Here in the English speaking world, Shakespeare is hailed as the best thing to ever happen to English literacy, but I’m interested to know how it is treated on the mainland. Is it taught in English class just for example purposes, or is it taught in your native language? If it is, then in what way? Are Shakespeare’s made-up words kept in? Is it in the modern version of your language or does it have an old-timey twist to it? (Vocabulary from the 16th century etc.)
18 comments
Dia duit! I love Ireland! And the only thing I remember about Shakespeare from school (in the south of the Basque Country) was as one of the options for a project on a book for Spanish class. (Basically, we had to write an essay on one out of five books. And one of Shakespeare’s books was one of the options.) Obviously, the essay had to be written in Spanish.
Introducing Shakespeare to English classes would be a complete disaster. Many of my classmates didn’t know how to use the verb “to be” in the present tense correctly back when I was at school. And they were doing their last year of school.
I learned about Shakespeare at English class in highschool, 9th grade .
I remember that my teacher told about some of his works, mentioned some title like Romeo and Julliet and Hamlet.
I remember that I had as homework to find a summary for both Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, then to tell that summary . Choose between one of them.
He isn’t taught at all, except in elite bilingual schools. Not in the national curriculum in English class nor in literature class.
Ive seen multiple times Shakespeare been described as “the most influential writer in the world” in some serious outlets like the BBC and I always looked to me a bit egregious like … we don’t see much Shakespeare influence in French literature or theatre, even when we are your neighbours !
From my understanding Shakespeare never really caught on in France before well into the XIXth century, simply because English culture and especially theatre was not valued compared to French/Italian. Also, the time of Shakespeare comes at the eve of golden age of French court culture, with our 3 most famous playrights Corneille, Molière and Racine active in the 1650s.
As of why it is not taught today, my guess is that to really enjoy Shakespeare, his neologisms and quips, you have to have a higher level of English than the one required for high school students
during my years in high school (Netherlands) we read Romeo and Julia and parts of King Lear and some of his sonnets in class, but in a contemporary English translation with the original text next to it, so we could see what 17th century/Shakespearean English looked like and so we would be exposed to at least one pre-19th century piece of English literature.
Some classes read Shakespeare in English lessons but by far not everyone.
I for example never had any contact with Shakespeare during my English lessons. We read a totally boring American highschool lovestory novel instead.
A different class read George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”. I think they had it best. When I later read Animal Farm myself I thought I wished we had read this in school.
The German equivalent to Shakespeare is probably Goethe and his main work Faust. We were tortured with Faust for almost a year and covered Faust I and II in great detail.
Every school is different, at mine we only studied him very, very briefly in a biographical way and I remember that we spent part of a lesson reading a piece of Hamlet aloud, dividing up the characters. The book was in Spanish, so you couldn’t notice the words he made up. In fact, I learned about it from a British friend of mine, at school I don’t remember them mentioning that he made up words.
Here the focus is obviously on Cervantes. Don Quijote is also read in old Spanish, although, depending on the age of the pupils, versions adapted to modern Spanish are more common.
It depends. In some paths of secondary schools it’s not uncommon to read Shakespeare in English classes, but many people never had to.
We do get to enjoy German historical writers though. Goethe, Schiller and whatnot.
I cannot remember ever hearing about Shakespeare in school. Although, it is possible that he was mentioned somewhere during my 12 years.
I cannot imagine his texts being used in English class due to the unusable archaic and obsolete language. But it’s quite possible that we had to read, translate, and understand an English text *about* Shakespeare. I remember we did something similar about The Beatles
Neither can I see him being used in Swedish class (grammar), as Swedish authors and Swedish historical language is better suited for that particular purpose
Possibly in history class, as he’s an important figure in Brittish history
It’s also possible that the aesthetic class do a crossover with English class and set up a Shakespeare play
Here, it is mostly studied in English, in high school, in fact, literature is also taught, and usually Shakespeare is studied in English, at most with notes in the margins in Italian. I remember that the plays we devoted most attention to were The Merchant of Venice, Macbeth and Hamlet.
In any case, the translations found here of Shakespeare’s works are more modern. Interestingly, Shakespeare’s works (which began to be translated into Italian from the 18th century onwards) were the inspiration for several operas, Verdi for instance composed adaptations of Macbeth, Otello and Falstaff.
Oh God, I’m old, I don’t remember clearly. I think we read some translation in German literature and I’m pretty sure we also studied it in English. My English teacher was pretty awesome and a literature nerd, he would never have left out Shakespeare. But that was in the Stone Ages aka last Millennium. I’ve seen many of his plays since, they are very popular and performed often in a translated version. The canonic translation into German is from the 19th century and pretty flowery. I’m not an expert on translation, but I think it aimed at accuracy and it sounds older than 19th century German. And here’s the one pro of translation: It can modernise a text. In the last years I’ve noticed that theaters often play Shakespeare in a new and more modern translation. So I understand that in English it’s 16th century English and really difficult, but the actors have to stay true to the text. Whereas in other languages you can translate it to a current version of the language, so the audience doesn’t have to struggle with the language and can enjoy the play.
>Is Shakespeare taught in your education system? And if so, which language is it taught in?
Yeah, we do read Shakespeare, but only translated into Polish and it’s in Polish (Literature) classes. I remember *Romeo & Juliet* from middle school and *Macbeth* from high school. I actually analyzed *Macbeth* so well I got an “A+” (6 – the highest grade) in Polish.
>Is it in the modern version of your language or does it have an old-timey twist to it? (Vocabulary from the 16th century etc.)
Depends on the translation. The most common translations are by a poet and translator who lived in 19th century. According to my Polish teacher from high school, those translations are “meh”, even though there are nice rhymes, and she preferred those by a writer and translator who lived in 20th century who allegedly is the only one in the world who translated ALL Shakespeare’s works into another language.
>Is it taught in English class just for example purposes
Hahahaha, NOPE. In this case, foreign languages in Poland SUCK. We ain’t reading any novels for foreign language classes. Maybe those students in bilingual classes do, but the rest – definitely not. We just learn from the textbooks and that’s it. Not to mention that most people hate reading books in general for school, so why would they care about reading books in a foreign language?
He gets some transcript, translated in Italian, during literature classes in high school.
Some English teacher also have a chapter or two in the English class.
I think everyone here knows “to be or not to be” from hamlet and “we are made from the same things as dreams” both in the famous Italian translation. I may have miswritten the quote because i also know them in Italian
In Serbia Shakespeare is (was?, it’s been a while) mentioned and taught in high school as an example of English literature. Translations of course. I can’t judge the quality of the translation, haven’t read it in English.
It wasn’t anything in depth, we read Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, commented on them and then moved on. It was a simple reading, not even watching a recording of a play.
In Sweden we go through writers from all the major European languages (proto-Greek, Roman, Italian, French, Spanish, German, Russian). Shakespeare isn’t thought of as someone special compared to writers from other languages. If anything, we probably spent al lot more time on French writers than English.
Cudos on you for realizing that English writers aren’t automatically held in the same regard in the rest of the world as in English speaking countries. Many people assume that their local heroes are everyone’s heroes.
We do watch American movies though, so everyone knows about Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet etc.
No, neither Shakespeare nor English literature are part of the curriculum in our educative system. Spanish literature and our authors are. Miguel de Cervantes, Jorge Manrique, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Calderón de la Barca, the [Generation of ’98](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_of_%2798), the [Generation of ’27](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_of_%2727), etc.
> Is it taught in English class just for example purposes, or is it taught in your native language?
We study “English and english literature” in *licei* so we definitely study him (and obviously the subject is in English). In other schools, *tecnici* e *professionali* the subject is just “English” and it’s mostly taught in relation to the major subjects of the school (economics, tourism etc), but you also study some little bits fo literature/history so I believe he definitely gets mentioned there too.
In italian literature classes I don’t think he is mentioned at all since he’s technically supposed to be talked about in the english ones.
We studied his life, his works, read some passages and I also remember I had to learn one of his sonnets by heart, I don’t remember which one but maybe Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
In the Netherlands, I’ve had to read Macbeth and a Midsummer Night’s Dream. But that was only at the highest level though, the majority of people will never read Shakespeare for English class. And honestly, the readings don’t really do it justice.
Neither Shakespeare, Goethe or Pushkin are taught in the french public school system aside some very prestigious school eventually. However they are likely the focus of universities bachelor/master dedicated to foreign litterature and cultures.
Chateaubriand isn’t taught as well despite being one of the most talented french writer anyway