I remember learning all about Shakespeare in high school vividly. My English Lit teacher had never read Hamlet, and was about as excited as we were about learning it. She had to have another teacher come in and help out, because she simply didn't know what she was doing. It was so strange, seeing this woman, who I assumed knew all, floundering.
Shakespeare still kind of makes me feel that way. It's not that I don't appreciate his work, or can't possibly imagine tackling the challenge, but I picture Shakespeare much like I picture tackling a huge mountain if I hiked. It's daunting, and the fact that he had to explain what he meant on the opposite page is never a good start.
Take for instance, Hamlet's soliloquy:
HAMLET: To be, or not to be--that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep-- No more--and by a sleep to say we end The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep-- To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprise of great pitch and moment With this regard their currents turn awry And lose the name of action. -- Soft you now, The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remembered. (Read more at http://www.monologuearchive.com/s/shakespeare_001.html#uuyeUXLZrrCob1sz.99)
Trying to figure out what he was trying to say was difficult. I didn't want to be wrong in front of everyone for starters, and his language was intimidating. It can be partially blamed on the times, but Shakespeare isn't a walk in the park for anyone.
If the language in his writing was only a bit more understandable for this current generation, then perhaps his work wouldn't be feared by high schoolers everywhere. I appreciate everything he did for language and english, like inventing words and gracing us with his stories, but his work is pretty hard to understand if you don't have a handle on it.
