Rating the Classics

[Jim]

For most of human History everybody seems to have read aloud even if they were on their own. Hence people going to 'hear' a play were probably experiencing the 'reading' they'd have had at home done properly.

As for Shakespeare's slang and use of dialect words, you have to just roll with it, don't let it worry you, go back later if you want to know the meaning of everything. After all, according to that, English children would be expected to study to text of some modern American films before they could be expected to understand them :-)
I'd say let people experience the play first, whether live or on screen. Let them see it in all its glory. Then they are enthused enough to wonder what various bits mean.

[E.D.]

It has a good beat, and you can dance to it. :}

[Jim]

E.D. wrote: "It has a good beat, and you can dance to it. :}"

yep, afterwards you can worry about putting your feet in the right place and knowing the steps :-)

[[deleted user]]

Contrary to the advice above, I think it is better to read Shakespeare straight without the annotations - at least for the first go around. Readers need to get into the grove and not focus the the subtlety and meaning of the words. Or go to a good stage production. You can always review the text later.

Or try Chaucer in the original.

It also reminds me that language - and the different ways it can be used - is a pure joy. For example, British and Irish English is not always the same, but I find it interesting nonetheless. I hate it when American publishers "correct" English texts from overseas.

[A.L.]

I read a lot of the classics and I've re-read them a few times BUT I don't enjoy them all. Books written in a different time period can be tricky, it is easy to impose our own, modern values on them which isn't really fair. Tastes change, writing styles change.
Classics I love:
Frankenstein
Dracula
Jekyll and Hyde
War of the Worlds
Count of Monte Cristo
Phantom of the Opera
Odyssey
Iliad
Wuthering Heights
Tess of the D'urbevilles
Lord of the Rings
Some Shakespeare

Ones I found I couldn't get into
Mobey Dick
Anna Karenina
The Scarlet Letter