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English Translations of Shakespeare. | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Russianbear Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6775 days ago 358 posts - 422 votes  1 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, Ukrainian Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 33 27 May 2009 at 6:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have started reading Hamlet a couple of days ago. I have this "Shakespeare Made Easy" edition: it is basically a dual-language book where they have the original text on one page and the modern English "translation" on the facing page. I thought it was a relatively rare edition, but as it turns out, this is just one book in a rather extensive series of "Shakespeare Made Easy" books, and apparently there are other series like that - by different publishers. And if a Shakespare book doesn't go with the bilingual text format, it usually has extensive annotations or footnotes, etc.
So my question is: just how accessible is Shakespeare to modern English speakers? It seems there wouldn't be so many "translations" into modern English, had it not been a very difficult - if not impossible- read for an average English speaker today. Edited by Russianbear on 27 May 2009 at 6:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Draemr72 Newbie Ireland Joined 5664 days ago 7 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 2 of 33 27 May 2009 at 8:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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A lot of English-speakers think Shakepeare is harder than it actually is. I'd say more than 90-95% should be understandible to native English speakers. The main barrier to understanding it are idioms or references that a modern speaker wouldn't recognise. Even so, it's not too hard.
The thing about Shakespeare's language is that it's halfway between prose and poetry- it's written in blank verse. It might be difficult to follow at first, but it's worth it. It's beautiful language that loses its poetry when it's translated to modern English. Of course this is only my opinion, but compare these: "Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York." versus "We're happy now because our family (York) beat the Lancaster family. Yay."* *(I am paraphrasing a little here but you get the point, the first is a much more powerful opening.) Edited by Draemr72 on 27 May 2009 at 8:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TheBiscuit Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5923 days ago 532 posts - 619 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Italian Studies: German, Croatian | Message 4 of 33 28 May 2009 at 1:48am | IP Logged | ||
I quite agree. I teach Shakspeare, particularly the sonnets, to bilingual high school kids. They had a hard time with it at first but got into it and a few sonnets and plays later were able to produce their own (hilarious) scenes and act them out using Elizabethan language. I had given them a mini dictionary. There are more comprehensive ones online though: http://www.william-shakespeare.info/william-shakespeare-dict ionary.htm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| skeeterses Senior Member United States angelfire.com/games5Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6618 days ago 302 posts - 356 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Korean, Spanish | Message 5 of 33 28 May 2009 at 4:00am | IP Logged | ||
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Shakespeare texts should be saved for the scholars. Ordinary English speaking folks like myself should not be compelled to waste our time with that stuff. It's high time for a modern translation to help move the English language into the 21st Century.
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| EliteTransLingo Bilingual Diglot Newbie United States elitetranslingo.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5805 days ago 8 posts - 6 votes Speaks: Arabic (Egyptian)*, English* | Message 6 of 33 28 May 2009 at 5:50am | IP Logged | ||
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I would rather go for the original versions of Shakespeare as the simplified ones does not has the same quality of language. Edited by patuco on 28 May 2009 at 5:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6372 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 7 of 33 28 May 2009 at 8:53am | IP Logged | ||
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When I read a few pages of the Count of Monte Cristo, I felt very uneasy indeed. I'm
19 and a native speaker but some of the stuff in there sounds just wrong to me. Certainly there were things in there I'd never heard in my life. I imagine the English of Shakespeare would be even more strange. But I think with a little study a native speaker could read even middle English with ease. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Meadowmeal Pentaglot Groupie Netherlands Joined 5711 days ago 43 posts - 57 votes Speaks: Dutch*, French, English, German, Polish Studies: Romanian | Message 8 of 33 28 May 2009 at 9:33am | IP Logged | ||
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I've always found it unfair that foreign-language classic literary works get a new translation when the existing translation has become old-fashioned, so that I can read accessible (but not dumbed-down) versions of e.g. Shakespeare's works in Dutch, whereas classic literature in my own language does not get the same treatment to keep it comprehensible for the modern reader. Because of this, foreign classics are more accessible than native classics.
In my opinion, translating those into modern language, in exactly the same way as foreign literature is translated (and medieval literature), is a good thing and should be done more often. After all, good, literary translations can be just as beautiful as original works, and if you're interested, you can always read the source text. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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