Why do English audiences have so much trouble with Shakespeare?

The whole world is a stage, but the irony is that the rest of the world understands William Shakespeare better than English speakers.

Thanks to frequently updated translations with archaic Renaissance language, foreign audiences often find the Bardo easy to follow.

Take, for example, “King Lear,” a new version that premiered last week at the Comedy Franchise in Paris.

In the original opening scene, the Earl of Kent reacts to his exile by saying, “Sid, would you appear, Liberty lives here, and exile is here.” »

The new French version translates as: “This is how you want to appear, freedom is elsewhere, exile is here”, a phrase too simple for modern ears.

Olivier Cadiot, who wrote the new translation, said his work was “like removing the varnish from a portrait to make something a little fresher, not like making something vulgar and modern, but stripping it a little to make it more alive.”

The main thing is “fluidity and precision”, he told AFP, but couldn’t resist happy moments, such as translating the famous phrase “every inch is a king” into the current “total royal”.

“The danger is real”

In English, many would consider playing with a bard a sacred act.

Protests erupted when the Oregon Shakespeare Company began translating his plays into contemporary English in 2015 (“The danger to Shakespeare is real,” a petition raged).

But that leaves many average viewers unable to understand the world’s most performed playwright.

“The English-speaking public is at a loss as the language evolves and drifts away. They require footnotes, props and staging to understand them,” says George Washington University Shakespeare scholar Alexa Ailes Zubin.

Indeed, a 2016 study by the British Council and YouGov found that Shakespeare is seen as more relevant in many non-English-speaking countries than at home.

Overall, 36% of UK respondents said they did not understand Shakespeare, compared to 25% elsewhere.

Drop in the flag

This is important because difficult language can obscure important and relevant discussions in their work on topics such as race, social hierarchies and the legitimacy of leaders, said Ruben Espinoza, a Bard expert at Arizona State University.

“There’s a lot of cultural relevance,” he said. “But the language is so complex that people waste a lot of time.

“If we want to hold it sacred and leave it as it is, it will be a dying job on the vine. »

Other countries do not have this problem.

In Germany and France, popular versions by François-Victor, son of Goethe and Victor Hugo, are still in use, but modernized translations continue to appear.

The same is true in Japan, where early versions (a 19th-century version of “The Merchant of Venice” was titled “Fragile as a cherry blossom in a silver world”) used Japanese archaism to reflect Shakespeare’s style. , but changed several times.

‘Spirit of Fever’
Some say too much is lost in modernization.

Emotions are rooted in the composition of words, researcher James Shapiro explained in The New York Times. Macbeth’s speeches were “deliberately stiff; Shakespeare caught a feverish spirit in the work.”

But others argue that Shakespeare’s universally popular plays are more powerful without original lyrics.

“There’s something inherent in the character and the way the stories are told that’s iconic and unique,” Zubin said.

“Romeo and Juliet” is most famous, he says, not only because of the language but because of its fast pace, unusual for a tragedy.

Jubin thinks that Shakespeare himself would have approved the updated versions.

“I highly doubt he’s saying you can’t modernize my works,” he said. “He himself modernized the English language for the Renaissance era. »