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When thou studiest Shakespeare
He yet cometh to thee
In the tongue of the sixteenth century.
Since the 1950s there has been a new version of the Bible in todays English come out every year--yet the most Bible-oriented churches still prefer the King James Version of 1611. There has never been a Revised Standard Shakespeare, or a New International Shakespeare, or a Today's English Shakespeare. At any rate no modern versions of Shakespeare have ever caught on. Shakespeare remains the Marine Corps of Academia: 400 years of Tradition unhampered by Progress.
If thou wouldst learn the Bard
Thou must study hard.
Do the students who complete Bard Boot Camp believe it worth the effort to master what has become nearly a foreign language?
Last edited by CAllenDoudna; 08-08-2014 at 09:02 AM..
Reason: to correct 400 year to 400 years
Shakespeare isn't just a dramatist. He's also a poet. When you study Shakespeare, you don't just study the character development, or the dramatic metaphors, you are engulfed in a rhythm of language. That rhythm is the antecedent to many modern artforms, such as rap.
Shakespeare isn't just a dramatist. He's also a poet. When you study Shakespeare, you don't just study the character development, or the dramatic metaphors, you are engulfed in a rhythm of language. That rhythm is the antecedent to many modern artforms, such as rap.
So it's definitely worth the effort.
I agree. It is the complete package. I loved doing Shakespeare with my kids--when I taught in a public school setting..
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CAllenDoudna
When thou studiest Shakespeare
He yet cometh to thee
In the tongue of the sixteenth century.
Since the 1950s there has been a new version of the Bible in todays English come out every year--yet the most Bible-oriented churches still prefer the King James Version of 1611. There has never been a Revised Standard Shakespeare, or a New International Shakespeare, or a Today's English Shakespeare. At any rate no modern versions of Shakespeare have ever caught on. Shakespeare remains the Marine Corps of Academia: 400 years of Tradition unhampered by Progress.
If thou wouldst learn the Bard
Thou must study hard.
Do the students who complete Bard Boot Camp believe it worth the effort to master what has become nearly a foreign language?
To believe it would be progressive to morph Shakespeare's beautiful Old English into our modern day vernacular is to miss the point entirely.
The sole reason for reading Shakespeare is to immerse yourself into the the amazing poetry, allegory, and descriptive symbolism he used in order to convey those wonderful stories. Much would be lost if they were told in plain old everyday modern English.
Sure, to the uninitiated, getting into the rhythm and style of his writing can be a bit daunting at first, and it does require some effort on the reader's part, but once you get "over yon hump" I think you'll find the payoff well worth the effort.
Many of the classics DO require some intellectual investment on the part of a reader in our modern-day West: the works of Homer, for example; or Dante Allegheiri's "Inferno"; or Chaucer's "Cantebury Tales" or of course, "Beauwolf" (which BTW is thought to be perhaps the very first written work of fiction.)
Tweaking ANY of these into modern English for the sole purpose of making them easier to read would be near-heretical; tantamount to white-washing a great work of art.
Besides: if you have trouble reading Willie the Shakes, just watch those plays on DVD; most of them have even been converted into movies. Most of his works were meant to be viewed as theater, anyway.
I like Shakespeare but I wouldn't study him. We had to compare Romeo and Juliet to West Side Story. That was so hard. I fail to see why the Eng Lit people make such a big deal about it.
"'tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church door but 'tis enough." That is a great line.
We live in a world with bigger and more complicated issues.
There is more to think about in Larry Niven's The Mote in God's Eye.
I like Shakespeare but I wouldn't study him. We had to compare Romeo and Juliet to West Side Story. That was so hard. I fail to see why the Eng Lit people make such a big deal about it.
"'tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church door but 'tis enough." That is a great line.
We live in a world with bigger and more complicated issues.
There is more to think about in Larry Niven's The Mote in God's Eye.
Shakespeare is just antiquated English tradition.
psik
I don't think Niven would agree with you. After all, Shakespeare is about the drama of the human condition, and that doesn't change. Also, a 10-second search returned that Niven named one of his anthologies after a line from Romeo and Juliet: Inconstant Moon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
One of the things that attracts me to Niven is his anthropological science fiction. That is not sovery different to Shakespeare but with a different audience, format, and language.
Not really sure what you're getting at. Great as Shakespeare was, his writings aren't the Bible, and they weren't intended to be - more specifically, the newer/easier translations of the Bible were written to be more reader-friendly so that more people seeking to understand the Word of God might be able to. Most people reading Shakespeare *voluntarily* don't need or want it to be watered-down.
Of course, not all people who read Shakespeare do so voluntarily, and for them, there is indeed a "New International Shakespeare", as it were - several of them, most notably Sparknotes' No Fear Shakespeare series. Original words on the left, 21st century words in the right. It's been a gift for many of us who actually chose to read the texts instead of going Sparknotes all the way.
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I fail to see why the Eng Lit people make such a big deal about it.
