Quote:
Originally Posted by JD Gumby
Have you ever actually read untranslated (ie, exactly as it's written in the original manuscripts - no updating the spelling or grammar to modern norms, as you find in many texts, especially those aimed at English class) Shakespeare? Not an easy task, for most people. It's not nearly as bad as untranslated Chaucer, of course, but still bad enough.
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Yes; I have the Norton facsimile edition of the First Folio (expensive, but worth every penny), and you're right, for a modern reader it is hard to read at first. But let's not confuse Elizabethan printing with Elizabethan language; virtually all modern editions of Shakespeare use modern printing conventions and spellings. Nobody's suggesting that the First Folio should be used in schools.