What is off-putting or appealing to you about reading Shakespeare?
What about Shakespeare makes him so gosh darn important? Why do we continue to read his works 400+ years after they were written?
What is off-putting or appealing to you about reading Shakespeare?
5 Comments
Jack Hannack
2/5/2016 08:13:26 am
Today people speak very differently from the way Shakespeare wrote. Therefore, to grasp part of the English culture from several hundred years ago, we read Shakespeare's works. I believe we read more of Shakespeare's works today than other authors during this time period because he was greatly applauded during his time. The irony in Shakespeare's plays appeals to me, but the hard-to-understand-language makes me mad.
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Jacqueline Dieckman
2/5/2016 08:13:51 am
Well I haven't read any Shakespeare before Macbeth but I guess the things that make him so important are the words and phrases that he invented for his work and that the stories were probably pretty relate-able to the people of that time and to people now. So far in Macbeth, there has been an internal struggle within him about wanting to be king and I think most people find it interesting to see what he does but can also apply it to their own life. Shakespeare also invented many new words that we still use today. I think its important that we understand how much of an influential writer he was and how his work continues to be used in our writings today. I think the thing that is the most off putting to me in Shakespeare is how difficult it is to understand the language he uses because we do not speak that way today.
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Esther Gland
2/8/2016 12:45:51 pm
Okay, so I have read a decent bit of Shakespeare on my own time and honestly, sometimes I do not understand why our culture takes him so seriously. His plays are all inappropriate jokes, sword fights, and death. Now, I do thoroughly enjoy his writing, don't get me wrong. But I don't understand why we consider him so incredibly important and esteemed. He wrote for the common people, and made up words whenever he felt like it. If he was alive today, he'd probably laugh out loud at how seriously we take his writing. I actually love his works because they allow me to insult people with eloquence, laugh and marvel at people's stupidity, and at the same time make me feel smart for understanding ye olde english.
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Rachel Coyne
2/25/2016 08:58:43 am
I really do not understand why William Shakespeare's works are so important. I do think that they probably are still popular today because they allow us in modern times to get a look at what life was like back in those days, although hopefully there was not that much death way back when. There are some really famous one-liners that came from his works that seem to be important to some people today, but frankly, I just do not seem to care. His plays are hard to understand and all pretty much have the same idea: everyone important dies.
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Bailey Manor
3/27/2016 04:46:48 pm
I agree, Rachel. I think that his plays are popular today to show us writing styles from that time period, but they are so difficult to understand. I do not think they have had any positive influences on me. I really hate the language that Shakespeare uses to write his plays. How am I supposed to understand what thy, thou, thee, etc. mean? I noticed that when we were reading the play, I didn't even pay attention to the normal lines. I focused on the side that is written in our language.
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