Is shakepeare over rated?

Question

How good a writer was he compared to some of todays very skilled novelists? SInce he's not even available to a mainstream contemperary audience because the language he uses is so very different who can actually tell me in relatable terms why he was so good? He has no skill for comedy it seems anyway. I don't beleive I've ever heard from anyone why he was so good.

Answer 1

Hi, I'm Ashley. I'm an English teacher. In his day, Shakespeare created plays for the masses. Most theatre-goers in the 16th Century were illiterate, unemployed peasants. He made his plays popular, with broad themes, exciting imagery and lively action to keep, and lengthen, the short attention spans of the audiences.

Today, Shakespeare has been hijacked and raped by academia. They have prostituted Shakespeare. Yes, Shakespeare is over-rated, but it is not his fault. I blame the left-wing, chardonnay sipping, trendy socialist revolutionaries from Sydney University...

I like Shakespeare. He is good because he communicated with class. Instead of writing "I think you are a liar!" he would write for his character "Methinks thouest is entering the realms of fantasy".

Answer 2

Shakespeare is ARGUABLY the best writer who ever lived.
No one writing today will last more than 20 yrs. That is not quite true, but the ones who will last will be surprising to you.
Once you spend a year or two studying Shakespeare, most of the jokes will still be funny because they take place within the context of the story, which you don't know enough to fully understand.
Nearly every story you have ever heard or seen in film is directly relate-able to either Shakespeare or fable. This is the original, the stuff you like is the cover-version.
Every heroic figure, every tragic figure and every romance you see in today's movies have deliberate Shakespearean over/under tones.
Shakespeare's language is modern English, not middle or old. Any English speaker can read it, understanding will come within a few days. There is no reason that you should not read Shakespeare.

Answer 3

JK Rowling = 7(ish?) years old

Tolkien = a bit more than that, but not much

Shakespeare = 400 years old. From the 1600s. Almost half a millenium.

His plays are wondeful and beautiful because they are universal. All western society will have love, honor, betrayal, authority, gossip, marriage, on and on...

His language and prose is some of the most delicately put together, and with a little bit of effort rather than drudging through it like a school assignment, his jokes are hysterical as well. Shakespeare was the master of punnery, and he had humor for the high *and* low classes, since he also put on plays for royalty.

His plays were also not only masterpieces, but works such as Anthony and Cleopatra or Julius Ceaser revealed a segment of history that we most likely would have lost, or at least know very little about. His sonnets and poems describe love in a way that touches one's very heart. Modern authors are much to metafictional and cynical to do that.

School doesn't have to ruin a good book, even if you hate studying it. Take the time to appreciate a good book, and if you hate it, at least find a valid reason, not that he was out of your league.

Answer 4

Wrong, brother!

Every Shakespearean comedy is the dope, brother - if the reader had the ability to unlock its potency! The skill of language, the level of sarcasm - and of course, that stiff upper lip British humour!

The problem with some modern boys and girls is that they'd only understand something if it were overtly simple, shallow, or in your face, or plain cheesy!

Who or what are you going to ridicule next - the King James Version Bible?

And even if you could prove that old William wasn't the best of his generation - or even if you could prove that someone else wrote Shakespeare's plays - it doesn't matter because today's journalist and novelist are miles always from Shakespeare!

I love Tolkien and Rice etc. but I'm sure even they have high regard for old William.

Even soap operas are very much inspired by Shakespeare!

Answer 5

Yes and no(to your question about shakespeare being overrated). He was a playwright not a writer(there is a big difference). Since most people like him without even seeing a real Shakepearian play, they are not liking him for the right reason(in that sense he is overrated because he is not rated accurately). That being said, Shakespeare is one of the biggest influances on our culture for a variety of reasons(in that sense he is not overrated).

First of all, Shakespeare was not really a novalist. He was a playwright(wrote some poetry and sonnets but that wasn't his main focus), which means that his writing was used mainly for the theater. This means that his writing was not ment to be read as a book. Though it it might be aethetically pleasing to some, it is supposed to be a theater play not a book. That is like reading a script(the text) for a movie like a book.
I can't stress this enough, you can't really appreciate shakespeare without attending some of his plays.

Many phrases and words that we use today actually come from his plays(some were invented and some were borrowed or recycled(. Alot of movies, tv shows, and books are based off of his ideas. If it wasn't for his plays, we would be very different indeed. Here is a link of some of the phrases and words he used in his writings.
http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/shakespeare_words_phrases.htm

Answer 6

I have some sympathy with you. Shakespeare had some great plots, true, but great plots are ten-a-penny. What makes Shakespeare better is the language - the same language that is the source of your problems. Stick with it I'd say - and go and see a good production. After all, the plays are plays. All too often, schools kill Shakespeare. One of the ways they do so is by never admitting he had any faults and weaknesses. He did. Sometimes there's too much wordplay. Also, sometimes he tried too much. I saw the film 'My Kingdom', which adopts the plot of King Lear - all except for the ending - like the 18th-century revisers, they'd given it a happy ending. I thought, well, if it had had Shakespeare's ending it would have been utterly shocking - so maybe the 18th century were onto something that we've missed because it's our heavily-lacquered idol 'SHAKESPEARE'.

Answer 7

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Answer 8

I think you're taking a very limited view on Shakespeare. He is really great. His use of different themes and characters is so unique. Have you noticed that we've used his stories over and over to make even modern day movies?
Okay, his language is different, but realize that his original audience was usually the common working class of the late sixteenth-century. Of course his style seems so off the wall for people today!
The comical aspects of his work are also hard for us to grab because it was from a different time period. I mean, take the movie Shrek 2. In it, you see a 'Farbucks' on every street corner, but you wouldn't understand the funny part unless you knew that a Starbucks is really everywhere.
Cut ole' Will some slack. We just don't have his point of view.

Answer 9

No, not over rated. He increased the size of the English language by some 50%, had a beautiful ear for using those words and, above all, had a truly profound understanding of the human condition. Can you think of any contemporary writer who can get inside the head of so many different kinds of people?
That said, the comedies are difficult now and have to be very skillfully done to wring some humour out of them as hardly anyone gets the gags anymore and I do believe his domination of British theatre is to the detriment of other writers, both of his own time and our contemporary writers.

Answer 10

He is misunderstood.

You have to understand that humour is socially created, you can only satire the society you live in.... so he may not be funny now, but he was to some one at some point.

His language is easy to understand, and if it isn't i would want a word with that person English teacher as they have been failed.

He is good as he has a great diverse mind and imagination, it takes great skill to entertain.

Also people miss understand him, when Shakespeare's plays were performed the women were played by men, the audience would have been eating and drinking and making noise and it wouldn't have been seen as an over serious.

Not how we portrait it now, which is false and ill educated.

Answer 11

There are very few people who stand the test of time and Shakespeare was one of them. Macbeth was the first play I read and I loved it because it was a horror story brought to life by his words.

I even wrote a poem about it:

The witches claims left Macbeth sunken
with thoughs of murder towars King Duncan
But murder could not come too soon
And brave Macbeth was rushed to scone
To be made king and not just a thane
Outside Scone palace in the pouring rain
But murder soon became a fix
and soon Macbeth was up to tricks
His friend betrayed him and so
He murdered his mate Banquo
But this was not the last post
And he very soon admired his ghost
At a banquet held by Macbeth the cad
Where he went completely mad
He ignored his wife where she fell
And very soon did hear a knell
Yes old Macbeth is finally dead
Enter MacDuff with an extra head