9 ms·

I do really wish more Shakespeare was performed in an original accent, as there's an awful lot of rhymes and jokes that don't work in modern pronunciation. Like

I do really wish more Shakespeare was performed in an original accent, as there's an awful lot of rhymes and jokes that don't work in modern pronunciation. Like "hour to hour" being pronounced like "whore to whore", which suddenly makes that line quite a bit funnier. Here's another video of the same bloke that I've seen in the past: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s I do like that he mentioned being asked to perform using his native Welsh accent in the OP's video. Shakespeare was after all the playright for people of every standing, and it feels a bit daft to posh it all up.

Brakenshire 8y ago
> Shakespeare was after all the playright for people of every standing, and it feels a bit daft to posh it all up. Although the later plays were written for the Blackfriars Theatre which was definitely exclusive.
pavel_lishin 8y ago
> I do really wish more Shakespeare was performed in an original accent, as there's an awful lot of rhymes and jokes that don't work in modern pronunciation. Like "hour to hour" being pronounced like "whore to whore", which suddenly makes that line quite a bit funnier. Things like this, among others, continue to convince me that reading Shakespeare plays in high school is largely a waste of time. Unless you have an excellent teacher, who explains the puns, the historical context, and other things, it's about as useful as looking at storyboards of a movie instead of watching the movie itself.
- robotmay 8y ago
  The only one I found funny at school was Twelfth Night, and the rest were extremely arduous. I went to college in Stratford Upon Avon and I found his writing so much more interesting once I actually got to spend more time learning about the context and the period.
- delecti 8y ago
  In addition, I think it's absurd for your first exposure to any of the plays to be reading it; so much of the dialog only makes sense when being spoken. The homework assignments should never be "read Act I", it should be "watch the first 45 minutes of movie version <blah>". Even a disengaged viewer will get more out of watching it than having their first experience be reading it.
  - pishpash 8y ago
    This is carried over from a pre-AV time when books were the only media you had. The curriculum just needs to be updated (and probably has been, in many places).
  - pavel_lishin 8y ago
    I don't think we ever had reading homework of Shakespeare; I suspect our teachers knew it would never happen. Instead, we read aloud in class, sometimes rotating roles in class to make sure everyone got a turn to speak. (Naturally, this didn't do any favors for anyone, except when someone got to exclaim "BRING ME MY LONG SWORD, HOE!" in class.)
    - khedoros1 8y ago
      I remember that exact moment in class. Ms. Zank smirked just a bit because she knew how the student was going to read that line. Then we had a nice class discussion about how it was more similar to a cry of "land ho!" or some such.
  - a-priori 8y ago
    When I was in school we were never assigned reading Shakespeare as homework, it was always done by reading it out loud in class, rotating parts every several lines, with the teacher interjecting whenever something needed to be explained.
    - sametmax 8y ago
      Hearing a kid struggling to read Shakespeare is even worst that reading it in your head. Acting is hard. But most kids can't even read out loud a newspaper add decently.
- philwelch 8y ago
  Most of the books have footnotes to explain the parts that are non-obvious, which you would miss from watching it.
- dawnerd 8y ago
  One of my high school English teachers really went above and beyond when it came to teaching Shakespear. Took the time to explain everything, showed us movie versions and so much more. Also walked us through a bunch of other pretty complex literary works making hen really easy to digest. It’s a shame he died this last year, we really need more teachers like him. I’ve never seen a class where all the students were truly excited to read Devine Comedy.
  - crooked-v 8y ago
    The Divine Comedy in particular gets a lot more amusing for students once they learn it's self-insert fanfiction with the writer's enemies written into humiliating positions.
- georgeecollins 8y ago
  You are arguing that people shouldn't be exposed to something if they can't understand all of it, or if they don't have a good enough teacher. First of all, everyone finishes their first reading of Shakespeare with a partial understanding. Second, how sad is that for the people who don't get to read it because they don't have a "great" teacher-- never mind how you decide who that is. I do agree it is better acted than read, because that is how it was meant to be presented. But a modern audience is going to require explanation regardless of accent.
  - eximius 8y ago
    > First of all, everyone finishes their first reading of Shakespeare with a partial understanding. At best. I knew people at public school whose major projects were coloring maps with colored pencils. They didn't have to draw the borders, they just had to color the countries correctly. It was literally a complicated color by numbers. Not all educations are the same.
    - pavel_lishin 8y ago
      I used to joke that some of my classmates couldn't point out Russia on a map of Russia.
  - bbeonx 8y ago
    Oh, I don't know. There is also the very real possibility that it will seem hopelessly obtuse to the student who will never approach it again. IMO, a poor introduction to a subject is worse than neutral. And maybe that's okay, too, but high school isn't the only place that many students will get to experience Shakespeare and if it can't be done right there might be more damage than good done. There is a difference between not exposing a student to something that they cannot understand at first glance and not having a teacher who doesn't understand the matter themselves try to muddle their way through a presentation the material. Making it part of standard curriculum means that we will have a heavy dosage of the latter, whereas making it optional means that only those teachers who truly have a passion for the thing will present it (theoretically, of course). Then again, I'm in America so our teachers don't have time to teach anything that isn't showing up on a standardized test, and for me this debate is purely academic :)
- colomon 8y ago
  My favorite example of this was actually from my middle school days. We read Romeo and Juliet from our textbook in class, and I hated it. In the course of getting ready for a test I read over the Cliff Notes on the play as well. Much to my surprise it it described several humorous scenes which were completely gone in the version we read. It turns out they were cut from the middle school version because they were considered too bawdy for us.
- mistrial9 8y ago
  our books had one page of text, and one page of comments and notes, for every page. It was quite usable, and in paperback.
- ojbyrne 8y ago
  Having a well-annotated edition like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside_Shakespeare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside_Shakespeare can mitigate somewhat.
- JoeSmithson 8y ago
  I remember the footnotes in one Shakespeare play I read at school saying something like "[2] this is a humourous reference to Christopher Marlowe's contemporaneous play..." which I sort of rolled my eyes at and remarked how that was a bit of a stretch and was anyone really supposed to notice that. My teacher drew the analogy to Scary Movie (which was relatively new at the time) and how we could all enjoy it just fine without footnotes explaining "this is a humourous reference to contemporaneous horror film Scream..." etc. It suddenly struck me the difference between studying culture historically and actually experiencing it "live". This analogy has only gotten better with time because I probably would need footnotes to get half the jokes in Scary Movie nowadays.
robotmay 8y ago
I would also recommend that if you want to find a way into enjoying Shakespeare again after it was most likely ruined for you in school, to watch the comedy Upstart Crow, made by the BBC. It's a good-humoured jab at Shakespeare's writing and actually helped get me interested in it again.
mrec 8y ago
Shakespeare's Globe in London did full OP productions (on the main stage) of Romeo and Juliet (2004, [1]) and Troilus and Cressida (2005, [2]). David and Ben were advisors. Highly recommended if you ever get the chance to see something similar; besides the rhyming/punning issues you mention, it's a lot brisker and more natural-sounding. Interestingly, the prologue for R+J announces that the play "is now the two hours' traffic of our stage". It's rare for an uncut modern production to clock in much below 3. [1] https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-130566946/romeo-and-juliet-presented-by-the-globe-theatre https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-130566946/romeo-... [2] https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=4761275 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=4761275
- samatman 8y ago
  Ahh that sounds so amazing! Perhaps Stratford, ON will give that a shot someday. I can't imagine the original productions clocked in much under four, what with vendors selling pasties between each act and the occasional dancing bear. It points to a different concept of time: a modern Brit wouldn't dare describe a four hour affair as "two hours" but someone from Southern Europe might...
  - mrec 8y ago
    I'm pretty sure intervals weren't a thing in Shakespeare's day; he certainly didn't write with them in mind. Which isn't to say that nobody was selling pasties, of course. Theatres were very much public spaces back then (and the Globe's yard still feels like one). Ref e.g. https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=475128109 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=475128109
    - digi_owl 8y ago
      Similarly, the sunday matinee at the cinema was basically a family outing, complete with packed lunch, at one time.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

Brakenshire 8y ago

> Shakespeare was after all the playright for people of every standing, and it feels a bit daft to posh it all up. Although the later plays were written for the Blackfriars Theatre which was definitely exclusive.

pavel_lishin 8y ago

> I do really wish more Shakespeare was performed in an original accent, as there's an awful lot of rhymes and jokes that don't work in modern pronunciation. Like "hour to hour" being pronounced like "whore to whore", which suddenly makes that line quite a bit funnier. Things like this, among others, continue to convince me that reading Shakespeare plays in high school is largely a waste of time. Unless you have an excellent teacher, who explains the puns, the historical context, and other things, it's about as useful as looking at storyboards of a movie instead of watching the movie itself.

robotmay 8y ago
The only one I found funny at school was Twelfth Night, and the rest were extremely arduous. I went to college in Stratford Upon Avon and I found his writing so much more interesting once I actually got to spend more time learning about the context and the period.
delecti 8y ago
In addition, I think it's absurd for your first exposure to any of the plays to be reading it; so much of the dialog only makes sense when being spoken. The homework assignments should never be "read Act I", it should be "watch the first 45 minutes of movie version <blah>". Even a disengaged viewer will get more out of watching it than having their first experience be reading it.
- pishpash 8y ago
  This is carried over from a pre-AV time when books were the only media you had. The curriculum just needs to be updated (and probably has been, in many places).
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  I don't think we ever had reading homework of Shakespeare; I suspect our teachers knew it would never happen. Instead, we read aloud in class, sometimes rotating roles in class to make sure everyone got a turn to speak. (Naturally, this didn't do any favors for anyone, except when someone got to exclaim "BRING ME MY LONG SWORD, HOE!" in class.)
  - khedoros1 8y ago
    I remember that exact moment in class. Ms. Zank smirked just a bit because she knew how the student was going to read that line. Then we had a nice class discussion about how it was more similar to a cry of "land ho!" or some such.
- a-priori 8y ago
  When I was in school we were never assigned reading Shakespeare as homework, it was always done by reading it out loud in class, rotating parts every several lines, with the teacher interjecting whenever something needed to be explained.
  - sametmax 8y ago
    Hearing a kid struggling to read Shakespeare is even worst that reading it in your head. Acting is hard. But most kids can't even read out loud a newspaper add decently.
philwelch 8y ago
Most of the books have footnotes to explain the parts that are non-obvious, which you would miss from watching it.
dawnerd 8y ago
One of my high school English teachers really went above and beyond when it came to teaching Shakespear. Took the time to explain everything, showed us movie versions and so much more. Also walked us through a bunch of other pretty complex literary works making hen really easy to digest. It’s a shame he died this last year, we really need more teachers like him. I’ve never seen a class where all the students were truly excited to read Devine Comedy.
- crooked-v 8y ago
  The Divine Comedy in particular gets a lot more amusing for students once they learn it's self-insert fanfiction with the writer's enemies written into humiliating positions.
georgeecollins 8y ago
You are arguing that people shouldn't be exposed to something if they can't understand all of it, or if they don't have a good enough teacher. First of all, everyone finishes their first reading of Shakespeare with a partial understanding. Second, how sad is that for the people who don't get to read it because they don't have a "great" teacher-- never mind how you decide who that is. I do agree it is better acted than read, because that is how it was meant to be presented. But a modern audience is going to require explanation regardless of accent.
- eximius 8y ago
  > First of all, everyone finishes their first reading of Shakespeare with a partial understanding. At best. I knew people at public school whose major projects were coloring maps with colored pencils. They didn't have to draw the borders, they just had to color the countries correctly. It was literally a complicated color by numbers. Not all educations are the same.
  - pavel_lishin 8y ago
    I used to joke that some of my classmates couldn't point out Russia on a map of Russia.
- bbeonx 8y ago
  Oh, I don't know. There is also the very real possibility that it will seem hopelessly obtuse to the student who will never approach it again. IMO, a poor introduction to a subject is worse than neutral. And maybe that's okay, too, but high school isn't the only place that many students will get to experience Shakespeare and if it can't be done right there might be more damage than good done. There is a difference between not exposing a student to something that they cannot understand at first glance and not having a teacher who doesn't understand the matter themselves try to muddle their way through a presentation the material. Making it part of standard curriculum means that we will have a heavy dosage of the latter, whereas making it optional means that only those teachers who truly have a passion for the thing will present it (theoretically, of course). Then again, I'm in America so our teachers don't have time to teach anything that isn't showing up on a standardized test, and for me this debate is purely academic :)
colomon 8y ago
My favorite example of this was actually from my middle school days. We read Romeo and Juliet from our textbook in class, and I hated it. In the course of getting ready for a test I read over the Cliff Notes on the play as well. Much to my surprise it it described several humorous scenes which were completely gone in the version we read. It turns out they were cut from the middle school version because they were considered too bawdy for us.
mistrial9 8y ago
our books had one page of text, and one page of comments and notes, for every page. It was quite usable, and in paperback.
ojbyrne 8y ago
Having a well-annotated edition like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside_Shakespeare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside_Shakespeare can mitigate somewhat.
JoeSmithson 8y ago
I remember the footnotes in one Shakespeare play I read at school saying something like "[2] this is a humourous reference to Christopher Marlowe's contemporaneous play..." which I sort of rolled my eyes at and remarked how that was a bit of a stretch and was anyone really supposed to notice that. My teacher drew the analogy to Scary Movie (which was relatively new at the time) and how we could all enjoy it just fine without footnotes explaining "this is a humourous reference to contemporaneous horror film Scream..." etc. It suddenly struck me the difference between studying culture historically and actually experiencing it "live". This analogy has only gotten better with time because I probably would need footnotes to get half the jokes in Scary Movie nowadays.

robotmay 8y ago

I would also recommend that if you want to find a way into enjoying Shakespeare again after it was most likely ruined for you in school, to watch the comedy Upstart Crow, made by the BBC. It's a good-humoured jab at Shakespeare's writing and actually helped get me interested in it again.

mrec 8y ago

Shakespeare's Globe in London did full OP productions (on the main stage) of Romeo and Juliet (2004, [1]) and Troilus and Cressida (2005, [2]). David and Ben were advisors. Highly recommended if you ever get the chance to see something similar; besides the rhyming/punning issues you mention, it's a lot brisker and more natural-sounding. Interestingly, the prologue for R+J announces that the play "is now the two hours' traffic of our stage". It's rare for an uncut modern production to clock in much below 3. [1] https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-130566946/romeo-and-juliet-presented-by-the-globe-theatre https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-130566946/romeo-... [2] https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=4761275 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=4761275

samatman 8y ago
Ahh that sounds so amazing! Perhaps Stratford, ON will give that a shot someday. I can't imagine the original productions clocked in much under four, what with vendors selling pasties between each act and the occasional dancing bear. It points to a different concept of time: a modern Brit wouldn't dare describe a four hour affair as "two hours" but someone from Southern Europe might...
- mrec 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure intervals weren't a thing in Shakespeare's day; he certainly didn't write with them in mind. Which isn't to say that nobody was selling pasties, of course. Theatres were very much public spaces back then (and the Globe's yard still feels like one). Ref e.g. https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=475128109 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=475128109
  - digi_owl 8y ago
    Similarly, the sunday matinee at the cinema was basically a family outing, complete with packed lunch, at one time.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]