Shakespeare has been a pain for every student who has gone through high school in the past hundred years. His unbelievably complex work leaves the reader with an endless amount of questions; especially teenagers. It doesn’t help that us teens already have a preconceived thought that Shakespeare is going to be boring, lame, and difficult to understand before we even pick up one of his great pieces of work. Sadly, I was one of those mistaken teenage readers. However, I am here to tell you that Shakespeare is not impossible to read, and there are ways to decipher his tricky language. |
First of all ‒and, most importantly‒ when reading any form of Shakespeare, one has to remember to reread. And reread it again. And ‒ third time’s the charm ‒ reread it again. Shakespeare does a phenomenal job of leaving clues and details to make his stories incredibly interesting, but to figure them out, you have to reread the section numerous times to understand what he’s giving you. For instance, when Othello was being accused of using witchcraft to summon Desdemona, he states that love “is the only witchcraft that I [he] have used” (I.iii.195) on her. Shakespeare was leading the reader to believe that Othello was not really using witchcraft, it was only a figure of speech. But, after looking into it further, Othello is truthfully saying he didn’t use any kind of witchcraft. Othello was being stereotyped because many other blacks were toying with witchcraft during that time period. Nonetheless, if you can reread and break down Shakespeare’s deceptions, then you know Shakespeare.
Another monumental part to the understanding of Shakespeare is mastering his special use of syntax and diction. Let’s take a sentence from Othello for example. Shakespeare says “I ne’er yet did hear” (I.iii.249) instead of ‘I never heard.’ Syntax wise, this is how he writes; mixing up the subject, verb, and object to fit the order he wants them to be in. It makes absolutely no sense why someone would do this; but, it's Shakespeare. Also in that sentence, he says “ne’er” (I.iii.249) instead of saying ‘never.’ This is one of the many common contradictions he uses in his writing. He believes in shortening the word to better fit his sentences (or he just felt like shortening it). According to Shakespeare Online, he has invented over 1700 everyday words that are used in the English language today (Shakespeare Online). This is an enormous key to grasping Shakespeare's complicated way of writing.
Lastly, always remember that Shakespeare’s work are plays. They are meant to be performed on stage - in front of an audience - with numerous hand gestures, sounds, lights, and emotion. The reader is quite blinded by this when reading because reading in monotone (especially on monologues and soliloquies) becomes quite easy a lot of the time. Even tho the narration might say “he exits” (I.iii.425), that is just a drop of water in a gigantic bucket of what is really going on. You get so focused on trying to understand Shakespeare’s work that you miss his extremely funny ‒ not so funny‒ jokes that are supposed to make the play flow better and understood easier. You miss the thought of picturing Lodovico’s hair as triangle. You miss the thought of Roderigo crying like a baby. These things help make Shakespeare who he is, and when reading his brilliant work, one cannot forget to picture in their head what would be going on on stage.
Boom. You are welcome.