WHY+FEAR+SHAKESPEARE?

Hello Our main worries for Shakespeare are that we won’t be able to understand the language he uses. The words that he uses and the way he uses them are a “new” concept to us. They are made for an audience that would have understood them many years ago. This kind of old text that we don’t understand will be detrimental to our mark if we don’t comprehend what Shakespeare is trying to get across to his readers. Other than the 400 year difference in language we don’t find Shakespeare to be all that frightening. Shakespeare has a unique grasp on how to end a book tragically but yet make his readers more interested. His characters have deep personalities and inner struggles that we both feel are somewhat relatable not only to us personally but in a wider societal way. The personalities of characters seem real and not fictionalized. Overall we don’t have much fear of Billy Da Shakes other than the language barrier and are welcoming to the intricate plot of Hamlet.
 * Fears of Shakespeare **

**FEARS OF SHAKESPEARE**
Why we fear and do not like Shakespeare? Firstly, we are unable to understand Shakespearean. It is not modern English, especially for those whose first language is not english, we could not understand at all, even guess what is that means. I believe that Shakespearean helps little in improving english. It just likes classical Chinese, historic and outstanding but useless for daily lifes. So also, Shakespearean is useless, we do not use Shakespearean anymore, and there are a lot of grammar mistakes in Shakespearean. When reading novel "the kite runner" or watching a TV show, I can get many living catch phrases which are helpful. What about Shakespeare's? Throughout what we have learned, it does not make sense both writing or reading. That is why we do not like Shakespearean.


 * By Gillian & Vincent**


 * __ FEAR OF SHAKESPEARE __**
 * By: Toma and Jackie **

We decided that our fear of Shakespeare comes from the fact that it is difficult to understand the language of the text. Although the books are written in English, it is old and dated English that we don’t speak in today’s society. Not being able to fully understand what you are reading is intimidating to us, because it makes it harder to get a good understanding of the book’s plot. When you don’t understand the book, it makes doing projects, essays, and tests a lot more difficult. It also involves us as readers to do more research and comprehension exercises to get a better understanding of the text. Not only is the old English used in Shakespeare plays hard to understand, but it is also hard to read, when we read out loud as a class. Students often read slower and more monotone when reciting because the language is very different than how we are used to speaking. The language of these texts is the reason for our fear of Shakespeare.


 * Fears of Shakespeare**
 * By Eden Filonov and Brittany Danishevsky**

We are not fond of Shakespeare because Shakespeare doesn’t use modern English, we are unable to relate to the story line, and the stories are often tragic. A compilation of these factors is what makes Shakespeare unappealing to read and analyze for our generation. In a society where friends are addressed as buddies, homies, bros, etc, using fellow, gentleman, uncle and other terms as such, to address friends is confusing and unnecessary. Therefore, the type of language used in Shakespeare is one of the reasons why we are not appealed to it. Further, though the themes of Shakespearean stories, such as love and betrayal, are common themes in today’s day too, the story line in which they are presented is very unrealistic in today’s time, therefore making it harder for teens to truly appreciate the concepts presented. An example of this is Romeo and Juliet. A common love story theme presented with royal family feuds, unrealistic potions and tragic suicides, all concepts that teens today cannot even come close to relating to. Lastly, it is known to most that Shakespeare’s stories are sad. Stories like Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, etc all end dreadfully with death. The unhappy endings make these stories unappealing to most modern teens. In conclusion, Shakespeare’s stories often do not reach out to todays youth due to the language barriers, the farfetched story-lines, and the distressing endings.

// What we dislike and like about Shakespeare //

What we dislike about Shakespeare is the difficulty in understanding the meaning of the words used by the author. There is never a happy ending, because the stories always end in tragedy. Some parts of the play are too long. There are a lot of hidden messages in his words. We like how the story is written in a play form which you can act out. The placement of time and place are very sophisticated. All of Shakespeare’s play have good moral story. We also like how Shakespeare can combine comedy, tragedy, romance and history all at once.

By Anahit and Tricia

**What we fear and or dislike about Hamlet**
In regards to the play Hamlet, I feel that I would be very ambivalent towards it. Tragedy to me isn’t a big deal, and a tragic play would feel a bit…unmoving. I much prefer his comedies, and to have read a fantastic comedy just to read an over-bearing “classical” tragedy, would just bore me. I don’t mean to sound rude, but Hamlet just doesn’t seem like the kind of play that would interest me. Maybe if it were more of a horror instead of a tragedy, I would warm up to it. For now, I’ll just bear through it.

As for me, I don’t really like Hamlet nor do I look forward to studying the play. It’s not as interesting or engaging as his other plays, like //A Midsummer’s Night Dream//, for example. In fact, I fear I might just get bored and annoyed with it because of the fact that its genre is not my cup of tea and because it’s overanalyzed, too. Every aspect of the play doesn’t have to have a deep meaning behind everything the characters have done or have said. On certain occasions I truly believe Shakespeare meant what he wrote and did not have a profound underlying message we’re meant to uncover. I’m fine with personal interpretations, but I dislike having to find a “hidden message” the author might’ve had. He probably didn’t have one.

By: Tamika and Edna.


 * Why we fear Shakespeare**
 * //By: Iosif Karolinski & Austin B. Singh//**

Tragedy seems to be abundant within the writings of Shakespeare. This isn’t always a good thing. His writings seem to create a depressing majority and it does not appeal anymore to readers as it used to. In our modern day society not as many people can relate to the different stories. For example the grace he tries to put between the love affair between a 13 year old girl and a 17 year old boy does not have that tragic luster anymore. In the present time we regard this as foolish teen drama and put it in MTV shows. The old English tends to confuse readers and forces them to lose the context of the story and interest. The absence of personal experience and insightful depth within the characters leaves the reader with a lack of knowledge and deep interest. Overall, although Shakespeare has written many classic and “great” plays in his time, the venerable essence of his writing has lost its touch and does not appeal to teenage readers any longer.

We are awesome YEAHHHHHH


 * Why I hate Shakespeare.**

William Shakespeare, A man known for writing dozens of plays in the 16th century, which to this day people argue that it is quiet possible he didn’t write them, is an affect on its own. The affect William Shakespeare’s work has is quite simple; it starts off with either a small amount of happiness or sorrow, and build up false hope that the book’s protagonist(s) will be successful and happy in the end of it. Instead, about 80% through, all hell goes to shit, everyone dies and no one is happy in the end. You walk out of it saying “Oh, what a sad ending.” And not just once, but this happens every. Single. Goddamn, Time. Practically every piece of Shakespeare’s work is under this affect. It so simple and similar it’s frustrating to call him a play writer. It’s like getting picked up for writing 5 different novels, and they all include a young male who loves a young female, but their parents are malicious and ripple a tide of trouble through their love, until one of them goes crazy, gets themselves killed, and the other can’t bare the pain, and dies fighting out of hatred and frustration. Just with a different setting, different character names, and in one there’ll 3 bat-shit crazy witches. They’ll write a thesis off of it, call me brilliant, say I’m the future of our generation for writing, and you know why? Because they like to read about failure and broken dreams. Because to them, their lives are filled with failure and broken dreams. Because they’re miserable and try relating their lives to these petty situations, saying that its how they feel about themselves. Don’t believe me? Twilight.
 * By Francisco**

Did you know Shakespeare has made over 3,000 words, specificaly to describe his thoughts and feelings in his works and the fact is that we still use lots of those words today. There are over 29,000 different vocabulary in his works. The problem is that many words have shifted meaning over the time and they don't have the same meaning as they would have in Shakespearean times.This is something that makes it much more difficult to follow for people who live in 21st century. Sometimes Shakespeare has changed the structure of the sentences to make the language sound better because it was somehow more important than the logic of the secntence structures at that time. This language that commonly called Shakespearean or Elizabethan is still the main concern of lots of students and they have difficulties to understand it fluently although it was the language that people would talk at Shakespearean days but the time was like a fload that washed away all those words. Now we don't use them anymore and that is why it is hard to understand Shakespearean language.
 * Shakespeare's Language **

By: Mojtaba, John

Hatred towards Shakespeare There are many reasons to fear and dislike Shakespeare but we shall only indulge ourselves in two; it’s difficult for high school students to fully understand and capture the meanings and significance of Shakespearian plays, and majority of the students have trouble acting the plays out, which greatly affect their grades, and therefore it doesn’t make sense to learn about Shakespeare in high school, if the students don’t truly appreciate the plots. Also Shakespeare’s plays have all been played out. For example the lion king is pretty much the same story as Hamlet, therefore the stories has already been seen. These are the main to reasons as to why we dislike Shakespeare.

by: Mahad steven keivan



First and foremost, we fear Shakespeare in terms of his language. In his time, they still used Old English which makes it harder for us to understand since we now live in a modern world, therefore modern language. Moreover, most of the language he used doesn’t really exist in the dictionary. As of his time, dictionaries had not been invented yet which then led him to make up his own words. Secondly, tragedy is a genre not likeable by teenager. Teenagers usually like comedy and romance. But for Shakespeare’s work, it is usually ended by death and sadness. By: Erika & Cindy.
 * Why do we fear Shakespeare?**