I saw this question pop up at the top of my referrer logs yesterday, so I guess it’s popular, so I thought it would be fun to make a post out of it and try to answer the question. My first thought is to answer, “It’s self-fulfilling. Every exposure to Shakespeare you’ve ever had has been telling you how difficult and boring and irrelevant he is, so naturally from the moment you cracked open the book, you thought “Wow, this is difficult and boring and irrelevant.” Let me put it in perspective. My daughters, 3 and 5, understand Shakespeare. Do they understand the words, or the themes? No, of course not, that’d be silly. But if I asked one of them to recount for me the story of “the girl on the island” they’d be able to tell me that Miranda lived on the island with her daddy, who could do magic, and there was a fairy named Ariel and a monster named Caliban….and so on. My point? People start in on Shakespeare from the wrong end. They start with Act I, Scene I, line 1, word 1, and say “Hmf, I can’t understand it, I’m screwed.” They lose the forest for the trees. I say work it backwards. Learn the story, by whatever means necessary. Learn the characters, understand their feelings and motivations. And then you’ll find that the words are a bit easier to understand. How do you do that? Well, subscribe to this blog, for one :). And I’m only half joking. I could point you at “No Fear Shakespeare” and any other number of books that attempt to translate Shakespeare’s words into more readable modern English, but that’s not my point. My point is that to understand the stories you have to break it down well beyond the words and get to the characters themselves. Romeo’s a horny teenager whose girlfriend won’t give it up. Hamlet’s dad died, and he can’t stand his stepdad. King Lear wants to grow old and die in the comfort of knowing his children love him and will take care of him. There are *people* in there, people. If you’re so busy concentrating on the rhyme scheme and pronunciation of the words, you’re making it too hard for yourself. I could write all day on this subject, but I don’t have time here at work :). Maybe we can get some discussion going in the comments? Show of hands, how many people out there think that Shakespeare is hard? How many think it’s easy? Why?
I think the fact that everyone keeps saying that watching a movie or play before attempting to read Shakespeare proves that there is a difficulty to his writing. I agree that because most people are taught that Shakespeare is difficult then our minds are made up that we can never fully understand what Shakespeare is saying, even though that is not the case. I think learning about Shakespeare and his style is very helpful before reading because I found that knowing many words were out of place or abbreviated and such so that Shakespeare could use Iambic Pentameter helped me to connect the dots as to what Shakespeare was trying to express.
This helped me understand why i would get so frustrated with trying to read Shakespeare. I would focus on what he was trying to say and words that I could not understand rather than trying to just get to the point and understand the story. I agree with Caleb Guillo about how you should take your time and focus on the words and and story not just try to get it over with and hurry through the book.
This helped me understand why i was having so many difficulties reading Shakespeare. i would focus to much on the words and not try to get the story behind them. I would rush through and not get the main purpose of the story. I agree that people should take their time reading or they lose the purpose and just get frustrated and give up.
His English is of Elizabethan Period and of course the English of that period was really at its highest level.
Shakespeare's language is so hard as his English was of Elizabethan period and it was at its highest level in that period.
🙁
I am currently studying this in my high school English class. We are examining it thoroughly and going over such topics as why Shakespeare tends to be the thing that makes high school students cringe. Any thoughts in response to my comment would be awesome, it can be anything to do with Hamlet/Shakespeare. Thanks!
Hi Lillie!
Personally I think one of the reasons why high school students cringe at Shakespeare is because it's the first time they see it. I'd also expect them to cringe at calculus and quantum physics as well. That's one of the reasons I go into elementary school classrooms and start teaching the subject as earlier as second grade. I don't expect the kids to fully understand it at that age, but it takes the fear away.
The other reason is that far too often the plays are taught for language first, at the expense of understanding character and plot. Do you know what Hamlet's about? It's about a kid whose dad is out of the picture, he hates his new step dad (the feeling is mutual), and his girlfriend broke up with him for reasons he can't understand. Doesn't that sound like something that many, many teenagers could relate to? And yet if you start by reading it from act 1 scene 1 as if you're supposed to understand every word, you'll never get the big picture.
Watch a movie first. Not necessarily Hamlet. There are "modern adaptations" that tell a version of the same story, Lion King being the most famous example (but "Tommy Boy" with Chris Farley and David Spade is another one). Become familiar with the elements of the story however you can. Then tackle Hamlet. You'll understand the characters ("Ok, this is the girlfriend …. that's her brother, who wants revenge….that's the best friend….those are the not-really-friends who are actually spies for the king….") and the language will start to make more sense.
Unless you are planning to act it out or write a graduate thesis on the subject, you will almost certainly never deeply understand every single word. Don't kill yourself trying to. Get to the point where you get where the characters are coming from, and why they do what they do.
Good luck!
"That's one of the reasons I go into elementary school classrooms and start teaching the subject as earlier as second grade. I don't expect the kids to fully understand it at that age, but it takes the fear away."
I didn't know you do that. That's what *I do*.
I volunteer once or twice a year to pretty much wing it, just happy to get the kids paying attention to the subject of Shakespeare.
JM does it as his full time job.
He's better at it than me. 🙂
I have never been a fan of Shakespeare, but I am studying acting and cannot avoid it, so I've tried reading his plays, tried watching movies and even bought books on understanding Shakespeare. His writing is not for me. It simply doesn't speak to me. Also, I don't find it visual at all; I find it wordy and complicated. I have not been able to watch a full Shakespeare movie; it's so boring to me.
Hi, from Ms. Keller's class she is the best teacher ever
Hi from Ms. Kellers class, she is the best teacher and recommended your article.