by Taina Patmore

Created on: June 05, 2009   Last Updated: June 07, 2009

The fact that there is a question as to whether or not Shakespeare's writing is comprehensible saddens me to the very core. I cannot help but to wonder about the state of our educational system which has produced a country of people who have become literarily lazy. William Shakespeare wrote during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. These were times where the English language was in flux. This means that there was no guide for proper spelling or grammar. In fact, because Shakespeare mainly wrote plays, which were not intended to be read, but instead to be heard and experienced in a theater, the rules governing his writing were few. Perhaps one of the most stringent rules which govern Shakespeare's writing is his use of iambic pentameter. Having attempted to write in verse, I can attest to the difficulty of this task.

One of the most important factors to remember when considering the difficulty of Elizabethan/Jacobean English, is that one is still reading English. Consider another important English author, Lewis Carroll. His poem, The Jaborwocky, is filled with words he created himself and exist nowhere other than this poem. Depending on your background a medical journal or stereo instructions may seem "incomprehensible", however through the use of careful reading techniques and using a lexicon, one can develop the skills which will help in the understanding of difficult text. As long as you are still reading the same language the barrier to understanding the text is not the author, or even the difficulty of the text. It is the reader who is responsible for adapting his own skills to the level of the text.

Finally, it is my opinion that Shakespeare is not actually difficult to read. The stigma of reading Shakespeare sets the stage for the reader to encounter difficulties when faced with the text. My first exposure to Shakespeare was as a young girl. I had found an excerpt of A Midsummer Night's Dream in one of my weekly readers. The language was not altered, there were no pictures, and there was no lexicon to help me translate the more difficult words. Still I was not only able to read the play, but was disappointed when it was only the first act. That night, at dinner, I described what I had read to my parents in the hopes that they would know where I could find the rest of the story. It wasn't until my father handed me a dusty copy of William Shakespeare's Complete Works that I met Mr. Shakespeare. It would take a few years before he would be discussed in school, but because I had been exposed to his writing without someone telling me it was hard, I always had the advantage over my classmates.

What makes Shakespeare's plays so brilliantly timeless is that there are many layers for every reading level. On the surface Romeo & Juiet is a story about teen lovers, but upon closer inspection one can find discussions about society, rivalry, hamartia, social class, fate and more. While the topic of discussion is if Shakespeare's writing in incomprehensible, it should really be, who doesn't understand Shakespeare?

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