Is Shakespeare the greatest ever or just a bunch of hype?

Question

I'm on the fence. I love his sonnets, paticularly Sonnet 17 but some of his writings seem prententious.

Answer 1

There are various great writers.

Shakespear is a great English writer.
Miguel de Cervantes is a great Spanish writer, due to "Don Quijote"
Dante Aligheri is a great Italian writer, considered the greates of all by many.because of his "Divine Comedy"

And so on there are many great ones.

Answer 2

Many of the so-called great works of literature are a waste of time reading (Hello....Moby Dick?...puh-lease). Much of that writing can be summed up with a great Shakespeare title, Much Ado About Nothing.

However, if you consider just the stories that Shakespeare came up with, and how many times those have been copied by others, you have to say that he is probably the best ever story-teller. I'm not much of a fan of poetry, but some of his sonnets are beautiful.

Answer 3

Once he was the greatest, but now he is dated and hyped. Updating his work has become a cottage industry these days. You are quite insightful as he seems pretentious to me as well. Plus, it is debatable how much of the writings attributed to him are actually his, considering his background. I seriously place TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD as a finer piece of literature than any of his works. His is a massive body of work, however, and varied, so he will remain one of the greatest for the foreseeable distant future.

Answer 4

i hate shakespeare, personally because i had to write a really long essay on his work, "Much Ado About Nothing" ugh it gives me chills and makes me nauseous just typing that title....gah.....its just a bunch of middle-aged language teacher hype....eww....

Answer 5

For me he is definitely the greatest ever.
However I like the plays even better than the sonnets.

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