This makes me cringe just thinking about it…Shakespeare re-written in modern prose, as today’s kids can’t seem to comprehend it as it was originally written.
“Et tu, Brute?”
Not anymore.
“And you too, Brutus?” is what students read in a new genre of study guides that modernize the Elizabethan English found in “Julius Caesar” and other plays by William Shakespeare.
These guides move beyond the plot summaries found in other study aides by providing line-by-line translations in modern-day English.
Once barred from school, the new translations now are being used in classes across metro Atlanta.
Ugh.
Ugh, ugh, ugh.
Or, more appropriately, in the words of Isabella in Measure for Measure — “Thy sin’s not accidental, but a trade.”
Or even better, Falstaff, in Henry the Fourth, Part II — “You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe!”
Admittedly, I may be an odd case — after reading the abridged version of Les Misérables in high school, I fell so in love with the story that I went out and bought the full, unabridged version, and it’s remained one of my favorites ever since. So for me, hacking something up is bad enough…but re-writing it like this?
Truly a travesty.
The one possible good point I can see is if the kids are captivated enough by the stories that they may someday go out and find the original versions — but I don’t think I’ll be holding my breath on that count.
(via Ben Hammersley, with help from the Shakespearean Insult Generator)
iTunes: “I Hold a Prince” by Poems for Laila from the album La Fillette Triste (1991, 3:07).