Confused by Shakespeare?

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Is anyone else here confused by Shakespeare's plays? I find them hard to understand because of all the melodramatic lingo obscuring the plotlines. I'm studying them in English and it's safe to say my grade's pretty low. I wish the characters were more to-the-point about things so I could get it easier. About the only way to survive Shakespearian literature for me is to read a synopsis on the internet.

I'm with you. I don't "get" any of it.

I HATE Shakespeare, Hamlet almost stopped me from graduating. I Could not understand any of it and the teacher that i had thought AS was a made up condition.
shakespeare can rot in hell





Thats my two cents

The problem with Shakespeare is not that his language is melodramatic, it's that his plots are stupid. I had to do "Twelfth Night" (one of his worse, i think) in English and i was irritated with it the whole way thorugh, it was just silly and nonsensical, (at least in Macbeth there were witches, plots and death, lot's of deaths) luckily at the beginning of the book was a plot summary and key themes, it got me through English.

It is in Old English & is poetry, is it because of the definition of the words they using...?

"Graze on my lips; and if those hills be dry, stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie."


http://www.openlibrary.org/details/shak ... 00swinuoft This might help you allot if you have not looked at it...

I have a Master's in English, and I must say, Shakespeare was my least favorite writer. I prefer American writers, such as Mark Twain.

Shakespeare is difficult. I've always laughed at comedians that could mimick the language to comic effect. Surprised to hear recently that "Merchant of Venice" was considered a comedy in Old England ???! !!

Any play in particular (Do you have set texts?)

Some Shakespeare I love: Macbeth, Henry V, the Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream...

Others do little for me, starting with A Winter's Tale...

But I must admit (my aspieness?) I prefer reading them and working them out in detail, before facing them as live plays.

The English used in Shakepears plays is relatively modern by linguistic standards.

Old English = Beowulf untranslated (approx 1000AD). Here's a sample:

Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas.

Translated:

LO, praise of the prowess of people-kings
of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,
we have heard, and what honor the athelings won!
Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,
from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,
awing the earls.

Middle English = Chaucer (Canterbury Tales) untranslated. Chaucer lived from 1342-1400 AD. Sample:

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Here is Shakepeare's Sonnet #116 as written in Modern English:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

I actually really like Shakespeare a great deal. There's a Shakespeare Festival in southern Utah that has won Tony awards and I try to go every year.

The only plays that I have problems with are the historical ones, in that the various characters sometimes have pet names or diminuitive names for each other (like it once took my 3/4 of the way through the play to figure out that "Harry" was a pet name for King Henry the somethingth and all of a sudden things made sense). I like reading the plays and sonnets and so forth, but the plays are much better when acted out (well) because the actors know what words to emphasize, etc.

I like some Shakespeare too, as an adult though, when I was at school I found it difficult. Some of the plots are very convoluted. The language he used was so rich and expressive, but because it was written so long ago it needs a lot of explanation. That's what the teacher should be doing really, translating it in a way you can understand it.
If it's a play you're doing that has been made into a film, I would suggest trying to get hold of it and watching the film a few times, actors can bring to life a play that seems 'dead' on the page and probably make it easier to understand.

I wound up, in order to be able to read Shakespeare uninterrupted, translating some of his stuff into modern-day language. Made it a lot easier for me to follow.

Funny you mention Beowulf... the edition I have has, when opened, the original text on the left page and the translated text on the right page. Made it very interesting to read.

I couldn't stand reading Shakespeare when I was in High School. I still can't stand reading his stuff now. It's so boring to me.

Confused by shakespeare, hmm... If i were, i would probably not be in the position i am in as part of my school's cast of Romeo & Juliet. But then again, i only joined up because they're choreographing a Shakespearean street-fight at the beginning...

Just because i understand Shakespeare... doesn't mean i have to like it.

Roxas

AN ASpie woman who can quote Beowulf ! !!

Oh be still, my foolish heart ! !! !!