why is shakespearen language so hard to understand?

Answer 1

that was old english and moreover shakespear was a genius, how can every one understand him so easily. hahaha

Answer 2

Its modern English actually. Its hard to understand for three main reasons:

1)We don't use many of the words anymore

2) His references are outdated ( he talks about stuff his audience would understand, because they were brought up with different myths and anecdotes than we..in four hundred years from now, people who study our culture won't get half of our references either.

3) Much of it was wrote as poetry (look up iambic pentameter at wikipedia.org.) It was meant to be heard, not read. Most of the meaning in words, back then, was in how the word sounded. People weren't reading dictionaries or many books; their thinking was based on hearing and expressing.

Try reading it outloud, (if you're into acting, try that, it'll work even better) This'll take a while, but pretty soon, you'll understand alot more because you're "hearing" the meaning, which was what Shakespeare intended to do.

Answer 3

FYI, it's not "Old English"--that's from before 1066 or so--it's "Early Modern English". So one thing that's hard is that you don't get to read it in translation.

Language changes over time, and 400 years is a long time. When's the last time you used the word "wherefore"?

Also, he wrote plays, so they were meant to be spoken, not read silently, so I think the pacing's not what you'd expect--plus the original audience would have the benefit of the actors' actions, vocal expression, etc. to understand the story. And they didn't have to write an essay on it! And the language is generally flowery, so quite likely even Shakespeare's audiences missed a bit.

Answer 4

Because it was written so long ago...so, first, the language style/vernacular is different, and second, he has a lot of "time senstive" allusions is his writing - things that people who were around in those days would understand, but we don't pick up on.

It's kind of the equivalent if we used quotes from popular movies and someone from 500 years ago (or ahead) read them and would have no idea abt the context or humor.

Answer 5

First of all it's very old English. But also, he uses a lot of wordplay, so that one word can mean several things at once. So a lot of words that could have been used , were not used just because he wanted everything to have a double meaning. And that is why it's hard to understand.

Answer 6

Old English was a mixture of celtic and germanic and norse and galic, also as the other person said sort of - language changes over time. Also if you are an American, realise that what we speak here is not the same English that they speak there.

Answer 7

besides for it being written in an old language, also keep in mind that theatrical language differed from every day language. It was more dramatic, because the theatre was considered high brow, and even the poor, every-man kinda theatres considered themselves to be fancy, so the language they used tended to be overly poetic.

Answer 8

It's "Olde English," and you are simply not used to reading or speaking in that manner. Like a foreign language, you are thinking in your own language as you try to translate into the other and it seems difficult.

Answer 9

It is written in Old English. People don't talk that way any longer so its not what your used to reading. After awhile though if you read it enought the "To Art Thou" won't seem as weird. Good Luck!

Answer 10

cos language changes over a period of 400 years or whatever

Answer 11

its archaic english.Ours is modern english.Shakespeare'era used language that is kind of obsolete now.However some of the words in his plays are modern english words which we never heard of before.