I’m sure that a lot of you have, at some point, understood the struggle of reading Shakespeare plays during our school days. Of course, we have always been taught that William Shakespeare, the Bard himself, whose works have survived for over a whopping four centuries later, is one of the most timeless and classic playwrights ever. And hey, I am certainly not one to doubt that; Shakespeare’s vast repertoire offers a variety of genres, historical events, themes, and plotlines with an intelligence and wit that will always be considered pertinent. As a Canadian living in Toronto, “Shakespeare for Kids” versions were read to us in elementary, and an unmoving curriculum of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and Hamlet (though later changed to King Lear) was set out for each of the four years of high school, respectively. It was rare to be shown our source material on screen, in performance, or any other visual way. (Keep in mind I can’t speak for any other school system, merely me and my peers’ own in Ontario). Because of this, one of my biggest problems with the way Shakespeare’s plays were taught was that the language itself – that of 16th/17th century Elizabethan era English – was never properly taught to us. Sure, a few words here and there were explained (that “lily-livered” was a massive insult, as was “biting your thumb” at someone), but not nearly enough to give us any real contextual understanding. It’s natural to assume that any text written even over a century in the past utilizes different vernacular, so Shakespearean English can at times be an entirely perplexing creature of its own. Much of the vocabulary that is seen in Shakespeare plays are long forgotten, or have even taken on entirely different meanings, in modern day.
So, making school kids who aren’t used to the older English linguistic structure read the plays awkwardly aloud during class doesn’t really solve the problem; rather it makes it more dull, uninteresting, and inaccessible. It is precisely this inaccessibility that made Shakespeare’s plays hard for me to truly understand, though my peers and I could generally get away with knowing the gist of each story. Another part of the problem is that plays don’t read very well unless in the context of an actual production, or unless dedicated actors are the ones reading it aloud. While reading Shakespeare’s plays as if they are novels can be enjoyable once the reader understands it, the same cannot be said for youth who have no clue what is supposed to be happening.
All this being said, my advice for people of any age is to watch a film adaptation, televised stage play, or an actual stage play of the work – no matter which of Shakespeare’s 37 plays he wrote – either before, during, or after reading the text version. Even if you still don’t quite understand every single sentence of the play, or even a majority of what’s going on, the more you expose yourself to the visual aspects of Shakespeare’s plays, the more you will comprehend over time. Another piece of advice is to get a copy of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. This is because sonnets by nature are relatively short in length, so getting familiar with the type of language and poetic style that Shakespeare often uses in his plays by reading smaller bodies of work really helps.
Another way of interpreting older texts in general is to practice close reading. Though this was sometimes a tedious, domineering part of my English Lit degree in university, it was a skill I was thankful to gain by the end of it. Close reading is essentially what it sounds like; that is, to choose a passage, or small portion of text, and analyze it based off just the text in front of you. It sounds easy, but can be difficult, as one’s instinct is to use its surrounding context to draw conclusions. Close reading exercises came hand in hand with Shakespeare courses, as a way to research certain vocabulary, expressions, and deeper or dual meanings that could potentially be hidden in the poetic style that the Bard so often uses. This would oftentimes mean a visit to the online Oxford English Dictionary, which would offer a plethora of definitions per word, which were put into historical contexts. Though this process might sound more complicated or dreary than you’d like, I found close reading was one of the best ways to better understand the difficult, and at times foreign, linguistic nature of Shakespearean English.
Ultimately, you don’t have to go that far if you don’t want to. The point I like to reiterate to people is that merely scanning the words on the page can be bland and disconnecting when reading a play. Because that’s the thing: these are plays. Shakespeare’s works were meant to not only be read aloud, but acted aloud. While his written stage directions are often sparse, this allows the actors, directors, producers and stage crews so much freedom to take the work in whichever direction they’d like, and that’s part of the beauty of it all. That’s likely one of the reasons why Shakespeare’s plays are being acted, reenacted, and reinterpreted into various adaptations again and again throughout history, alive now more than ever hundreds of years later.
And remember, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with watching a modernized adaptation in order to gain better understanding. Watch 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) before reading The Taming of the Shrew. Watch the television show Sons of Anarchy (2008 – 2014) or classic Disney film The Lion King (1994) before reading Hamlet. Go for a teen classic like She’s the Man (2006), and then find all the similarities and differences in The Twelfth Night. Watch the dreamy duo of young Leonardo Dicaprio and Claire Danes in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet (1996), which uses classic dialogue in a modern setting; or if you want a more quirky twist, zombie rom-com Warm Bodies (2013). If you’re up for slightly more classic, period piece versions, give The Hollow Crown (2012) series a try, a British TV series that enacts four of Shakespeare’s chronological historical plays known as the “Henriad”, starring big names like Tom Hiddleston, Patrick Stewart, Jeremy Irons, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ben Whishaw, and Judi Dench. Another period piece is the newer film adaptation of Macbeth (2015), starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard. If you live in a place that puts on outdoor or indoor plays, or you find yourself in London at Shakespeare’s Globe, give whatever they are currently playing a try (Toronto’s annual “Shakespeare in High Park” is a wonderful way to enjoy some outdoor performance in the summertime).
These are just a few examples of many – Shakespeare is everywhere, has influenced so many since his time, and there are so many resources you can use to better understand the essence of his plays. You don’t have to sit down and read an original text just for the sake of it, or feel like you are of lesser knowledge just because pretentious people might tell you so. I firmly believe that Shakespeare wrote his plays to entertain, evoke, and offer something to the world, just like any great writer aims to do. In turn, he revolutionized literature, performance, and storytelling in a way that will likely never be forgotten. So whichever shape or form his works have transformed into, his creativity and structure is at its core, making Shakespeare’s works so much more accessible than we might have ever imagined.
~ Z ~
Main photo by Matt Riches on Unsplash
