/lit/ - Literature

>>4987389
It's difficult, but read it in original.

Verse and characterization are his primary perks. And only one of those can be translated properly.

Shakespeare didn't use Old English.

>>4987389
Read the original. Maybe try student editions, used in secondary schools, which have extensive annotation. That should help some.

Shakespeare used modern English, just an early form. It's tough to get used to reading it (though listening to it is easy to understand, maybe try watching a Shakespeare movie).

There's no point in getting a version in today's language, his stories aren't interesting, he's famous because his writing was so good, a "translated" version would lose all of that and all you'll have left is boring stories about rich people being retarded. There are versions out there with tons of annotations, that might help.

>>4987389
>Shakespeare
>Old English

>>4987507
If Cervantes is Castellano antiguo I guess it's the same...

>>4987519

No, its not. English had more phases than spanish. Shakespear spoke middle english.

>>4987530
no he didn't.
is /lit/ really this dumb?

>>4987389

holy hell, don't even fucking bother reading it in anything other than the original language

>>4987537
>is /lit/ really this dumb?

You have no idea. It's scary to think, but the vast majority of people posting on /lit/ are kids who just took English 101 and read "American Psycho" (or some such other silly book) in their spare time and now consider themselves experts on literature.

I don't think it's coincidental that the moment kids are taught, in school, that starting sentences with "I think..." or "In my opinion...." makes your argument weak is also right around the time their egos inflate beyond all reasonable control.

>>4987574

I think "the vast majority" is a bit of an oversimplification. /lit/ like a lot of the smaller 4chan boards is basically written by a cadre of very frequent posters/long-time readers/all-day-on-4chan shut-ins and a constant throughput of much less frequent posters "from" /b/, /v/, reddit, tumblr, what have you. Once you understand this, /lit/'s schizophrenic "character" as a board (I mean the high degree of elitism and the public fiction that everyone here is smart coupled with shit like "Shakespear spoke middle english") becomes a lot more comprehensible.

I'm not saying the "power users" are all really smart either, just that they mostly think they are. I kind of like this because all the firmly argued nonsense that crops up here makes a communal norm of having the courage of one's convictions, which norm is an excellent honeypot for retards to post retarded shit.

>>4987519

Don Quixote spoke Castellano Antiguo, but everyone else in the book spoke modern Spanish.

>>4987537
>/lit/ is one idiot

>>4987530
>Shakespeare
>Middle English

>>4987389
Shakespeare IS modern English. It'd be a shame not to read him in the original language.

>>4987530

>>4987389
There's no reason to read translated Shakespeare. Reading Shakespeare is easy for "Anglos." There is some vocabulary to take note of in Shakespeare, along with spelling differences, but otherwise Shakespeare is easy to read.

>>4987389
Don't follow the anglo cretins here who all suggest to read the original. They don't understand how difficult it is for a non-native speaker. However, the original version will be approximately twice better than any translation (while the translation itself will "beat" 95 % of Spanish literature).
So, what do? Read a good translation first (19th century translations are usually better than the most modern ones) and read the original afterwards. You'll understand everything, and you'll appreciate much the difference in the original text. Reading Shakespeare while you have difficulties to understand, forcing you to stop every two or three lines, would be terrible -- it is theater, it has to flow.
Probably our dumb anglo friends would advise against attending a Shakespeare play in Spanish?

>>4988536
wrong about everything

if you can't read original shakespeare, you should absolutely read translated shakespeare

shakespeare is difficult

>>4987389
Shakespeare isn't Old English, he's Early Modern English.
Here's old English, specifically the Lord's Prayer:
Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum;

Si þin nama gehalgod

to becume þin rice

gewurþe ðin willa

on eorðan swa swa on heofonum.

urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg

and forgyf us ure gyltas

swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum

and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge

ac alys us of yfele soþlice

(note: the old english "þ" is pronounced hard "th" as in "this" but not "thin.")

>>4987530
I never got why the evolution from Middle English to Modern English happened. I mean, the Anglo-Saxons brought their language and it displaced the Celts, and that's Old English, and then the Normans conquered it and that's Middle English, but what the hell happened for Modern English? Is it just all the commerce and correspondence encouraging linguistic appropriation, all the words formed after Modern English's birth being pidgins, loan words, and Latin/Greek syntheses?

>>4989223
>wrong about everything
Why?
>if you can't read original shakespeare, you should absolutely read translated shakespeare
That's dumb. The rhyme, and blank verse do not translate well, especially considering Shakespeare is written in Early Modern English. Reading translated Shakespeare is a waste of time.

>>4989469
shakespeare is more than his style

>>4989469
>blank verse do not translate well
Blank verse is the most "translatable" of all verses, it's really nothing but rhythmic prose in lines, when you compare it to Icelandic or even French verse...

>Reading translated Shakespeare is a waste of time
Ridiculous statement.

>>4987389
native spanish speaker here.

Im in the same boat, im starting with A midsummer night's dream. Is short and easy to read, but is making my vocabulary wider. Start there.

>>4987389
what do you mean "old english"?
"old english" refers to english before the battle of hastings.

>>4989284
linguistic catastrophicism is bunk

>>4987530
This is Middle English
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emUylNYH8f0

It seems like English evolved as a language much more rapidly than Spanish. I can read Cantar de Mio Cid just fine, but I can only understand The Canterbury Tales in translation – even though it was written 200 years after. Any linguist here to explain why? Is it just the Normans?

>>4989743
spelling of english words has changed dramatically throughout its existence. also no two writings really ever employed the exact same spellings until modernization and nationalism and all that jazz. i suppose the normans had an influence in your confusion but their influences on english made it more aligned to romance/latin languages.

Willy is very hard for native speakers so probably go for an updated translation. As you become familiar with what is going on you can try the original versions.

>>4989743
Read Canterbury Tales out loud, it's basically English with a weird accent and "e's" at the end of stuff.

>>4987389
>Shakespeare
>Old English
>>4987530
>Shakespeare
>Middle English

fuck you all

>old english

>>4989860
Practically it is old English. Just not Old English. And bad imitators, are of course, Olde English.

>>4987507
I think we can all agree that it is English and it is old.
I don't think OP is saying it based on correct English classifications and whatnot that your pretentiousness alludes to.
I just think he's saying that it's English and it's old.

>>4987389
Yeah, it's difficult but imo it's totally worth it. I'm a native Portuguese speaker and it takes me a lot of time to read that too.
The only ones I've read both translated and the original are The Tempest and A Midsummer's Night Dream. Both are way better in the original version.
Anyway, some of his works are short, you can try reading a translation (which you probably will do fast, at least compared to the original) and then read the original and decide if it's worth it or not for you (in case you don't care and think it's not worth it, you can just drop it, you'll probably figure out what you think on the first chapters anyway).

>>4987389
>old english

Shakespeare is Early Modern English. This is Old English:

HWÆT, WE GAR-DEna in geardagum,
þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!
oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas, syððanærest wearð
feasceaft funden; he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum þah,
oð þæt him æghwylc ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan; þæt wæs god cyning!
Ðæm eafera wæs æfter cenned
geong in geardum, þone God sende
folce to frofre; fyrenðearfe ongeat,
þe hie ær drugon aldorlease
lange hwile; him þæs Liffrea,
wuldres Wealdend woroldare forgeaf,
Beowulf wæs breme --- blæd wide sprang---
Scyldes eafera Scedelandum in.
Swa sceal geong guma gode gewyrcean,
fromum feohgiftumon fæder bearme,

>Middle English
Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;


>Modern English
When April's gentle rains have pierced the drought
Of March right to the root, and bathed each sprout
Through every vein with liquid of such power
It brings forth the engendering of the flower;
When Zephyrus too with his sweet breath has blown
Through every field and forest, urging on
The tender shoots, and there's a youthful sun,
His second half course through the Ram now run,
And little birds are making melody
And sleep all night, eyes open as can be
(So Nature pricks them in each little heart),
On pilgrimage then folks desire to start.
The palmers long to travel foreign strands
To distant shrines renowned in sundry lands;

>>4989892
I'm surprised that I actually knew what this was from the first line; probably the only passage of Old English I'd be able to recognize.

Speaking of, check out this article on Tolkien and Beowulf if you have a spare moment: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2014/06/02/140602crbo_books_acocella?currentPage=all

shakespeare basically invented modern english (obviously contemporary english is changing now tho because of the information age)

>>4989284

The big difference is the great vowel shift. The grammar did not change much, nor did the vocabulary generally, but people in 1550 pronounced everything much different than people in 1250.

No one knows the cause for certain, but some say that the black death caused a lot of mobility, both social and geographic, which caused different dialects to get all mixed up, and others say that rich people in England started speaking English and their foreign accents became a prestige dialect.