Using This Parallel Text
Languages change as years and centuries pass. Even the English you speak now is slightly different from what your parents learned to speak. And today’s English will seem quaint and hard to understand sometime in the future.
Small wonder that readers often struggle with the language of Shakespeare, who wrote some 400 years age. Works from still earlier times can be even more difficult to read.
This parallel text edition is designed to help. The original text or a translation of that text is found on the left-hand page. A modern English version is located on the right. Matching numbers help you keep track as you move back and forth between the two versions.
If you are having difficulty with the original text or translation, try reading a passage of the right-hand version first. Then read the same passage on the left-hand side. After a while, you may find that the original text becomes easier to understand.
In any case, remember that the modern paraphrase should never be used as a substitute for the original. The words of the writers you’re about to meet make fascinating reading, partly because they shine a brilliant light on the past.
Viewed as a Whole, British literature from 449 to 1798 tells a sweeping story – the story of a people and a language coming to be.