In Hamlet , should the language be changed when studying it ? Whats your opinion?
365455
Changing the language of Shakespeare changes the experience and defeats the play's impact.  Additionally, part of the reason for studying his plays is to gain skill at understanding and using language.\n\nOn the one hand, it is valid to want to deal with language that is easy to understand so as to follow a plot.  On the other hand, the way Shakespeare wrote is in itself a work of art, something to be appreciated for itself, aside from the plot.\n\nI remember that the movie version of Romeo and Juliet that starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes was hugely popular even though every word in it was just as Shakespeare wrote it.\n\nSo a large part of the problem here is that reading the plays in school, as opposed to hearing and seeing it performed, makes it hard to understand, not the language per se.
193935
I'm not going to write one for you, but I will give you some help - you can take it or leave it.\nMost analyses of Hamlet point to Hamlet's inability to make up his mind as his tragic flaw - they would argue that Hamlet is responsible for his own fate by failing to kill Claudius in act III when he had the chance.\nOthers, however, myself included, believe Hamlet's flaw was his lust for revenge, and that is what led to so many deaths.  \nEither way, Claudius's guilt comes from the initial murder of Hamlet's father.\nI won't pretend to be a literary scholar.  But I am a high school senior who just finished an essay on Hamlet less than a month ago, so it's fresh in my mind.
24597
I don't think it is a joke at all.  Hamlet himself wonders if he lacks strength: "It cannot be but I am pigeon livered and lack the gall to make opression bitter".  I agree, however, that the answer is ultimately "no".  Hamlet sees the world as it is, and understands that real questions don't have easy answers.  It is interesting that his downfall is the one time he acts without thinking, and kills Polonius in the process.
507014
I think what Shakespeare was trying to do, was to give the viewer/reader a sense of the characters in the play. Macduff plays an important part later on the play, so it's important that we see the character closely. The play is not ALL based on Macbeth, in fact it's about Macbeth's rise and fall, which occurs by the influence of other characters in the play such as his wife, Lady Macbeth, the 3 witches including Hecate..even King Duncan influences him into believing he can be king himself (complicated story). Look i can write a whole essay as to why Macduff is important in the play...have you read the whole play? do you know the end? maybe if you read the end then you'd know why introducing Macduff's character is important..so sorry for the long answer =/
20477
Could be either. Or both.  Contrary to some notions, there is no grand authority that decides what is or is not English, which rules of grammar may/must be used in a given situation, or whether it's po-TAY-to or po-TAH-to.  \n\nLanguage is an emergent social construct that is constantly changing according to the uses of its practitioners.  New words enter languages all the time, and old words take on new meanings or shed the old ones as well. \n\nThe OED is at best a snapshot of what English is at a given time, including slang and colloquial uses, not an arbiter of what it is becoming, so it has only as much "authority" as you ascribe to it. What is considered proper or authoritative depends entirely on who is doing the communicating, under what circumstances, and what rules they agree on.\n\nBut before I go, I just want to remind everyone to learn the difference between "loose" and "lose."  That one really bugs me...
632384
yes...it's perfect if you are following Vuk Karadzic's  advice: write as you speak and read as you write (but I think it was only for Serbian language...:)))))
822124
I don't care as long as the accent does not interfere in the lessons and causes difficulty in understanding what is being said. For example, I have a geography professor in college that has a very thick accent, and it was so hard to understand from the beginning. I thought that I would never get used to it. Half a year has passed so far, and it is getting so much better because I got used to it. Still, sometimes, when she talks it's kind of hard to understand. What's crazy is that there is this one student in the class, and he gives perfect answers to every question. But he uses words that are hard for her to understand, so she would always ask him, "What do you mean?" So, yeah. I completely understand what you're talking about. It is hard, and I hope that I don't get anyone like that again this upcoming semester.
316898
As others have noted, the letters WERE pronounced when the spellings originated.  And had the printing press come a century later, such things might be spelled the way we now pronounce them.\n\nThere is, however, some value in all this.  It is possible to see how words are related (to see something of their history) both within English and between English and the languages it grew out of.  Thus the spelling of word may show us connections with Germanic, French and Latin words\n\nI remember that it made it a lot easier to learn German, since I could recognize some of these words as related.  (Modern German, which DOES pronounce such sounds, has "Knecht" for "knight", "Nacht" for "night", etc.) I think it also helped with things like SATs.  Similarly, when I had to pick up a reading knowledge of French, I recognized a lot of related words (though I can't pronounce French worth a lick!)  I would think this is some help to Europeans learning English as well.\n\n------------\n\nSome more thoughts on the unstated (implied?) question -- why don't we fix it?!\n\nIncidentally, one of the things that has KEPT English from thorough spelling reforms is the fact that its vocabulary has been so freely borrowed from so many sources for centuries that there would be A LOT to try change and relearn.  (German and many other European languages did see such reforms in the past couple of centuires, but they had a lot less changing to do!)   And with the wide variety of regional pronunciations among just NATIVE English speakers, which ones would be adopt for the "standard"?  And if there were multiple versions what kind of mess would that make?! (The differences that now exist between British and American spelling are quite minor, hardly a barrier to reading each others' writing.)\n \nThink too what this change would do for reading anything in slightly older English!   We wouldn't be able to read documents and letters of the last several centuries without 'translating' them!
540662
I've translated a lot of older written texts in French on there.  Didn't have a problem.  But i am sure with modern language, it looses it's nuisance.
806898
I didnt do Eng Lit at all, but I got top grades in my Eng Language exams.  But then I did a lot of reading because I loved to do it anyway.  I think the Lit would consolidate the Language, giving students a wier knowledge of writing styles...;
985357
The Italians have a saying: "traduttore tradittore" -- "the translator is a traitor".  This is because so much of the time one loses the subtleties of a language in translation-- the balance, the music, the poetry, the impact.  I think that it was in Aldous Huxley's novel "Chrome Yellow" that someone fell in love with the English word "carminative", which sounded so poetic, and then had his illusions shattered when he found out that in German it was "weintraubend".
978718
Do you have something against that language? \nWhy did he use this language rather than any other?\nAny other? like what a dialect?
393293
Hate to break it to you, but Shakespeare is English, and modern English at that.
961877
Praise him for seeing that it doesn't make sense.  He is very insightful.  Explain to him the fact that our English language doesn't always follow it's own rules and certain letters have the same or similar sounds and we just have to learn the inconsistancies and that it is totally normal to be confused right now.
929466
Go to:  http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/hamlet/\n\nyour satisfaction is guaranteed.
439619
you don't need a translation!!!!!  just take each line and break it down into what you think he's saying.  if you take the time and go line by line it helps.  \n\ntrust me...i took an entire class on shakespeare in college and wrote a 30 page paper on "a midsummer night's dream".\n\nshakespeare is very simple once youmake yourself adjust to the rythm and language.  \none line at a time....\n\nsome things i still don't understand like certain sayings that jsut aren't used anymore, but if you pay attention to the context you can figuer it out. get the gist of each scene and it will all start to make sense.  give it a couple scenes.\n\nthe romeo and juliet starring claire danes and leo dicaprio helped me understand shakespeare when i was first getting into it.  \nrent that movie and it will help too:)\n\ngood luck and maybe you'll get a new appreciation for shakespeare and english in general!
295871
If this is for homework you really should do the work yourself.  Everyone thinks Shakespeare is confusing because of the complicated language, but there really are some fun stuff in his plays, and some of it isn't that different then todays movies.  Shakespere used a lot of sex, violence, and paranormal.  The trick is don't read it.  It was never meant to be read directly. It wasn't even written down originally, just memorized by actors. Go rent Romeo and Julitte, and see it performed. If they are good actors they will convey it in a way that's easier to understand. Another good resource is: http://absoluteshakespeare.com\n\nAny, Act II starts out with the famous "balcony scene" where Juliet wishes Romeo wasn't Montague.  He overhears it and says he loves her so much he'll swear off the name. They complain for a while about dealing with the problem of being from feuding families, then fter some shameless flirting Romeo proposes.  Juliet says she'll think about it and send her nurse to answer tomorrow.  Romeo goes and tells Friar Laurence what he's done and the Friar accuses Romeo of just trying to get into Juliet's pants, expecially since yesterday he was telling the Friar he was in love with Rosalind.  Be he agrees to wed them because he thinks it will solve the feud between the families.  In the mean time Rome's friends give him a hard time, Juliet's Nurse agrees to help, and ends with them secretly getting married.\n\nFor an even funnier version rent The Complete Works of Wllm Shkspr (abbridged) by the Reduced Shakespere company.  Also rend the recent Romeo and Juliet movie by Baz Luhrmann (the guy that did Moulin Rouge)