, I say!).

Well, like I mentioned before, that would have meant I would probably never have been exposed to Shakespeare in its original language. In fact I'd probably never have taken English Lit to A-Level if it weren't for Shakespeare. And I feel like my life would be the poorer for that.

I also agree with the comment previously along the lines that people have forgotten that education should actually be challenging on some level. There is something about all this which has a scent of "I hated studying this, so nobody should study it except in a lab", which isn't how education is supposed to work.

As for "not messing with originals," do you similarly insist that Beowulf should only be taught in its original text?

Spoiler: After all, it IS written in English.

Show

As to Beowulf, it's not a fair analogy because, as InvisibleBison says above, Old English is an ancestral, but different, language to modern English. Shakespeare wrote in modern English, just an older dialect. And for what it's worth, when I was given Beowulf to study (and I gather from my Eng-lit colleagues it was the same for them) I was given the original text. I was given Chaucer at the age of 14 to study in the original Middle English too, for that matter.

There's a much better argument for translating Chaucer than Shakespeare, really, but it's still taught in the original language, sometimes with a side-by-side translation, but never removing the original altogether. Because students can cope with it given decent tuition. Maybe the students would rather not, but I'd have rather not have studied quadratic equations, if we're getting into that.

[Peelee]

No they wouldn't, any more than a dubbed version of a film uses the original dialogue, or a cover version of a classic track is the original.

By this definition I have never read Beowulf, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Morte d'Arthur, Arabian Nights, etc. etc. etc.

I contend that I have.

[Aedilred]

By this definition I have never read Beowulf, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Morte d'Arthur, Arabian Nights, etc. etc. etc.

I contend that I have.

You've read them in translation, but you haven't read the original version.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I stand corrected; I meant to say English.

Well, that's no fun. But fair enough, if we limit ourselves to English language, it is probably R&J.

Perhaps David and Bathsheba is better known due to it's head start but it's not a love story. Plus I bet more people know David and Goliath than David and Bathsheba.

Samson, though, might be better known quasi-universally. And it is a love tragedy. Still, dangerous terrain to tread. Let's agree to keep religion out of consideration.

While I have no numbers to support me, I truly believe Romeo & Juliet is the first love story most people will think of: before Guinevere - Lancelot , Tristan & Isolde, Anthony and Cleopatra, or Orpheus & Euridice. Before anything written by Tolstoy, Bronte or Austin.

Dare I say: even before ...Wesley & Buttercup!

For English speakers, I'd probably not dispute that. Universally, though, even if it was made famous first in English... I'd say Caesar, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra might have an edge? I heard of them long before I heard of Shakespeare, from a Franco-Belgian source (Asterix). I suspect what we think of as their love story was codified by Shakespeare, but it is an actual historical "romance" that means a lot of people will have heard of them, even if they don't speak a lick of English... and due to cultural osmosis, the version of their story told is pretty much Shakespeare's, rather than the one from, say, Plutarch.

The answer to the "most well known regardless of language" is likely more prosaic, though: with 1.2 and 1.3 billion people, it's almost certainly a love story familiar to both Indian and Chinese speakers. If there is one they share, they've got the rest of the world beat in sheer numbers, despite Hollywood's best efforts.

Grey Wolf

[DavidSh]

You're making me want to watch a Shakespeare play, but the local theaters are all closed. What do you recommend on DVD or Blu-Ray? I have enjoyed the Polanski Macbeth and the Midsummer Night's Dream with Michelle Pfeiffer as Titania, Stanley Tucci as Puck, and Callista Flockhart as one of the four lovers.

[Peelee]

You've read them in translation, but you haven't read the original version.

And behold my great distress at such a loss.

Also because I hit enter too early on that last post:

Well, like I mentioned before, that would have meant I would probably never have been exposed to Shakespeare in its original language. In fact I'd probably never have taken English Lit to A-Level if it weren't for Shakespeare. And I feel like my life would be the poorer for that.

And if I hadn't been exposed to underwater basket weaving using the original fibers of the craproot plant, I wouldn't have gotten interested in underwater looming, and my life would be the poorer for that.

Personal experiences used as evidence that everyone should be exposed to exactly what you were fail to sway me. And if nothing other than Shakespeare would have gotten you interested in taking English Lit to A-Level, that makes me think about the quality of the general English Lit programs in your school, rather than me elevating the value of the purity of Shakespeare. Or just that sometimes, random things get people interested in stuff that enrich their lives, but that is a poor reasoning for teaching everybody every random thing that led to said enrichment.

I also agree with the comment previously along the lines that people have forgotten that education should actually be challenging on some level. There is something about all this which has a scent of "I hated studying this, so nobody should study it except in a lab", which isn't how education is supposed to work.

There is challenging a student, and then there is wasting time doing something a certain way solely because it has always been that way. I do not care terribly much for the latter.

I care about the purity of Shakrespeare exactly as much as I care about the purity of the English language, which is to say, not at all. And, unless you are translating everything you write on this site into Modern English from your native tongue, the archaic dialects of the first versions of modern English, I would recommend that you do as well.

[Vinyadan]

And behold my great distress at such a loss.

So... close...

There are some points in this thread that I liked, like the fact that you can't expect to learn without challenging yourself. The utility of learning a certain subject, that's a different matter. Would not knowing Shakespeare put someone at disadvantage? I'm honestly not sure (although the simple fact that certain people know Sh. requires you to know him to become one of those people)... but I'm aware of the fact that language doesn't change in all its parts at the same speed, and that it tends to keep spare parts. In other words, learning Early Middle English may actually teach you some words you will find in today's English, but are fairly rarely used.

Honestly, I am not completely sure about what the whole fuss is about. The grammar is more or less what you would expect from today, the words are around the same with very few exceptions. It's not that hard, at least in written form. Use a version with notes, if you have trouble with the references.

About the original version, well, yes, it's a bit of a loss. The Anglosphere is pretty closed to outside cultures and many people speak no other language, so they simply cannot see the difference between a text in the OV and one translated. It's not something tragic, but translating is hard, and poetry is almost impossible to translate because of its huge reliance on sound. Of course, not translating means inaccessibility, so it's a good thing that stuff gets translated.

But there is a middle ground, that of "yes, I could read this with some effort, but it's no fun this way because I have to stopping to read the notes instead of flowing with the story". And, in this case, if it's just meant for pleasure, then I have nothing against a translating Shakespeare, or heavily adapting his work to modern audiences.

[Rynjin]

Well, like I mentioned before, that would have meant I would probably never have been exposed to Shakespeare in its original language. In fact I'd probably never have taken English Lit to A-Level if it weren't for Shakespeare. And I feel like my life would be the poorer for that.

As an alternate experience, I also took the equivalent in high school; AP courses for Language and Literature just for fun. I don't feel like my life would be much poorer for not having studied Shakespeare, despite the fond memories I have of playing Mercutio (who I stand by as the only good character in Romeo and Juliet) and Iago.

Hell, I currently make a living off writing, but I would never have considered taking my studies beyond that point; I can't see any value in an English degree.

At the end of the day, they're just entertainment. I enjoyed them more than other stuff I was forced to read (Catcher in the Rye is one of the most singularly unpleasant books I've read to his day) and less than some others (though to be fair, I'd already read Ender's Game twice by the time I had it assigned by a teacher), but I don't feel my life was enriched by them either way.

Of course that's just one person's experience, as is yours.

[Peelee]

So... close...

OK, that got a good laugh out of me.

As an alternate experience, I also took the equivalent in high school; AP courses for Language and Literature just for fun. I don't feel like my life would be much poorer for not having studied Shakespeare, despite the fond memories I have of playing Mercutio (who I stand by as the only good character in Romeo and Juliet) and Iago.

Mercutio and Iago (especially Iago) are the most fun characters in Shakespeare overall, which certainly helps.

I also have fond memories of field trips going to the Shakespeare Festival in Montgomery pretty much every year I can remember. Except for Romeo and Juliet.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I don't feel like my life would be much poorer for not having studied Shakespeare

Same. When I was studying the various Western European languages, I found Dumas (and of course Verne) far more interesting to read. And if you think they can't be compared to Shakespeare because of the 200+ years between them, I have to say that Cervantes was also better. Heck, some of his female characters are better than many female characters written today (relevant Classics Summarized video). Also, I have to say I found his comedy plays to be actually funny, unlike the snooze fest that is Midsummer Night's Dream (admittedly, the Spanish don't seem to worship the language from 400 years ago like some people this thread do, so I read both Don Quijote and watched Cervantes' plays in a language I could fully understand, and I never heard anyone suggest this wasn't the way to do it).

Grey Wolf

[The Glyphstone]

Coincidentally, I was just having a discussion with my father earlier today, who's decided to pick up reading the Complete Annotated Works of Shakespeare. When we got onto the side topic of Shakespeare's accessibility - specificially in his modern reputation versus his place in his age - he bust a gut laughing when I pointed out that Shakespeare plays were, essentially, the Elizabethan equivalent of South Park - cheaply made productions for the common masses, loaded down with puns, dirty jokes, and satirical references to contemporary issues.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

The language is incredibly outdated, and there is little to no reason to not update it to modern vernacular other than "reverence" for the original. As you point out, it is easy to misconstrue, and as Kyberwolf points out, such misconstructions are easy to occur because Shakespeare's version of English is archaic and largely not used anymore. Shakespeare himself invented new words for his plays, so he clearly didn't hold prescriptivist ideals, which just makes the whole thing just that much sillier.

I agree that this is the biggest problem with Shakespeare plays, and also the big problem for Shakespeare plays. The guy wanted nothing more than be the playwright of the people. His plays are full of farts, your mom jokes and lots of stuff that's easy to get but still funny and competently put together. A good amateur rendition of a random Shakespeare play can still be a great night out today. Because it's competently written live theater, and that's enough.

But people have build this image around Shakespeare that it's all high art that you have to study to understand. Romeo and Juliet being the prime example. Yes, it's a tragic love story with beautiful bittersweet moments, but it's also a story about how teenagers always have to make such a drama out of everything, amirite? That entire layer of funny but true social commentary is left out by treating it as the most serious play by the most serious writer ever, which Shakespeare never was or tried to be.

And the original language is absolutely not helping. Yeah, it's cool to see an authentic Shakespearian play with authentic Shakespearian language ones in your life, for like 15 minutes. And then really authentic, with a super thick accent nobody today can place. Not that half baked "throwing a word people don't use anymore in there every now and then and mispronouncing it in the process". But that's like peeking inside a time capsule. You're enjoying the look into the past, the actual play being performed becoming a secondary thing. The play becomes a prop in a historical museum. But perform the play without distracting people with that stuff and they can find more enjoyment in the play itself.

It's fine if you enjoy the original Star Trek the best, but it's not in the interest of your favorite franchise to yell at people for daring to like the stuff coming out today Shakespeare in the slightly stuffy classical "oh his plays are so great" way, but if you want his plays to enjoy popularity you should not look down on it when they're performed the way Shakespeare intended it: using the language of the people, with jokes and social commentary, and not one actor struggling to pronounce the words.


It's funny how this tendency is carried both by the biggest fans and the biggest detractors of the guy.

[CheesePirate]

You're making me want to watch a Shakespeare play, but the local theaters are all closed. What do you recommend on DVD or Blu-Ray?

Much Ado About Nothing (1993, directed by Kenneth Branagh) is fantastic. I also like Branagh's adaptation of Henry V (1989).

I've heard good things about Othello (1995, directed by Oliver Parker), planning to watch that at some point.

[Aedilred]

And behold my great distress at such a loss.

Right, but your suggestion that "a translation is the original" is still wrong, whether you care about not having read the originals or not.

And if I hadn't been exposed to underwater basket weaving using the original fibers of the craproot plant, I wouldn't have gotten interested in underwater looming, and my life would be the poorer for that.

Well, good for you. Except, obviously, that isn't true. If we're at the point of the conversation where we're making up derisive metaphors to rubbish other people's opinions then I don't think there's much point continuing the discussion.

Personal experiences used as evidence that everyone should be exposed to exactly what you were fail to sway me. And if nothing other than Shakespeare would have gotten you interested in taking English Lit to A-Level, that makes me think about the quality of the general English Lit programs in your school, rather than me elevating the value of the purity of Shakespeare. Or just that sometimes, random things get people interested in stuff that enrich their lives, but that is a poor reasoning for teaching everybody every random thing that led to said enrichment.

I don't necessarily think that Shakespeare-in-original should be compulsory. But you seem to be suggesting that it shouldn't be read, studied or performed at all outside college-level-plus Eng-lit courses, and I don't agree with that either.

I care about the purity of Shakrespeare exactly as much as I care about the purity of the English language, which is to say, not at all.

People care about different things, shocker.

And, unless you are translating everything you write on this site into Modern English from your native tongue, the archaic dialects of the first versions of modern English, I would recommend that you do as well.

Again, I'm not sure what you're getting at here? My native tongue isn't "the archaic dialects of the first versions of modern English", obviously, because I'm not 500 years old. But that's no reason to limit myself to my native dialect in terms of what I read or watch, or who I talk to. Hardly anyone does that. If I did, I'd never have read any American literature, watched any American films, or American TV, ditto Irish, and I'd have also cut out quite a lot of British TV/film/literature too. And we wouldn't be able to have this conversation.

Would you suggest that the dialogue in The Wire be dubbed into a standard dialect, with the original dialogue versions shown only for those doing advanced media studies? Because I found a lot of the language in that pretty impenetrable, at least early on, not much less so than Shakesepeare.

You're making me want to watch a Shakespeare play, but the local theaters are all closed. What do you recommend on DVD or Blu-Ray? I have enjoyed the Polanski Macbeth and the Midsummer Night's Dream with Michelle Pfeiffer as Titania, Stanley Tucci as Puck, and Callista Flockhart as one of the four lovers.

The BBC's Hollow Crown series covers seven of his history plays, from Richard II to Richard III. Some great cast (Ben Whishaw, Patrick Stewart, Jeremy Irons, Tom Hiddlestone; Benedict Cumberbatch appears later.) I've only seen the first four but they were all pretty good.

[Themrys]

None of which entices me in the slightest to grab some Shakespeare and read it.
It sounds like an awful lot of work, about which I should willingly open myself up to harsh judgement, for very little gain.

Only if you go to my alma mater and discuss Shakespeare with the professor there who looks like Professor Binns and has the character of Professor Snape, but sleazier.

Harsh judgement for little gain, indeed.

I still maintain that Shakespeare was totally worth it.

Heck, I am not even a native speaker and I managed to understand that sentence with "Wherefore". As others pointed out, it is obvious from context. The misunderstanding seems to be more because of refusing to understand Shakespeare out of principle than true inability.

I also perfectly understand the distinction between you and thou, and when to use thee, but that's because I am not a native speaker.


To be honest, I see no good reason to try and update Shakespeare for a modern audience. It was written for a very specific audience that does not exist like that anymore. There's the lower class people in the story who are there for the comedy, because that's funny, and there's the nobles who are there for the drama, because that's what the upper classes enjoyed (and they didn't like being made fun of).

That's not the kind of audience we have today. Class differences have changed. Society has changed. People are interested in different topics. Some of Shakespeare is timeless, some isn't.

One of the main appeals of reading Shakespeare is finding out how people thought "back then" and what they found funny, et cetera. An "actualized" version would not have that appeal.


If you want a modern play that has lots and lots of layers and hidden meanings, I suggest that you ask J.K. Rowling to write one. She does like her mythology references and puns, and though she could probably not cram as many into a play as Shakespeare did, modern audiences wouldn't understand so many, anyway, so that works.

[Peelee]

Right, but your suggestion that "a translation is the original" is still wrong, whether you care about not having read the originals or not.

Let me put it a better way - if I can still debate Tolstoy with a native-born Russian, then there is no meaningful difference between the original and the translation.

Well, good for you. Except, obviously, that isn't true. If we're at the point of the conversation where we're making up derisive metaphors to rubbish other people's opinions then I don't think there's much point continuing the discussion.

It was an analogy to make a point (that being that personal experience is not a good argument for teaching something). I deliberately made it ridiculous to underscore the point, but in hindsight, I can understand how it came across as insulting instead. I apologize. We can swap the nouns to "learning cursive got me interested in calligraphy which enriched my life, but that doesn't mean that cursive should still be uniformly taught to all students," for a less ridiculous example.

I don't necessarily think that Shakespeare-in-original should be compulsory. But you seem to be suggesting that it shouldn't be read, studied or performed at all outside college-level-plus Eng-lit courses, and I don't agree with that either.

I was trending towards simplification. I'd have no problem with high school AP classes tossing it in, for example, or electives focusing on it. But every English teacher in the country insisting on Shakespeare as it originally was 400 years ago as mandatory is nothing short of a collective grasp at elitism and self-congratulation.

Again, I'm not sure what you're getting at here? My native tongue isn't "the archaic dialects of the first versions of modern English", obviously, because I'm not 500 years old. But that's no reason to limit myself to my native dialect in terms of what I read or watch, or who I talk to. Hardly anyone does that. If I did, I'd never have read any American literature, watched any American films, or American TV, ditto Irish, and I'd have also cut out quite a lot of British TV/film/literature too. And we wouldn't be able to have this conversation.

What I'm getting at is that languages are living constructs that grow and evolve constantly in order to better facilitate understanding, and clinging to specific work from hundreds of years ago remaining needlessly archaic as the only way to truly enjoy it for the purity of the language is anathema to the entire concept of language to begin with. Let alone the English language, which is as pure as the collected rainwater water in a public trash can that hasn't been dumped in months.

Would you suggest that the dialogue in The Wire be dubbed into a standard dialect, with the original dialogue versions shown only for those doing advanced media studies? Because I found a lot of the language in that pretty impenetrable, at least early on, not much less so than Shakesepeare.

I would suggest that if, in 400 years, The Wire was studied in every school in America, it should probably be translated into a more modern form of English more appropriate to the time. Or, if BBC decided to swap in cockney rhyming slang to better bridge the gap, I certainly wouldn't have a problem with that. I say, having never seen the Wire. Or cockney rhyming slang outside of a Guy Ritchie movie.

[SaintRidley]

To Murk's comment about someone finally proposing that fun was a return value, I just want to say that I assume fun to be self-evident as return value for reading things, especially things that are written well. It very probably didn't occur to a lot of folks to have to say that part out loud because it seemed self-evident to them.

Modern translations of the originals would be the originals, better suited to grade school and high school. And un-translated versions of the originals could still be used for college/postgrad programs. Nobody is suggesting that the untranslated versions be banned - I am explicitly in favor of studying the originals. Just at the levels where the actual use of studying the originals would be more effective (don't get me started on grade school and high school English teachers. A necessary evil, I say!).

As for "not messing with originals," do you similarly insist that Beowulf should only be taught in its original text?

Spoiler: After all, it IS written in English.

Show

As a translator and person who does Old English, translations are not the originals. They're always an interpretation of the original.

Seamus Heaney's Beowulf is a version of Beowulf, and I love it greatly. But by translating it into his particular brand of Hibernian English, Heaney is also doing interesting things with his language that are not present in the original poem but which potentially bring out something that is latently reflective of the politics of its day. Heaney is appropriating a poem that had been mobilised in the context of nationalism. By putting it in an Irish English he plays off words that survive in that English but are gone from standard English, he gives a one-fingered salute to colonialism, and he activates some of the potential subtext about how the early English may have felt about their ancestors and the then-current situation of Danish rule in the Danelaw (at least around the time the manuscript was written). Meghan Purvis's translation is less word-for-word equivalent than Heaney's (which isn't really anyway) and breaks the idea of a unified narrator over her knee in favor of giving voice to various points of view within the poem. Ray Liuzza's translation aims for a precision of lexical equivalence and provides the clearest example of what the words literally mean (or his best guess, on the words that are very difficult to sort out), but he lacks the poetic verve of a Heaney or Purvis. Loads of prose translations aim for clarity of narrative and smoothing out the language so it's straightforward to understand, but they lose everything of the rich complexity of how the poet was putting things together, the plays on formulaic language, the way that Beowulf the character is marked as equivalent through certain word choices to the monsters he faces (and that last is one that most of the verse translations can't do either because the vocabulary doesn't exist to do it clearly and concisely anymore). Every translation is an interpretation that aims to be as comprehensive as possible. As a result, every translation introduces something to the text, and has the potential to not account for something whether through inability or straight up missing it.

You've read Beowulf. You have not read the original (arguably nobody has, since we know the poem pre-dates the manuscript). And if you cannot deal with the original language of a piece of literature, you cannot meaningfully debate anything deeper than its plot with someone who has access to the original language, because you have no ability to contribute any insights about what it is saying at a deep level. Because getting at any piece of literature at a deep level requires attention to the precise language being used. And that's a good reason to teach Shakespeare in the original all by itself: it maks the student slow down and have to think and ultimately realize that there's a lot going on in language. If you can't read carefully, you can't get to the point of doing interpretive work. Shakespeare's original demands reading carefully these days due to the unfamiliarity. You can do it with more modern texts (I like Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem"), but having the text itself force the slowdown is helpful for teachers who have limited time in the classroom to try and teach these skills.

And comparing the language of Shakespeare, which is only marginally different from modern English to actual Old English is silly.

When I teach Beowulf in a general course, I teach a translation and I stress the translation aspect so the students know they're dealing with a particular translator's idea of Beowulf. They aren't dealing with the original. You teach Beowulf in the original to students who have the necessary grounding in Old English as a language.


As for whether Shakespeare in the original should be taught in high schools? Yes. Is it hard? Yes. Does that mean we should simplify it for high schoolers? I don't think so. I rather think the difficulty is the point for teaching it to high schoolers. Handled well, they ought to learn a lot from it - that we can read surprisingly old stuff fairly easily with little more than a few annotations, that you can pack a lot of dense meaning into a little space in language, that art does not have to be all highbrow but can be full of fart and sex puns, the power of a good metaphor, and more. They'll also learn that language changes over time, learn some historical context about a very important time in English history as England emerged as a world power (and thus set the stage for a lot of other stuff), maybe how fun performance can be, and other stuff.

[Tvtyrant]

Let me put it a better way - if I can still debate Tolstoy with a native-born Russian, then there is no meaningful difference between the original and the translation.

It was an analogy to make a point (that being that personal experience is not a good argument for teaching something). I deliberately made it ridiculous to underscore the point, but in hindsight, I can understand how it came across as insulting instead. I apologize. We can swap the nouns to "learning cursive got me interested in calligraphy which enriched my life, but that doesn't mean that cursive should still be uniformly taught to all students," for a less ridiculous example.

I was trending towards simplification. I'd have no problem with high school AP classes tossing it in, for example, or electives focusing on it. But every English teacher in the country insisting on Shakespeare as it originally was 400 years ago as mandatory is nothing short of a collective grasp at elitism and self-congratulation.

What I'm getting at is that languages are living constructs that grow and evolve constantly in order to better facilitate understanding, and clinging to specific work from hundreds of years ago remaining needlessly archaic as the only way to truly enjoy it for the purity of the language is anathema to the entire concept of language to begin with. Let alone the English language, which is as pure as the collected rainwater water in a public trash can that hasn't been dumped in months.


I would suggest that if, in 400 years, The Wire was studied in every school in America, it should probably be translated into a more modern form of English more appropriate to the time. Or, if BBC decided to swap in cockney rhyming slang to better bridge the gap, I certainly wouldn't have a problem with that. I say, having never seen the Wire. Or cockney rhyming slang outside of a Guy Ritchie movie.

Simplification is bad on the face of it. Human brains act like muscles, the more you force kids to overwork them the better they work in the end. Every child should be forced to struggle in school, whatever their natural intelligence. If that takes arbitrary course work that is fine, it is the struggle that leads to mental flexibility.