As someone from Spain,I it was only in high school that Shakespeare was on the curriculum and we didn't even read that much, just Romeo and Juliet and Othello. Now I'm rereading those in English and, although it was remarkably complicated at first to understand any of what they were saying ('cause you know, having read the plays in Spanish, they never told us about the "thou", "hath" and all that jazz and I'm telling you it was not a pleasant surprise to find out about it), I think I got the hang of it thanks to the Arden and Cambridge versions. I will definitely expand my Shakespeare library in time, he has such interesting plays.
Shakespeare was a name applied to works written by a variety of people (as proved by "Passionate Pilgrim, 1599). English elites in that era were very much aware of Cervantez and there was nothing in the English language like it. Their goals were to colonize the Americas but the lack of English literature and a standardized language were among the many things that put them at a disadvantage to Spain. English elites commissioned the printing of the King James Bible, then a collection of plays now known as "the First Folio." They created the myth that "Shakespeare" was one person, like Cervantez, and they gave him a big ugly forehead because they thought that made him look like a genius.
I'd really recommend The Cambridge Shakespeare School editions as well. I used these while I was studying Shakespeare and they had really good notes and summaries alongside the text with different translations of words too. Perfect for academic reading!
Subscribed! This is so great :) I'm starting literature at university this year and Shakespeare's in our first semester, this definitely gave me some confidence tackling his work!
I’ve only just now gotten into Shakespeare. (I’m almost 35). Read “A Midsummernights Dream” yesterday, and could barely put it down to go to the bathroom. I absolutely loved it! I’m planning on reading Macbeth next (Hamlet is the big one, so going by someone’s advice on quora I’m saving that one until I’ve read some more of his work).
Great video!!! My favorites are Much Ado about Nothing and As You Like it. I saw Much About at the Globe and it was Amazing! I've also seen The Tempest when Ralph Fiennes played Prospero. That was by far the coolest thing ever.
Thank you for this! Have you seen the movie "Bill"? It's from the makers and cast of Horrible Histories. It's such a fun movie about Shakespeare before he was famous. It's not historically accurate but it's so funny!
In the UK were encouraged to use the Oxford School Schakespeare editions which are very good editions :) they have notes, annotations and pictures which are really helpful :D - sorry just wanted to throw that out there.
not at all. my native language is spanish and i love reading shakespear in english, and i've never really had any problem understanding his plays. btw i've read his plays in the signet classics edition
I use the Arden Shakespeare book because we're studying King Lear at a-levels. It's annoying - we only study tragedies!! My favourites are Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Nights Dream, and Much Ado about nothing (although I haven't actually read that one) :) x
I started by reading a Shakespeare On the Double book, which has each left page as Shakespear wrote it, and each right page showing a version of the adjacent page in modern english. Afyer reading one of his plays in that way, you come out in the end with a good sense of his writing and how to understand his plays for further reading.
Can you do a Q&A video? Like this comment if you also want her to do a q&a video so if this comment gets more likes it is possible that she can see it faster.
I love Shakespeare and I read his works for fun in English although English isn't my mother tongue. What I do is I read the play on my Kindle and when I don't know a word I click on it and it gives me a translation from the Oxford Dictionary of English. This is a really cool and useful option some E - books have (at least Kindle Touch does) and an easy way to read Shakespeare.
I've read MacBeth twice (first time in primary school and second time in secondary school), Othello once (in secondary school), and King Lear once (in 6th form). I've also seen a midsummer nights dream but didn't really think much of it. That was when I was young in primary school though so that might have been why). Oh, I've also read certain scenes from The Tempest but didn't really like that either, although that may have been because of the teacher and the fact that we were actually performing the scenes. Had it been a tragedy I think I would have preferred it. I do prefer the tragedies just because there's a definite story arc to them. With the comedies I just found them to be a little bit wishy-washy. My favourites are: King Lear because I studied that the most in depth and I had a really good teacher who let us read the roles. He was Lear, I was Kent etc. That just got us all involved, which was great. Then Othello, because again my teacher (a different teacher) was awesome and we watched a TV film of it, which I can remember really helping me to understand it. Then Macbeth, just because it's the tragedy that everyone knows. I also got to see this live at secondary school, which was fun.
In the UK were encouraged to use the Oxford School Schakespeare editions which are very good editions :) they have notes, annotations and pictures which are really helpful :D - sorry just wanted to throw that out there. And my favourites are King Lear and Romeo & Juliet.
When it comes to a complete works, I personally tend toward the New Oxford Shakespeare: Modern Critical Edition, which is the most recent Complete works to come out. I like it for 3 main reasons. First is the good amount of footnotes. A lot of them are to explain the text & meanings of words, but some footnotes serve to describe the onstage action, which is a nice bonus. Second is the sheer quantity of it. The New Oxford Shakespeare lists an extensive 45 plays in the contents, printing the full texts of 40, partial texts of 3, and brief accounts of 2. The Complete Works that comes closest to this quantity is the Arden Shakespeare, at 39 full plays, and the Oxford Shakespeare second edition, with 43 plays (41 full, 2 brief accounts).
I'm not a native English speaker but I really want to read shakespeare in the language that it's written... So I'm definitely gonna stick with no fear shakespeare books
You can read his works for free on spark notes, or buy the physical editions. It’s called No Fear Shakespeare, and it has the original text on the left and the modern translation on the right.
Titus Andronicus is, by far, my FAVORITE Shakespearean play! I am so happy to hear someone else talk about Shakespeare with enthusiasm as it was my concentration in college. Love Shakespeare!!
This was suuuper helpful! I'm currently trying to read Romeo and Juliet and it's definitely difficult to read, but I might purchase one of the books you mentioned!
I've read Romeo and Julliet, A Midsummer's Night Dream, and now currently reading Jullius Caeser. All of these are for school. I'm really not like Jullius Caeser haha, talk about a snoozefest😂
If you are familiar with the King James Bible then Shakespeare is easier to read. Elizabethan English is very beautiful and once you get used to it is not so difficult. I love The Tempest, A midsummer Night's Dream, and As You Like It. The tragedies of Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet are among my favorites. Check out performances at your local colleges and universities. The plays become more meaningful when they are performed. There are also DVD's of plays from the Stratford Festival in Canada and the Globe Shakespeare in England available on Amazon for reasonable prices.
The only Shakespeare play I've read is "Romeo and Juliet" when I was in 9th grade. We read it from a text book and, IDK why, but I thought it would just be dry and depressing and impossible to understand. Surprisingly, I actually understood most of the writing before the teacher would explain it and found it to be ridiculous and hilarious and still tragic in the end (just not the type of tragic I was expecting).
I've really only read twelfth night in seventh grade... I'm going to read Romeo and Juliet soon for school. You should read twelfth night!!! It's kind of like a comedy
I love the No Fear Shakespeare editions, I used it to read Romeo & Juliet (my first and only read Shakespeare so far) and at the end I really felt like I understood Shakespeare's language so much better! Great video! :D
My MA included a concentration in British Renaissance Literature, so I have read a fair amount of Shakespeare. Midsummer Night's Dream will likely always be my favorite though; I read it for the first time my freshman year of high school. My favorite tragedy is Hamlet, though Romeo and Juliet is a close second. I think that Corialanus may be my favorite history.
+Jayna Lascaibar Oh, and a fun text for Shakespeare academics is Filthy Shakespeare www.amazon.com/Filthy-Shakespeare-Shakespeares-Outrageous-Sexual/dp/1592404014 It is a nice light read. Some of her thoughts and tranliterations may be a stretch, and I think translating it ruins the beauty as we still use puns today. However, it is fair food for thought.
And I love that you are encouraging people to use tools - getting help doesn't mean you're stupid, in fact the opposite, it means that you are smart and resourceful!! :)
As someone from Spain,I it was only in high school that Shakespeare was on the curriculum and we didn't even read that much, just Romeo and Juliet and Othello. Now I'm rereading those in English and, although it was remarkably complicated at first to understand any of what they were saying ('cause you know, having read the plays in Spanish, they never told us about the "thou", "hath" and all that jazz and I'm telling you it was not a pleasant surprise to find out about it), I think I got the hang of it thanks to the Arden and Cambridge versions. I will definitely expand my Shakespeare library in time, he has such interesting plays.
Shakespeare was a name applied to works written by a variety of people (as proved by "Passionate Pilgrim, 1599). English elites in that era were very much aware of Cervantez and there was nothing in the English language like it. Their goals were to colonize the Americas but the lack of English literature and a standardized language were among the many things that put them at a disadvantage to Spain. English elites commissioned the printing of the King James Bible, then a collection of plays now known as "the First Folio." They created the myth that "Shakespeare" was one person, like Cervantez, and they gave him a big ugly forehead because they thought that made him look like a genius.
I'd really recommend The Cambridge Shakespeare School editions as well. I used these while I was studying Shakespeare and they had really good notes and summaries alongside the text with different translations of words too. Perfect for academic reading!
The Oxford school editions are pretty good too
Can U provide me in pdf. Thats edition. Plz
Subscribed! This is so great :) I'm starting literature at university this year and Shakespeare's in our first semester, this definitely gave me some confidence tackling his work!
I’ve only just now gotten into Shakespeare. (I’m almost 35). Read “A Midsummernights Dream” yesterday, and could barely put it down to go to the bathroom. I absolutely loved it!
I’m planning on reading Macbeth next (Hamlet is the big one, so going by someone’s advice on quora I’m saving that one until I’ve read some more of his work).
Shakespeare is so difficult to read in school unless you have a good teacher in my opinion! Awesome video!
i recommend "what you will" as for comedy i recently saw the play version and absolutely loved it!
Great video!!! My favorites are Much Ado about Nothing and As You Like it. I saw Much About at the Globe and it was Amazing! I've also seen The Tempest when Ralph Fiennes played Prospero. That was by far the coolest thing ever.
I loved The Comedy of Errors :) this is my favourite plays of his :)
Thank you so much!! I am just reading Hamlet for school and this is really helpful 💖
Thanks, Hailey. Helpful for beginners.
Ahh I just finished filming my own guide to Shakespeare!! Great tips and tools :D
I am sooo interested to start reading Shakespeare and n this video is helpful.
Thank you for this! Have you seen the movie "Bill"? It's from the makers and cast of Horrible Histories. It's such a fun movie about Shakespeare before he was famous. It's not historically accurate but it's so funny!
In the UK were encouraged to use the Oxford School Schakespeare editions which are very good editions :) they have notes, annotations and pictures which are really helpful :D - sorry just wanted to throw that out there.
I live in the UK and we had the Heinemann editions. I didn't learn from the Oxford School Shakespeare editions.
+sakurahan91 interesting I did Shakespeare for over 5 years and each time we used the Oxford School Shakespeare
My absolute favourite is Much Ado About Nothing - it's a comedy, so maybe you would like it, too. ((:
Curently reading twelfth night in my highschool English class 😄
can you please do a room tour????
I love Shakespeare but I know that I won't understand his plays and sonnets.
English isn't my first language (i'm french) and i want to read Shakespeare in english, i must be crazy lol !
not at all. my native language is spanish and i love reading shakespear in english, and i've never really had any problem understanding his plays. btw i've read his plays in the signet classics edition
Macbeth is definitely my favourite, I also love Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night!
I've read Julius Caesar, Otello, and Romeo and Juliet, my favorite being Julius Caesar.
I use the Arden Shakespeare book because we're studying King Lear at a-levels. It's annoying - we only study tragedies!! My favourites are Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Nights Dream, and Much Ado about nothing (although I haven't actually read that one) :) x
King Lear is my favourite Shakespeare play. The tragedies are the best I think.
Good introduction for potential readers. The Folger Library edition of Othello made Shakespeare come alive for me in college. Loved it.
I started by reading a Shakespeare On the Double book, which has each left page as Shakespear wrote it, and each right page showing a version of the adjacent page in modern english. Afyer reading one of his plays in that way, you come out in the end with a good sense of his writing and how to understand his plays for further reading.
Very good video!
Can you do a Q&A video?
Like this comment if you also want her to do a q&a video so if this comment gets more likes it is possible that she can see it faster.
You should read much ado about nothing next! After midsummer, it's my favorite :)
I honestly love Shakespeare! I cannot wait to study him more thoroughly at university!
I love Shakespeare and I read his works for fun in English although English isn't my mother tongue. What I do is I read the play on my Kindle and when I don't know a word I click on it and it gives me a translation from the Oxford Dictionary of English. This is a really cool and useful option some E - books have (at least Kindle Touch does) and an easy way to read Shakespeare.
My absolute favorite is Hamlet! I love it so much, I love watching it with David Tennant as Hamlet too!! It's the best(:
I've read MacBeth twice (first time in primary school and second time in secondary school), Othello once (in secondary school), and King Lear once (in 6th form). I've also seen a midsummer nights dream but didn't really think much of it. That was when I was young in primary school though so that might have been why). Oh, I've also read certain scenes from The Tempest but didn't really like that either, although that may have been because of the teacher and the fact that we were actually performing the scenes. Had it been a tragedy I think I would have preferred it. I do prefer the tragedies just because there's a definite story arc to them. With the comedies I just found them to be a little bit wishy-washy. My favourites are: King Lear because I studied that the most in depth and I had a really good teacher who let us read the roles. He was Lear, I was Kent etc. That just got us all involved, which was great. Then Othello, because again my teacher (a different teacher) was awesome and we watched a TV film of it, which I can remember really helping me to understand it. Then Macbeth, just because it's the tragedy that everyone knows. I also got to see this live at secondary school, which was fun.
I can't remember if macbeth was one of shakespeare's works or not
it is
@@thatskums that what I'm asking you for it is or is it not one of his own works because i don't remember if it is or not
In the UK were encouraged to use the Oxford School Schakespeare editions which are very good editions :) they have notes, annotations and pictures which are really helpful :D - sorry just wanted to throw that out there. And my favourites are King Lear and Romeo & Juliet.
I studied it over 5 years ago as well.
When it comes to a complete works, I personally tend toward the New Oxford Shakespeare: Modern Critical Edition, which is the most recent Complete works to come out. I like it for 3 main reasons.
First is the good amount of footnotes. A lot of them are to explain the text & meanings of words, but some footnotes serve to describe the onstage action, which is a nice bonus.
Second is the sheer quantity of it. The New Oxford Shakespeare lists an extensive 45 plays in the contents, printing the full texts of 40, partial texts of 3, and brief accounts of 2. The Complete Works that comes closest to this quantity is the Arden Shakespeare, at 39 full plays, and the Oxford Shakespeare second edition, with 43 plays (41 full, 2 brief accounts).
I'm not a native English speaker but I really want to read shakespeare in the language that it's written... So I'm definitely gonna stick with no fear shakespeare books
Same here
Tell me where to get shakespeare's books with modern english rendering .Im waiting lady .Tell me .Thks.
You can read his works for free on spark notes, or buy the physical editions. It’s called No Fear Shakespeare, and it has the original text on the left and the modern translation on the right.
Titus Andronicus is, by far, my FAVORITE Shakespearean play! I am so happy to hear someone else talk about Shakespeare with enthusiasm as it was my concentration in college. Love Shakespeare!!
❤️❤️❤️
Thank you for this video ! It's so helpful!
This was suuuper helpful! I'm currently trying to read Romeo and Juliet and it's definitely difficult to read, but I might purchase one of the books you mentioned!
Breathe
Much ado about nothing is soo great
so glad I found this ❤❤ THANK YOUUUUUUUUU
I've read Romeo and Julliet, A Midsummer's Night Dream, and now currently reading Jullius Caeser. All of these are for school. I'm really not like Jullius Caeser haha, talk about a snoozefest😂
If you are familiar with the King James Bible then Shakespeare is easier to read. Elizabethan English is very beautiful and once you get used to it is not so difficult. I love The Tempest, A midsummer Night's Dream, and As You Like It. The tragedies of Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet are among my favorites. Check out performances at your local colleges and universities. The plays become more meaningful when they are performed. There are also DVD's of plays from the Stratford Festival in Canada and the Globe Shakespeare in England available on Amazon for reasonable prices.
The only Shakespeare play I've read is "Romeo and Juliet" when I was in 9th grade. We read it from a text book and, IDK why, but I thought it would just be dry and depressing and impossible to understand. Surprisingly, I actually understood most of the writing before the teacher would explain it and found it to be ridiculous and hilarious and still tragic in the end (just not the type of tragic I was expecting).
I've really only read twelfth night in seventh grade... I'm going to read Romeo and Juliet soon for school. You should read twelfth night!!! It's kind of like a comedy
Hello Hailey I live in Australia and I actually read a midsummer nights dream for school (I’m in grade 10) and I’m planning on reading othello for fun
Did you read any of Jane Austen' books ?? Please tell me which one should I start??
I love the No Fear Shakespeare editions, I used it to read Romeo & Juliet (my first and only read Shakespeare so far) and at the end I really felt like I understood Shakespeare's language so much better! Great video! :D
Hey Hailey! Love your videos. They inspire me to read more.
Can you please make a video about Jane Austen books for beginners.😊
I love Beatrice and Benedict's love/hate relationship in Much Ado About Nothing. Definitely in my top three Shakespeare plays
Hey great video. Was wondering where you nabbed the little shakespeare bust in your thumbnail?
Have you read Ophelia by Liza M. Klein and Macbeth by her too
Read Macbeth I'm in 12th grade and we just started reading that one
We just finished Romeo and Juliet yesterday. This came just a little late 😂
This is a brilliant video and super helpful! I will start university this year, English lit. This is going to be so useful!
I only read MxBeth but that was in grade 8, and that was a long time ago.
you have motivated me to read king liar and the marchent of Venus , I think I'll read them soon
Thanks a lot Hailey for guiding me on the canon of Shakespeare!
If I read all of these books, will I be able to speak like Shakespeare?
Wow that's brilliant, thank you so much!
My MA included a concentration in British Renaissance Literature, so I have read a fair amount of Shakespeare. Midsummer Night's Dream will likely always be my favorite though; I read it for the first time my freshman year of high school. My favorite tragedy is Hamlet, though Romeo and Juliet is a close second. I think that Corialanus may be my favorite history.
+Jayna Lascaibar Oh, and a fun text for Shakespeare academics is Filthy Shakespeare www.amazon.com/Filthy-Shakespeare-Shakespeares-Outrageous-Sexual/dp/1592404014 It is a nice light read. Some of her thoughts and tranliterations may be a stretch, and I think translating it ruins the beauty as we still use puns today. However, it is fair food for thought.
Amazing amazing amazing.
What is your opinion on his sonnets?
Awesome!
Thanks a lot :)
Great video!!
The no fear Shakespeare people also made a modern translation of the Scarlet Letter which my English teacher gave me and helped a lot!
And I love that you are encouraging people to use tools - getting help doesn't mean you're stupid, in fact the opposite, it means that you are smart and resourceful!! :)
Great video :D
The Tempest is my favourite!