Why are there so many “modern” versions of Shakespeare’s plays?
There are plenty of great books that don’t need translated versions. We don’t look for easier versions of Dickens, Hawthorne, Melville, or Fitzgerald (or at least, I hope we don’t.) But re-doing Shakespeare seems to be a favorite sport of publishers.
In a way, we can trace it back to Nahum Tate in the 1680′s and Thomas Bowdler in 1818, but they had totally different agendas than today’s creators. Tate wanted happy endings and Bowdler wanted to clean up the naughty bits.[I'll talk about them in my next post.]
We at the Folger have a standard answer when someone asks us what we think of “modern” versions of Shakespeare’s texts:
“IF YOU’RE NOT GOING TO USE SHAKESPEARE’S WORDS, DON’T DO SHAKESPEARE.”
Why dumb down all those beautiful words and images for the sake of making it easier? We’ve found that if you’re teaching Shakespeare in an active, performance-based approach, the language becomes less of on obstacle.
It’s the words that matter. Here’s an example of a passage from R&J which I’ve written with an interlinear version with the No Fear version:
Shakespeare: Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
No Fear: Oh, she shows the torches how to burn bright!
Shakespeare: It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
No Fear: She stands out against the darkness
Shakespeare: Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear,
No Fear: like a jeweled earring hanging against the cheek of an African.
Shakespeare: Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.
No Fear: Her beauty is too good for this world; she’s too beautiful to die and be buried.
Shakespeare: So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.
No Fear: She outshines the other women like a white dove in the middle of a flock of crows.
Shakespeare: The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,
No Fear: When this dance is over, I’ll see where she stands
Shakespeare: And, touching hers, make blessèd my rude hand.
No Fear: and then I’ll touch her hand with my rough and ugly one.
Shakespeare: Did my heart love till now?
No Fear: Did my heart ever love anyone before this moment?
Shakespeare: Forswear it, sight!
No Fear: My eyes were liars, then
Shakespeare: For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.
No Fear: because I never saw true beauty before tonight.
See the difference? Post your comments below as to the effect of the translation.
I almost hesitate to mention more of these, but they are worth discussing here. The following are for the print empaired student:
- If your students find reading Cliff’s Notes too difficult, Cliff has a better idea. They’ve boiled the plays down to 5-minute videos with ridiculous animation.
- The Shakespeare Made Easy videos boil the plays down to 2-minute versions, but are pretty awful.
- I do like the Folger videos that we’ve made, both the Insider’s Guides and the One-minute versions.
But back to print. Here are the candidates:
- Kent Richmond has created what he calls “verse translations” of several plays and shows why his versions are superior to what he calls the “dumbed down prose versions.” Here’s his translation of the Prologue from R&J.
- No Fear Shakespeare is part of Spark Notes. Here’s their parallel-text version of the same Prologue.
- Barrons have moved on from their Shakespeare Made Easy series with the death of their author, Alan Durband. They now have a series called Simply Shakespeare which seems equally bad.
- There’s also a series of Shakespeare Novels by Paul Illidge. Here’s the opening line from Macbeth: “A summer storm moves on over the barren and deserted countryside of Scotland during the Middle Ages, leaving the rain-soaked fields cloaked in clouds of fog.” Oh my.
I won’t get into the manga and graphic versions of the plays, most of which retain the original language and are quite good.
One of my students recently said to me, “You have some strong opinions.” Yes, I do, but if you feel that there’s room for these translations in your class, I encourage you to post your comments below.
[...] of Shakespeare’s plays is. Don’t use them – they’re not Shakespeare. (See Here, Here, and Here if you missed that [...]
[...] my January 5th Blog entry, Shakespeare in Other Words, I ranted against using “modernized” or “Shakespeare Made Easy” versions [...]
[...] Shakespeare…in other words « Folger SHAKESPEARE LIBRARY [...]
I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. LoMonico’s thesis. But it does raise other questions about authenticity. What, for example, is the status of Shakespeare translated into another language? Is that not Shakespeare? Conversely, is my edition of War and Peace, in English, not Tolstoy? Also, what about productions that cut or transpose lines? Very few productions use uncut texts — how much cutting is too much? When do we leave Shakespeare behind? How many iambs can dance on the head of a pin?
Translated Shakespeare from English to Spanish, Russian, Japanese, etc is not a problem. I’m even fine with an English production that incorporates another language. But the versions I am railing against translate perfectly good modern English to a dumbed-down version.
Nice work, Michael.
You may not believe it, but even Poe has been made simpler in many school texts, and some teachers don’t even know that the texts their students are reading are dumbed down. I found this with one of my student teachers just last semester. He was shocked because the only indication of a translation, which he missed, was a very small print “Adapted from” buried in the illustrations above the story title of “The Tell-Tale Heart.”
I can see the value in storybook versions of Shakespeare’s stories for kids, such as Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare or some of the picture book versions by authors like Bruce Coville, but only if they are used as inductions into the actual scripts of Shakespeare.
I usually say, you can call it Romeo and Juliet (or whatever) but don’t call it Shakespeare unless it’s the real language.
Cheers,
Tim
Thanks, Tim. My next rant might be about textbook versions of the plays that leave the “naughty bits” out and don’t even tell the teacher or students.
[...] what is more important: clarity of meaning, or poetry? Mike LoMonico recently wrote a post for the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Education blog challenging the often-voiced opinion that Shakespeare’s plays are now so difficult to understand [...]
[...] the Twitter forums we began in 2011, but before we could even discuss a topic, one leapt out at us. Prompted by a blog in the education section of The Folger Library’s website, we were plunged one early January afternoon into a frenzied discussion about whether Shakespeare [...]
[...] all started with a Blog entry I posted here last week called Shakespeare in Other Words. Suddenly, Howard Sherman @HESherman and Peter Marks @petermarksdrama took that post to a new [...]
How often have we heard colleagues refer to Shakespeare’s language as “Old English.” This error, I think, helps explain why so many think a translation is both necessary and good. Still, to cheat on Shakespeare is akin to literary adultery. It’s just wrong.
As Julia shows, the beauty of the language, the figurative language, the poetry is destroyed w/ the easy-read versions.
In his book “The Art of Slow Reading,” Tom Newkirk advocates introducing students to snippets from classic literature at a very young age as a way to prepare them for tackling the complicated classics they’ll encounter in high school. Newkirk’s philosophy harmonizes w/ the Folger’s.
Thanks for your comments, Glenda. Carol Jago’s “With Rigor for All” makes the same case that Newkirk does.
And another thing (…and this hit me later…even though it should have been my first thought as it is as plain as day). WHY must one change “She doth teach the torches to burn bright!” to ANYTHING? Cannot we understand the original? For those of us who don’t understand the inverted question…”What is it about the first translation that we cannot understand?” Which word is the culprit? Having said that, I do concede that TEACH is a very difficult term with which to come to grips lately…especially by publishers. OK…no more from me.
Thanks again, Julia. My favorite example is in the R&J prologue where they change “grudge” to “vendetta.” It seems they feel compelled to change even if it’s not needed.
Julie’s example is golden! The joy of the language has not been lost on young students for years–no need to dilute/destroy it! My teachers used R&J to teach us figures of speech in unforgettable lessons. It’s so rich! Thank for you for this great discussion!
Hi, folks…a lot that is teach-able gets lost when we move from the early Modern English version to modern versions. I took the first line from the posted text and did an analysis of it. Read what I wrote then take a stab at one of the other lines yourself! I look forward to your comments!
Shakespeare: Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
No Fear: Oh, she shows the torches how to burn bright!
LOST FORMS:
ALLITERATION: While the iambic pentameter is technically retained in terms of sheer amounts of syllables in the NF line, the double alliteration is lost. Alliteration is a literary device deployed by writers to fix a sound more firmly in the readers mind with the repetition of consonants so that the line is recall-able long after it is heard. The NF line packs less of a wallop in terms of being recall-able.
ASSONANCE: This is the opposite of alliteration to produce the same effect on the reader. Assonance is the repetition of of vowel SOUNDS. SHE doth TEACH. The long e is repeated. Like alliteration, assonance is deployed by writers to make a line or phrase memorable. There is no assonance in the NF version. SHOW is a long “o” sound…and HOW is the “ow” sound. We’re OUT of luck!…and HOW! ☺
METAPHOR: Juliet is compared to a teacher in the early modern English version. This comparison produces active images and associations as well as applicable meanings. Juliet is not compared to anything in the NF version.
LOST MEANING / CONTENT:
Consider the difference in meaning between TEACHING someone to do something and SHOWING someone HOW to do something. The former connotes a transfer of ability so that the person being taught can own the skill for herself and apply it elsewhere. I can show students HOW TO make a sentence parallel…but until I TEACH students to do this, I cannot walk away from them knowing they own the skill. Teaching is an act of generosity with a high level of ability and is concerned with the objects understanding…showing how to could be generous…it could also be egotistical and is not necessarily concerned with the object’s understanding. Consider some of our college professors. Did you value the ones who showed you how as much as the ones who taught you? Don’t we value “teach-able moments” more than “how-to-able” moment?
OK…Folks…before I bust a move, publicly, on the rest of the passage…does anyone want to have a go? I look forward to your responses!
Thanks, Julia. I love how you only needed one line to make a very strong case. This is fabulous.
Excellent ideas!
For students who don’t yet have skills required to read Shakespeare, why not start them off with modern language? Students gain skills when teachers meet them on their level. Reading translations and graduating to originals works!
Katy,
I understand your point, but we’ve found that giving students small bits of Shakespeare to begin with and scaffolding them into longer passages works even better. Give them 2-line scenes to begin with. Read a passage in the round instead of assigning roles right away. And don’t be afraid to read a scene more than once.
One of my students called this “baby steps.”
Mike
That is a good idea! I also think it’d be fun to have students read modern translations of Shakespeare works and compare/contrast them with original texts. I’m always interested in discovering what texts truly engage students and why. I’d rather not deprive them of the rich messages found in Shakespeare for the sake of having them read the original texts exclusively.
I quite agree with the Folger’s mantra. The leaden quality of modern English “translations” of Shakespeare must be obvious even to students bemused by Shakespeare’s language. I’m surprised they don’t even attempt to keep the rhythm of the lines, surely kids who enjoy rap would enjoy the beat and the rhymes even if the words are difficult.