To think Shakespeare is boring and crap !

[Lardlizard]

Bloody hate it

the contribution he’s made to the English language is incredible

This is one of those claims that's always trotted out, but it's a bit over-hyped. What actually happened is that a lot of words are first attested in print in Shakespeare, and a lot more were cited by the makers of influential dictionaries like the OED as an early usage, because Shakespeare was well known by the dictionary makers and because they didn't much look for pre-print sources. But, when you do a bit of digging, you find that all sorts of words Shakespeare is supposed to have coined were circulating well before him.

I like his language, btw. I just think this is part of the myth of Shakespeare as a creator of 'Englishness,' which I think can get a bit dubious, and which has a slightly questionable interweaving with nationalism/jingoism.

It’s hard to appreciate the humour by reading Shakespeare. The plays / films need to be watched.

I know I'm missing out but I just don't understand most of it.
Enjoyed Twelfth Night BBC drama in the 80's with Richard Briers as Malvolio but that's it.
Wish Eastenders characters would do one of his plays, feel I might understand it better.
How can someone like me enjoy it if I don't understand what they're talking about?

Fifteen2 see a modern adaption.

PinkiOcelet, perhaps the prob, you see it as an exam text rather then a play to watch. He may have been dead but his plays have stood the test of time.

British schools absolutely ruin Shakespeare for people.

I was lucky to have outstanding English teachers who encouraged Shakespeare, we went to see plays, we acted in lessons, and the teachers explained it well to us. His writing is so incredibly clever, it's really quite awe-inspiring. But trying to read it dry isn't hugely enjoyable - the greater pleasure is really in the viewing of well-acted plays. He was an absolute genius, and totally relevant.

YANBU

Mr Blackadder sums up my feelings perfectly

Hate the history plays, with the exception of Henry V and Richard III. Love the tragedies (even Coriolanus) and find the comedies tolerable, if well done. Adore most of the sonnets. Romeo and Juliet is a bit shit.
I have loved Patrick Stewart reading a sonnet a day on his social media, particularly his honesty- he's ditched a few because they are impossible!

It seems a bit flat and obscure on the page. On the stage, where it was meant to be accessed, it comes to life.

I tried and tried to read Hamlet in book form prior to going to see it at Stratford and just couldn't grasp the plot. Within 5 mins of the play beginning on stage it just began to unfold in vivid clarity, the actors (David Tennant and Patrick Stewart!) bringing the meaning out of every line as clear as anything. Just brilliant.

People who say they're too dim to understand it forget that it was the entertainment of the day for normal everyday people. Soap opera or Netflix drama of the times .

I made my English teacher cry because I refused to back down when I said that Shakespeare isn't my thing. She said I wasn't allowed to say that and I argued that it was my opinion and I was allowed to have that opinion which was different from hers.
I understand it, I just don't enjoy it particularly.
You're allowed to not like it. You're allowed to find it boring and crap. That's your right.
It's no different than saying you don't like Chinese food or a certain hand cream.
Go and find something you do like! 💁🏻‍♀️
All those people saying she'd enjoy it if she understood it - YABU!!

Blueuggboots was that quite recently?

Of course you don’t have to like it! I’m not overly keen, I appreciate his massive contribution to literature and language but all this failing about on swords, monologues to the audiences, long diatribes, stupid plays within plays- of a time but not necessarily ours

Yanbu op, but it seems to be a middle class trope to claim you enjoy Shakespeare. Bonus points if you say you enjoy his work in variaty of languages. His work is outdated and tedious to try and understand due to being written in a form of very old English.

He's very interesting on a linguistic level, how he invented many words and phrases used today. The stories are utterly boring though. As are most modern retelling of them.

I am very late to this thread but much of the time agree with you.

I am older, well educated, very articulate, interested in arts , opera, drama, plays etc but yes mostly Shakespeare leaves me cold. I went several times to the Globe and mostly preferred the non-Shakespeare until I saw Mark Rylance in Othello. Have you ever seen an actor make the audience move just by how they control and direct their voice? As he began his soliloquies about hating the Moor the voice dropped and the whole audience moved closer. In one motion. It was magic. But you dont get magic every performance, sadly.

I feel the same about Dickens. No thanks to reading it but to watch a dramatic film or TV production. Yes please. Perhaps look at how you learn and take in information.

They are difficult to read but I actually really liked othello and got into it like I would a good modern day book. 🤷‍♀️

@Fifteen2

I know I'm missing out but I just don't understand most of it. Enjoyed Twelfth Night BBC drama in the 80's with Richard Briers as Malvolio but that's it. Wish Eastenders characters would do one of his plays, feel I might understand it better. How can someone like me enjoy it if I don't understand what they're talking about?

I think you have made a really good point. It would be amazing to see a current acting team do this. Soap actors are very good so which play would suit the eastenders cast? Tragedy rather than comedy. Othello - Tiff and Keegan; Macbeth with Phil and Sharon. Comedy would suit Linda and Mick.

A level English level - ergh. Open University's now finished module on it - absolutely fantastic and I now love Shakespeare. Obviously not all of it, but I have an appreciation of the bits I'm not so keen on.

I always started by watching (or listening to a radio play) the best version I could before I started reading the plays. There are some fantastic directors out there who understand how to make it come alive.

Depends who's performing it.

I was given the BBC box set of the complete plays as a gift. A kind thought, but they were almost without exception mind-numbingly, brain-crunchingly dire. Played absolutely straight, no fun on the puns, jokes seemed to go completely under the actors' (and hence audience's) radar, no spontaneity and just awful awful awful. Considering the BBC's prior record for drama, there was just no excuse for churning out something so dreary, even if it was being pitched to an American audience and sold trans-Atlantic (and allegedly, that was what they expected).

By contrast, anything the RSC does is a joy. They're wonderful, inventive, interpretive, and full of fun, energy and humour. Sit in a theatre with them in front of you and two hours will flash by in what seems like minutes.

To the PP who asked what might help their understanding: context. His mockery of the Italian sonneteers and especially the uber-serious Petrarchan tradition makes his plays funnier if you can see that in action. Also, Gordon Williams' Glossary of Shakespeare's Sexual Language is quite illuminating!

Romeo and Juliet albeit a 'tragedy' is a very funny play - Romeo being the typical Petrarchan buffoon-in-love and a proper eejit (like Count Orsino). And it's full of horse puns - in exactly the same sense as we use them today!

Of course, OP. Every word Shakespeare wrote must be ‘boring and crap’ if you don’t like it. There, there. No one will frogmarch you to the theatre and make you sit through an unabridged Hamlet.

When we are born, we cry that we have come to this stage of fools

@MouthBreathingRage

Yanbu op, but it seems to be a middle class trope to claim you enjoy Shakespeare. Bonus points if you say you enjoy his work in variaty of languages. His work is outdated and tedious to try and understand due to being written in a form of very old English.

He's very interesting on a linguistic level, how he invented many words and phrases used today. The stories are utterly boring though. As are most modern retelling of them.

His work is not written in very old English. Fair enough if you don't enjoy it and struggle to understand it but it's not ' a form of very old English.'

Saying all the stories are utterly boring, including modern retellings, is just ridiculous. What, all of them? Just utterly boring? Ok.

Reading Shakespeare has a positive effect on your brain so even if you hate him he's doing you good

It's hard to enjoy Shakespeare without decent general knowledge of the past, and how people thought.

And in general, people's knowledge of Shakespeare's time goes no further than Blackadder, Shakespeare In Love, or The Tudors. It's shame because I've genuinely got a lot of enjoyment out of watching Shakespeare, and reading his sonnets, and also Milton, Donne etc.