Shakespeare's Language

[JoanS]

sorry for my stupid question. Iam just student of english and my teacher said me that the language of Shakespeare is not acessible to many english readers beacause of the idiom difenrencies.. ist true? you, english and american people, do you have problems with original Shakespere books? I ve bought The sonnets, and iam not able to read it...

thanks for answers...

[AuntShecky]

The more you read of Shakespeare, Ulysses, the easier it
becomes. According to what I was taught about the history of the English language, Shakespeare's era was a time when the vocabulary richly increased; people started to enjoy playing with language, making puns, etc. A student once told me that she didn't like reading Shakespeare because -- and I quote -- "He uses so many cliches." Of course, they weren't cliches when he used them-- he coined them! We can thank Will Shakespeare for so much of our western literature, culture,
and current idioms (cliches included).

Auntie

[JoanS]

thanks.. the best way I can choose is study english filology..

[Nossa]

I'm an English and Literature student as well, and English isn't my mother language..I agree that Shakespeare is hard sometimes, but trust me, it's hard sometimes for those who speak English as well.
I avoided reading Shakespeare for sometime myself, and I had a thread about it here, and someone adviced me to read his plays and sonnets a lot, one after the other, in order to get used to the language, and by time, you'll find it easy. It happened to me actually, and now I can, relatively, read Shakespeare better than before.

[Bakiryu]

I love Shakespeare but sometimes I just wonder "What the heck is this guy saying!?" It's easier to understand if you read it, really slowly (which is hard when you're one of those "speed readers").

[JoanS]

ok.. it will be hard.. with my english iam able to read just short stories of Hemingway, i dont like this autor but he's the only one i can read in english..

[AuntShecky]

Ulysses, I think you mean "philology." I'm not chastising; I myself have trouble with spelling occasionally.
The other thing I forgot to tell you -- it was a trick some teacher told me in high school when we came across difficult texts. That was to try to determine the subject and
the verb of each sentence. If you can figure out who is doing what to whom, you can tackle the modifiers more
easily. Also , if you have permission to write in your textbooks, gently underline the troublesome words with a pencil. Make a list, and then look them up in a dictionary.
Most of Shakespeare's vocabulary is still in use in contemporary English; even some of the archaisms can be
found in the dictionary, simply because Shakespeare used them.
Good luck. Some day you will learn to love the works of The Bard, and you will feel as if you have achieved a (seemingly) difficult task.
"More honored in the breach than in the observance."

[Bakiryu]

ok.. it will be hard.. with my english iam able to read just short stories of Hemingway, i dont like this autor but he's the only one i can read in english..

are you a born english speaker?

[Nossa]

I love Shakespeare but sometimes I just wonder "What the heck is this guy saying!?" It's easier to understand if you read it, really slowly (which is hard when you're one of those "speed readers").

I agree. I for one used to be a fast reader, till I came across Shakespeare. I think that one Shakespearean play can take time with me, more than two novellas combined..lol
I re-read many speeches, just to understand what he's saying...and the punctuation gives me hell, cuz to understand a certain line, you have to pay attention as to where the comma is, where the full stop is and so on.
But still, even with all these hardships in reading Shakespeare, I'm still willing to read it, and I'd love to master it. Someday.

[JoanS]

are you a born english speaker?

No, iam not. I think you can recognize it...

Aunt shecky: yes i wanted to say philology..

[Anza]

Even with the advantage of having English as my mother language, I find that reading Shakespeare requires mch concentration. For my English class, (I'm a Freshman in High School) I had to read The Taming of the Shrew, and at first, I found myself leaning heavily on the footnotes. But, as I got further into the book, I 1) got used to the language, 2) was able to use context clues based on the storyline.

[Love2read17]

Thats why I always have trouble reading it. My mother always says to me that he writes almost like he's comparing.. I just use the books that have the defination on the bottom page. (^^) But he is really hard to understand though, I barely know english myself sometimes. but alas I am also young so its diffrent. I hope you can learn to read his sonnets their really cool.

[jaymrobinson]

There are many references in Shakespeare's plays that could only be understood and appreciated by someone of the same time period. Now, these nuances can only be uncovered through deep study into the culture of the times. I think that is probably the most difficult aspect of reading Shakespeare for modern audiences (even those who speak english as a native tongue). Archaic vocabulary can be looked up in a dictionary, and with enough practice reading, one can pretty much master these word forms, etc. However, there are many puns/play on words, etc. that would be hillarious to the audiences of the time, but escape us today. We can understand these through study, but I'm afraid we cannot appreciate them the same.
Shakespeare was also well educated; and the educated of the time were well versed in ancient literature, which is evident in the many references to mythological/historical figures in his works.
I think that one thing that may be difficult for foreign audiences may be Shakespeare's use of sarcasm and wit that is peculiar to Western (especially English) culture. Sarcasm and insult may be considered witty and humorous here, while considered obnoxious or just plain rude in, for example, many Asian cultures, etc.

[DapperDrake]

Shakespeare is pretty inscrutable at first but you soon get used to his style - and I think it is a style rather than the actual language of the time. I say that because I found Marlowe to be instantly readable, even though he slightly pre-dates Shakespeare.

[jgweed]

Elizabethan prose, from Shakespeare to the KJV of the Bible, takes some well-spent time to fully understand; it was a time in which the pure love and enjoyment of words was rampant. The more you read of Shakespeare, the easier to understand he becomes, and the richer your own vocabulary.
Don't panic and don't give up.
Cheers,
John

[Chester]

Here's something I've been wondering (a question for anybody): Would Shakespeare's style, in so far as plays go, work today? Not his language, per se. But his style of writing in romantic and flowery and witty and poetic ways. Surely people didn't talk that way back then in ordinary daily conversation. Yes, they recognized the language (it was their own), but the style was not common in daily usage, was it? Today we seem to require realism in our stage characters. We want them to speak the way we speak, we want the conversations to seem real. I'm trying to imagine if the equivalent of a Shakespearean style, even updated to modern, let's say American English, would be received by audiences that want realism, and not poetic, romantic dialogue.

[jgweed]

Well, many DID talk that way, one imagines, Chester---read for example some of Elizabeth's speeches before Parliament---and certainly an educated person of the time would have no problem understanding his style and language.
Coupled with Shakespeare's language is his profound handling of characters and motivations, and these seem as real today as they probably seemed to his audience. Not all plays need be "realistic" in the common sense; what about "Waiting for Godot"? And consider all the attempts to transpose Shakespeare's plays into modern dress or current situations (Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio, or even West Side Story).
And even today, one sees his plays performed all over the world (even in translations), so there must be some magic in them that speaks to us moderns.
Cheers,
John

[shakespeare87]

I am very good at recognizing the words in the works.