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Shakespeare is modern English. Linguists describe it as "Early Modern English". It's contemporaneous with the King James Bible, which is still widely read, with

Shakespeare is modern English. Linguists describe it as "Early Modern English". It's contemporaneous with the King James Bible, which is still widely read, without translation. The difficulty with Shakespeare isn't that it's in Elizabethan English, but that it's in poetry. The Russians and French have strong poetic cultures. They enjoy reading poetry, and the challenge of writing it, including translation. That just doesn't exist in Anglophone cultures. But Shakespeare wasn't meant to be read. It was meant to be performed, and a native speaker watching a good performance has no need of translation. The emotions and flow of the story are clear. They may not understand each and every word, but that's often true of even the latest movies. (The dialogue is often mixed in a way that makes it hard to understand -- by the director's choice.) I regularly perform Shakespeare for audiences who have never seen it before, and I never translate a word of it. I generally edit it to make it move more briskly than Elizabethan audiences wanted, but the only time I'll change a word is to make the pronouns match the actors I cast (and not even always then). Shakespeare's stories are rarely worth preserving for their own sake. The stories themselves are dated -- not the words, but the culture. There's no "translation" that will make Claudio not an asshole for the way he treats Hero, or make Hero not look pitiful for taking him back. Shakespeare's plays in modern words are always flat, dull, and penitential. If you're going to modernize the language, modernize the whole thing -- go see the delightful "Ten Things I Hate About You" or the magical "West Side Story".

ipnon 2y ago
Yes I find most people who find Shakespeare incomprehensible suddenly find it clear and simple once they read it aloud
- jfengel 2y ago
  I think it takes some experience in getting a Shakespeare text from the page into a form that really clicks with people. It's not because the words are unfamiliar, but because Shakespeare has a fondness for long, elliptical sentences and convoluted grammar. It can be hard to figure out where the emphasis goes. It helps that the poetry gives you a lot of cues. Iambic pentameter gives you a framework. Deviations from it are cues that something is important. It's not a formula for performance, but it reveals just how much more Shakespeare was directing you than just the words to say. John Barton's "Playing Shakespeare" course has been how they teach that to RSC actors, and that has given us some of the greatest Shakespeare lights of the last 50 years. The videos of it with his students are magnificent views of a comically young Patrick Stewart, a ridiculously baby-faced Judi Dench, a positively embryonic Ian McKellen, and many others. Inexperienced readers may not be able to get that just from reading it aloud by themselves. But if they listen to somebody who has practiced it, they'll have a huge leg up on comprehension.
  - ahazred8ta 2y ago
    We never figured Roddy McDowall for a fairy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Tempest_Hallmark_Hall_of_Fame_1960.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Tempest_Hallmark_Ha...
- dbcurtis 2y ago
  Another fun trick: Shakespeare rhymes much better if you read it aloud in your broadest "talk like a pirate" accent.
  - jfengel 2y ago
    Double down and do Pericles, which has actual pirates. (When I did it, we replaced all of the pirate's dialogue with "arr".)
- Suppafly 2y ago
  >Yes I find most people who find Shakespeare incomprehensible suddenly find it clear and simple once they read it aloud That but also, it becomes a lot easier once you stop pretending it's incomprehensible and put forth even a tiny effort into understanding it.
  - recursive 2y ago
    You might not believe me, but I'm not pretending. Maybe I just don't know how to apply the effort, but you're wrong, whether you believe it or not.
jncfhnb 2y ago
Wherefore petards are pants and the rub is a catch
- bryanrasmussen 2y ago
  The first time I heard hoist by one's own petard I had assumed petard was the ass, but it turns out it is a small bomb.
  - jfengel 2y ago
    It's not quite "ass", but "petard" does also suggest "fart". The French still use "pet" to mean "fart". Including an amusingly named pastry: Pete De Soeur, "nun's fart". Shakespeare definitely loved his fart jokes. And if I ever get around to directing Hamlet, I'm gonna see if a fart joke works at that line. It would be hilarious to break the tension.
MrVandemar 2y ago
You know, I know it's poor form to post "I agree", adding nothing but a little noise to the conversation. But here I am, in the stadium, leaping to my feet, cheering as if you just scored the winning goal. Great comment, insightful and shows the passion and knowledge you have for the topic. This kind of commentary is why I'm here, and I'm calling it out as such. Love your work.
- jfengel 2y ago
  Thank you. I didn't always like Shakespeare, but exactly 25 years ago next week I founded a Shakespeare theater troupe. (Unimaginatively called the Rude Mechanicals, a very popular name. But since I nabbed rudemechanicals.com, I get a lot of their email.) Our quarter century anniversary is in a week. We've done every Shakespeare play. Even the really bad ones. Especially the really bad ones. Often they are the most successful, because we can find great things nobody has ever seen before.
defrost 2y ago
> go see the delightful ShakespeaRe-Told ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShakespeaRe-Told https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShakespeaRe-Told ) at the very least for Sally Wainwright's modern take on The Taming of the Shrew. Slings & Arrows (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slings_%26_Arrows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slings_%26_Arrows) for darkly comic irreverance and a couple of piano opening numbers in the actors bar. So many examples, these are just two.
thaumasiotes 2y ago
> The difficulty with Shakespeare isn't that it's in Elizabethan English, but that it's in poetry. The Russians and French have strong poetic cultures. This is wrong; everyone loves poetry. We have plenty of major cultural productions mostly or entirely written in poetry; Jesus Christ Superstar isn't losing any audience members because of the fact that it doesn't use any prose. > It's contemporaneous with the King James Bible, which is still widely read, without translation. And this is wrong too; the King James Bible is widely read with the benefit of translation.
- HelloNurse 2y ago
  Shakespeare has a few perplexing words and some apparently contorted phrase constructions that become clearer if read aloud. Nothing compared to actual difficulties.
materielle 2y ago
1) Shakespeare didn’t use literary language. His works were written in the common parlance of the day. 2) It’s actually easier to read than to watch live. We’ve heard all the arguments by now. “Go see it live”, “You need to see it with better actors”, “It makes more sense when the accents are British”. All made up, none of it is true. 3) “Early Modern English” is “Modern” only relative to “Middle” and “Old” English. It isn’t modern in any normative sense. It’s just a linguistic classification, not to be taken literally in casual parlance. Look, I have a degree in English literature. I’ve read the canon. I’ve read all the major works of Shakespeare. I’ve seen many of the plays live. It’s difficult to read. Because he’s writing in a language that we don’t speak. If I see a play live, I have to read it beforehand in order to refresh my memory. If I haven’t read it recently, I have no clue what the actors are saying. John Mcwhorter, a linguist Phd and a lover of Shakespeare agrees with me. The truth is that understanding Shakespeare is hard because he doesn’t write in anything that would be considered English. Perhaps English literature majors should still be forced to learn the original plays. But for high school students in Ohio, can we please just translate the plays into something they understand? Can we give up the bit and stop pretending like these 16 year olds have the slightest clue what on earth is happening in those plays?
- WolfeReader 2y ago
  "The truth is that understanding Shakespeare is hard because he doesn’t write in anything that would be considered English." I just want to record for posterity that you wrote and published this sentence. It's not just factually incorrect; it actually boggles the mind that someone would think it, write it, and post it in public.
- jacobolus 2y ago
  > easier to read than to watch live. Obviously there are some benefits to reading like being able to skip around, pause, take notes, look stuff up, sit wherever you feel most comfortable, etc. But in general I'd say this is only true for people with a ton of experience reading old plays. For everyone else, good acting is tremendously helpful at helping the audience to follow the characters' actions, relationships, and intentions. > language that we don’t speak It really not that far off, and doesn't take that much practice to get into. It's similar to trying to watch a TV show set somewhere with a strong accent you aren't familiar with (e.g. the Baltimore accents in The Wire). It starts out challenging but human brains are amazing language interpreting machines.
inglor_cz 2y ago
I am generally a lover of history, but Shakespeare's comedies are just too "weird" for me. The plots that tend to rotate around some elaborate disguise etc. just cannot "roll me in". I attended a local adaptation of the Twelfth Night a few days ago. The actors really did their best, but the plot felt like product of a brain injury to me. I wonder what has changed since the 16th century, as obviously Shakespeare's humor was genuinely popular back then. It is a different story with the tragedies. The Merchant of Venice was very visceral even for 21st century audience. As if troubles of people (be it debt or anti-Semitism) changed less over time.
- jfengel 2y ago
  Yeah, comedy always ages poorly. Even 40 year old comedy movies are often weak now. With 400 year old comedies it's surprising anything works. Twelfth Night is actually one of the better ones. With some skillful editing and a good dose of physical comedy (basically you can write your own jokes), it can be entertaining. There's practically no salvaging something like Measure for Measure or All's Well That Ends Well. Merchant... is complicated. (I have thoughts. I played a very well-received Shylock a few years back.) Think of it as a tragedy with some comic sub-plots. Which isn't unlike the tragedies, which also have comic sub-plots. Even so, it's just a weird goddamn play. It is a tragedy that ends in act 4, followed by a really dumb romantic comedy one-act. The audiences comes out feeling, well, ooky. And you just gotta lean into that.
- Suppafly 2y ago
  Someone of that is similar to the Seinfeld is unfunny trope right? Where it's not funny because we've been inundated with the same humor from other media before experiencing shakespeare, so it seems trite.
xenadu02 2y ago
Shakespeare only really works for me in original pronunciation. The rhyme scheme makes sense, the alliteration comes back... even some nonsensical lyrics become obvious jokes.

ipnon 2y ago

Yes I find most people who find Shakespeare incomprehensible suddenly find it clear and simple once they read it aloud

jfengel 2y ago
I think it takes some experience in getting a Shakespeare text from the page into a form that really clicks with people. It's not because the words are unfamiliar, but because Shakespeare has a fondness for long, elliptical sentences and convoluted grammar. It can be hard to figure out where the emphasis goes. It helps that the poetry gives you a lot of cues. Iambic pentameter gives you a framework. Deviations from it are cues that something is important. It's not a formula for performance, but it reveals just how much more Shakespeare was directing you than just the words to say. John Barton's "Playing Shakespeare" course has been how they teach that to RSC actors, and that has given us some of the greatest Shakespeare lights of the last 50 years. The videos of it with his students are magnificent views of a comically young Patrick Stewart, a ridiculously baby-faced Judi Dench, a positively embryonic Ian McKellen, and many others. Inexperienced readers may not be able to get that just from reading it aloud by themselves. But if they listen to somebody who has practiced it, they'll have a huge leg up on comprehension.
- ahazred8ta 2y ago
  We never figured Roddy McDowall for a fairy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Tempest_Hallmark_Hall_of_Fame_1960.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Tempest_Hallmark_Ha...
dbcurtis 2y ago
Another fun trick: Shakespeare rhymes much better if you read it aloud in your broadest "talk like a pirate" accent.
- jfengel 2y ago
  Double down and do Pericles, which has actual pirates. (When I did it, we replaced all of the pirate's dialogue with "arr".)
Suppafly 2y ago
>Yes I find most people who find Shakespeare incomprehensible suddenly find it clear and simple once they read it aloud That but also, it becomes a lot easier once you stop pretending it's incomprehensible and put forth even a tiny effort into understanding it.
- recursive 2y ago
  You might not believe me, but I'm not pretending. Maybe I just don't know how to apply the effort, but you're wrong, whether you believe it or not.

jncfhnb 2y ago

Wherefore petards are pants and the rub is a catch

bryanrasmussen 2y ago
The first time I heard hoist by one's own petard I had assumed petard was the ass, but it turns out it is a small bomb.
- jfengel 2y ago
  It's not quite "ass", but "petard" does also suggest "fart". The French still use "pet" to mean "fart". Including an amusingly named pastry: Pete De Soeur, "nun's fart". Shakespeare definitely loved his fart jokes. And if I ever get around to directing Hamlet, I'm gonna see if a fart joke works at that line. It would be hilarious to break the tension.

MrVandemar 2y ago

You know, I know it's poor form to post "I agree", adding nothing but a little noise to the conversation. But here I am, in the stadium, leaping to my feet, cheering as if you just scored the winning goal. Great comment, insightful and shows the passion and knowledge you have for the topic. This kind of commentary is why I'm here, and I'm calling it out as such. Love your work.

jfengel 2y ago
Thank you. I didn't always like Shakespeare, but exactly 25 years ago next week I founded a Shakespeare theater troupe. (Unimaginatively called the Rude Mechanicals, a very popular name. But since I nabbed rudemechanicals.com, I get a lot of their email.) Our quarter century anniversary is in a week. We've done every Shakespeare play. Even the really bad ones. Especially the really bad ones. Often they are the most successful, because we can find great things nobody has ever seen before.

defrost 2y ago

> go see the delightful ShakespeaRe-Told ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShakespeaRe-Told https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShakespeaRe-Told ) at the very least for Sally Wainwright's modern take on The Taming of the Shrew. Slings & Arrows (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slings_%26_Arrows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slings_%26_Arrows) for darkly comic irreverance and a couple of piano opening numbers in the actors bar. So many examples, these are just two.

thaumasiotes 2y ago

> The difficulty with Shakespeare isn't that it's in Elizabethan English, but that it's in poetry. The Russians and French have strong poetic cultures. This is wrong; everyone loves poetry. We have plenty of major cultural productions mostly or entirely written in poetry; Jesus Christ Superstar isn't losing any audience members because of the fact that it doesn't use any prose. > It's contemporaneous with the King James Bible, which is still widely read, without translation. And this is wrong too; the King James Bible is widely read with the benefit of translation.

HelloNurse 2y ago
Shakespeare has a few perplexing words and some apparently contorted phrase constructions that become clearer if read aloud. Nothing compared to actual difficulties.

materielle 2y ago

1) Shakespeare didn’t use literary language. His works were written in the common parlance of the day. 2) It’s actually easier to read than to watch live. We’ve heard all the arguments by now. “Go see it live”, “You need to see it with better actors”, “It makes more sense when the accents are British”. All made up, none of it is true. 3) “Early Modern English” is “Modern” only relative to “Middle” and “Old” English. It isn’t modern in any normative sense. It’s just a linguistic classification, not to be taken literally in casual parlance. Look, I have a degree in English literature. I’ve read the canon. I’ve read all the major works of Shakespeare. I’ve seen many of the plays live. It’s difficult to read. Because he’s writing in a language that we don’t speak. If I see a play live, I have to read it beforehand in order to refresh my memory. If I haven’t read it recently, I have no clue what the actors are saying. John Mcwhorter, a linguist Phd and a lover of Shakespeare agrees with me. The truth is that understanding Shakespeare is hard because he doesn’t write in anything that would be considered English. Perhaps English literature majors should still be forced to learn the original plays. But for high school students in Ohio, can we please just translate the plays into something they understand? Can we give up the bit and stop pretending like these 16 year olds have the slightest clue what on earth is happening in those plays?

WolfeReader 2y ago
"The truth is that understanding Shakespeare is hard because he doesn’t write in anything that would be considered English." I just want to record for posterity that you wrote and published this sentence. It's not just factually incorrect; it actually boggles the mind that someone would think it, write it, and post it in public.
jacobolus 2y ago
> easier to read than to watch live. Obviously there are some benefits to reading like being able to skip around, pause, take notes, look stuff up, sit wherever you feel most comfortable, etc. But in general I'd say this is only true for people with a ton of experience reading old plays. For everyone else, good acting is tremendously helpful at helping the audience to follow the characters' actions, relationships, and intentions. > language that we don’t speak It really not that far off, and doesn't take that much practice to get into. It's similar to trying to watch a TV show set somewhere with a strong accent you aren't familiar with (e.g. the Baltimore accents in The Wire). It starts out challenging but human brains are amazing language interpreting machines.

inglor_cz 2y ago

I am generally a lover of history, but Shakespeare's comedies are just too "weird" for me. The plots that tend to rotate around some elaborate disguise etc. just cannot "roll me in". I attended a local adaptation of the Twelfth Night a few days ago. The actors really did their best, but the plot felt like product of a brain injury to me. I wonder what has changed since the 16th century, as obviously Shakespeare's humor was genuinely popular back then. It is a different story with the tragedies. The Merchant of Venice was very visceral even for 21st century audience. As if troubles of people (be it debt or anti-Semitism) changed less over time.

jfengel 2y ago
Yeah, comedy always ages poorly. Even 40 year old comedy movies are often weak now. With 400 year old comedies it's surprising anything works. Twelfth Night is actually one of the better ones. With some skillful editing and a good dose of physical comedy (basically you can write your own jokes), it can be entertaining. There's practically no salvaging something like Measure for Measure or All's Well That Ends Well. Merchant... is complicated. (I have thoughts. I played a very well-received Shylock a few years back.) Think of it as a tragedy with some comic sub-plots. Which isn't unlike the tragedies, which also have comic sub-plots. Even so, it's just a weird goddamn play. It is a tragedy that ends in act 4, followed by a really dumb romantic comedy one-act. The audiences comes out feeling, well, ooky. And you just gotta lean into that.
Suppafly 2y ago
Someone of that is similar to the Seinfeld is unfunny trope right? Where it's not funny because we've been inundated with the same humor from other media before experiencing shakespeare, so it seems trite.

xenadu02 2y ago

Shakespeare only really works for me in original pronunciation. The rhyme scheme makes sense, the alliteration comes back... even some nonsensical lyrics become obvious jokes.