<story><title>Making Elizabethan plays understandable and fun to read</title><url>http://elizabethandrama.org/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jfengel</author><text>Shakespeare &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; modern English. Linguists describe it as &amp;quot;Early Modern English&amp;quot;. It&amp;#x27;s contemporaneous with the King James Bible, which is still widely read, without translation.&lt;p&gt;The difficulty with Shakespeare isn&amp;#x27;t that it&amp;#x27;s in Elizabethan English, but that it&amp;#x27;s in poetry. The Russians and French have strong poetic cultures. They enjoy reading poetry, and the challenge of writing it, including translation. That just doesn&amp;#x27;t exist in Anglophone cultures.&lt;p&gt;But Shakespeare wasn&amp;#x27;t meant to be read. It was meant to be performed, and a native speaker watching a good performance has no need of translation. The emotions and flow of the story are clear. They may not understand each and every word, but that&amp;#x27;s often true of even the latest movies. (The dialogue is often mixed in a way that makes it hard to understand -- by the director&amp;#x27;s choice.)&lt;p&gt;I regularly perform Shakespeare for audiences who have never seen it before, and I never translate a word of it. I generally edit it to make it move more briskly than Elizabethan audiences wanted, but the only time I&amp;#x27;ll change a word is to make the pronouns match the actors I cast (and not even always then).&lt;p&gt;Shakespeare&amp;#x27;s stories are rarely worth preserving for their own sake. The stories themselves are dated -- not the words, but the culture. There&amp;#x27;s no &amp;quot;translation&amp;quot; that will make Claudio not an asshole for the way he treats Hero, or make Hero not look pitiful for taking him back.&lt;p&gt;Shakespeare&amp;#x27;s plays in modern words are always flat, dull, and penitential. If you&amp;#x27;re going to modernize the language, modernize the whole thing -- go see the delightful &amp;quot;Ten Things I Hate About You&amp;quot; or the magical &amp;quot;West Side Story&amp;quot;.</text></item><item><author>kens</author><text>The well-known linguist John McWhorter argues that Shakespeare&amp;#x27;s plays should be translated into modern English since they are written in a language that we effectively no longer speak.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Indeed, the irony today is that the Russians, the French and other people in foreign countries possess Shakespeare to a much greater extent than we do, for the simple reason that unlike us, they get to enjoy Shakespeare in the language they speak.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&amp;#x27;But translated Shakespeare wouldn’t be Shakespeare!&amp;#x27; one might object. To which the answer is, to an extent, yes. However, we would never complain a translation of Beowulf &amp;#x27;isn’t Beowulf&amp;#x27;—of course it isn’t, in the strict sense, but we know that without translation, we would not have access to Beowulf at all.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;His full discussion is here, and is worth reading: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.americantheatre.org&amp;#x2F;2010&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;its-time-to-translate-shakespeare-into-contemporary-english&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.americantheatre.org&amp;#x2F;2010&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;its-time-to-trans...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>materielle</author><text>1) Shakespeare didn’t use literary language. His works were written in the common parlance of the day.&lt;p&gt;2) It’s actually easier to read than to watch live. We’ve heard all the arguments by now. “Go see it live”, “You need to see it with better actors”, “It makes more sense when the accents are British”. All made up, none of it is true.&lt;p&gt;3) “Early Modern English” is “Modern” only relative to “Middle” and “Old” English. It isn’t modern in any normative sense. It’s just a linguistic classification, not to be taken literally in casual parlance.&lt;p&gt;Look, I have a degree in English literature. I’ve read the canon. I’ve read all the major works of Shakespeare. I’ve seen many of the plays live.&lt;p&gt;It’s difficult to read. Because he’s writing in a language that we don’t speak.&lt;p&gt;If I see a play live, I have to read it beforehand in order to refresh my memory. If I haven’t read it recently, I have no clue what the actors are saying.&lt;p&gt;John Mcwhorter, a linguist Phd and a lover of Shakespeare agrees with me.&lt;p&gt;The truth is that understanding Shakespeare is &lt;i&gt;hard&lt;/i&gt; because he doesn’t write in anything that would be considered English.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps English literature majors should still be forced to learn the original plays.&lt;p&gt;But for high school students in Ohio, can we &lt;i&gt;please&lt;/i&gt; just translate the plays into something they understand? Can we give up the bit and stop pretending like these 16 year olds have the slightest clue what on earth is happening in those plays?</text></comment>
<story><title>Making Elizabethan plays understandable and fun to read</title><url>http://elizabethandrama.org/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jfengel</author><text>Shakespeare &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; modern English. Linguists describe it as &amp;quot;Early Modern English&amp;quot;. It&amp;#x27;s contemporaneous with the King James Bible, which is still widely read, without translation.&lt;p&gt;The difficulty with Shakespeare isn&amp;#x27;t that it&amp;#x27;s in Elizabethan English, but that it&amp;#x27;s in poetry. The Russians and French have strong poetic cultures. They enjoy reading poetry, and the challenge of writing it, including translation. That just doesn&amp;#x27;t exist in Anglophone cultures.&lt;p&gt;But Shakespeare wasn&amp;#x27;t meant to be read. It was meant to be performed, and a native speaker watching a good performance has no need of translation. The emotions and flow of the story are clear. They may not understand each and every word, but that&amp;#x27;s often true of even the latest movies. (The dialogue is often mixed in a way that makes it hard to understand -- by the director&amp;#x27;s choice.)&lt;p&gt;I regularly perform Shakespeare for audiences who have never seen it before, and I never translate a word of it. I generally edit it to make it move more briskly than Elizabethan audiences wanted, but the only time I&amp;#x27;ll change a word is to make the pronouns match the actors I cast (and not even always then).&lt;p&gt;Shakespeare&amp;#x27;s stories are rarely worth preserving for their own sake. The stories themselves are dated -- not the words, but the culture. There&amp;#x27;s no &amp;quot;translation&amp;quot; that will make Claudio not an asshole for the way he treats Hero, or make Hero not look pitiful for taking him back.&lt;p&gt;Shakespeare&amp;#x27;s plays in modern words are always flat, dull, and penitential. If you&amp;#x27;re going to modernize the language, modernize the whole thing -- go see the delightful &amp;quot;Ten Things I Hate About You&amp;quot; or the magical &amp;quot;West Side Story&amp;quot;.</text></item><item><author>kens</author><text>The well-known linguist John McWhorter argues that Shakespeare&amp;#x27;s plays should be translated into modern English since they are written in a language that we effectively no longer speak.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Indeed, the irony today is that the Russians, the French and other people in foreign countries possess Shakespeare to a much greater extent than we do, for the simple reason that unlike us, they get to enjoy Shakespeare in the language they speak.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&amp;#x27;But translated Shakespeare wouldn’t be Shakespeare!&amp;#x27; one might object. To which the answer is, to an extent, yes. However, we would never complain a translation of Beowulf &amp;#x27;isn’t Beowulf&amp;#x27;—of course it isn’t, in the strict sense, but we know that without translation, we would not have access to Beowulf at all.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;His full discussion is here, and is worth reading: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.americantheatre.org&amp;#x2F;2010&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;its-time-to-translate-shakespeare-into-contemporary-english&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.americantheatre.org&amp;#x2F;2010&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;its-time-to-trans...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>MrVandemar</author><text>You know, I know it&amp;#x27;s poor form to post &amp;quot;I agree&amp;quot;, adding nothing but a little noise to the conversation.&lt;p&gt;But here I am, in the stadium, leaping to my feet, cheering as if you just scored the winning goal. Great comment, insightful and shows the passion and knowledge you have for the topic. This kind of commentary is why I&amp;#x27;m here, and I&amp;#x27;m calling it out as such. Love your work.</text></comment>