In high school, I liked Shakespeare enough. I certainly wasn’t in love with him though. My honors and AP English classes read some of his most widely renowned tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and Hamlet. I thought they were pretty good, and I followed along decently well, but never dreamed that two years later, as a sophomore in college, I’d opt to take a Shakespeare class. For honors credits.
How crazy am I? I’d asked myself, scanning the syllabus on the first day. Comedies, tragedies, histories…I remember thinking that the book of plays was heavy enough that if was dropped it on someone, it might kill them. This was going to be the most boring experience of my life, right?
Wrong. Honors Shakespeare was my favorite class so far. It was also one of the most difficult. Reading in old English was something that I definitely had to get used to — but luckily, the footnotes help with that.
What’s the point of reading plays that are centuries old? you may ask. Firstly, they’re well-written. In my humble opinion, no other author has ever had the grasp on language that Shakespeare did. There are lines in his plays that literally take your breath away. His descriptions, dialogues, and everything is just written beautifully.
Shakespeare had a sense of humor, too. I’m not talking about the sexual puns/jokes that people talk about way, way too much. There are times throughout the plays where you literally laugh out loud, due to the characters, examples of irony, etc. It’s awesome.
You might cry too. I got pretty attached to some characters. That’s not a good idea when you’re reading tragedies. I formulated happy endings in my head, but they didn’t happen…
Probably best of all, many of Shakespeare’s themes still ring true today. Although not many facts are known about good old William, we do know that in his lifetime, he experienced highs and lows, loves and losses, laughter and tears, good and bad experiences. Not only did he live a normal-ish human life, he captured its essence perfectly throughout his works.
With his words, he painted pictures of love, lust, anger, jealousy, despair, confusion, passion, tenderness, violence, clarity, deception, joy, grief, sacrifice, temptation, adoration, and more.
If you haven’t read more Shakespeare than you would in a typical high school English class, you need to. After reading 1,066 pages of Shakespeare, I know that there’s nothing that I can’t read and appreciate.
List of Shakespeare plays that I’ve read and recommend:
-Romeo and Juliet
-Julius Caesar
-Hamlet
-A Midsummer Night’s Dream
-As You Like It
-The Merchant of Venice
-Othello
-King Lear
-The Tempest
-Taming of the Shrew
-Henry V
-Macbeth
(He also wrote poetry too. Check out his sonnets!)
