Do people in England read Shakespear?

A couple of months ago I met a group of students from Britain. As I enjoy reading in english and that is the answer to why I’m learning it, I asked them about Shakespear (I’ve read only three of his tragedies) and I was baffled to discover that they had never read any of his works. The same thing happened to me when I talked with other sudents during my college years. Still we had much fun together going to the pubs and I got a chance to practice up to date English. But I still wonder why it so happened that they don’t know about this greatest author of their country and don’t feel a bit sorry for that/

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Here in the States they get us reading Shakespeare too. But I’d guess a lot of kids buy the “Cliff Notes” and don’t read the entire play.

The same thing is with all classical writers of all countries, I guess.

Reading Shakespeare is more difficult and less engaging than watching it. After all, plays were written to be performed, not read.

I’ve found that at the beginning of a performance of Shakespeare it takes several minutes for the ear to get attuned to the archaic language. Then understanding becomes effortless and the play can be very enjoyable.

The actors make a very big difference in how understandable and enjoyable the speach is. In Leonardo DiCaprio’s version of Romeo and Juliet there is such a great contrast between the real Shakespearean actor Peter Postelthwaite and that poor poser Leo.

Once my wife and I rented Kenneth Branaugh’s unabridged version of Hamlet, having never read or seen it before. This was before DVDs, and it took 2 VHS cassettes to hold the whole movie. We started watching the first tape, and it was really hard to grasp what was happening and who the characters were. Then there was a big fight, everybody died, and the closing credits started rolling. We thought it was hard to follow because it always takes some time to catch onto Shakespeare like I said. What we didn’t realize is that the 2nd tape was in the first case, and we came in three quarters of the way into the plot!

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The BBC filmed most of Shakespeare plays in the 1980’s, which very enjoyable productions, especially the “taming of the shrew” with John Cleese as Petruchio.

Reading the plays can be very hard as opposed to watching a performance, as @khardy said, but reading the sonnets is a delight. Do give it a try!

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LOL, back in my final year of high school 1979, we were required to study Shakespeare’s works. Anyway, we had to study the “deep and meaningful” plots, characterization etc etc. After all the hours of study, the final exam question turned out to be something like, “Discuss the use of the colour blue in Shakespeare stage backdrops”!!! WHAT?!!

Then I calmly turned to another topic altogether that our school had never studied (different schools could choose different topics to specialise on) - and I wrote to my hearts content using knowledge I’d gained from private reading interests, not school.

Never bothered to read Shakespeare again - but I did enjoy Twelfth Night at the theatre! :slight_smile:

“Reading Shakespeare is more difficult and less engaging than watching it. After all, plays were written to be performed, not read.”

Very true. I have read quite a few of his plays, and enjoyed some of them a bit, but in the end, it feels a bit similar to reading the script of a film.

Of course, the people are reading now less because we have much more different sources of learning and entertainuing nowadays than before.
But everrything starts in the childhood and at school.
At least, we have in Russia not only Russian as a subject at schookl but also Literature as a separate subject. And we have to read every year 10-15 novels of the Russian classical literature and 2-4 novels od the foreign world literature. And that is a great amount of novels by the time we finish our secondary school.
And when I lived in Germany I saw that the students there didn’t have a separate subject Literature and they didn’t have enough time to read at the German lessons more than 2-3 novels during the school year.

Things have changed a lot, haven’t they. My adult children were fluent readers at school. But my younger children (still under 14) aren’t very interested in reading, and it shows - because they’re poor readers and poor spellers.

In primary school I read at least one or two books a week, and by high school I often read two entire novels per night for the sheer enjoyment of it (but I’m a speed reader).

I think school education has been somewhat “dumbed down” these days. I’ve noticed a big difference in the school curriculum compared to even 10 years ago. The online gaming and entertainment doesn’t help, either.

Edit: the new grading system doesn’t help either. A ‘C’ grade nowadays here means you’ve reached the average grade of your peers, or some such rubbish - and it’s supposedly good. There’s no incentive to get an A or B, then. I used to interpret 'C’s for myself as “you didn’t understand half the subject!” - so I never settled for a C or a “pass”.

Well, it is not the primary function of a play to be read, contrary to a novel or a short story.
I think watching Richard Loncraine’s adaptation of Richard the Third before reading the play made the plot clearer to me, and the reading more enjoyable (and I read it in a translation, mind you).

I remember reading about 3-4 Shakespeare novels in school. I didn’t enjoy them because of how we were tested on them, it seemed like we never had the time to simply enjoy the book. It was all about being able to write essays and answer questions. Tis a similar thing to how we were talk languages in school…

Now, I also remember much of Drama being dominated by Shakespeare, we had the scripts and would act out scenes. That was far more enjoyable.

I studied plays too, but mostly Molière (and a little bit of Racine). It’s a pity though that my teachers just made us act once, as I enjoyed the part of that old miser Harpagon.
I wish we would have studied more of foreign literature. In my last year in high school, when I saw Hamlet on the curriculum, I thought "at last ".

I feel the same can be said about my country.
Many people, including adults, commit spelling mistakes showing that they don’t even grasp the basics of grammar (sometimes even to the point of confusing a noun and a verb).
Some universities have to provide special courses to help some of the students because their level in written French is so low.

To young people encountering Shakespeare, I first have to explain that no, Shakespeare is not Old English, it is not Middle English, it is Modern English. Outdated, but nonetheless modern. Second, you have to see Shakespeare performed to appreciate it. Unless you are extremely talented at reading plays like a real actor, you will never get the full enjoyment out of reading Shakespeare. Unfortunately for many, seeing Shakespeare probably means seeing it on film. I recommend starting out with one of Shakespeare’s easier plays, like Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, with John McEnery playing an absolutely fantastic Mercutio. Then get into something like The Tempest. One of the best versions I have seen of The Tempest was actually a stop-action animated version by the BBC; the text was abridged but it still stayed remarkably true to the core of the play. I thought The Tempest with Helen Mirren was pretty poor, although Ben Whishaw played an amazing Ariel in that movie.

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Have you seen “Richard III” with Ian McKellen? this film had the plotline transposed in the thirties and it functioned well.
I also loved Al Pacino’s movie “Looking for Richard”

I’ve been thinking about what I wrote concerning Shakespeare being easier to watch than to read, and that it is easier to understand after I’ve been watching it for a short while. Why is that?

First, of course, is the simple fact that it is easier to appreciate a play that is played rather than read. And after a brief exposure one’s mind adapts to the structure of Shakespearean sentences that differs from modern colloquial English. But there’s more to it, and I think it relates to my recent experience in removing some of the rust from my Russian learning.

I have been working more on my Russian listening comprehension than I have my vocabulary, and I have done this by watching lots of Russian-language movies. I’ve improved to the point that I can usually follow the plot pretty well and am able to get the gist of most conversations. But when I read Russian my comprehension is always stymied by unfamiliar words.

What I think is happening is the same thing that happens when we (or I) listen to Shakespeare vs. read Shakespeare. When reading, each word is there staring one in the face, and if it is unfamiliar, or if used in an unfamiliar way, I get hung up on it. And because that interrupts the flow it interferes with comprehension of the whole by a degree greater than its own missing meaning.

In a Shakespearean play, as in a Russian movie, the dialog and the action don’t stop and let one get hung up on individual words. The dialog inexorably flows forward waiting for no one. Meanwhile, comprehension is aided by the added context of the actor’s inflections and of non-verbal cues in the action. If you’re able to catch the unfamiliar spoken word there are many more clues to its meaning in a live-action portrayal than in mere printed words. Overall comprehension is aided both by the added non-verbal context and by moving right past the parts you don’t understand to parts you do.

If you’ve seen a good Shakespearean actor you know how much the delivery aids in understanding and appreciation. (Especially if he’s acting opposite Leonardo DiCaprio.) Unfortunately, Peter Postelthwaite and Lawrence Olivier don’t live in the pages of Penguin Classics.

For the nonce, forsooth, methinks it time to start working more on my Russian vocabulary. :wink:

When I read Shakespeare I do it aloud (having locked in my room beforehand), I just love saying the words of his dramas. Although it takes time and effort to understand his plays (I’m not a native speaker) I really enjoy it. As for watching adapted versions of Shakespeare’s plays I don’t really appreciate it because everything seems wrong and not the way I picture it in my head. Maybe after a while I’ll be able to tolerate it but not now. I’ve seen all the screen versions of Hamlet and not one of them satisfied me.

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When I read Shakespeare I do it aloud (having locked in my room beforehand), I just love saying the words of his dramas. Although it takes time and effort to understand his plays (I’m not a native speaker) I really enjoy it. As for watching adapted versions of Shakespeare’s plays I don’t really appreciate it because everything seems wrong and not the way I picture it in my head. Maybe after a while I’ll be able to tolerate it but not now. I’ve seen all the screen versions of Hamlet and not one of them satisfied me.
You have mentioned difficulties connected with new word or words used in an unfamiliar context. Well, to that I can say that I usually read Shakespeare twice or thrice. First time is to get through the surge of new words. I mean I basically write down almost every new word in my copybook and try to grasp the plot. After that I read for the second time just for enjoyment.

I admire your perseverance and dedication! I agree it can be rewarding to read, but still find I understand and enjoy S better when performed well.

I had not noticed before that your native language is Russian. I believe that I have heard or read that Shakespeare is popular among Russians, though I do not recall why. What do you think? How well do you think it translates into Russian?