Shakespeare?

does anyone read Shakespeare for fun? Is it hard for you to understand. In my english class we are reading romeo and juliet. i like it but it is sometimes hard to understand what they are saying. Does anyone know a web site that explains romeo and juliet/ shakespeare?

[Matt Attallah]

Just do a search on Google.com. There are TONS of stuff on R&J. Just look!

[Yan Wang]

Somehow Shakespeare's all coming together this year.

But if it's not for you, just go to www.pinkmonkey.com <-- makes Sparknotes look like a joke.

[shyra1353]

a good website for understanding any type of literature and for study notes on it to help you is www.sparknotes.com
i use it for everything. just a warning though, if you just use the notes alone for your work, you wont do very well.

[Blacknight]

Sparknotes does work really well for about anything you're reading. but I just came in here to c if anyone actually reads Shakespear for fun

[srjjs]

Read a lot of it and it's not so hard to understand. I used to read it for fun, but it wasn't satirical enough to hold my attnetion, and much of the humor was....not too funny.

[Ben Mitchell]

I liked King Lear better myself. Once you get a feel for the language, Shakespeare is quite good.

[shyra1353]

i think a midsummer night's dream is my favourite Shakespeare book that ive read

[dlavery]

Shakespearian plays in particular can be difficult to understand when you just read them. They were meant to be spoken aloud. I always found that the first time I read through one of Shakespeare's plays, I could understand it much better if I read it aloud, and tried to emphasize the emotions coming through the dialog. It sounds silly (gee, I haven't read aloud since second grade...), but it really makes a difference (and putting yourself in the mind of the character is a lot of fun - particularly Hamlet, 'cause he was so completely screwed up!)

-dave

[MissInformation]

Okay, I'll admit it. I read Shakespeare for fun. Oh the shame! Hamlet is my favorite followed by Much Ado About Nothing and The Taming of the Shrew.

I swear there was a quote in one of his plays that went something like this: "The stars are bright still though the brightest of them fell." but I can't find it on the Internet. Guess I'll have to re-read his plays until I find it.

Edited to add:

Now I have to modify this because of Dave's comment about Hamlet being screwed up. Oh, he had problems, but I actually did a thesis paper on him not being insane. Don't know if I convinced anyone, but I got an "A" on the paper. Poor, misunderstood Hamlet.


MissInformation

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That he is mad, ’t is true: ’t is true ’t is pity;
And pity ’t is ’t is true.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.

[Kimberley Roode]

i absolutely love shakespeare, but trying to read the plays normally takes me ions, because of the language. usually i just have to take it slow, and read through it figuring out the language through context, because if i make use of cliffs notes or even simple definitions of old english, i get so caught up in looking through those that its impossible for me to actually get anything out of the play in a literature aspect.

in relation to reading shakespeare in school- ack. its horrible. i have trouble enough reading school assigned books (someone telling me read this chapter, by this day, and answer these objective questions just doesnt work for me. i absolutely cannot do it). but then to have an english teacher analyzing absolutely every action, and each characters personality- its beyond me. that sort of things is no doubt important in lit. but, when you dont think for yourself and it's all spelled out for you, i cant get any motivation to do anythign beyond memorization for tests.

[MissInformation]

Okay, I finally found the quote. It's from Macbeth and the correct wording is "Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell." And if you want to see a darkly humorous version of Macbeth, rent Scotland, PA sometime.

MissInformation

<==============>
"Bait the hook well; this fish will bite." Much Ado About Nothing

[Kristina]

We read so much Shakespeare my senior year and a lot of people bought these books that had the actual text of Shakespeare on the left hand side of the book and a "translation" into plain English on the right side of the book so it wouldn't be just summary. They said they're at all Banres & Nobles, Borders, etc and that it really helped. Personally I just used Sparknotes (as encouraged by my teacher) to get the gist of the story and that let me do a thorough analysis.

BTW: my favorite Shakespeare is Macbeth just because a group of friends and I redid Macbeth "Mafia" style which was so cool and I must say that my rendition of Lady Macbeth going insane and killing herself was oscar worthy

[Wetzel]

I guess performing MacBeth and A Midsummers Night Dream in 5th grade helped with my understanding of the language. After going back and seeing A MidSummers Night Dream this past fall at Radford, Shakespeare was a dirty dirty man.


Wetzel
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The innocence of a 10 year old.

[Amanda Morrison]

There are about a thousand different versions of all of Shakespeare's plays that you can find, even at the movie store.

My senior year of high school, we had to read A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, and Macbeth (among a thousand other books my teacher thought we should get through in 180 short days...). Our reward at the end of the year was seeing Macbeth and AMND in movie form to help us understand a little more - and granted, we did. Maybe some more than others, though, because my teacher mistakenly showed the 'Playboy' production of Macbeth, directed by Hugh Hefner and all.

*shudders*