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hearts of many youngsters. However, surely not an alternative for more in-
there are several ways through which depth scrutiny of the text but can be
we can reduce the language barrier an effective tool for complementary
between the readers and activity. It would help the students to
Shakespeare’s greatest works so that understand the emotions, characters,
they can appreciate the beauty of the plots, and sub-plots of the script.
collection. Some of the methods are Shakespeare inspired scores of artists
discussed here ─ and writers and nearly all of his plays
have been adapted to films. They
Dive into Shakespeare’s would inspire the students to explore
dialect more.
First and foremost in the process of Wake Up the Actor in You
making Shakespeare familiar is to
understand his vocabulary. We cannot
understand a language without
learning the alphabet. In the same
way, we cannot get closer to
Shakespeare if we don’t understand
his vocabulary. At the very beginning,
it is important to draw attention to
some vital grammatical differences
between Shakespeare’s time and ours.
For example, in Early Modern The third way to understand the
English, the language Shakespeare world of Shakespeare is to enact it!
used in his works, there were many With the life we live in, it’s easy to
different ways of saying ‘you’. When overlook the fact that most of the
used as the subject of a sentence, it audience, in Shakespeare’s time were
would be ‘thou’ (for example, I do illiterate. His words were written to be
wish thou were an animal), but when performed and watched not to be
placed as the object of a sentence, read and analysed in textbooks. When
they would state ‘thee’ (for example, I we enact his plays or read the
might love thee, girl). dialogues and monologues, we reach
Movies to make it fun the depth of the character and the
plot which isn’t possible while simply
Who likes to go through dreary,
insipid, black and white books which reading the text.
are not entertaining at all! To pique
the interest for Shakespeare, the Contemporary English in
second step could be to watch a tango with Shakespearean
cinematic adaptation of one of English
Shakespeare’s best works. This
method is sure to create interest and The fourth method to cope up with
Shakespearean language is to use
help in appreciating the plot. It is
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