Because it's not as easy as you think. Many of the words are obsolete. It doesn't matter how smart or well-educated you are. An obsolete word is not an archaic word, like thee or thou. Because we're still using those words, even if not often. And they're not big words. An obsolete word is a word that you've never heard before in your life, and it's not in any dictionary either. Sorry. When I was in HS, we had Romeo and Juliet in my Freshman Year, Julius Caesar in my Sophomore Year. In my Junior Year we had American literature for some reason. Then in my Senior Year we had The Tempest, which was very appropriate for us soon-to-be-adults ("Oh, brave new world that has such people in't!"). And we had numerous, numerous footnotes, which I found insulting. We weren't THAT stupid. Cliffs Notes are useful, as are any summary, so you at least know what the f-ck is going on. So how do you read it? And don't say you just do, cause I won't believe you .
Shakespeare wrote some very good plays, some of which some 400 years later were made into Hollywood films.
I find Shakespeare's plays mellifluous, but I am not always sure what he was on about. Words over time change meanings. for instance in Shakespeare's time meat meant food in general.
Only because, for the vast majority of the population, meat per se, was considered a luxury and was somewhat scarce.
Another example of a word changing its meaning would be hypocrite.This used to mean a religious person whose behavior does not comply with their religious doctrine. It can still be used for that but today generally means someone who says one thing but acts completely differently.
Very often words that have changed meaning since his time have done so away from a more literal reading. The catch is that they still make sense, but just a wee bit off. A couple of examples: in Richard III, as Clarence is being hauled off to the Tower, Richard says, "what's the matter?" meaning the word in the sense of "matter under discussion," not "what's wrong." Another is In Measure for Measure III, "the delighted spirit/to bathe in fiery floods." We still say a bird lights, but we not longer say that it delights. Yeah, I'm a Bard aficianado of sorts.
