In high school, reading Shakespeare’s plays can often be a dreaded right of passage. However, it doesn’t have to be painful. While there will always be a learning curve, it’s much easier when you go in with a strategy. To that end, here are ten tips to help you read Shakespeare (and maybe even enjoy it).
#1: Read It Aloud
Shakespeare’s plays were meant to be performed. They weren’t meant to be read like novels. When you sit there and read everything in your head, you’re only getting half of what he intended you to get. That’s why, even if it might seem silly, it really helps to read it aloud as you go. This will help you not only to understand, but also to differentiate between verse and prose, and to get an idea of how it might have sounded when being performed.
#2: Read a Summary Beforehand
The first thing I always recommend to my students when reading difficult works is to read a summary beforehand. This means both an overall synopsis and a scene-by-scene summary. Why? It helps to guide your reading. It’s much, much easier to tackle the difficult language when you already know what’s supposed to happen. Knowing the plot points allows you to piece together what tricky lines mean, and it keeps you from getting too overwhelmed.
Most versions, especially those used in schools, will have a brief summary at the beginning of the book and on the left page at the beginning of a scene. Utilize these!
The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust also has a brief synopsis of each of his plays, which you can find here.
#3: Take It Line by Line
The truth is that reading classics, especially when it comes to works with old language like Shakespeare’s plays, takes time and energy. If you try to attack it by skimming through it like you would with a regular novel, you’re going to get frustrated extremely quickly.
First, rest assured that this happens to everyone. It doesn’t mean you’re stupid or behind. It just means that you’re developing a new skill.
Second, the solution to this is to take it line by line. Again, read it aloud and really focus on what you’re reading. Don’t look at the whole page. Just look at the lines in front of you and parse out the meaning. Once you feel comfortable with them, move onto the next ones.
If you feel overwhelmed by the text and have trouble taking it one line at a time, I recommend trying a “reading ruler” or guided reading strip. I have an example of what it looks like linked here. This has been exceptionally useful for my students, especially those with ADHD and dyslexia, as it blocks out everything except for the line they are focusing on, thus reducing visual noise and making it easier to concentrate.
#4: Get an Annotated Version of the Play
Most versions are annotated to begin with. Usually, this will be the notes on the left page of the book, while the play itself is on the right page. This really, really helps.
I know that the temptation is to skip over them and only read the play itself. I get it. It’s already a high mental load, you probably have other things to do, and it will only take longer. However, if you really want to understand the play–and be prepared–I highly recommend reading the notes.
Generally, they will give you the following:
- Translations of specific lines on that page
- Summaries
- Definitions
- Explanations of allusions
- Stage directions to help you visualize how the play is supposed to look when performed
- Any other notes to help you understand the context and the content of the play
While you don’t necessarily need to read each in detail, be sure to skim and focus on the things you weren’t able to figure out by reading the text yourself.
#5: Try to Find the Play on YouTube
If reading it aloud to yourself isn’t enough, following along as you watch the play is an excellent option. Like I mentioned before, Shakespeare’s plays were meant to be performed, not read. When you read the play, you’re missing so much: how the stage is set up, the costumes, the movements of the characters, what everyone looks like, what props they might be holding, the intonation as they deliver certain lines, etc.
That’s where YouTube comes in. You need to make sure they’re faithfully following the play, but it helps you to not only understand what’s happening, but to also train your ear for the language and imagine what it would have looked like back in Shakespeare’s day.
#6: Make Sure You Understand the Context
This is always one of my favorite things to do with students, because it truly makes a difference.
Before you read Shakespeare–or any other author, for that matter–you need to have a basic familiarity with the setting in which the piece was written, as well as the setting in which it took place. It also helps to have some background on the author’s life, given that their own life events often influence their writing.
Why?
Jumping into a piece of literature without understanding the context is like starting a show halfway through. You might understand what’s happening, and you can piece some things together, but you won’t get the full picture.
Think about it in literature. If you don’t know the genre, it’s hard to know how the work fits into it. If you don’t know what was happening at the time it was written, you probably won’t understand not only some of the references, but also why they are so important. Similarly, if the author sets the work in a different time or place, knowing the context allows you to understand the significance of this.
When you read Shakespeare, some useful context might include the following:
- Where his plays were performed
- Drama in the Elizabethan Era
- A brief history and cultural overview of the Elizabethan Era
- Shakespeare’s life story
This is a brief overview, but it helps to dive in even deeper! If you want some quick context, here are some good places to start:
- Theatrefolk: Put Shakespeare in Context
- Folger: Shakespeare’s Theater
- Gold Standard Academy: Shakespeare’s World: Understanding the Elizabethan Era for Better Text Analysis (historical and cultural context–very useful!)
- Bell Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s England
- Shakespeare’s Globe: The Globe (context on the theater)
- Folger: Shakespeare’s Life
#7: Annotate as You Go
Annotation is what will take you from reading the text to understanding it. Think of it like your roadmap through literature. You signal things that you don’t understand or want to come back to. You identify important themes, quotes, and literary devices that later become markers for you. And as you do all of this, you get a better lay of the land.
Annotation turns reading from a passive activity into an active one. It allows you to interact with the text. Especially when reading a difficult passage, like those in Shakespearean works, it’s easy to drift off, feel defeated, and shut down. When you are a part of the activity, you’re forced to actually think about what you’re reading, and it turns into a sort of scavenger hunt.
A Brief Overview of Annotation
When annotating, you want to mark the most important parts of the text for yourself. This can look like…
- Underlining/highlighting key ideas, important pieces, characterization, etc.
- Making notes in the margins: summarizing key ideas, asking questions, expressing doubts
- Circling unknown words
- Putting a star next to important passages
- Writing summaries at the end of each chapter/scene
- Keeping track of which characters are in each scene
This is by no means a definitive list, but rather a basic example of what annotation includes. While most teachers will explicitly teach you how to annotate text, it’s also a skill you can refine on your own. Here are a few resources to help you start:
- UNC Chapel Hill: Annotating Texts
- Cult of Pedagogy: The Art of Annotation (a guide for teachers, which is a great look behind the scenes for students)
- Loomis: Annotation Guidelines
#8: Don’t Be Afraid to Reread
I mentioned taking it line by line above. Rereading goes hand in hand with that. It is extremely unlikely that you will understand everything in one go. Part of literature is knowing that you will need to reread to deepen your understanding.
Think of it like watching a TV show. The first time you watch it, you’re focused on the plot. The second time, maybe you notice some things in the dialogue that you didn’t notice before. The third time, you might pick up on some quirky gestures. The fourth time, you probably start looking at the background. It’s extremely difficult to pay attention to all of those things at once. That’s why it helps to look over it again.
#9: Take Advantage of the Resources in Your Book
Usually, your book will contain resources beyond the footnotes. They can be extremely useful to your understanding.
Most books have a foreword in which they give you some context and a synopsis of the story. They might also include a timeline, a list of themes and where they appear (extremely helpful for anyone writing an essay), a brief analysis, and a glossary. Every book should contain a list of characters and scene summaries. Each one is incredibly useful to strengthen your comprehension of the play.
Once again, you don’t have to study these intensely, but you should at least glance over them to help yourself be prepared.
#10: Understand Prose and Verse
I have a post here on understanding prose and verse, complete with examples and when each is used.
Briefly summarized, prose is generally used by lower-class characters and reads like normal text, whereas verse is used by upper-class characters and reads like poetry. Understanding what it looks like, who uses it, why they use it, and what it means will truly help your comprehension of the text when you read Shakespeare, so I recommend reviewing it to go in with confidence.
A Final Word
Learning to read Shakespeare can be like learning a different language. It’s challenging, but with time, you will understand it more and more. Remember that patience is key; skills don’t magically improve overnight, and they take some perseverance to perfect.
If you found this post helpful, you might be interested in the following related posts:
- Understanding Shakespeare: Verse and Prose
- 25 Classics That You Should Read and Why
- Three Questions to Ask While Reading to Understand Literature Better
- Understand Literature Better: Seven Easy Tips
- Eight Tips to Make Reading Dante’s Inferno Easier
- Why It’s Important to Study Literature: Eight Reasons
