Quote:
Originally Posted by spellbanisher
As far as plays and movies, I once read that it was unlikely that even those who lived in Shakespeare's time understood half of what he wrote. His language is not archaic, but poetic, and hence has always been difficult to understand.
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That's somewhat oversimplified, but essentially accurate. Every play has low humor/contemporary slang/slapstick kind of stuff in it as well as the highfalutin poetic language meant to appeal to the aristocracy--he had something to entertain each part of his audience, even if you didn't get one part totally, you could still follow another. But the plot itself would have been accessible enough to those watching the play, since the actors would have been able to get the gist of the scene across no matter what the language/style.