Hey Hunnies! Today’s Tuesday Tea is a goodie. Tips on dissecting Shakespeare texts!

1.Paraphrasing

We begin rehearsals making sure we understand what is being said. Paraphrasing will help you discover freedom and clarity in Shakespearean speech, and it is essential to translate the text into your own words. How detailed should your paraphrasing be? As far as you can, take it into modern-day language that you understand. Try to get to the root of what the character is saying.

For example, Antonio’s line from 12th night, “My desire more sharp than filed steele did spur me forth.” He is saying in my own words, “My instincts (intuition) more precise than a sharp blade led me to follow you.” By paraphrasing the text, you will better understand what you are saying and what your character is trying to evoke from the person they are speaking to. And their action. This is also how clarity is achieved because if you, the performer, do not entirely know what you are saying, neither will the audience.

2. Defining words

Though the early modern English language is less than 100 years old, the English language continues to expand, and certain words like “Knavery” we do not commonly use in our daily speech today. A strategy that may be tedious is searching up every word. I would recommend it because the word “love” could mean multiple things in the context of the text or the word “desire,” “moonshine,” and you may know its significance today, but that is not reliable when it comes to an understanding of what that meant in Shakespeare’s days.

Down below I linked Oxford English Dictionary a reliable source to look up words from the 1500s.

https://www.oed.com/

3. Investigation

If you think you did enough research guess again there’s a lot more richer research that can be done. Highly recommend reaching out to us for great articles on Shakespearean texts or reach out to your professor. Again Speaking Shakespeare by Patsy Rodenburg is a good start.