The Trader of Italy: The Merchant of Venice

Thus, far I have been reading online with No Fear Shakespeare. I really enjoy reading this way digitally because it breaks the text up on the page that for some reason is appealing to me-- not sure why. They just seem to put the perfect amount of text on the page. And when I read on the computer, I have to be able to physically/digitally highlight the text which this site allows; so it is perfect for my weird necessity to be able to follow with my eyes. But what I like about the No Fear is that it has what they call their modern translation side by side. This is nice for when i read the same lines seven times and dont know what i just read and then i can read the "modern" right to the side.

But this post was originally one and has turned into two. While researching for my next post (which i am really excited about), I found Mike LoMonico's blog post "Shakespeare…in other words." 


Mike talks about the use of "translated" Shakespeare sources and their use specifically in a high school setting. The first thing that he points out that I think is so true and so interesting (and which may be something interesting to research) is why Shakespeare is so commonly translated but not other complicated, thick language literature like Dickens, Hawthorne, Melville, or Fitzgerald for example. 


He then goes on to say that students shouldn't have need for a translation if Shakespeare is taught in "in an active, performance-based approach." Which I think this is so true and takes me back to my Macbeth vs my Romeo Juliet experiences. 


The most interesting and true thing that he pointed out is the fact that the translations take away from the beauty of the language. You lose all of the things that Shakespeare is known for and why he is famous when you straight read the translations. 


I think that yes Shakespeare's plots and complexity of the stories are very amazing and definitely admirable but  I feel like he is really known for his language and the actual words and that is what people think about with him.  


So that brings up the question if these translations should completely be done away with? Should annotations be the only source for better understanding in reading? 


I personally feel like the modern texts can be a great resource. But if you read all of the comments with the article about how it is good for students to get the idea when they dont understand the language but then students should have Shakespeare scaffolded (broken into baby steps for better understanding) to them --everyone makes wonderful comments and arguments which all are very valid. 


For now, this almost makes me want to completely not use the translations as a help but then i feel like if you use then as an annotation of type of resource it is good. 

I dont know. This feels like an English teacher's moral battle. I probably should have made a vlog of this topic and I still may. So be on the look out for that.