Fully Booked: A Rant About Shakespeare

I’m willing to bet a large proportion of the people reading this aren’t Shakespeare fans. You probably find it too wordy and boring. Which is fair enough. It is boring. Who wants to listen to a teacher drone about symbolism in King Lear for 45 minutes? Did it never occur to them that 400 year-old literature might need some spicing up?

Self-named “intellectuals” will always love to tell you that the only way to read Shakespeare is to struggle blindly through ridiculously-long metaphors, obscure mythology references and vocal words that literally don’t exist anymore. They’re wrong, movies are awesome, and Romeo-and-Juliet-era Leo DiCaprio is a number one spice. By all means read the original texts, they’re beautiful, but don’t feel dumb for watching Youtube videos to help you. I love the plays to death, but I would never start one without Wikipedia-ing the plot before hand.

It honestly makes me so sad that thousands of teenagers are dismissing Shakespeare, because they’re taught it in such a boring way. Students are made to feel like the stories have nothing they could possibly relate to, despite the fact the themes in Shakespeare’s plays are ones everyone can relate to. Love, jealousy, fighting with your parents, getting shipwrecked and disguising yourself as your twin. All totally relatable themes.

It’s as though every English teacher in the world made the collective decision to teach Shakespeare in the dullest way possible, as though they don’t want students to empathize with the characters or get excited about the plot.

But it’s cool, I’m not mad. I’m just going to take this opportunity to sell you Shakespeare as best I can.

Twelfth Night

Will didn’t really do comedies, but I don’t know why because this one is awesome. It’s about a girl called Viola who gets shipwrecked and split up from her twin brother so (obviously?) she dresses up as a man, calls herself Sebastian and gets a job working for a Duke. She promptly falls in love with the Duke, who has a bit of a Mulan-style gay crisis over her/him. The Duke fancies this bird Olivia and sends Viola/Sebastian to send love notes, but Olivia conveniently falls in love with Sebastian/Viola. A bunch of stuff goes down: a sword fight, a false mental illness diagnosis, a man in yellow leggings and fishnets, lots of drunkenness – all culminating in Viola’s twin brother showing up and some funky mistaken identity drama. It’s a wild, slightly unfeasible ride from start to finish.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

This is the one I know best. We read it when I was in 5th grade and I’ve read it at least 4 times since. I won’t try and explain the plot in detail because it’s kind of complex – look up a summary on YouTube. Basically two girls and two guys get lost in the woods one night, all mixed up, and then some magical creatures get involved and things get even more mixed up.

At one point the fairy queen falls in love with a man who has been cursed with a donkey head. I love this one because it just takes wacky to a whole new level.

Othello

Ok, this is a serious one, dealing with issues of race and gender, as well as love, jealousy and insecurity. Othello is married to Desdemona, and Iago decides to destroy them both. He feeds off Othello’s existing insecurities, particularly that he is black in an all-white society, to convince Othello that Desdemona is cheating on him. Othello turns slowly insane with jealousy and, no spoilers, the ending is devastating.

The language in Othello is absolutely beautiful. It’s raw and gritty and honest and romantic. The downward spiral of Othello’s mental state, and the subsequent disintegration of his relationship Desdemona, is gripping.

So if I have any kind of message from this article, it’s to never let anyone tell you that Shakespeare is too smart or sophisticated for you. If they try to, politely remind them that the overarching themes of the plays are ones that remain relevant and relatable to this day. Then mention that Shakespeare regularly used fart humor and boob jokes and tell them they can stick their smug elitism up their arse.

View the gallery for some of my favorite Shakespeare movie adaptations.