William Shakespeare, a world-renowned playwright from the Elizabethan Era in the mid-1550s to 1600, gained his fame for writing numerous famous plays and sonnets, many of which are still read today in schools as well as throughout the world. Due to the time period Shakespeare was alive in, today his language appears outdated, therefore his literature is more difficult to read and comprehend for the modern day student. The English language is constantly evolving and changing through social interactions, simplification of words, as well as the progression of technology and social media. Verb placement has had great changes since the times when Shakespeare wrote his plays, making many of his sentences seem to have grammatical errors or odd-sounding to a modern audience. These changes in literature obscures the meaning behind many of Shakespeare’s plays because students focus on the wording rather than the text’s message. Watching Shakespeare would offer students the opportunity to analyze the deeper meaning of the text and shift the focus away from the language of the text.
The most popular Shakespearean plays read in schools are those such as “Romeo and Juliet,” “Macbeth,” “Hamlet” and “Julius Caesar.” Shakespeare is still taught nearly 400 years after his plays were written due to the themes and messages integrated into his writings that can still be applied to modern life; those themes often include power, love and revenge. Additionally, many schools require a Shakespearean play or sonnet in their English curriculum due to his untimely language improving students’ critical thinking, vocabulary and analytical skills. Furthermore, Shakespeare’s plays have helped influence modern literature and common phrases we still use today, creating idioms such as “in a pickle” and “break the ice.”
Shakespeare’s most popular plays, including, “Hamlet,” “Macbeth” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” are all written in iambic pentameter, a verse structure of ten syllables with alternating unstressed and stressed syllables, which are meant to mimic a human heartbeat. Due to writing the majority of his plays in iambic pentameter, words such as “even” would be abbreviated to “e’en” to fit the syllable structure of the rhythmic pattern. For many students, decoding the abbreviations makes reading his plays feel more difficult to navigate. The adaptations made to the English language have also added on to the struggle of reading Shakespearian scripts. Being able to watch or listen to how the words are read aloud would empower students to understand the rhythm of iambic pentameter; moreover, listening would also guide students in understanding the phrases used.
While reading and analyzing literature by Shakespeare can be essential to excelling in English classes or the English language in general, for average students in high school, it can be difficult to uncover the meaning of his stories due to language comprehension struggles and complex hidden meanings that would be more clearly revealed through watching the play. Reading Shakespeare also causes comprehension trouble, due to the verb being placed before the subject in his sentences, contradicting the modern subject-verb sentence structure used in modern literature.
There have been numerous modern adaptations of Shakespeare’s writings, the most popular ones being Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” “10 Things I Hate About You,” that is based on “The Taming of the Shrew,” “The Lion King,” based on “Hamlet” and “She’s the Man,” based on the “Twelfth Night.” However, due to the inaccurate modifications to the story when they were adapted, they are not very academic but more of a movie to watch in your free-time. But, watching Shakespeare while at home can be very beneficial for students because it gives them good study-material to use to help them further understand the plot, characters and themes of the story.
Furthermore, when watching Shakespeare’s plays, actors’ tone and movement while saying their lines provide visual context which makes the plot easier to retain. Shakespeare never wrote a novel in his lifetime, however we read all of his plays as if they were novels. When we read Shakespeare’s plays and analyze them as if they were a written text, the fleeting language and hidden meanings in the text are easier to understand when deeply analyzed. However, reading the plays as if they were novels takes away the experience of the performance Shakespeare intended.
“[Shakespearean plays are] meant to be watched. Shakespeare has a lot going on thematically in his plays, and his dialogue is so rich. There’s also music to his dialogue since it’s in iambic pentameter, so the wordplay is so good that you have to hear it to actually appreciate and understand it,” English department head Michael Alan said.
Reading Shakespeare’s scripts alone deprives the reader of the visuals, music and rhythm that is necessary to fully appreciate the literature and the reasoning behind the story. The lack of stage directions in his plays can also make it difficult to navigate where the characters physically are in scenes when simply reading the script. Watching plays and seeing characters move around the stage can help viewers retain the dialogue easier due to the physical indicators of what characters are doing.
Shakespeare is still influencing modern literature and popular culture through introducing new idioms, phrases and metaphors we still use today; therefore, it is important that students are still able to understand the meanings and messages behind his words that can be fully appreciated through watching. For that reason, watching allows people in the modern day the ability to comprehend Shakespeare’s famous sonnets, poems and plays, which leads to a greater understanding of the emotions and themes Shakespeare was trying to convey through his works.
