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Shakespeare is undoubtedly one of the finest authors ever to have been produced in any language. However, his work must be judged for what it is, not what English teachers and literary critics want it to be. Shakespeare's sonnets are not incomprehensible: they are beautiful, but they are not what most people actually know him for. They know him for Romeo and Juliet, for Julius Caesar, for Hamlet, for Macbeth: for his human dramas.

So when we ask about Shakespeare's writing, we must ask primarily about his drama, and we immediately encounter a problem: Shakespeare does not intend for us to simply comprehend his writing, he intends for us to see and hear his writing. We are not meant to recline in our armchair, read Hamlet's soliloquies, and then discuss them critically with friends in a coffee shop. Obviously, his words are incomprehensible in the modern private-reading world where each reader is cast into the dissonant world of their own responses, for they do not have the whole piece of art. They have an outline, an outline which is, in truth, a reconstruction and a direction of what was, in Shakespeare's intention, an artistic whole.

We cannot ignore this fact, that we are not Shakespeare's intended audience, and so the incomprehensibility of Shakespeare is to be expected. Our primary barrier in understanding Shakespeare is not the etymological evolution of five hundred years, but the shift of understanding which makes us read plays instead of see them. When we see Shakespeare on stage, we see what his works truly were: Romeo and Juliet does not so easily become a "tragedy," and Julius Caesar does not so easily become a "history." Hamlet evolves into a deliciously emotive person whose every woe is a roller-coaster for the audience, instead of a narcissistic howler more akin to young Werther than any Danish prince. Yes, when we read Shakespeare, we will fail to comprehend it, unless we have a spectacularly vivid imagination: and that is our own fault. How silly of us to read a play. To understand the play, we must be a member of the collective audience which boos some parts, and cheers others, which enjoys the slapstick and the heroic with equal fervor. We must see all the contradictory reactions in one swift glance around the room, and watch the delicately directed dance of the play unfold in our ears.

Yet even so, as with all the great authors, Shakespeare will finally escape us, because he gave to more than us. We may see the great effects of the play on the audience, we may delight in many parts of the play, but we probably will not enjoy each of Shakespeare's moments; one person cannot form the whole audience within themselves. Only by participation in an audience of understanding can we come to any comprehensible conclusions concerning Shakespeare, and that is a project for a lifetime.

Learn more about this author, Lyman Stone.
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