"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more" : Examining The Debate over Modernizing Shakespeare's Language and Exploring Viable Solutions

Abstract

Throughout the decades, the efforts of making Shakespeare’s plays more accessible through translation have often met with significant opposition. Translating plays from Elizabethan-era English to a more contemporary English is not without controversy and sometimes leads to heated debate flare-ups. This paper attempts to explore the ongoing debate through the lens of both education and performance, analyze both sides of the debate for their legitimacy, and offer possible approaches to Shakespeare’s text in the realm of educating students and entertaining audiences.

Full text

"ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH, DEAR FRIENDS,
ONCE MORE”
EXAMINING THE DEBATE OVER MODERNIZING SHAKESPEARE’S LANGUAGE AND
EXPLORING VIABLE SOLUTIONS
B. A. VARGHESE
COPYRIGHT 2021. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
4,281 WORDS
APRIL 5, 2021
ABSTRACT: Throughout the decades, the eorts of making Shakespeare’s plays more accessible
through translaon have oen met with signicant opposion. Translang plays from
Elizabethan-era English to a more contemporary English is not without controversy and
somemes leads to heated debate are-ups. This paper aempts to explore the ongoing
debate through the lens of both educaon and performance, analyze both sides of the debate
for their legimacy, and oer possible approaches to Shakespeare’s text in the realm of
educang students and entertaining audiences.

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Shakespeare is considered by many to be the greatest writer in the English language. His
plays have been translated into more than a hundred languages (including the conal Klingon
language from Star Trek) and have been adapted in many countries, allowing his characters to live
on a global stage. However, Shakespeare’s use of the English language from the Elizabethan era
has become a major stumbling block for readers and viewers alike. This diculty is inherently
evident from students’ experiences in English classes when assigned Shakespeare’s plays or
audiences’ reacons to stage performances that adhere to the play’s original text. Aempts have
been made throughout the decades to make his plays more accessible to each newer generaon.
Eorts to translate the plays into contemporary English oen run into skepcism or signicant
academic opposion. It seems that the most recent are-up of this debate came when in
September of 2015, The Oregon Shakespeare Fesval announced their project called “Play On! 36
Playwrights Translate Shakespeare.” This project would commission thirty-six playwrights to
translate Shakespeare’s plays into modern English for stage performance. Of course, this project
ignited the feud once again, and this me through social media, various magazines, and journal
arcles, individuals voiced their opposion to the translaons as the “dumbing down” of
Shakespeare’s plays for Americans. One way to nd a hopeful soluon or a compromise between
the two sides is to examine this debate discussion and analyze each side's legimacy. With both
educaon and performance in mind, we can discover approaches to handling Shakespeare’s
original and translated text in the realm of educang students and entertaining audiences.
The Oregon Shakespeare Fesval commissioning the translaon project in 2015 is not the
rst me of such request or inquiry to “modernize” the language. According to “‘He shall signify
from me to me’. Romeo and Juliet in modern English” by Dirk Delabasta, in the 1982 volume
of the English Journal, Richard M. Eastman, an English Professor at North Central College, wrote
an arcle and addressed the queson whether it was me to translate Shakespeare into modern
English. He gave “a cauously worded armave answer. [Unfortunately,] this arcle went
largely unnoced” (189). Almost two decades later, this queson was again asked, and
“Translaon Studies scholar Susan Bassne… answered it, but more robustly, in the armave”
(189). A debate soon followed, which sparked controversy, and sides drew bale lines for and
against translang Shakespeare’s plays. Two decades later, The Oregon Shakespeare Fesval
reignites the re of controversy.
However, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a literary historian, argues that unl the late Victorian
era, “Shakespeare’s genius had to be salvaged from the obscure, indecorous, archaic, quibbling
mess of his language. For poets, playwrights, editors, and actors from the seventeenth century
through much of the nineteenth, Shakespeare’s language wasn’t intoxicang so much as
intoxicated: it needed a sobering intervenon” (Pollack-Pelzner). He states that at the end of the
English Civil War (1651), theatres reopened, and Shakespeare’s plays, some now more than y
years old, were out of date. Playwrights were commissioned to polish and even rewrite some
rough parts for performance. They reworked and reimagined Shakespeare’s plays into various
adaptaons throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, this all changed
with the inuence of the German Romancs. They “rebelled against French neoclassical restraint
and cited Shakespeare’s unruliness as a liberang precedent. Brish crics in the nineteenth
century followed suit, celebrang Shakespeare’s capacious characters and poec imaginaon…
Rather than subject Shakespeare to crical standards, Shakespeare became the standard”

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(Pollack-Pelzner). Then during the late Victorian era, English became an academic discipline, and
scholars made it their business to oversee Shakespeare’s plays, focusing more on preserving the
original texts for historical authencity instead of rewring archaic language for stage
performances. Over the decades, the need for textual authencity and reverence to
Shakespeare’s genius in academia may be the reason why most scholars are reluctant to accept
any modern translaon of the plays as adequate in comparison to the sheer poetry of the
original.
One of these voices in opposion to The Oregon Shakespeare Fesval’s commission came
from James Shapiro from Columbia University. In his OP-ED arcle for The New York Times, he
blatantly argues that the project is “a waste of money and talent” and that “it misdiagnoses the
reason that Shakespeare’s plays can be hard for playgoers to follow” (Shapiro). He believes that
the problem lies not with the dicult lines or the use of archaic words, but stems from the
directors, actors, the whole producon team themselves that fail to understand Shakespeare’s
language and the intended meaning of the words he used. He also states that:
To understand Shakespeare’s characters, actors have long depended on the hints of
meaning and shadings of emphasis that he embedded in his verse. They will search for
them in vain in the translaon: The music and rhythm of iambic pentameter are gone.
Gone, too, are the shis — which allow actors to register subtle changes in inmacy —
between “you” and “thee.” Even classical allusions are scrapped.
Shakespeare’s use of resonance and ambiguity, dening features of his language, is
also lost in translaon. (Shapiro)
There is absolute truth in what Shapiro states. There are online resources that translate the plays
for educaonal use, such as No Fear Shakespeare [www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/] and
ShakesCLEARe [www.litcharts.com/shakescleare/shakespeare-translaons]. More and more
students use these resources to understand what is going on in any assigned play to the point of
reading these translaons instead of the original text. The use of these resources should not be
discouraged, but educators should emphasize that such sites should be used as tools to help one
understand the original text and not a complete substute for them. Taking a few lines from any
play and comparing a modern translaon with the original, one can immediately see how a
modern translaon alters the meaning of some of Shakespeare’s intended lines. A quick
examinaon of Macbeth, Act 5 Scene 5 Lines 17-28, can be used as an example of a translaon
altering meaning.
Original Text :
MACBETH
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.
No Fear Shakespeare :
MACBETH
Life is nothing more than an illusion. It’s
like a poor actor who struts and worries for
his hour on the stage and then is never
heard from again. Life is a story told by an
idiot, full of noise and emoonal
disturbance but devoid of meaning.

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This scene takes place as Scosh troops are approaching Macbeth’s castle to aack.
Macbeth also gets news that his wife is dead. In a sense of loss and despair, he speaks one of the
play’s most famous lines. The translaon plainly states the content of Macbeth’s soliloquy. It is
adequate to gain an understanding if the lines of poetry are challenging to grasp. Yet, the
meaning of these lines has altered in their impact. The translaon does not carry the same power
of Shakespeare’s language and word choices. There is a repeon of sounds throughout the lines
– “walking shadow,” “poor player,” “struts and frets...the stage,” “It is a tale told by an idiot,”
“full…fury… signifying” – This poec repeon evokes beauty and force, making the lines hard to
forget.
Most scholars would agree with Shapiro’s posion. Examining various commercial
publicaons that adversed removing the “obstacle” of Shakespeare’s language from his plays,
Maeo A. Pangallo of the University of Massachuses makes the observaon that the
“‘discussions of language’ may be one of the ‘interesng and thought-provoking aspects of
Shakespeare’” and for those publishing modern translaons, “[the plays’] language becomes an
‘obstacle’ to geng at the deeper, idealisc meaning behind the words” (31). Pangallo believes
that these modern English edions of various plays should not be calling themselves
“translaons.” Instead, since there is an alteraon of meaning from the original text, they should
be considered “adaptaons” of the plays. “At the outset of every aempt at translaon, the
translator, recognizing that direct correspondence between source and target languages is
impossible, must idenfy an acceptable objecve for the translaon that accounts for that
compromise in understanding” (31). Anca-Simina Marn at Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu makes
a similar statement regarding Shakespeare’s puns. “[T]hat puns are, more oen than not, an
‘untranslatable stylisc phenomenon’…aempts to render them from one language into another
are doomed to failure” (170). Though Marn’s piece is regarding translang into a foreign
language and how Romanian translators created their own variaon of puns, we can understand
how the humor of the Elizabethan era may not translate as well into a modern English equivalent,
especially with staying faithful to Shakespeare’s original intent.
To get at the heart of what Shapiro, Pangallo, and most scholars are stang, consider this.
Suppose we take a look at Vincent van Gogh’s Café Terrace at Night through the lens of a
grayscale lter (which removes all color). From the painng, with only shades of black and white,
we can see that a brightly lit terrace café is sll serving its patrons well into the night. People
stroll along the street and gaze at the dark buildings beyond or up at the star-lled sky. We know
the locaon, the characters, and the event taking place. Now consider the original with its color:
the bright yellow café, the deep blue buildings, the dark green trees, all against a starry blue sky.
We not only get the locaon, the characters, and the event taking place, but there is depth to the
painng because of its color. More details crash and ood our senses. There are layers that evoke
an emoon or a mood. One gets the sense of wonder that Van Gogh must have felt as he painted
this work of art. It is that loss of wonder and that missing layer of depth that Shapiro and Pangallo
must have felt when reading a modern translaon of Shakespeare’s plays.
Nevertheless, some feel that translaons into modern English are essenal, especially for
modern readers and audiences. John H. McWhorter, an associate professor of English at the same
Columbia University as Shapiro, was one of the more prominent voices that supported The
Oregon Shakespeare Fesval and their translaon project. He has been defending the pro-

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translaon posion since 1998, and there are those in the theatrical side and educaon that
agree with him. In his essay for The Wall Street Journal, McWhorter proclaims, “Yes,
translaons—because Shakespeare’s English is so far removed from the English of [today] that it
oen interferes with our own comprehension” (McWhorter). He connues stang that not only is
Shakespeare’s language hard to understand for the general public, even highly educated people
have diculty fully grasping what exactly Shakespeare is trying to say.
We have been told since childhood that Shakespeare’s words are “elevated” and
that our job is to reach up to them, or that his language is “poec,” or that it takes Brish
actors to get his meaning across. But none of these raonalizaons holds up. Much of
Shakespeare goes over our heads because, even though we recognize the words, their
meaning oen has changed signicantly over the past four centuries (McWhorter).
The essay connues with examples of lines from plays where the words no longer carry the same
meaning as we understand them today, rendering the lines confusing or incomprehensible. Of
course, if we take the me to read notes and carefully study the text, we can gain an insight into
what Shakespeare’s intenons were. However, McWhorter argues that Shakespeare created the
plays for performance and that we are supposed “to hear and understand what’s spoken on the
stage, in real-me… We cannot reach up to a meaning that is no longer available to us”
(McWhorter). He agrees that translang a play will alter the play and may render the play no
longer Shakespeare, but as a society, we should not be sased with these plays only being
meaningful to an elite few while the rest of us just scratch our heads and go along in reverence to
these elists.
Like Shapiro, there is absolute truth in what McWhorter states as well. Translaon into
modern English is not just necessary; it is imperave. Possibly, this “going along in reverence” to
the few elites for generaons has led to a failure among some to understand why Shakespeare is
so great. Some have heard he is a genius but cannot precisely say why. It may explain the
disinterest among students when reading Shakespeare for the rst me, struggling with the
language of his plays and wondering why read his works at all. It may explain why that even
though Shakespeare’s works can speak to us universally and that his plays have mullayered
mulcultural characters, schools and universies are trending toward removing requirements or
the need for Shakespeare classes in the face of a mulcultural and diverse student body that
cannot understand why they should study the works of a dead white man. English majors at some
universies are no longer required to take any dedicated course on Shakespeare. “A 2015 report
from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni found that among 52 elite instuons
surveyed, only four (Harvard, UC Berkeley, the U.S. Naval Academy, and Wellesley College) have
retained such a requirement” (Miura, 45).
Possibly for these reasons (and more), The Oregon Shakespeare Fesval’s commission
comes at a me when a revival of all things Shakespeare is necessary, much like before when the
restored monarchy reopened theatres by the end of the English Civil War. And though this
commission has ared up the debate between those for and against translaon, Bre Gamboa,
an Assistant Professor of English at Dartmouth College, suggests that both McWhorter and
Shapiro are essenally seeking the same thing. Both are suggesng ways to make it easier for the
audience to understand Shakespeare’s language. Whether it is McWhorter who believes that

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Shakespeare’s English should be replaced with modern vernacular understandable to a listening
audience or it is Shapiro who feels that it is the responsibility of the director, the actors, the
producon to carry the meaning and provide clarity of Shakespeare’s lines to a viewing audience,
both “are working to the same ends as Shakespeare’s ‘translators,’ all striving to make the plays
more comprehensible to more people, and all willing to sacrice some complexity and verbal
richness in the pursuit” (Gamboa, 28). Even though Gamboa admires The Oregon Shakespeare
Fesval’s aempt to bring clarity to Shakespeare’s English, he lts toward Shapiro’s opinion
fearing that the purposeful ambiguity of some of Shakespeare’s lines might lose its meaning
when translated or reworked. “And translators may be prone to doing the greatest harm when
they encounter and aempt to clarify the paradoxical language that creates an atmosphere that
both resonates against and naturalizes the presence of the complex characters and situaons at
the plays’ surface” (Gamboa, 30). It may seem that there are more in academia who are against
translaons, and it may also seem that they are aempng to preserve their professional
legimacy, but that cannot be the case. It is evident that they have a sincere love for Shakespeare
and his works, and it may be dicult for them to see how this love has not enrely echoed or has
dwindled with each new generaon. Translaons into modern English, to them, is removing what
is so Shakespeare about his plays. Emphasis must rest on Gamboa’s earlier statements of how
individuals on both sides of the debate are essenally seeking the same thing: a connued
admiraon for Shakespeare as a writer and respect for the art he penned. Those for and against
translaon are just individuals on opposite sides of the street but moving along it in the same
direcon.
For a possible middle ground, Delabasta’s fascinang arcle “‘He shall signify from me
to me’. Romeo and Juliet in modern English” goes into the details of Shakespeare’s language
problems and also provides methods of resoluon. He notes that Shakespeare wrote his plays in
the English language that is now four centuries old. “This historical dialect is usually called Early
Modern English (EME); the same language was used in the hugely inuenal 1611 Anglican Bible
translaon known as the Authorized Version or the King James Bible (KJB)” (192). It is important
to pause and make a note here regarding the King James Bible and its similaries to the
Shakespeare debate. The language in the King James translaon is dicult to understand for new
Chrisan readers, even though the passages carry power and poetry. Early aempts to translate
the Bible into modern English have provided various English translaons for today’s audiences.
There was a moment when individuals from Anglican and Bapst backgrounds insisted that the
King James Bible was the sole and superior translaon of the Bible into English. These individuals
started the King James Bible Only movement, which deemed other English translaons inferior
and corrupt. Those who read the other Bible translaons like the New Internaonal Version or
the New Revised Standard Version were believed to be misled in their faith. It seems that those
who cling to the King James Bible as the only true and pure version have failed to understand the
reason behind the whole process of translang. Translaons of any text are to provide the
original tone and message to a target audience in their language for their comprehension.
Otherwise, the only way for the target audience to understand the original text is to teach them
all the source language and its nuances, which is a much more tremendous undertaking. If the
target audience fails to comprehend the translaon, then is that translaon a failure by its own
denion?

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As an adolescent, I remember reading from the King James Bible. I remember being oen
confused by most passages. Psalm 23 is the most popular of all Psalms, with the rst verse being
the most well-known among Chrisans. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (KJB). That
threw me for a loop. Did I or didn’t I want him to be my shepherd? It was only aer I received the
New Internaonal Version from my father that I fully understood that verse. “The Lord is my
shepherd, I lack nothing” (NIV). Furthermore, today, if I wondered what the original phrase was
before translaon and wanted to explore its deeper meaning, I have resources like the Blue Leer
Bible (hps://www.blueleerbible.org) that includes tools to look up the original Hebrew,
Aramaic, and Greek words. Unlike the King James Bible Only movement, we should not be so
rigid in our mindset against other translaon aempts, especially if the translaon can enlighten
new and younger audiences. The same can be said for translaons of Shakespeare into modern
English. New translaons can enlighten and bring new audiences. Then there will be those from
the new audiences that will engage Shakespeare in his original language for more in-depth
insight. This is vitally crical for Shakespeare to survive for years to come. Otherwise, things of
Shakespeare will go as Delabasta notes what had occurred with Beowulf:
Moving further upstream in the English literary canon, we meet the oral epic
Beowulf from the eighth century, which is composed in Old English, a language that is
today accessible to none save a small circle of specialized philologists and acionados.
Beowulf is very rarely read in the original; (192)
In his arcle, Delabasta connues detailing the dierences between Shakespeare’s English and
modern English language (spelling, punctuaon, pronunciaon, words morphing, syntax,
vocabulary) and then provides various soluons from cung away obscure lines to educang
viewers/readers in becoming procient in Elizabethan English to treang Shakespeare’s language
as a foreign language. The last is by far the most logical since most edions of printed
Shakespeare plays provide footnotes and appendixes for clarity as if Shakespeare’s language is
foreign to the reader. Delabasta spends the rest of the arcle, almost eleven pages, on
translaon as being the viable soluon and oers dierent translaon methods.
Along with translaon, other soluons can be explored, especially for educaon. In an
arcle in Volume 14 of Early Modern Culture, Cassie M. Miura brings to light the trend of a
declining Shakespeare requirement among naonal instuons and suggests that the eld of
Shakespeare study can only survive if it “shows how our work informs and is informed by current
events. Especially as early modern scholars, we need to respond to the world as it is and imagine
how it could be rather than waxing nostalgic for the past” (45). Miura recommends taking
Bardolatry (the worship Shakespeare) as a crical object to be studied and explored. She also
suggests studying canon formaon:
From a student-centered perspecve, I suggest that one way to beer serve rst-
generaon students is to make visible the process of canon formaon alongside our
teaching of canonical works. By this, I mean empowering students to vocalize and
interrogate their own assumpons about Shakespeare within the larger educaonal,
cultural, and arts instuons that have shaped them. (46)
Stephanie Pietros’ arcle in the same volume of Early Modern Culture considers
approaching the study of Shakespeare through problems found in his plays. Because of

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Shakespeare’s status in our culture, even well-prepared students feel inmidated and avoid being
“not smart” in front of other classmates. Pietros’ approach helps “to break down students’ fears
about Shakespeare. The idea that the works of such a ‘great’ writer as Shakespeare have
‘problems,’ whether in form or content, is liberang for students” and “the use of ‘problem’ as a
kind of hermeneuc is one that invites students to reect explicitly on Shakespeare’s cultural
status and ulmately engage more crically with his work” (90).
In the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Miles Harvey, Adrianna Deuel, and Rick
Marla write a fascinang arcle together that discusses how they modernized Shakespeare
through mulmodal learning staons. “Mulmodal instrucon aords students numerous modes
for interacng with texts, construcng meaning from content knowledge, and accomplishing
academic tasks through numerous literacy pracces” (560). This eort was in response to an
online debate where “54% of secondary educators proclaimed the Bard’s me in our schools to
be over” (560). For an eighth-grade classroom, these educators created various staons and
integrated Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, QR codes, videos, and smartphone applicaons
along with tradional, print-based material to create opportunies for students to engage with
Shakespeare’s complex texts in ways that reect their socially and technologically situated
idenes. Aer analyzing their collected data of the results and responses, it was encouraging
that the students expressed excitement and curiosity to engage with the learning staons. It
seems that technology acted as the “translator” of Shakespeare’s plays for this audience and
their preferred language of comprehension.
Theatre and performance can also benet from translang plays, bringing in new viewers.
Even though The Oregon Shakespeare Fesval commissioned thirty-six playwrights to translate
Shakespeare’s plays into modern English for stage performance, the translaon project is
considered conservave. The playwrights are under strict guidelines “not to cut, not to edit, not
to add personal polics, not to change the seng or me period or references” and “[t]he
translaons are billed as ‘companion pieces’ for Shakespeare’s originals, not replacements”
(Pollack-Pelzner). Perhaps funding can be used to commission a complete translaon of one of
the plays into the modern English vernacular with updated puns, expressions, syntax, and
vocabulary. It could be interesng for new audiences. Moreover, audiences versed in
Shakespeare’s language can connue to see plays from the original text because those
performances should be commissioned and fully funded as well. Theatre producons can
possibly make eorts toward incorporang technology, like Virtual Reality and Augmented
Reality, allowing these spaces to bridge the language gap as translator in performances.
In examining the debate, we can sympathize and clearly see that both sides desire for
Shakespeare and his art to connue through the ages. Modern English translaons of his plays
should not be feared but welcomed as a means to convey Shakespeare’s message in a
comprehensive way to newer readers and viewers. It may be excing to see how far and vast our
imaginaons of Shakespeare could go, especially in this brave new technologically immersive
world. Oh, what delights we will see as we connue moving forward in bringing Shakespeare to a
new generaon of admirers.

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Works Cited
Delabasta, Dirk. “‘He Shall Signify from Time to Time’. Romeo and Juliet in Modern English.”
Perspecves, vol. 25, no. 2, June 2017, pp. 189–213.
Gamboa, Bre. “Understanding Shakespeare.” The New Criterion, vol. 34, no. 8, Apr. 2016, pp. 27–
31.
Harvey, Miles, et al. “‘To Be, or Not to Be’: Modernizing Shakespeare With Mulmodal Learning
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