The well-known linguist John McWhorter argues that Shakespeare's plays should be translated into modern English since they are written in a language that we effectively no longer speak.
"Indeed, the irony today is that the Russians, the French and other people in foreign countries possess Shakespeare to a much greater extent than we do, for the simple reason that unlike us, they get to enjoy Shakespeare in the language they speak."
"'But translated Shakespeare wouldn’t be Shakespeare!' one might object. To which the answer is, to an extent, yes. However, we would never complain a translation of Beowulf 'isn’t Beowulf'—of course it isn’t, in the strict sense, but we know that without translation, we would not have access to Beowulf at all."
"Indeed, the irony today is that the Russians, the French and other people in foreign countries possess Shakespeare to a much greater extent than we do, for the simple reason that unlike us, they get to enjoy Shakespeare in the language they speak."
"'But translated Shakespeare wouldn’t be Shakespeare!' one might object. To which the answer is, to an extent, yes. However, we would never complain a translation of Beowulf 'isn’t Beowulf'—of course it isn’t, in the strict sense, but we know that without translation, we would not have access to Beowulf at all."
His full discussion is here, and is worth reading: https://www.americantheatre.org/2010/01/01/its-time-to-trans...