Understanding Shakespeare.

This reading, 'twas difficult throughout the better part of high school. Dense text, though, was not. This reading, however, is the densest of texts. This reading is Shakespeare - Hamlet, if we are to specify.
I spent the first couple years of high school, and maybe even before that, with an ignorant look on my face whenever I read a sonnet or play by William Shakespeare. They were not the easiest to understand. It was some sort of jargon, another language from another time in which I was not acquainted, it resembled speech that I hoped I would never hear, one with many meanings. More connotation, hooray.
I would always be a speaker in the small class play-like functions we had had. In part because it was for a grade, and because a pupil was generally not asked about what one character had meant by a certain phrase of sonnet, if they were the one speaking. It may have been to get up and be center of attention as well, but that is well beside the point. I had no idea what I was saying; it was as though my white brain matter had taken over, causing me to speak before I truly listened to what I was saying, thus ruining my overall understanding.
This, thankfully, has changed. As I finish my English assignment, I realize that I no longer have such an ignorant look nor do I lack understanding (okay, sometimes I do. . .). Finally, as a senior, I have been able to somewhat accomplish a task that has caused me much difficult over the years. I can understand Shakespeare, for the most part.