could u translate the fragment from Shakespeare?

Question

I have to write essay about why shakespeare's literature is very difficult to understand for us today. I have given many reasons like old english, focus on old lives traditions. What else would convince people that shakespeare is difficult. I found also another point that shakespeare use lot of methamorphoses. One of the example is:
"Thou art a Moniment, without a tombe
And art alive still, while thy Booke doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.

Could u translate this for me? I can't understand. And is this addressed to man named ben?
Besides proving these arguments I mentioned above, what would be good to prove why sheakspeare's literature is very difficult?

By the way I don;t care what u feel about shakespeare's difficulty! I just what to give strong thesis that his works are difficult. No matter whether it's true or not.!

Answer 1

In your paper, please refer to Shakespeare's language as "early modern English" or "Elizabethan English" because it is much, much 'newer' than "Old English." Your teacher will catch this mistake.

The quote you use is from BEN JONSON (the other great playwright of that age, author of the great play "Volpone, or The Fox") who wrote that poem for inclusion in the "First Folio" collection of Shakespeare's plays about 7 years after Shakespeare's death.

Shakespeare wrote his OWN epitath that is on his OWN grave:


William and Anne Shakespeare are buried side by side in the Holy Trinity church in Stratford. His gravestone reads:

Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed hear.
Blessed be the man that spares
these stones
And cursed be he that moves my bones.*


However, a more fitting epitaph is the one that was given by his friend, competitor, and fellow playwright, Ben Jonson. Jonson wrote the following tribute in the introduction to the first collection of Shakespeare’s plays:

Thou are a monument, without at tomb,
And art alive still, while thy book
doth live...
He was not of an age, but for all time.*

*(this discussion taken from http://www.si.umich.edu/chico/RSC/shakespeare/ )

Jonson, the other great poet and playwright of that age, is saying that Shakespeare is a monument (to excellence) not a gravestone marking anything dead, for his work lives on, not in his age but for all time (and all art).

Much of Shakespeare is EASY to understand IMMEDIATELY, for example, the quotes on this site: http://www.dustintacker.com/Quotes/Shakespeare.htm

To conquer the "difficulty" of understanding Shakespeare listen to or go to a SHORT play, especially a short, great Shakespeare play like his most brief of tragedies, "MacBeth." In less than two hours, your ears will hear the words clearly and without error.

Answer 2

Shakespeare's writings are not horribly difficult to understand.
My translation of what I'm reading will likely vary from what it means to other people. What do you think is being said?
Moniment and monument would have been interchangeable words in the time which Shakespeare lived
In order to find the "where, when, why, what, who" you need to ask questions. What could be a monument without a tomb?Perhaps a person's work that remains long after the author is deceased - their work is a monument to the world, and obviously his work did not die, when he died.

Answer 3

This was not written by Shakespear, but by Ben Johnson regarding Shakespear. It is in regards to the fact that Shakespear was dead in body but his words/works would never die. He is a monument without a tomb.

Ben Jonson penned two poems for the Shakespeare First Folio (1623), one, "To the Reader," discusses the engraving of Shakespeare, and the other Shakespeare himself, "To the memory of my beloued, the AVTHOR MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: AND what he hath left vs." In this second poem, Jonson calls Shakespeare the "Soule of the Age!," "the wonder of our Stage!," placing him ahead of Chaucer, Spenser, Beaumont, Lyly, Kyd, and Marlowe in the English literary pantheon. Shakespeare even compares favorably with the playwrights of Greece and Rome, for he "was not of an age, but for all time!"

But to answer your other question, I think what makes Shakespear most difficult today is that people are afraid of it. They've heard it's hard so they defeat themselves before they begin. It's the biggest problem.

Answer 4

old english is a good reason

old traditions is another good reason

you probably mean metaphors rather than methamorphoses

this fragment is actually NOT written by Shakespeare - it is written by one of his contemporaries, Ben Johnson, and addressed to Shakespeare.

the first line .. you are a monument without a grave .. .
second line . . .you're still alive as long as your books exist
third line . . .and we can read them and praise them

good luck!

Answer 5

Shakespeare i'm guessing??? Gah! Love him and all...yet now and lower back he's definitely not undemanding to decipher. :/ Romeo& Juliet and a Midsummer's night Dream are the only ones I have been given. Sorry! sturdy success!