Shakespeare Criticism Quotes

“Wild with laughter, Twelfth Night is nevertheless almost always on the edge of violence.”
― Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human

“According to the myth, Prometheus steal fire to free us; Iago steals us as fresh fodder for the fire.”
― Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human

“The pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and the mind can only repose on the stability of truth.”
― Samuel Johnson

“If we wish to know the force of human genius we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning we may only study his commentators. ["On the Ignorance of the Learned"]”
― William Hazlitt

“I once witnessed a rather unfortunate production of Shakespeare's Hamlet - the lead actor didn't know his existential angst from his iambic pentameter and, alas, poor Yorick was a bemused bystander.”
― Stewart Stafford

“[Henry James'] essay's closing lines can either be read neutrally or as a more purposeful wish that this mystery [of Shakespeare's authorship] will one day be resolved by the 'criticism of the future': 'The figured tapestry, the long arras that hides him, is always there ... May it not then be but a question, for the fullness of time, of the finer weapon, the sharper point, the stronger arm, the more extended lunge?' Is Shakespeare hinting here that one day critics will hit upon another, more suitable candidate, identify the individual in whom the man and artist converge and are 'one'? If so, his choice of metaphor - recalling Hamlet's lunge at the arras in the closet scene - is fortunate. Could James have forgotten that the sharp point of Hamlet's weapon finds the wrong man?”
― James Shapiro, Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?

“No: Shakespear's household bills
Could never be responsible, they say,
For all the heartache and the 1000 ills
His work is heir to, poem, sonnet, play . . .
Emended readings give the real reason:
The times were out of joint, the loves, the season.

- The Critics”
― Lawrence Durrell, On Seeming to Presume

“Ω! έχει πολλή πέραση
ένα ψέμα με αλαφρύν όρκο
και ένα αστείο με σοβαρό φρύδι.”
― William Shakespeare

“For then what wouldst thou know, flitting 'twixt waking and sleep!”
― Stewart Stafford

“And school isn’t the same as theatre,” said Xavier, gazing round the building. “In a classroom you can talk this stuff through, interrogate it, contextualize it, and so on. You can’t do that here. There’s no pop-up footnotes to explain the subtext while the story is happening in front of you. That’s different. Makes it feel…real. Or at least endorsed: like, this is how it is and we’re not going to explain it. Study it critically by all means, talk about it, but don’t stage Othello and expect me to just sit there and drink it in, okay? Not gonna happen. Not Othello, and not The Merchant of Venice.”
― A.J. Hartley, Burning Shakespeare

“Since Shakespeare had a like for revolutionary rhetoric, let’s all cry: “Peace, freedom, and kindness.” So now we can start the play!”
― Carl William Brown, William Shakespeare Aphoristic Dictionary: With essays by Carl William Brown

“Dear reader, mon frère, increasingly rare, and less and less willing to descend into the depths of unknown literature to find the new, remember well that, as the great Voltaire said, some sentences are worth more than entire libraries, and to quote Prospero, Me, poor man, my library was a dukedom large enough!... So, of his gentleness, knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me from my own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom!”
― Carl William Brown, William Shakespeare Aphoristic Dictionary: With essays by Carl William Brown

“When you are about to trample on others, think that you will soon be trampled upon.”
― Carl William Brown, William Shakespeare Aphoristic Dictionary: With essays by Carl William Brown

“As far as the development of human happiness is concerned I would say that egoism is the higher form of stupid ignorance that prevents it.”
― Carl William Brown, William Shakespeare Aphoristic Dictionary: With essays by Carl William Brown

“Shakespeare, with his wisdom and creative ability, enhanced by his brilliant rhetoric, created works truly full of aphorisms and memorable phrases capable of distilling profound insights into human nature, ethics, politics, love, suffering, in practice, into the whole existence.”
― Carl William Brown, William Shakespeare Aphoristic Dictionary: With essays by Carl William Brown

“To conclude this preface I would just like to add that certainly aphoristic literature, although of extreme philosophical, artistic, and often even scientific value, is not loved by the general public, less and less accustomed to reading, meditating and thinking, perhaps because they realize, even following the advice of certain pseudo intellectuals, that to be happy and carefree you must not make your brain work too much, however I remain of the opposite opinion, precisely to safeguard our humanity, and therefore I agree with the following concept expressed by John Stuart Mill and for this reason I continue to strive to promote the aphoristic genre, here is the pearl of the great English philosopher: "It is better to be a discontented man than a satisfied pig, to be Socrates unhappy than a contented imbecile, and if the imbecile and the pig are of a different opinion it is because they see only one side of the question.”
― Carl William Brown, William Shakespeare Aphoristic Dictionary: With essays by Carl William Brown