I mean, even the most famous line in all of Shakespeare, "wherefore art thou Romeo" is frequently misunderstood because many people reasonably assume "wherefore" means something like "where". Yes, you can figure it out from context, but the context is in the same archaic language. Very possible to untangle all that while you're reading it and perhaps it's a good mental exercise. But it can be really tough to keep up when you're watching in the form it was meant to be enjoyed in, a play
replyThat speech is expressing an awesome idea: Juliet is saying that she loves Romeo-the-person, but she is terrified of her bad luck in that he happens to have a certain surname ("Montague") which will automatically cause her family to hate him. Which, indeed, they do. It's basically something like "why did I fall in love with such an inconvenient person?", together with "why does my family care so much about this thing that I'm not sure needs to matter?".
replySure, but the archaic language can obscure the awesome idea.
"Why are you Romeo?" may sound less poetic to modern ears, but isn't that how people back then would have parsed it - just as easily as everyday language, because it was their everyday language?
replyI feel like in a way we're losing Shakespeare's intended effect, because we insist on using a "language" that isn't used anymore. Yes, I understand that it's considered the same language, but a language isn't really one thing, it's more of a spectrum without sharp edges. Shakespeare is much closer in time to Middle English (which is considered a different language) than he is to our time
True, but a big part of Shakespeare is the rhythm, and if you replace the words with newer words that disappears.
replyNot to say it will be a complete failure, but it does lose some of its poetry and power.
And smut. There's a lot of smut and double entendre in Shakespeare. An innocent modern word like "nothing" has multiple layers of meaning in Elizabethan English.
Modern audiences don't get it unless someone explains it to them.