4 ms·

A little off topic. I'm not a native English speaker and am very inclined to start reading Shakespeare soon. Any advice on how to get started? Do I just read

A little off topic. I'm not a native English speaker and am very inclined to start reading Shakespeare soon. Any advice on how to get started? Do I just read his plays first? Any other commentary I should read? Who are the authors whose work in Shakespeare must be read by people like me?

matt4077 9y ago
To be honest the best intro may be watching the Romeo and Juliet movie–yes, the one with Leonardo di Caprio. The text is unchanged, but the setting is contemporary gangs in Florida (or California?). The on-screen action, as well as hearing the text spoken with all the right rhythm and emotion makes it much easier to get the meaning. As for reading, I believe the Arden Edition are the best-regarded annotations. I somehow ended up playing Macbeth in College and spent hours with the text, but it takes a lot of effort to start enjoying all the nuances, and having to perform may have made it easier to stay motivated. (also non-native English speaker)
- olavk 9y ago
  The movie is called Romeo+Juliet :) And agree it is a great version. I'm pretty sure it is supposed to take place in a fictionalized LA - "Verona Beach" is a clever play on "Venice beach" since it allows the characters to just say "Verona" like in the play.
- foxhedgehog 9y ago
  There are many reasons why I would recommend the zeffirelli version over this one.
- triplesec 9y ago
  Also Polansku's Macbeth, Coriolanus with Anthony Hopkins, and King Lear. . I think there's a Richard Briers version which was really excellent, though you may find others. And of course Olivier's famous Richard III.
foxhedgehog 9y ago
I'd start by watching the plays, maybe start with MSND or R&J.
- olavk 9y ago
  Since you are talking to a novice, you should probably expand those acronyms!
kwhitefoot 9y ago
Don't start by reading the plays, go to a theatre and watch them being performed. Or if that is impractical watch some of the many films of the plays. Hamlet has been adapted at least fifteen times: Olivier, Branagh, Greenaway, Burton, Jacobi, even Mel Gibson, etc. And read some of the poetry.
Bulkington 9y ago
Find annotated text for your early efforts, especially when you tackle the plays. Even for a native English speaker (at least for an American) many of the Elizabethan terms are meaningles--or worse, misunderstood--and a lot of the puns (they are legion) depend on an understanding of the language and culture of England 400-500 years ago.
- DanBC 9y ago
  Yes, there's a bunch of stuff that goes unnoticed by modern audiences. Such as wool caps. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/cZHd4yrC7DV2sdyndn372K/transcript-shakespeares-restless-world-programme-8 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/cZHd4yrC7DV2sdyndn3... > If, for instance, a theatre director today put a middle-aged man on stage wearing low-slung jeans, everybody in the audience would know it was both inappropriate and funny. In 50 years time they probably won't understand it at all and the object I'm looking at now carries just such a social meaning, self-evident to an Elizabethan, hard for us to read today. It's an English woollen cap of the 16th century, a sort of flat chocolatey brown beret [...] > Our hat unlocks a whole language of social difference and a whole structure of social control, both expressed through clothes and sometimes enforced by law. A Parliamentary statute of 1571 stipulated that every male over the age of six had to wear a woollen cap like this one on Sundays and holidays. The law was a shrewd device for supporting the English wool industry, but it was also designed to reinforce social divisions by making them visible. > It was not in fact every boy and man that had to wear a cap, noblemen and gentlemen wore hats instead. The 'capped' were the lower echelons of society and for them, not wearing the cap was breaking the law. Shakespeare's Uncle Henry, not quite grand enough to qualify as a gentleman, was fined for not wearing his woollen cap. Everybody in Shakespeare's audience took all this for granted and everybody in this society wore a hat as a badge of social identity. Not to, would suggest that something was seriously amiss.
princeb 9y ago
get one of those annotated texts where the original is on one page and the annotation is on the facing page. read both concurrently. keep google and other references close by. I've never watched a Shakespeare play but I can't imagine understanding people speaking early modern English if I can't even understand it very well reading it and having the luxury of going over the sentences again and again.
olavk 9y ago
Watch a Shakespeare movie. The plays are written to be performed by actors, not to be read. My favorite is Henry V in the Branagh version, and it is a good place to start. Take a scene like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHAAH8PCnMo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHAAH8PCnMo. Just listen to the rythm and poetry and how the intensity builds, and appreciate how great actors make the text live. But there are a wealth of great Shakespeare films. Often they are creative in how they stage the story, like Ian McKelleans Richard III, which takes place in a kind of 1930's fascist Britain. This might seem disconcerting at first, but the original plays didn't care a lot for historical or geographical accuracy anyway. Be aware that Shakespeares strong points are not plotting and pacing. Movies and stage version often cut and rearrange a lot to satisfy the modern audience. Also the stories are typically taken from somewhere else, so the genius of Shakespeare is not the overall story, but rather in the poetry and the language and the unique characterizations.
pdpi 9y ago
I'd recommend watching rather than reading his plays. The Royal Shakespeare Company has recordings of many of their stagings on DVD (with english subtitles that will make things a bit easier), and there's several good movie adaptations as well.
mbubb 9y ago
There is a fair amount of stuff online that you can listen to (youtube, etc) I think with Shakespeare (and even more so Chaucer who wrote in Middle English) - if you hear it for a while you can read it better.

matt4077 9y ago

To be honest the best intro may be watching the Romeo and Juliet movie–yes, the one with Leonardo di Caprio. The text is unchanged, but the setting is contemporary gangs in Florida (or California?). The on-screen action, as well as hearing the text spoken with all the right rhythm and emotion makes it much easier to get the meaning. As for reading, I believe the Arden Edition are the best-regarded annotations. I somehow ended up playing Macbeth in College and spent hours with the text, but it takes a lot of effort to start enjoying all the nuances, and having to perform may have made it easier to stay motivated. (also non-native English speaker)

olavk 9y ago
The movie is called Romeo+Juliet :) And agree it is a great version. I'm pretty sure it is supposed to take place in a fictionalized LA - "Verona Beach" is a clever play on "Venice beach" since it allows the characters to just say "Verona" like in the play.
foxhedgehog 9y ago
There are many reasons why I would recommend the zeffirelli version over this one.
triplesec 9y ago
Also Polansku's Macbeth, Coriolanus with Anthony Hopkins, and King Lear. . I think there's a Richard Briers version which was really excellent, though you may find others. And of course Olivier's famous Richard III.

foxhedgehog 9y ago

I'd start by watching the plays, maybe start with MSND or R&J.

olavk 9y ago
Since you are talking to a novice, you should probably expand those acronyms!

kwhitefoot 9y ago

Don't start by reading the plays, go to a theatre and watch them being performed. Or if that is impractical watch some of the many films of the plays. Hamlet has been adapted at least fifteen times: Olivier, Branagh, Greenaway, Burton, Jacobi, even Mel Gibson, etc. And read some of the poetry.

Bulkington 9y ago

Find annotated text for your early efforts, especially when you tackle the plays. Even for a native English speaker (at least for an American) many of the Elizabethan terms are meaningles--or worse, misunderstood--and a lot of the puns (they are legion) depend on an understanding of the language and culture of England 400-500 years ago.

DanBC 9y ago
Yes, there's a bunch of stuff that goes unnoticed by modern audiences. Such as wool caps. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/cZHd4yrC7DV2sdyndn372K/transcript-shakespeares-restless-world-programme-8 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/cZHd4yrC7DV2sdyndn3... > If, for instance, a theatre director today put a middle-aged man on stage wearing low-slung jeans, everybody in the audience would know it was both inappropriate and funny. In 50 years time they probably won't understand it at all and the object I'm looking at now carries just such a social meaning, self-evident to an Elizabethan, hard for us to read today. It's an English woollen cap of the 16th century, a sort of flat chocolatey brown beret [...] > Our hat unlocks a whole language of social difference and a whole structure of social control, both expressed through clothes and sometimes enforced by law. A Parliamentary statute of 1571 stipulated that every male over the age of six had to wear a woollen cap like this one on Sundays and holidays. The law was a shrewd device for supporting the English wool industry, but it was also designed to reinforce social divisions by making them visible. > It was not in fact every boy and man that had to wear a cap, noblemen and gentlemen wore hats instead. The 'capped' were the lower echelons of society and for them, not wearing the cap was breaking the law. Shakespeare's Uncle Henry, not quite grand enough to qualify as a gentleman, was fined for not wearing his woollen cap. Everybody in Shakespeare's audience took all this for granted and everybody in this society wore a hat as a badge of social identity. Not to, would suggest that something was seriously amiss.

princeb 9y ago

get one of those annotated texts where the original is on one page and the annotation is on the facing page. read both concurrently. keep google and other references close by. I've never watched a Shakespeare play but I can't imagine understanding people speaking early modern English if I can't even understand it very well reading it and having the luxury of going over the sentences again and again.

olavk 9y ago

Watch a Shakespeare movie. The plays are written to be performed by actors, not to be read. My favorite is Henry V in the Branagh version, and it is a good place to start. Take a scene like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHAAH8PCnMo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHAAH8PCnMo. Just listen to the rythm and poetry and how the intensity builds, and appreciate how great actors make the text live. But there are a wealth of great Shakespeare films. Often they are creative in how they stage the story, like Ian McKelleans Richard III, which takes place in a kind of 1930's fascist Britain. This might seem disconcerting at first, but the original plays didn't care a lot for historical or geographical accuracy anyway. Be aware that Shakespeares strong points are not plotting and pacing. Movies and stage version often cut and rearrange a lot to satisfy the modern audience. Also the stories are typically taken from somewhere else, so the genius of Shakespeare is not the overall story, but rather in the poetry and the language and the unique characterizations.

pdpi 9y ago

I'd recommend watching rather than reading his plays. The Royal Shakespeare Company has recordings of many of their stagings on DVD (with english subtitles that will make things a bit easier), and there's several good movie adaptations as well.

mbubb 9y ago

There is a fair amount of stuff online that you can listen to (youtube, etc) I think with Shakespeare (and even more so Chaucer who wrote in Middle English) - if you hear it for a while you can read it better.