Understand Shakespeare Like a Pro

“Understand Shakespeare? Won’t that require years of training and lots of specialized knowledge?,” you may wonder out loud. If you think that learning to read and understand Shakespeare is difficult, you are not alone. Many people think that they could never learn to understand Shakespeare. Although many of us study Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets in schools, and plenty of us see his work performed on stage and in movies, few people who are not professional actors, accomplished scholars, or theatre directors feel that they can truly understand Shakespeare. The Renaissance vocabulary his characters use is unfamiliar to modern ears, the social structure of royalty in his plays is difficult to grasp, and the formal verse rhythms present in much of his work can look and feel very strange. Luckily, there are some very easy techniques that will help you learn to understand Shakespeare.

Professional actors often need to understand Shakespeare in a hurry during an audition, or when preparing for a rehearsal. These actors have learned a whole host of tricks and techniques that can help them figure out what it happening in a Shakespeare scene even when they don’t know anything about the plot of the play or who the characters are. By learning some of the easy tricks that professional actors use to understand Shakespeare, you can get much more out of reading or watching his plays. In addition, many students find that they get better grades in English and Drama classes once they learn a bit about how to understand Shakespeare. Learning to read and understand Shakespeare is a skill that can serve you well in many facets of your life, and the easiest way to start is by learning about “you” and “thou.”