Is Shakespeare still Shakespeare even if every word is changed? While Shakespeare's work is often hailed for its universality, its meter, metaphor, and wordplay pose special challenges for translators. How do you convey the rhythm and spirit of Shakespeare's words in a language that follows fundamentally different rules?

Author and translator Daniel Hahn explores these questions in his book, If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation. He interviews translators from around the world, providing unique perspectives on Shakespeare's language and impact.

Some of Shakespeare's best-known lines can prove the most difficult to capture, like Henry V's "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers." Even something seemingly simple like Lady Macbeth's "Are you a man?" may be tricky to translate when the word "man" carries different connotations in different languages.

In this episode, Hahn dives into the challenges and rewards of translating Shakespeare, exploring not only what is lost in translation, but also what is gained.

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From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published April 20, 2026. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Technical support was provided by Philip Bodger in Lewes, England and Voice Trax West in Studio City, California. Web production was handled by Megan Fraedrich. Transcripts are edited by Leonor Fernandez. Final mixing services provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

Daniel Hahn is an award-winning translator, writer and editor. His translations include a wide range of fiction and non-fiction from Europe, Africa and the Americas, as well as many children's books and plays. He is the author of Catching Fire: A Translation Diary, the editor of the Oxford Companion to Children's Literature, and co-editor with Padma Viswanathan of the forthcoming Penguin Book of Brazilian Short Stories. He is currently translating an Angolan novel.