English speakers can't understand Shakespeare but Spaniards can understand Cervantes

You read Shakespeare in English as intended, no translation can do him justice, regardless of how good it is. I really love the English language and one of the biggest reasons for it is surely Shakespeare and his works, it also helps that I have a boner for tragedies. I can't really articulate it all that well, but one of the reasons why I love him very much is the way he writes, it's just so good and the mastery he holds over language is unparalleled. Not to mention how memorable his lines are and his talent for always managing to come up with some of the most iconic ever, just take a look at Iago's soliloquy at the end of act 1 in Othello or that "Tomorrow, tomorrow" Macbeth one.

We can read Shakespeare, easily. Also languages don't change at the same rate so if we couldn't, that would be why.

With my back bent, my little wanton eye,
My (fedders?) fresh like the emerald green,
Around my neck a circlet like rich ruby,
My little legs, both of my feet (fete?) and clean,
I am a minion to wait upon a queen,
My righteous parrot, my pretty little fool,
With ladies I learn, and go with them to school...

... is how an English person today would interpret this text. If anything, perhaps some of the meaning is lost but it's still perfectly readable.

i was forced to read Hamlet and i got pretty tired of it
it was a bilingual version that had the original english text on the left, with translator noters and stuff, and the spanish translation on the right

>You read Shakespeare in English as intended, no translation can do him justice
I mean, I know what you're saying, but to be really fair it wasn't intended to be widely read at all.

Sounds like you had him for a book report in high school, so that might have affected your opinion of it. I'd suggest giving him another go, read Othello and definitely watch the BBC adaptation.

I meant it in a sense that if you're gonna read it, you need to do it in the language that it's written in if you're able to. And what do you mean that they weren't meant to be widely read?

No you are absolutely right that if you read him it should be in English, but he never intended most of his work to be read. Poems/sonnets aside, they were plays to be acted.

>Poems/sonnets aside, they were plays to be acted
this
i think its the main reason i dont enjoy reading theater
its clearly not made with that purpose and it shows
ive seen some clips from adaptations of hamlet and the russian one looks top tier for example, way better than reading
youtube.com/watch?v=-OfxxEWi-fs

Oh, got ya. And yeah, much like it is with plays in general, they are meant to be both read and then later be seen on the stage. Ian McKellen is one of the best Shakespearian actors, same goes for my personal favorite one, Orson Welles, and I must say there are some pretty great fucking adaptations of his work; Ran, Othello (1995) and Orson Welles' Macbeth being my top 3.

I remember I went to see Twelfth Night with my class and the actors afterwards were hammering into us this exact point
My teacher wasn't at all happy

Native Brit and I completely understand. Spelling is weird and some words not in use but if you've got a few brain cells you should be able to understand

The plays can absolutely be done well in other languages, many of the jokes and the like just wouldn't translate but it's just about hitting the right tone and mood. Even modern English adaptations can be deemed in essence a translation if only because some of the jokes are lost in pronunciation alone, so some actors learn it with the originals
youtube.com/watch?v=qYiYd9RcK5M

McKellen's memory of Shakespeare is stunning, especially now as he's going slightly senile in interviews and generally forgetful, but his memory of Shakespeare is still crystal clear.

Fedders = Feathers. Not sure what it means in context, though.

Oh of course i should've known, that's a pretty common sound shift.
I guess in context it's about birds? Like I said, a lot of meaning is lost

This is modern spanish lad

>English speakers can't understand Shakespeare
???
we can even understand it spoken with the accent of the era, with all the weird vowels and extra h's
who told you we couldn't understand shakespeare?
Only words in that sample I didn't get were "fedders" and "fete"

That's modern Spanish if you replace F with Ph

Shakespeare is easy to read.

In the poem you shared, I at first misunderstood "becke", but I quickly realised my error; the only word with which I had real trouble was "fete", and to be frank, I am still at a loss.

Chaucer is rather more challenging, but should be perfectly readable for any educated man, especially with but a few footnotes and explanations. It's appropriate for careful study by secondary school students.

>Chaucer is rather more challenging, but should be perfectly readable for any educated man
Huh am i a brainlet for finding that pretty much unreadable without translations

chaucer is well worth it, way better than shakespeare

Just to note that the poem in the OP isn't even Shakespeare. I mean it's similar enough to his works, language-wise, that it passes for the sake of discussion but it's by John Skelton.

spooky name

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With my beak bent, my little wanton eye,
My feathers fresh as is the emerald green,
About my neck a circlet like the rich ruby,
My little legs, my feet both [fete] and clean,
I am a minion to wait upon a queen;
'My proper parrot, my little pretty fool."
With ladies I learn, and go with them to school.

>With my back bent,
I made the same error with "becke", initially. It is be "beak".

>(fedders?)
feathers

>Around
Is there any reason to change this from "about"?

>both of my feet (fete?) and clean,
I think it is saying that both adjectives apply to the feet, rather than that the adjectives apply to both feet. The syntax should be left as it was.

>righteous
Why should this not be left as "proper"? There is a diversity and nuance of meaning to "proper" that has poetic value here.

I wouldn't say he's easy to read, especially once you start looking at his works more in depth.

>beak
oh fuck that makes a lot more sense

Well, yes. Shakespeare, being born well after Skelton's death, wasn't writing 500 years ago, after all. Did anyone take the post to mean that it was Shakespeare's work?

Skelton just scrapes in to Middle English, whereas Shakespeare's English is well-and-truly modern.

The real tricky business is not the written but the spoken word:
youtube.com/watch?v=tCckcTHWqKw

On reflection, "Parrot" should have a capital, because it is his name.

I mean in terms of the bare understanding of words, not appreciation of the work. He's not appreciably harder to read than contemporary authors of comparable calibre (none come readily to mind).

In that regard sure, but as a non-native speaker I still had issues with it at times due to either my lack of knowledge or some of the words being really archaic, though Ardent editions of his works help a ton and I always listen to Harvard lectures on it, so that helps a great deal too.

Can you understand this macaco

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Yeah all these corrections make sense; I was just trying to make it sound more natural. But in doing so it loses poetic value.

If that was what you are trying to do then that is fine. Or indeed, there's a lot more that could be done to make it sound like organic, everyday English.

My point was to show that the vocabulary and grammar are perfectly viable in contemporary modern English; the poem can be read pretty well as-is.
Therefore, this claim is not just rubbish but ridiculous:
>theres no english speaker that can understand 500 year old english texts

No doubt things are different for a foreign learner. I was looking to refute OP's claim, which (I presume) relates to native speakers.

>Phrases
>Phelipe
>efta obra
>1737
casi pero no

Fair enough, mate.

Entre Rachel e Vidas / aparte ixieron amos,
'Demos le buen don / ca el no' lo ha buscado.
Martin Antolinez / un burgales contado,
vos lo mereçedes / darvos queremos buen dado
de que fagades calças / e rica piel e buen manto,
damos vos en don / a vos .xxx. marchos.

This is from the Peoma de Mio Cid.

I like medieval Spanish because it still has cedillas. Spanish seems to have simplified itself over time.

>arabs today can understand ancient arabic

languagelets BTFO

quran is 1400 years old yet everyone understands it, we can even understand arab poetry before the quran.

Because you haven't evolved since then

Only because of the autistic archaic standard language that you all have to learn.

Chaucer is Middle English. His dialect was part of the way forward for Modern English. So, this means that Canterbury Tales should be easier for you to read than say an author of the same time period writing in a different regional dialect, but it is still quirky Middle English which was fighting a battle with Anglo-Norman and Latin which were the languages of high culture in England at that time.

Yeah I know. I thought user was suggesting that any english speaking native could read Chaucer without some commentary, which i'm afraid just isn't true

based

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Agreed. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Poetry is shit and medieval language is literally retarded. Real intellectuals read novel.

>t. someone who has never read medieval Icelandic poetry

>Poetry is shit
Just because it's not something that appeals to you, doesn't mean it's de facto worthless. I'm personally not into poetry as I find it too abstract, but I dig some poets and recognize its value. You should too, and you would also do yourself a favor by removing that childlike mentality of yours. And if you find Shakespeare "medieval", than you're a moron since he doesn't fall under that time period.

:3

go back to USA "white" piggu

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