Shakespeare is well-known now because of his royal patronage but a lot of his writing was for a working-class audience. As such, his writing has a tendency to be full of dick jokes and lowbrow humor that only works in seventeenth century English and does not translate even into twentieth century English. Make absolutely sure you find an annotated version because you are not going to catch any of it unless you are being shown. (For example, there's a rather notorious section of Romeo and Juliet where Juliet spouts multiple pages of condensed innuendo that, to a modern audience, looks like she's lying to her mom about being in love because the joke is that she's finding increasingly elaborate ways to make it into a sex joke but none of the euphemisms she uses are still in use today.)
CrescentCrossbow t1_j28nd0n wrote
Reply to Going to start reading Shakespeare. Any advice? by SnowFlakeObsidian4
Shakespeare is well-known now because of his royal patronage but a lot of his writing was for a working-class audience. As such, his writing has a tendency to be full of dick jokes and lowbrow humor that only works in seventeenth century English and does not translate even into twentieth century English. Make absolutely sure you find an annotated version because you are not going to catch any of it unless you are being shown. (For example, there's a rather notorious section of Romeo and Juliet where Juliet spouts multiple pages of condensed innuendo that, to a modern audience, looks like she's lying to her mom about being in love because the joke is that she's finding increasingly elaborate ways to make it into a sex joke but none of the euphemisms she uses are still in use today.)