Books I Loathed discussion

Tell me I'm not alone in thinking Shakespeare is highly overrated. I hate his work. Don't shoot me!

It really depends on the play, my patience with the archaic English, and whether I have a grade hanging on the line. Since I no longer go to school, my appreciation has actually gone up. I highly recommend 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead' with Tim Roth, Gary Oldman, and Richard Dreyfuss.

I first became acquainted with Shakespeare in high school. We spent a semester studying his play "Julius Caesar" which turned out to be an exciting experience that left a profound impression on me. Our English teacher knew the subject inside-out and she made you want to know more. And what's most important: She made Shakespeare intelligible to me! To this day, 36 years later, I can still cite passages from the play. Example: "How many ages and ages hence, shall this our lofty scene be acted over, in states unborn and accents yet unknown?"

Also, Shakespeare's sonnets are worth reading if you have any fondness for poetry. The same English teacher who taught 'Julius Caesar' to me (and 'Hamlet' in my senior year of high school) also introduced me to the sonnets, iambic pentameter, blank verse, and heroic couplets.

The plays require a bit of work - reading and re-reading, looking at the text, working out the imagery and what each bit means and seeing how it all fits together. It is much more like reading poetry than prose. Once you do this, it blooms, and you see just what a goddamned genius this guy was. Best way to understand a Shakespeare play? Be involved in the performance of it. Take the time.

I LOVE a midnight summer's dream, but HATE romeo and juliet!