Why isn’t Shakespeare’s language modernized so I can understand it better?
I am not a Shakespeare academic or actor, but let me take a moment to make a comment on the language from my perspective.
Shakespeare is quite a bonus for English speakers, yet at the same time he can be a challenge. The bonus is that the verbiage, innuendo, and perspective etc. that Shakespeare used is unquestionably tied to the specific English phrases he wrote. That is a big deal because the specific words he chose and the specific order and way that he wrote them has truly sculpted how we think and act several hundred years later. This is a plus to English speakers because when we read, hear or watch Shakespeare’s work we are experiencing almost directly what he penned.
When we read Cervantes or Kant or Nietzsche we have to read translations which means we end up with what is left after the filter of a translator. This is positive in one sense because a translation will put their words into modern English and we won’t have any issues understanding what is written. So while Don Quixote translated into modern English is an easy read for us, we miss a lot of the genius of Cervantes the writer that exists in the original Spanish.
So there is a reason we continue to work our way through Shakespeare in the original language. Is it as easy as seeing the latest Adam Sandler movie? No. Is it worth it? Absolutely.
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