Would Elizabethan audiences have easily understood the language in Shakespeare's plays when they heard it for the first time?
by 
Kristen W
ANSWERS: 1
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The audiences would certainly understand most of it. I'm sure a few jokes and metaphors would be lost on some, just like what happens all the time today. Even I catch new things when I rewatch movies. Another issue would be Shakespeare's use of new or recently coined words. Shakespeare is claimed to have coined quite a few words (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_invented_by_Shakespeare). We aren't certain that he came up with those words, but he was the first author we know of to put them in print. Even that should not have been a big problem, though, since most seem to be compound words or words derived using common affixes. The best argument for understanding, though, is Shakespeare's popularity. Then as now, it's hard for theatrical works to become so popular if the audience can't easily understand the words. And Shakespeare wrote quite more than a few very popular works.
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