What does Veeky Forums think of this guy? genius or overrated?

He is actually a she. You're just a sheep that was taught she was a man by the men who wrote the history books...

Genius is a terribly overused word, but this thread, I think, is one of the few appropriate cases.

every
fucking
thread

My favs are, in no particular order:

Tempest, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Henriad as piece, and Merry Wives of Windsor just for Falstaff

My tastes are pretty conventional

how can you even start to think a guy that is hold for centuries as one of the greatest english writers and one of the very best playwright is overrated?

john green is fucking overrated by ya and teen girls, not will i am shake speare

he is every bit as good as he's made out to be and better. along with bach i think he's one of the greatest creative minds of all time

I dunno I never see any discussion regarding his works and I've just started reading him outside of high school

>how can you even start to think a guy that is hold for centuries as one of the greatest english writers and one of the very best playwright is overrated?
because I know what a meme is

bardolatry is a huge meme in English lit. I'm not saying that loving Shakespeare isn't justified, but all the circle jerk surrounding him isn't. The title of "greatest English language writer" has less to do with his particular skill and more to do with his promotion by the literary establishment as being such. There are even other writers of the early modern period who are strictly speaking more skilled writers than Shakespeare (Donne or Spenser, for example)

I say all this while still thinking that one should know their Shakespeare like one knows their bible, btw. Guy's fucking brilliant and the impact he's had on our culture is immeasurable.

>will i am shake speare

The true heart chooses Emily Dickinson

He's the Mona Lisa of lit.

That is to say: not actually the Best Shit There Ever Was, but it's pretty good, had a significant impact on the art world, and is a meme because normies think it's what "fine culture" is defined by.

The only difference is that Will was pushed by high school classes looking for decent writing instead of an art heist.

But there are geniuses not every good artist is a genius but I think people like Mozart and Shakespeare deserve the predicate

I am not a native English Speaker, but I think I can handle it well, in its modern form

Will I be able to understand Shakespeare's work, or just watch the films?

The Emoij version of Shakespeare sounds right up your alley!

underrated

Shakespeare is as close as anyone in literature has ever come to god-tier.

And I don't think anyone else is really even close to Shakespeare.

I can say that as an objective judgment, but as a subjective matter, that doesn't mean there aren't other writers who give me more pleasure to read and whom I've spent more time reading. But that's doubtless more a measure of my brainlet-ness than Shakes' god-tierness.

Greenblatt's Will in the World is a really, really good book on Shakespeare, by the way. Among other things, he solves certain persisting puzzles and imponderables about Shakespeare - e.g., was he or was he not Catholic? - better than anyone else I've ever read.

I don't think i'll ever read shaxbeard with so much circlejerking about him

Sweet analogy b r o but its completely inaccurate, and just makes you sound like a contrarian who's never actually read the plays in any serious way. Shakespeare's prestige was acknowledged in his own time and grew consistently from then on (admired by almost every literary figure in Europe except Tolstoy in his edgy Christian phase), it has nothing to do with school curriculums.

Stop trying so hard to distance yourself from """normies""" and actually read some Shakespeare.

How, exactly, are they more skilled? Genuine question as I'm not very familiar with their works

careful not to cut yourself on all that edge

maybe go back to r/books where they can appreciate your genius

Its not the technical talent of a poet that makes them great, though. Shakespeare wrote with better insight in a more memorable and profound way on a much wider range of human experience than Spenser or Donne. I would say your 'argument' sounds contrarian but it pussyfoots too much to even be called that.

>who is Nabokov

Should I read or watch Shakespeare?

A pedophile hack

Nabokov is one of the greatest writers of the English language ever. Even Lolita is a masterpiece although now it is another tragic lit meme. Read any of his other english works or any of his Russian works translated by him into English and you will understand.

Don't be so simplistic

I recommend reading his plays before watching a theatrical adaption. That way you are familiar with the text and won't miss out on any particulars.

I highly recommend Shakespeare Globe's on screen adaptions, if that's not your things, there are some decent films.

I would actually be interested in seeing actual theater. Then again, I would have no idea if I was watching a hack production or not. Shit, I'd imagine nowadays they'd only put up two plays as some sort or re-imagning or re-contextualization or some shit, at least in my town.

That's what I like about the Globe's productions, pre-Rice, they are performed as authentically as possible.

I'll check it out, thanks user!

It would probably be better to not read him at all than to read and represent his work as poorly as it has been recently.

Don't like Globe productions, personally. The claim is that this is how Shakespeare's plays are meant to be performed, but what seems to be forgotten is that Shakespeare's company played other, much smaller venues like Blackfriars and even private homes.

The best productions I've seen have all been in black box theaters with audience capacities