The real hang-up with Shakespeare's language is the poetry. It is a huge hurdle for the reader and sometimes the actor to overcome. Not all of the Shakespeare plays are written in verse, though. Much of his plays are written in prose form, and look like a traditional paragraph or a typical play. Knowing the differences between the two and how to use each to great advantage are paramount to approaching any Shakespeare text.
Merry Wives of Windsor is atypical of most of Shakespeare's plays as it is mostly written in prose form. I think
Much Ado About Nothing may be the only play to have even less verse. Historically, verse was the common form of playwriting in the Elizabethan era. Shakespeare was a radical to use as much prose as he did.
