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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’v

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.
bryanrasmussen 2y ago
>1) Shakespeare didn’t use literary language. His works were written in the common parlance of the day. I'm pretty sure it was a mix. >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. I don't remember a time when I found Shakespeare difficult reading, but I guess I started reading him at 16 at which point I had already quite a long and varied reading life. I suppose advanced High School English classes could have the original Shakespeare and the non-advanced the modernized, but I think it's doing a disservice to those kids in Ohio who would understand to give them what I would at that age have referred to as the dumbed down versions, and which at this age I still have some tendency to think of as being of lesser quality. >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. there's a lot of actors who don't read Shakespeare well, and tend to hit the rhythm exactly and heavily, like a bad poetry reading - this makes the text harder to understand.
- saghm 2y ago
  > there's a lot of actors who don't read Shakespeare well, and tend to hit the rhythm exactly and heavily, like a bad poetry reading - this makes the text harder to understand If actors can't even be expected to perform it right, why would we expect students to be able to read it right? This sounds like even more of an argument to translate it for modern audiences
  - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
    >This sounds like even more of an argument to translate it for modern audiences when speech is uttered in an unnatural rhythm it is harder to understand what is being said then when reading the same text at one's leisure, it is not quite the argument you imagine.
    - saghm 2y ago
      The point is that modern actors struggling to deliver the correct rhythm is a pretty good sign that the language is hard to parse for a modern person, and that will affect the ability of students to be able to read and understand it.
forgetfreeman 2y ago
Rubbish. Comprehending this material has been well within the capabilities of 16 year olds for as long as the material has been taught. For your premise to hold true there would need to have been a significant diminishment in children's linguistic and reading skills which would no doubt be reflected in all manner of standardized testing across the cohort. If someone's struggling with the material it seems more likely that either it's being taught poorly or they simply have no interest in engaging with it. Curb your enthusiasm for revisionism, not everything should be easy.
- hnfong 2y ago
  Markest thou well, good sir, thy words are naught But foolish prattle. Forsooth, for many a year, The younglings of sixteen winters have grasped This very material with ease and little fear. If thy premise held water, then, by the stars, A woeful decline in linguistic arts Would manifest itself in tests of old, A downward trend that would not be untold. But nay, 'tis not the youth that falter here, But rather thou, dear teacher, dost impart A lesson poorly taught, or else the pupil's heart Doth not incline to learn, and doth not start. Curb, then, thy zeal for revision's sway, Not every task should be a trivial play. Some things, by rights, should challenge and vex, Lest wisdom's virtues be but empty text.
  - joshstrange 2y ago
    If ever I was ok with an AI generated comment on HN this is it. I’m firmly in the “the cognitive load to read/understand Shakespeare far outweighs leaving it in the ‘original’ form”-camp and this further confirms my view point. I love reading, I always have, but I never loved reading Shakespeare and probably never will. I maintain that teachers do their students a massive disservice by shoving dry or hard to understand books down their pupil’s throats in the name of “it’s what we’ve always done” instead of something that students might actually enjoy AND learn from. Maybe one day they will enjoy “the classics” but I think you turn more children off of reading as whole with way it’s taught currently. And yes, I’m including books like To Kill a Mockingbird and most “required reading”. Maybe I’m dumb (I don’t think I am, my career and what I’ve accomplished says I’m not) but it wasn’t until years after reading it that actually understood it. I still have an incredibly negative reaction to that book, not because of the contents, but because of how it was forced on me. English classes suck the life out of every book they touch. In fact, I dislike just about every book I was forced to read in my English classes but I regularly read more than my peers. I was lucky that my mom and grandmother instilled a love of reading in me, school did its best to beat that out of me.
graemep 2y ago
My kids never had any problem with Shakespeare. I have been to several of his plays in the last few years with my daughter who has just turned 16 and she had no problem - and she did not seem to have any problem much younger than that. At one performance there was a school group including early teen, maybe pre teen kids, sitting in front of us who were clearly enjoying the play (among other things they were discussing it, and had to be told to be quiet by their teacher in the interval). > But for high school students in Ohio Maybe they need to improve their English comprehension closer to what we seem to have here in Warwickshire. To be fair, some kids do find it difficult - but you learn most by tackling difficult stuff, not by doing only what is easy.

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.

bryanrasmussen 2y ago

>1) Shakespeare didn’t use literary language. His works were written in the common parlance of the day. I'm pretty sure it was a mix. >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. I don't remember a time when I found Shakespeare difficult reading, but I guess I started reading him at 16 at which point I had already quite a long and varied reading life. I suppose advanced High School English classes could have the original Shakespeare and the non-advanced the modernized, but I think it's doing a disservice to those kids in Ohio who would understand to give them what I would at that age have referred to as the dumbed down versions, and which at this age I still have some tendency to think of as being of lesser quality. >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. there's a lot of actors who don't read Shakespeare well, and tend to hit the rhythm exactly and heavily, like a bad poetry reading - this makes the text harder to understand.

saghm 2y ago
> there's a lot of actors who don't read Shakespeare well, and tend to hit the rhythm exactly and heavily, like a bad poetry reading - this makes the text harder to understand If actors can't even be expected to perform it right, why would we expect students to be able to read it right? This sounds like even more of an argument to translate it for modern audiences
- bryanrasmussen 2y ago
  >This sounds like even more of an argument to translate it for modern audiences when speech is uttered in an unnatural rhythm it is harder to understand what is being said then when reading the same text at one's leisure, it is not quite the argument you imagine.
  - saghm 2y ago
    The point is that modern actors struggling to deliver the correct rhythm is a pretty good sign that the language is hard to parse for a modern person, and that will affect the ability of students to be able to read and understand it.

forgetfreeman 2y ago

Rubbish. Comprehending this material has been well within the capabilities of 16 year olds for as long as the material has been taught. For your premise to hold true there would need to have been a significant diminishment in children's linguistic and reading skills which would no doubt be reflected in all manner of standardized testing across the cohort. If someone's struggling with the material it seems more likely that either it's being taught poorly or they simply have no interest in engaging with it. Curb your enthusiasm for revisionism, not everything should be easy.

hnfong 2y ago
Markest thou well, good sir, thy words are naught But foolish prattle. Forsooth, for many a year, The younglings of sixteen winters have grasped This very material with ease and little fear. If thy premise held water, then, by the stars, A woeful decline in linguistic arts Would manifest itself in tests of old, A downward trend that would not be untold. But nay, 'tis not the youth that falter here, But rather thou, dear teacher, dost impart A lesson poorly taught, or else the pupil's heart Doth not incline to learn, and doth not start. Curb, then, thy zeal for revision's sway, Not every task should be a trivial play. Some things, by rights, should challenge and vex, Lest wisdom's virtues be but empty text.
- joshstrange 2y ago
  If ever I was ok with an AI generated comment on HN this is it. I’m firmly in the “the cognitive load to read/understand Shakespeare far outweighs leaving it in the ‘original’ form”-camp and this further confirms my view point. I love reading, I always have, but I never loved reading Shakespeare and probably never will. I maintain that teachers do their students a massive disservice by shoving dry or hard to understand books down their pupil’s throats in the name of “it’s what we’ve always done” instead of something that students might actually enjoy AND learn from. Maybe one day they will enjoy “the classics” but I think you turn more children off of reading as whole with way it’s taught currently. And yes, I’m including books like To Kill a Mockingbird and most “required reading”. Maybe I’m dumb (I don’t think I am, my career and what I’ve accomplished says I’m not) but it wasn’t until years after reading it that actually understood it. I still have an incredibly negative reaction to that book, not because of the contents, but because of how it was forced on me. English classes suck the life out of every book they touch. In fact, I dislike just about every book I was forced to read in my English classes but I regularly read more than my peers. I was lucky that my mom and grandmother instilled a love of reading in me, school did its best to beat that out of me.

graemep 2y ago

My kids never had any problem with Shakespeare. I have been to several of his plays in the last few years with my daughter who has just turned 16 and she had no problem - and she did not seem to have any problem much younger than that. At one performance there was a school group including early teen, maybe pre teen kids, sitting in front of us who were clearly enjoying the play (among other things they were discussing it, and had to be told to be quiet by their teacher in the interval). > But for high school students in Ohio Maybe they need to improve their English comprehension closer to what we seem to have here in Warwickshire. To be fair, some kids do find it difficult - but you learn most by tackling difficult stuff, not by doing only what is easy.