Response to "Is Shakespeare Still Relevant?"

Is Shakespeare still relevant? It's a question that has lingered through every high schooler's mind when they are instructed to read Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet or Twelfth Night. Most teenagers will tell you the answer is no, as his vocabulary and complex wordplay is too intimidating and hard to comprehend. And I agree with these people to some extent. Shakespeare's archaic lexicon is just too hard to comprehend for most high schoolers. The English language has changed immensely in the past 400 years and its unreasonable to think that your average teenager will be able to translate this "foreign language" while also trying to dissect the plot of Shakespeare's works. And I wholeheartedly agree with the author's point that No Fear Shakespeare completely removes the poetic aspect of Shakespeare's writing just so a high schooler like me can understand the man. If I have to stop every page to translate what he is saying, then there is almost no literary value in reading his works.

Don't get me wrong; I completely respect Shakespeare and his works of literature, but I don't think he should be assigned reading for high schoolers. High schoolers get so frustrated with his archaic vocabulary and wordplay that they end up detesting what is supposed to be a work of art. I agree with the author's point that Shakespeare's themes are universal and ubiquitous in nature, but I feel as if there are other works that could accomplish this goal more effectively, without getting a high schooler to hate the most respected playwright to grace the Earth. In summation, I do believe that Shakespeare is still relevant, but I also think his confusing language strips the literary value from his works when read by high schoolers.