Shakespeare's works seem to be infallibly either overrated or underrated. It is the view of many that Shakespeare's plays are "boring" or "too old". In fairness, trying to understand language very different to modern English may take some of the fun and the humour out of Shakespeare, and the age of his writing makes it more difficult to relate to from a modern-day point of view. Many others believe Shakespeare to be a sort of deity of literature; he can do no wrong as he is omniscient and omnipotent. Of course, Shakespeare was undoubtedly a genius for creating hundreds of new words and inventing many of the most common modern phrases -- so many his plays are understandable after all. (I'll do a separate post on the words and phrases Shakespeare created.)
Personally, I am a fan of Shakespeare, but I don't think that his plays (I am much less familiar with his sonnets, so I won't comment on them) are invariably fantastic. 'Hamlet', certainly, is incredible; I also enjoy the comedies 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and 'The Taming of the Shrew'. 'Julius Caesar' is the source of many of my favourite quotes, even if the ending is ridiculous. 'Othello', while containing the characters of Iago and Emilia, whom I adore, seems to excessively hyperbolise the hamartias (fatal flaws) of the characters. 'Macbeth' is interesting if only for Lady Macbeth, but I personally did not enjoy watching it performed, even though it was a Royal Shakespeare Company performance.
Despite my varying opinions on the quality of his plays, I do believe that Shakespeare was a truly incredibly writer. Not many people can write historical, comedic, and tragic plays. Not many people can write such an immense amount of fiction in a lifetime. Not many people can play with language so successfully that their own words are still being used four hundred years after their death.
Perhaps it isn't so ridiculous to idolise William Shakespeare, when he was such a brilliant writer, but we must never have the opinion of someone that they can do no wrong. Genius or not, Shakespeare wrote some plays that were flawed and nonsensical and unbelieveable. We should certainly admire the man and celebrate his achievements, but we shouldn't forget that he was just a human being.
I'm not sure what the point of this post was, but I'm tired and I wanted to write about Shakespeare.
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