Learning Shakespeare In High School

Is Shakespeare Too Hard?

Freshman year at Middlesex, I met Romeo, Juliet, and the rest of the cast from one of William Shakespeare’s most renowned plays. A romanticized story about romance, the tragedy also explores other themes such as youth, violence, and fate. In particular, I personally valued moments of enriching, poetic, and meaningful language about love, and fate, and the stars.  

But all too often, while reading Romeo and Juliet, I got bogged down dissecting sentences made up of dense and incomprehensible Shakespearean language. While there were times when I did manage to understand certain sections, I ultimately failed to make sense of the broader meaning. Although I usually annotated the works we read in English class, I failed to do so many times during my readings of both Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, leaving the margins of many pages and sections blank. 

If Shakespeare was too hard, then why were we reading it? If the language did not make any sense or if a homework assignment lasted multiple hours, then why did I make an effort? Should works by Shakespeare be part of our English education? What is really the point? If you were to ask me these questions during my freshman or even junior year, I would’ve told you that we should stop reading Shakespeare. However, as I reflect on these questions today, I’ve come to realize that Shakespeare isn’t extremely hard or burdensome, but rather, it is good to learn. 

Digesting and comprehending the beginning of Romeo and Juliet may have been perhaps the hardest intellectual challenge of mine at Middlesex. Not only was it uncomfortable to read foreign Shakespearean English, but I gradually became more frustrated as I continued to struggle with it. My curriculum expected me to be able to read, comprehend, and analyze a text that I couldn’t seem to understand--there was a physiological toll on my mind as the extent of my capabilities seemed subpar compared to the high expectations set out for me. 

But I recently realized that I was never expected to completely understand the material–I was meant to struggle with it. In doing so, I’ve learned to cope with failure, find pleasure in intellectual struggle, and become comfortable with the uncomfortable. 

Furthermore, my initial lack of understanding fostered and developed my creative side. Whenever I encountered a passage that did not lead to a logical conclusion in my brain, I would often imagine multiple outcomes of meaning based on the context or the language I did understand. In class during discussions when Mr. Kester or Mr. Koelz prompted a difficult question, I would often take a chance and respond with the best answers my creativity could provide me with. To an extent, being creative increased my confidence and made me proud of my intellectual thoughts.

The difficulty of Shakespeare has also encouraged me to seek out friends for discussion--it taught me about the importance and value of intellectual collaboration. Sometimes I spent time talking with peers who were already some chapters ahead, but I mostly discussed the current readings and passages with friends from my class. Together, we could make sense out of senselessness--I learned that minds are stronger when they work together. 

As I reflect upon the dense difficulty of Shakespeare, I can nevertheless be grateful for the gifts it has given me: conceptual grit that enhances my perseverance, creativity and imagination that make me confident, and a desire to collaborate with others. So yes, Shakespeare is hard, but it is worth it. Now, in the midst of taking a senior English elective class titled “Modern Tragedy,” I am inspired to revisit Shakespeare’s tragedies and discover others so I can use the gifts that have ultimately made me a brighter student. 

Luca Raffa