How to Read Shakespeare!

Hi everyone, it's Lauren and welcome to another episode in my series on Shakespeare, in today's video I'm going to be talking about how to read Shakespeare, some tips and tricks to help you feel comfortable with the language It's no secret that a lot of people feel quite intimidated by Shakespeare because of the old-fashioned language and because of the fact it's written in verse one of the big barriers is that Shakespeare wasn't really designed to be read, Shakespeare was designed to be performed so it does take a little bit of imagination on our part to work out what the actors are doing on stage whereas in a book you have a lot more direction as to what would be going on with the plot Tip number one is to find a synopsis of the play and read that before you actually read the play itself. A lot of Shakespeare's language is very poetic and there's a lot of imagery in what he writes because you've got to imagine that a lot of these plays were performed outside and there was minimal staging and special effects so what audienceswere there for was the poetry and Shakespeare was able to paint a picture for them with his words but that does mean that when you're trying to work out what's going on sometimes characters go off on tangents and talk about something else and while that may be very beautiful it might be completely irrelevant to what is actually happening in the plot in very basic terms, so if you are struggling with Shakespeare's language or you get to a passage that you really don't understand, if you have in the back of your mind a basic outline of the plot you know that as you're reading it if you get lost you'll be able to find your way again quite easily. Tip number two, one of the most important ones is to find some adaptations of Shakespeare, there are tons of films, you can go and see Shakespeare on stage, you can see tv adaptations, film adaptations, I'm sure there are tons of clips on youtube. Seeing an actor perform Shakespeare can really do wonders to break down the barriers of language because they really understand what Shakespeare's words are trying to say and I find it especially helps you to watch an experienced person read Shakespeare because then your ear gets atuned to the rhythm and cadence of Shakespeare which is very similar, he tends to write in iambic pentameter and once you get used to that rhythm of language it makes it a lot easier for you to hear that in your head when you're reading it alone not to mention the fact that Shakespeare's themes are absolutely universal of love and loss and revenge and they are fantastic to watch if you are struggling with reading it, then watching an adaptation can really help bring these things out. A fantastic online resources the No Fear Shakespeare project, so all of Shakespeare's plays are in the public domain and can be found online, if you type in 'No Fear Shakespeare' you will find a website which has every single one of his plays. On one side of the screen you have the original text and on the other side you have a modern-day translation and I find it especially helpful when there are sections of Shakespeare which are prose, which are discussions between people because on this side of the screen you just end up with all of the dick jokes which you would not get on a first read because that colloquialism, that banter something that we've lost in translation interestingly, I find it actually a lot easier to understand Shakespeare when he's doing this high imagery kind of poetic parts of his soliloquies and then when it is just the everyday banter between the servants for example and No Fear Shakespeare t is very helpful with that. There's also a ton of analysis of Shakespeare online if you want to get really deep into the language and what Shakespeare really means, then you can just type in a specific soliloquy and you'll get loads of responses come up and finally I have some examples for you I'm going to help you with this reading experience this is my copy of Romeo and Juliet, you can see that most of it is written in verse. Iambic pentameter is what Shakespeare uses mostly and that means that they are ten syllable lines however that is just the way that it's written on the page to keep it in the rhythm of the verse, if you have a sentence that is longer than ten syllables then it will get to a certain point and then the sentence will continue on another page but that doesn't mean that's how you would read it, or how an actor on stage would actually say the line so for example here is Juliet. You would not read afraid like this - What's in a name? That which we call a rose. By any other word with sweet. So Romeo would were he not Romeo call'd. Retain that dear perfection which he owes. No, no, no! Make sure when you're reading it that you're paying attention to the grammar, to the punctuation and you're reading the sentences off the line and you're not thrown by the indents here. As I've already said another thing that can throw you off your reading experience is the excessive almost use of imagery. I have another example here from Romeo 'But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the Sun. Arise fair Sun and kill the envious moon who is already sick and pale with grief that thou, her maid art far more fair than she' so Romeo is just going off on a tangent here because Juliet has just come to the window and he's describing her beauty, he's describing the effect that she's having on him and Shakespeare is using poetry to convey emotions to you but you don't really need to understand this about the Sun and the moon, Imean it is interesting but that's not the point the real point is this - 'but soft!' Hey! hang on one moment, what's going on over there? A light has come through that window over there and it is the east, it's like the dawn and Juliet is the Sun rising and bringing that light the rest of the world later on he says 'It is my lady; O! It is my love: O that she knew she were. She speaks yet she says nothing. What is that her eye discourses? I will answer it I'm too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks.' So through Romeo's words we're actually getting what Juliet is doing, there aren't any stage directions here but he is talking to her, he's wishing that she knew that he was there and he sees that she's talking to herself, looking around the garden, he thinks she can see him he goes to wave to her...Oh no no! So it just takes a slightly more closer look at the text to not only get what Romeo was saying but also to give you a vision of what is happening on stage as well Another example that I really like of the texts really communicating what an actor would be going on stage is this soliloquy from Macbeth, it is just before Macbeth is about to go and kill Duncan and he's having a vision - 'Is this a dagger which I see before me the handle toward my hand? Come let me clutch thee. I have been not and yet I see thee still. Art though not fatal vision sensible to feeling as to sight? Or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation proceeding from the heat-opressed brain?' So not only do we have that Macbeth is seeing a dagger in front of him, but he's trying to grab it and realizing that he can't 'art thou not sensible to feeling as to sight?' like I can see you why can't I feel you? 'I see thee yet in form and palpable as this which now I draw. Though marshall'st me the way that I was going and such an instrument I was to use.' so again I see you there as palpable as this which now I draw - this dagger which I have with me and which i'm drawing from my belt, to me this dagger I see is as real as the one that I'm holding here which the audience can see, and you are showing, 'thou marshall'st me the way' you are showing me the way that I need to go to commit murder so it's always worth bearing in mind that it's a person delivering a speech to the audience, if you try and read it as you would read a normal book then you're only going to get half the story. So I hope that was helpful if Shakespeare is something that you are a little bit nervous about, I know the language can be difficult, the 'thous' the 'thys' the 'th'arts' but it really is quite simple, the English follows exactly the same grammar as we have now, it's just an older form of 'you' these are things that you can look up quite easily and once you understand them it really is just like reading plain English and you won't even notice that they're in the text. So let me know how you feel about Shakespeare in the comments below - are you a complete novice who's a little bit nervous about getting stuck in or are you a Shakespeare aficionado? Do you have any more tips of your own that you can share with everybody else? I will be very happy to answer any more questions and take suggestions if there's anything else that you'd like to learn and i will see you in my next video bye!

Channel: Lauren Wade

Views: 46,674

Keywords: book, books, booktube, booktuber, booktubers, adult, haul, reading, fiction, literature, english, reads, daydreams, british, literary, uk, readsanddaydreams, jean, bookish, thoughts, mercys, musings, jen, campbell, shakespeare, no fear, how to, how to read, intro to, intro, introduction, help with, help with Shakespeare, bitesize, gcse, school, high school, a level, romeo, juliet, macbeth, othello, no fear shakespeare, soliloquy, verse, iambic, pentameter, perform, read, aloud, reading shakespeare, rsc

Id: uwmUNz0hZ_M

Length: 8min 16sec (496 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 02 2017