SHOULD SHAKESPEARE BE TRANSLATED INTO MODERN ENGLISH?

SHOULD SHAKESPEARE BE TRANSLATED INTO MODERN ENGLISH? My friend Joe Foley has long contended that Shakespeare’s language is inaccessible to modern audiences. John McWhorter argues in this essay that for theatrical performance Shakespeare should be translated into modern English. What Seamus Heaney did for Beowulf should be done for Shakespeare’s plays. McWhorter says that the audiences for Shakespeare would be greatly increased—that “Shakespeare in the original would play to critical huzzahs but half-empty houses, while people would be lining up around the block to see Shakespeare in English the way Russians do to see an Uncle Vanya.” I don’t agree with McWhorter in his claim that Shakespeare in the original text is hard to enjoy. The popular success of outdoor Shakespeare in our area shows that the plays work for a lot of people even when the acoustics are imperfect.

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2 Responses to SHOULD SHAKESPEARE BE TRANSLATED INTO MODERN ENGLISH?

  1. I’m the translator of Shakespeare that McWhorter mentioned in the reprint of the article. I began the project after reading McWhorter’s original article back in the late 1990s. So far I have completed six verse translations.

    You say that Shakespeare works for a lot of people, and that cannot be denied. But that also means that Shakespeare doesn’t work for a lot of people. That leaves an opening for translations.

    If you’re interested in seeing samples of the kind of translations McWhorter has in mind, go to http://www.fullmeasurepress.com.

  2. Pingback: HOW DO I FEEL ABOUT ABRIDGING SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS? | Pater Familias

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