I just found ShakespeareComics.com so I can’t say I know much about it. But I like the idea. As the newspaper article I saw put it, “Half a loaf of Shakespeare is better than none.” In other words, even though many hardcore fans (like myself) would normally insist that you have to stick with the original language, if the choice is between giving up the language versus losing them completely, I’ll give up the language.
Plays include Midsummer’s, Macbeth, Henry V, Romeo and Juliet, and Twelfth Night. The site even has screenshots which is very cool. I see that the “modern english” version is literally right next to the original, so at least they haven’t totally foregone the source.
Their summary of Macbeth is weird. Is he really an essentially good man? Where’s the evidence of that? Sure, his wife is the one that pushes him into all the really bad acts, but is it true to say that we know he was all that good in the first place? He didn’t take much convincing, after all.
I agree with them, though, that his speech on learning of his wife’s feath is “amongst the most powerful and haunting in literature.” It is so completely and totally unexpected for where it is that (when done justice) just hits you like an emotional freight train.
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