No Fear Shakespeare ‘translates’ the original plays into modern English, which I admit is a helpful idea, but there’s a problem with these beyond just the feeling of being juvenile: the ‘translations’ are often wrong, sometimes blatantly so.
Agreed that translations are often wrong, but I don’t think this is reason to give up on them! Translations between languages often fail, but I’m thankful we have them.
The alternative to translation that I was taught in school about Shakespeare was to just give us the source and have us figure it out. I’m absolutely sure we did a terrible job at it, even worse than that bad translation. I don’t remember ever having a lesson on how to translate Early Modern English to Modern English. I think I barely understood how large the difference was, let alone interpreted it correctly.
My knowledge on this topic comes from the Great Courses course “The Story of Language” by John McWhorter. Lecture 7 is great and goes into detail on the topic.
“We don’t process Shakespeare as readily as we often suppose. With all humility I think there is a kind of mythology—a bit of a hoax—surrounding our reception of Shakespeare as educated people. And I will openly admit that, except when I have read a Shakespeare play—and this is particularly the tragedies—when I go and hear it, cold, at normal speed, I don’t understand enough to make the evening worth it.
“I don’t like to admit it—I learned long ago that you’re not supposed to say so—but it’s true. And even as somebody who loves languages and is familiar with English and all its historical layers, I have seen The Tempest not once, not twice, but three times, never having gotten down to reading that particular play, I have never known what in the world was going on in that play.
“And I seriously doubt if I am alone. And it’s not that the language is poetry. Poetry’s fine. It’s because Shakespeare in many ways was not writing in the language that I am familiar with. It’s been many many centuries and the language has changed.
“One friend of mine said that the only time he had gone to Shakespeare and really genuinely understood it the way we understand a play by O’Neal or by Tony Kushner is when he saw Hamlet in France because it was in relatively modern French and he was very good at French.”
Since we’re basically just on a Shakespeare tangent now, and I really like talking about Shakespeare—I was lucky to have an extremely thorough education in Early Modern English starting from a very young age (starting around 7, I think). Essentially, my theater did Shakespeare completely uncut, and before memorizing your lines you had to listen to cassette tapes where the founder of the theater took you through the full meaning of every single line. I think he recorded these with multiple sources open in front of him, and he’d already devoted decades of study to Shakespeare by the time I was born. And then school gave me a thorough education in literary analysis, and putting all that together, I claim I have a better understanding of Shakespeare than the vast majority of Shakespearean actors, and probably the majority of Shakespeare scholars as well. (I believe most professional Shakespearean actors have no fucking clue what they’re saying most of the time, and how in heck is the audience supposed to understand what’s going on if the actors don’t?)
My vocabulary in Shakespearean English is more limited than my native English vocabulary, but I’d still say I’m comfortably fluent in Early Modern English, perhaps even better than I am at French. My friends say that it’s really fun to read through Shakespeare plays with me because they actually know what’s going on. Shakespeare is really funny! In addition to being really beautiful and moving and incredibly fun to act.
Anyway, I’m sorry your school sucked and also that all schools suck. I wish I could give everyone the education in Shakespeare that was given to me. I have ideas on how to make that happen, but alas, doesn’t seem like a priority with the world the way it is.
Agreed that translations are often wrong, but I don’t think this is reason to give up on them! Translations between languages often fail, but I’m thankful we have them.
The alternative to translation that I was taught in school about Shakespeare was to just give us the source and have us figure it out. I’m absolutely sure we did a terrible job at it, even worse than that bad translation. I don’t remember ever having a lesson on how to translate Early Modern English to Modern English. I think I barely understood how large the difference was, let alone interpreted it correctly.
My knowledge on this topic comes from the Great Courses course “The Story of Language” by John McWhorter. Lecture 7 is great and goes into detail on the topic.
Some quotes, transcribed here:
Since we’re basically just on a Shakespeare tangent now, and I really like talking about Shakespeare—I was lucky to have an extremely thorough education in Early Modern English starting from a very young age (starting around 7, I think). Essentially, my theater did Shakespeare completely uncut, and before memorizing your lines you had to listen to cassette tapes where the founder of the theater took you through the full meaning of every single line. I think he recorded these with multiple sources open in front of him, and he’d already devoted decades of study to Shakespeare by the time I was born. And then school gave me a thorough education in literary analysis, and putting all that together, I claim I have a better understanding of Shakespeare than the vast majority of Shakespearean actors, and probably the majority of Shakespeare scholars as well. (I believe most professional Shakespearean actors have no fucking clue what they’re saying most of the time, and how in heck is the audience supposed to understand what’s going on if the actors don’t?)
My vocabulary in Shakespearean English is more limited than my native English vocabulary, but I’d still say I’m comfortably fluent in Early Modern English, perhaps even better than I am at French. My friends say that it’s really fun to read through Shakespeare plays with me because they actually know what’s going on. Shakespeare is really funny! In addition to being really beautiful and moving and incredibly fun to act.
Anyway, I’m sorry your school sucked and also that all schools suck. I wish I could give everyone the education in Shakespeare that was given to me. I have ideas on how to make that happen, but alas, doesn’t seem like a priority with the world the way it is.