How can foreigner read original-Shakespeare?

Question

It is my dream to write literature works some day. They say it is the best way of being a good writer to read a large number of phenomenal works. So I have been reading many 'translated' plays and sonnets by Shakespeare. But 'methinks' even the best translation is mere 'indirect speech'. So when I tried reading origianl text (to be exact, modern-spelled text (redeem'd &gt; redeemed) ), I came up against dated-English grammar (Hadst thou no.......), words whose meanings are different from today's, puns and wordplays, (many of which are unintelligible). Then to cap it all, appended footnotes are so formal ,erudite, pompous, and difficult that I cannot understand them at all.How can I read Shakespearean work? Impossible? And likest thou Shakespeare?

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

That's a valid question, and I don't have a good answer for you.

Here is one thought.
Choose just one small piece of Shakespeare's writing. eg Hamlet's 'To be or not to be' speech. And analyze it in detail.
I think you can learn a lot in this way, about how a great mind thinks deeply about the human condition and expresses those thoughts in a way that touches people's minds and hearts even today.
What could be simpler yet more profound than eg to be or not to be ?

Clive

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to Dream; Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time,
The Oppressor's wrong, the proud man's Contumely, [poor]
The pangs of despised Love, the Law’s delay, [disprized]
The insolence of Office, and the Spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his Quietus make
With a bare Bodkin? Who would Fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
No Traveller returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all,
And thus the Native hue of Resolution
Is sicklied o'er, with the pale cast of Thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment, [pith]
With this regard their Currents turn awry, [away]
And lose the name of Action.

Rover_KE · Answer

Shakespeare Made Easy is a series of books with the original text on the left-hand page and a modern version opposite.

I wish I'd had those when I was a student.

Rover

How can foreigner read original-Shakespeare?

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