I find that I have such a horrible time understanding Shakespeare, I often have to go to sparknotes to understand the text. Are there any methods to better understand his plays?

It also takes me so long to read it because I have to keep on reading the sidenotes.

btw i'm in gr10 english and doing merchant of venice.


thanks for any tips
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Moved to Books.

Hrrrm. I think the key is to just.. keep re-reading it? Also, the more Shakespeare pieces you read, I think you get used to it. Other than that, I don't know.

At Barnes and Nobles, there are the side-by-side versions where the Shakespearean text is on one page and the translated to 'modern language' is on the other page. It's easier to read like that.

^ See I thought he wanted to understand them by reading it. But yeah, No Fear Shakespeare I believe it's called. That angers me, though. Then again, it may only anger me because kids in my AP English class use it.

I love Merchant of Venice...

And I really recommend you keep at reading the actual text, rather than bying spark notes or whatever... you'll just get so much more out of it...

It's just a matter of reading more and more Shakespeare. There's also that book on Shakespeare....like....the Bible of Shakespearen words. Seriously. It's nothing like Sparknotes, but it provides the "translations" for some of the more difficult sentences.

It's just going over it slowly. You have to analyze bits and pieces of it. And going over it again and again. So what if it takes a lot of time? At the end, Shakespeare is always worth it.