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Reading Shakespeare in high school put me off it for life. I had to look it up just now to check if he's "Elizabethan". I knew what most of the words meant, just not in that order. I couldn't make sense of what was happening in the plot, or even the smaller scale of individual lines. I never thought I was particularly bad (or good) at English, but all my classmates seemed to understand it. I just could not.

People rave about Shakespeare, so I'm sure there is something there. I wish I could have been able to get that.

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Here's what I'd say to you and others who feel the same way: personally, I think Shakespeare really only comes alive in a live performance where characters have additional context to help you understand what's happening. I think Much Ado About Nothing is one of the most enjoyable performances I've ever seen, but reading Much Ado About Nothing several years earlier only made me resent Shakespeare as it does for so many. Shakespeare's works weren't intended to be read by audiences, yet for some reason that is the primary way we ask young people to experience with it.

The above is not an argument against translating Shakespeare to modern English, which I also support.

A few bits:

1) I think only a few of his plays are really at the level for high-schoolers, so you're not entirely wrong.

2) When I was a private tutor, I had a methodology for teaching these plays, which was a little vocabulary first for a scene, then reading it out loud. It has to be out loud. I usually had extra copies and you bet I would grab a parent and have them do a third part.

I would read in meter and with the appropriate tone, do all of facial expressions, mime any relevant action, and generally ham it up. I would typically pick the most difficult part. After each scene, we'd talk about it, the culture and history of the time, and so forth.

You are not to blame for not getting into it, it's just on the edge of high school appropriate and tends to be taught poorly.

Oh wow, very different from my experience. I was just given the book, and deadlines for reading certain parts.

I had a similar experience, even though I loved poetry in school.

Two things made me completely adore Shakespeare in recent times.

I wrote a Shakespearean sonnet. Once you’ve tried to compose in iambic pentameter the magic of the form really jumps out at you when you see it done so exquisitely in his work.

The other is reading Shakespeare as an adult. Like philosophy, I think a lot of Shakespeare is too foreign to the life experience of the average school student. They can understand the themes in an abstract way, but not really feel them.

It helps to get a good edition with footnotes for the more anachronistic references. That you couldn’t get just by thinking about it. After a while the language should start to feel more normal, and flow.

I was the same as you. Now I think I didn't care enough about it to put in the effort.

This definitely describes me as well. I'm not sure how much effort it would actually take. I never managed to gain so much as a foothold on anything. So I guess I have some idea of a lower bound. But probably, I would not consider it to be worth the effort.

It's interesting to me thinking back on high school from decades ago. I remember so few of the details. But I distinctly remember trying and failing to read Shakespeare. I remember my sense of resentment for being asked to read such an incomprehensible word salad.

But yeah, at this point, I have a lot of other stuff going on. It's not a priority for me. I would need to have it spoon-fed to me, and quickly. That's probably not even possible.

I think it is possible. Rather than reading it for yourself, why not get other people to read the lines out to you? And maybe even "act out" the story?

Obviously it would be expensive to get it done just for you but if you could spread the cost among a larger audience it might be feasible. Get them to record it and you could even watch it on TV! ;)

> why not get other people to read the lines out to you?

Among other reasons, that I didn't think it would help. Getting someone else to read it does provide the possible benefit of hearing emphasis and inflection. The downside is that it becomes difficult to go back and re-read a difficult passage. My uninformed guess is that the cumulative result of this is approximately a wash.

I can't bring myself to write this with a matching degree of sarcasm.

Well it was jokey sarcasm so don't worry about it. :) What I mean is trying to get a Shakespeare play by reading it, is like trying to get a film by reading the script!

Sure, if you're an experienced actor or director that'll work but for regular folks just watch it performed!

Seriously, you wouldn't take a film recommendation and start by reading the script would you? You might read it later if you really liked it but you watch it first. Get the details later.

Well, I mean, it wasn't my idea. I can't take the credit or blame. It was the required reading for my literature class.

But... I still don't think my comprehension would have been great if I had been watching a performance instead. It would establish an upper bound on time investment, which would have been a plus I guess.

Did either of you ever try watching e.g. Titus?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_(film)

It's not considered one of his great plays. I enjoyed the film, sought out a solo copy of the play, which I managed to slog through. That was years ago; I don't really remember it. Still revisit the film though.

I think the old language gets in the way, but the genius it has (IMO) is in the characters. You could completely believe that a person would act they way that they do in the play.

Not much to add, but my experience mirrors yours.

Yeah it's an interesting question. Of course these days since it's public domain you could have chat GPT give you every sentence with a modern translation alongside.

It's sometimes hard to tell when people advocate for something esoteric if they are being hipster (e.g "Goldplated audiocables on a record player") [i.e. advocating for something monetarily/intellectually inaccessible as a form of flaunting wealth/intellect] or if it's a genuine recommendation.

I bet a clever person could come up with some ways to test each hypothesis.

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