Have you ever brought home a piece of flat pack furniture and then wondered how on earth all those pieces will make a wardrobe or bookshelf? Long pieces of wood, smaller pieces, nails and screws, plastic thingies you can’t name, the list goes on.
As we all know, the key is to read the manual. We may want to get stuck in straight away, but we know it will be easier and more efficient to spend some time studying the instructions, laying out all the pieces, identifying them and then following the steps in numerical order. That’s the way to end up with the piece of furniture you desire, without any parts on backwards or any pieces left over.
How is this like reading Shakespeare? In fact, there is a great deal of similarity.
If we want – or need – to read a Shakespeare text, we might look at the book and see some familiar things that don’t make the sense they usually do, and some thingies that we just don’t recognise. It looks as if it ought to be English, but our current knowledge of English just isn’t adequate to allow us to read fluently.
It’s tempting to get stuck in straight away. Or, to be honest, to throw the book under the sofa and decide to have a go another day. It is a whole lot easier and more efficient, however, to take some time to follow instructions.
Those personal pronouns we see everywhere, for example, the thous and thees. A bit like the plastic thingies, we are sure they are important but we may not know exactly what they are or what to do with them. Then there are the false friends, words that seem familiar but were actually used in a different way 400 years ago. They are like the pieces of wood that we recognise but can’t seem to fit together to make a whole. It kind of looks like English…but then it kind of doesn’t.
In fact, learning some simple vocabulary and grammar is as easy as studying an Ikea instruction leaflet. A little time, a little application, and we find we have already made progress with the 5 – 10% of Shakespeare’s language that is different from modern English. That’s right, only 5 – 10%!
Understand the personal pronouns, what they mean and how to use them, recognise adverbs of direction like whence and hither, learn about word order and suddenly the mists begin to part and you find that you actually are reading English, and it’s a whole lot easier than you expected!
With Easier Shakespeare we take this approach. A little time spent on some simple language lessons means that students are equipped to read Shakespeare for themselves, instead of relying on explanations and translations.
Want to know more? Follow me on social media or contact me for a completely free, no pressure discussion about how Easier Shakespeare works.
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