Where can I find explained and commented of the "Romeo and Juliet" tragedy?
Hello there,
I'm recently reading William Shakespeare masterpieces such as "Romeo and Juliet" and "Hamlet" but I find rather difficult to understand the language. Is there a freely available resource on internet about his works properly explained for foreign speakers like me? I don't need a translation in my language, just a step by step guide embedded in the text explaining sentences like "thou art"(you are) or similar(yes I know that such short ones may be found in the vocabulary but that doesn't fit for long archaic sentences).

I reckon there must be some collaborative free project like that since those works are long ago out of any copyright law. So far I only found them in the gutenberg.org project, but no explanatory comment is attached there.

Question

Where can I find explained and commented of the "Romeo and Juliet" tragedy?
Hello there,
I'm recently reading William Shakespeare masterpieces such as "Romeo and Juliet" and "Hamlet" but I find rather difficult to understand the language. Is there a freely available resource on internet about his works properly explained for foreign speakers like me? I don't need a translation in my language, just a step by step guide embedded in the text explaining sentences like "thou art"(you are) or similar(yes I know that such short ones may be found in the vocabulary but that doesn't fit for long archaic sentences).

I reckon there must be some collaborative free project like that since those works are long ago out of any copyright law. So far I only found them in the gutenberg.org project, but no explanatory comment is attached there.

Answer

Watch Zefferelli's Romeo & Juliet & the more recent version starring Leonardo di Caprio. There is also one about Hamlet too. For notes on these plays google; student notes on Hamlet & Romeo & Juliet & you'll find a lot of information.

Answer

Now there's a toughie.  And here's where I drop the bomb:  Most native English speakers can't understand Shakespeare.  The language of his time was ornate, sophisticated, and contained references that baffle some scholars today (Who the hell was Yorick anyway?).  Your best bet is to get an annotated edition in English.  The plain English will be on one side of the page, the Shakespearean English on the other.

It's a funny coincidence that you mention "Hamlet".  My wife and I saw the film "Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead" last night.  It's an existentialist comedy on the two minor characters in Hamlet.  That, too, was difficult to understand.  The crux of it, I suppose, is that life---like plays---only has one ending: death.  And this affects everyone, from kings and queens and dukes to nobodies like Rosencrantz and Gildenstern.  Not an uplifting film or a date movie but worth watching all the same.

Answers · 2

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