by Janet Harris

Created on: March 20, 2009

I'm no scholar, but then I'm not totally ignorant either and I love literature and studied the subject at college. However, I have to admit that I have never managed to get to grips with anything written by William Shakespeare.

I studied Henry 1V part 1' for my A' level exam and was totally bewildered by it. I have to admit that the tutor I had scared the life out of me and I was always terrified to ask for explanations about things I did not understand and I definitely did not understand Shakespeare. After a few weeks of reading the book, she asked us all to tell her which character we liked the best and why. I was totally out of my depth, I did not understand anything about the characters at all, in fact, I did not understand the plot, the words or anything else. Trying to decipher Shakespeare probably cost me a good grade in English Literature, I just could not think of a single positive thing to say about him and his works.

For a start the language he writes in, is long gone. Some of the speeches from his plays are famous, but only parts of them, and some of the speeches are quite beautiful, but as for understanding the language itself it may as well be written in Swahili for all the sense it makes to me.

The plots are tame compared to some of the amazing plots we have in books these days, we have moved on from those days, the words are no longer in use in modern life and do not make for easy reading. I even tried to assist myself by going along to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon, which is luckily not very far from where I live, to see a Shakespeare play, acted out on stage by professional actors. I thought this might bring things to life a little, it might help me to understand the reasons why these plays are treated with such reverence and held up as classics, the like of which have never been seen before or since. I almost fell asleep, and I usually love the theatre and go at every available opportunity. In fact, the whole thing was totally disappointing. Visually, watching a play is always exciting because there are costumes and sets to admire, excellent acting to praise and lighting and effects to surprise and delight, but I could not understand the story, and of course, the dialogue did not help at all.

William Shakespeare was original and a genius in his time, but how many hundreds of years ago was that? Why have his works not been updated properly, so that modern people can understand and enjoy them. I think that a lot of snobbery has grown over the years and to admit you do not like Shakespeare immediately brands you an ignorant philistine. Maybe the students of today are misbehaving in our schools because of some of the outmoded, outdated and frankly inappropriate things they are required to learn Shakespeare being one of them.

Leave the original works of William Shakespeare for the true scholars and Shakespeare fans, and update his plays so that the people of the 21st century can understand them and identify with them. Who knows a whole new generation of Shakespeare fans may emerge, making him a modern day hero and bigger than P Diddy !

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