Get a Widget for this title
RSS FeedIs Shakespeare's writing incomprehensible?
Results so far:
| Yes | 24% | 292 votes | Total: 1216 votes | |
| No | 76% | 924 votes |
Yes
Write now
Print
Invite a writer™
Add to FavoritesFor most of us, yes. Even avid readers of current non-fiction and classic literature often find Shakespeare incomprehensible. It's not because we can't read or he doesn't communicate well, it's because he wrote screenplays. His writing isn't literature so much as it's theater. Shakespeare is pretty easy for everyone to comprehend when seen enacted on stage or in film. It's those pages of relentless dialogue and soliloquies of deep reflection that tend to throw off the most interested casual reader.
Educators can overcome this comprehension hurdle in several ways. Some teach The Bard by holding role-playing sessions where students read and act out character parts while the instructor interrupts at appropriate points for open discussions of what is occurring and how the action may be interpreted. Others ask students to reconstruct scenes and dialogue into modern parlance and interpret context. The instructors who require students to read a play for homework on Wednesday and test them on Friday miss the point and so do their students.
Robert Heinlein, the revered sci-fi author of "Stranger in a Strange Land", once said that the two writers he hated most were Tolstoy and Shakespeare; not because their words weren't inspiring but because the storytelling failed to help him stay interested.
In other words, it might take an advocate of classic literature months to slog through "Anna Karenina" or an actor weeks to memorize his or her part in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," but the average reader, no matter how learned or sophisticated, doesn't sit down with either for a comforting evening of light reading.
Shakespeare is not light reading. Try it and you'll see. He has to be studied, not read. He wrote plays, not books. His narratives, his messages, his brilliant observations on human nature and social intercourse are contained in the expressions of his characters and the imagery of their actions.
A modern Broadway play or Hollywood screenplay has the same incomprehension problem when read instead of viewed in the theater of modern screen media (film, TV, computers) where imagery is prepackaged and imagination is replaced by clever direction. To an extent, and in all fairness, Shakespeare's plays demanded the same interpretation of directors, image-makers and actors to tell the tale.
Literature still leaves much to the inherent imagination of the reader and many differing interpretations come out of the reading. Reading books is gradually falling off in our culture because a story that takes four to ten hours to read can be viewed in 120 minutes of digital video.
Of course, we don't exercise our creative imagination as much with video or film but we do have more time to cook dinner or watch a football game. But I'll never forget Victor Buono's Falstaff at summer stock at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego.
Learn more about this author, Michael Patrick.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
No
"Out! Out damn spot!" Those words ring true today as well as they did in the 1600's. Some may have a little trouble with the words in the plays because they are from another era in time,but Shakespeare's writing is NOT incomprehensible! People don't say the BIBLE is incomprehensible, and the King James Version was written about the same time as Shakespeare's works. I am a fan of the great bard. He had such an imagination and a handle on language that he invented over 2000 sayings that are present in these plays and still used today. Besides the words, his use of humor and romance can't be touched by any other other, past or present.
All over the world, scholars and cultured people, revel in the beauty of Shakespeare's language. The words in Romeo and Juliet are spoken world-wide because his themes are so universal in nature. This is why his genius is so admired. Even though Shakespearian English sounds a little different, just WATCH the play! You will know what is happening because of the action. The problem with a lot of people and Shakespeare is exactly that: they never saw the play! One cannot truly enjoy Shakespeare until you see and hear it at the same time.
We do a lot of injustice to Shakespeare because classrooms read the play from a book. Plays are meant to be seen and experienced. Who would ever know that Macbeth and his wife passionately loved one another? It never says so, but the action shows how much they are willing to do to make the other happy. "Out, out damned spot!" Can you see the pain on Lady Macbeth's face, the madness of Macbeth when he sees a dagger floating before him?
Those who have had unfortunate experiences with Shakespeare's works in high school need to take another look. Spend $40 for a ticket to summer stock and see Julius Caesar or Othello. You will feel differently. Have you ever been to an Italian opera? You don't have to know Italian to understand the action! Amazing! Same goes with Shakespeare. A Midsummer's Night Dream has been done beautifully by modern day actors in a recent movie. The music is splendid and the acting is okay, but you will know what is going on most of the time. You will love the movie if you listen carefully and watch the action. Let me warn you, however; once you begin to like Shakespeare, you'll want more of him!
Think of Shakespeare as a prerequisite for being a cultured person. Once you have studied his genius, you feel captured by the spirit of castles, intrigue, murders, incest, ghosts, and fairies. You might become a sophisticated, mature connoisseur of the best things in life: wine, aged cheese, and Shakespearian theater.
Learn more about this author, Ann Palmieri.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
