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"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Do you need to know specialized vocabulary to understand that?
"'Tis but thy name that is my enemy:
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? It is nor hand nor foot,
Nor arm nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O be some other name!
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
and for thy name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself."
Is "tis" really such a confusing word? Or Thy? I can understand doff, but that is one word.
"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to..."
"O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times."
I am not trying to be rude or snarky. I just don't think you need to understand everything in Shakespeare to get what's going on in the plot, or to be able to appreciate the beauty, power, and mastery of the language without the aid of actors and directors. It does not really require any specialized vocabulary, except for thou and thee and tis, but are those words really that difficult to understand? He writes in the same language that you and I speak and write in. Sure, there are words in Shakespeare that you do not know, but what book contains no words that you will never have to look up? Is the ability to use a dictionary a lost skill? The best way to learn new words, to expand your vocabulary, and therefore your mastery of the language, is through reading. It is just pure laziness that students don't want want to read something because it "has a lot of big words."
Additionally, school is not supposed to be fun or easy. Should students not be taught math because it is hard? Biology? Physics? Chemistry? Foreign languages? Computers? Why is English the only subject that is supposed to be all fun and games? If anything, it should be the most challenging and demanding subject, since it is the one subject that we will use for the rest of our lives, and since language is the fundamental way we communicate with others.
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