Old English

Question

Are there any Courses of Old English ?
I want to read Shakespeare in Original !
That must be really cool !
I tried to read some of his sonets .... they are so beautiful, but to complicated for intermediate students ....

Hitchhiker · Accepted Answer

They're sometimes too complicated for advanced readers!

First on the list with a course, University of Calgary:
[url="http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/engl401/"]Here[/url]

University of Oxford has this, which apparently is online:
[url="http://www.english.ox.ac.uk/webcourses.html"]Here[/url]

Shmooliette · Answer

There are several courses in Old English which you can do, but if you want to read Shakespeare in the original, any play you pick up will be in the original Elizabethan English.

If you look up courses in Old English you will get information on English from the 9th to 11th Century, the principal text being Beowulf. Old English is basically another language with different grammar and vocabulary, so you need a dictionary for every single word!

Middle English is slightly different again, the principle author being Chaucer. This does have relation to modern English, but again is very difficult to read for most English speakers let alone someone whose second language is not English. There are translations however into present day English.

If you are interested in reading Shakespeare then I recommend The Arden Shakespeare editions, they have lots of notes on all the words that you ( and I!) don't understand, and there is one collected edition of all the sonnets. Failing that there are also Shakespeare readers which are available that they use in schools which modify the language to make it less difficult.

If you have any more questions on literature please let me know and I will be happy to help!

Juliette

Guest · Answer

Hello Juliette,
And you now where can we find this publications?
In spacial this one collected edition of all the sonnets

Many Thaks

Sandro
sandro dot reis at terra dor com dot br

Badasstronaut · Answer

I love the old germanic languages. If anyone else can speak Old Norse let me know.

Old English

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