This book is great for anyone who loves shakespeare but has trouble understanding the old stlye language. A must have!!
Rating: 5 / 5

I wanted to dislike this book. I mean, how can “But wait, what’s that light in the window over there?” ever compare to “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?” It can’t, and the translator doesn’t even try. The modern prose version is flat and unexciting, and when you compare it to Shakespeare’s words it can lead to some good belly laughs.

I was prepared to come on line and write a scathing one star review- not just for the aweful ‘translation’, but for the lack of explanitory footnotes that makes other editions so useful. But then I read the other reviews.

One of the reviewers actually said that they read both the original text and the translation concurrently, and gained a greater appreciation for Shakespeare’s actual words. For that, and that alone this book deserves more than the one star I had planned.

I still fear that most kids who read this will just read the translation and ignore the original text entirely- and lose out on some of the most perfect prose in the English language.

It’s true, Shakespeare isn’t easy for most people at first. I was lucky enough to have a teacher long ago who told us that Shakespeare was meant to be read aloud, and that you couldn’t really appreciate it without hearing it aloud or at least imagining the words being spoken. Try doing that with this new translation though will just lead to boredom.

Rating: 3 / 5