Not a big fan of the Bard. I never read any of his stuff on my own, but I never enjoyed reading it in High School. Too hard to sit through, the language is outdated and I'm not a big fan of Romance. I also do not think that His Drama's translate well into the Modern World. But, If you are one of the Millions of Shakespeare fans out there: More Power to ya.

He deserves props for basically inventing half the English language. Unfortunately, since I am not fluent in old English, I do not get his works. It feels like reading a foreign language. My loss I am sure, but nothing I feel I have missed.

Willliam Shakespeare is, without a doubt, the greatest writer the world has ever known. Who could have produced such beautiful plays and sonnets? Moreover, who was so observant and so adept, so as to know human nature and its greatness- as well as its flaws? The Bard from Stratford-upon-Avon was a master observer of human psychology, and likely used his observances to shape his colorful characters- thereby bringing them to life. Characters such as Prospero from 'The Tempest' uttering famous lines which are still oft-quoted like:

"And, like this insubstantial pageant faded/Leave not a rack behind/We are such stuff/As dreams are made of/and our little life/Is rounded with a sleep."

are part of the English venacular, and are conveniently used in punch-lines or are liberally used to emphasize points in common conversational dialogue. And though there are claims that he was not the actual author of these brilliant masterpieces we all take from subconsciously in some form or another, no one can prove he did not actually write them either. In any case, Shakespeare has transcended merely being the great dramatist there ever was, and has since been the standard for the use of English as a vehicle for projecting humans as they are.

his stories are awesome. humor, tragedy, he could do it all. the old enlgish is the only thing that makes his work torture in school. but anytime some one tries to make it modern, they get all artsy-fartsy like that junk with leo dicaprio a few years back. keep the stories original. they speak for themselves.

Considering his works are still being read, acted and made into movies. That says a lot.

I guess he was ok for his time.  I had to study this in English class in school, but never could really get into it.

Shakespeare was a very eloquent man with a keen ability to dramatize, which he used for his plays. He wrote very little poetry relatively speaking, and not very good. I am currently reading Venus and Adonis. Halfway through, all thats happened is that this woman is trying to kiss this man, and the man resists, because he wants to hunt a wild pig instead. She begins with wooing him by a philosophical dialogue as to why he should let her smother him. This is not my idea of deeply touching romance. Those who love exagerrated speeches, and a kind of sentimental drama, may like him, but I dont see great poetry here. To call him the worlds greatest poet is pure ignorance.

Richard Paulson

From his use of language, to his characters, to his insight into humanity he is incomparable. I see a few remarks on here that his plots are simple. These folks are missing the point. The very simplicity of most of his plots allows his language and characterizations to be highlighted. I see a few other remarks from reviewers whose grasp of writing and literature is, to be kind, underdeveloped. Danielle Steele, Sanford and Son? Leave it out folks. Save your comments for mass media schlock you're qualified to review.

Almost certainly the greatest English language author in history. His effect on the English language is incalculable.

Comparing the writings of Shakespeare to those of Danielle Steele is absurd; it is the same as saying that Charlotte Bronte wrote for Harlequin. Not only was he one of the greatest playwrights of all time, several of his quotes have become cliches today: it smells to high heaven ~Hamlet, one fell swoop~ Macbeth, .the world is my oyster~The Merry Wives of Windsor and I will wear my heart upon my sleeve.~Othello, just to name a small fraction of them. I have not heard too many quotes by Ms. Steele lately. His grasp of the human conditions of suffering, love and greed is profound, as well as written in some of the most beautiful prose ever to have found their way from pen onto paper. In King Lear, one of the darkest of his tragedies, the poignant words of Fool Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise, are an evidence of how his words have spanned over generations and time.

He is VERY over rated.. I CAN name three direct parallels between myself and OLE BILL .. However I prefer the Lamont Sanfored Portrayal of Othello I took the Circumsized DOg and Smote Him THus and he was reciting OThello...Fred say Lamont WHAT KIND OF DOG WAS THAT?.. Circumsized pop... Hey.. Was Shakepspeare Jewish? I DONT KNOW POP? WHY YOU ASK THAT? Well son, they go for that.. Blakc folks take it or leave it.. see.. when you was born the doctor said. And that white woman that was playing desdamona started LHAO.. Lamont POP WHAT ARE YOU TALKIG ABOUT? You take ONE WORD out of one of shakespeares greates plays and you make A PLAY OF YOUR OWN OUT OF IT.. Now what my acting...... then they went to Beverly Hills.. Well Lamont I'm gonna sit here in the truck just gimme a camera so I can take apicture of that Beverly Hills Policemans face when I tell him My son is in there acting like Shakespeare and choking a white woman to death. Thats all I want. LOLOLOLOLOL...

I think Shakespeare is over-rated.Yes,he wrote some fine plays-but he was also the Danielle Steele of his time.

The greatest playwright in history. Greater than even Euripedes. The greatest in English, the greatest in the world.

For english-speaking people: Shakespeare is Shakespeare, but didn't invent the drama. Drama is a Greek word and Aeschilus, Sofocles and Euripides are the best of all time. No doubt about it. World iterature began before the Bard. (I am Italian, not Greek, but the facts are facts)

He is ANYTHING but overrated. I would go so far to say that he was one of the most intelligent people of all time, simply due to his literary genius.

Duh...he's the BARD

ol' willy is overrated, in my honest opinion. he was very advanced for his time, but that doesn't make his works any less dull. his characters are almost always flat, his plots are all generally similar, and by now most of his novels hae been ripped off and cheapened by media anyway. i can respect him for what he was, but i can't really appreciate any of his work.

I think that Shakespeare is one of the best authors in the world. People might disagree and that may be because they are not used to the language and are therefore not able to see the genius. That gets many people discouraged. Nobody says it like Shakespeare. Nobody is able to pull such richness of the words without sounding like he's testing the boundaries of verbiage. Shakespeare is not just a great author of today, but if you read anything by his contemporaries like Ben Jonson and especially Thomas Kydd (Christopher Marlowe not as much) you'll see how far was he, even at that time, with progression and development of plot and fullness of his characters.

Damn Right Shakespeare is #1! His plays are magnificent! Surpassed by none! His plays are so enticing and his poetry is some of the most beautiful I have ever read. So some of his obscure plays are pretty bad (Titus Andronicus!!!!!), but Hamlet, Othello, Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, etc. Pure genius!

THe greatest playwright the world have ever known!!

DUUUUH!

Like him or not hes one of the most popular and famous classical literature authors of all time. This man is a creative genius. I've always had difficulty trying to grasp Shakespeare's style of writing, but once you do understand the way he writes you appreciate his work a lot more. No matter how hard I try to ignore his work, it's everywhere. He's used in english language and literature classes, drama and even to this day most films are based on his writing: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Ten Things I hate about You aka The Taming of the Shrew, O aka Othello. It doesn't stop there as his writing is going to continue to be appreciated and used for many more years to come.

It's hard to rate someone who's been ripped off by everyone else who's come along since then, especially if you were exposed to the copycats first. However, by modern standards, some of his plot devices are just too predictable. His writing style, however, is still unique.

shaky and i have a love hate relationship. I'm an english major and, of course, had to do THE SHAKESPEARE COURSE *gasp*. the thing with his plays is that the more you read them, the better they get and the more you get out of them. I love seeing the plays on stage (except the Histories, but even then they have merit). Shakespeare's plots were original and are beign emulated to this day. You know you've made it when the Simpsons do a take on your work ;). I'm not a fan of the sonnets, because there's just so much going on that i don't know about: the young man, the dark lady..the triangle! if shakespeare were only relevent in the 1600s as someone said, then why are the most popular quotes of the English language things that he wrote? *sighs*

However wrote this man's plays and sonnet series, whether it was Kit Marlowe, Lord Essex or unknown Playwright-By-Commitee, was one of the great literary giants of all time. Problematic as the topics of Shakespearian origins, authorship and canon might be, there's no doubting the greatness of the works, especially the major tragedies. The grace and lyricism of the language is among the greatest in English, the insights into human nature unparalleled, the dramatic structuring a model for most of ensuing Western theatre, the poetic heft and substantial/enduring themes of the plays ensure the author's place among the literary heavyweights of Western culture. Whoever wrote these plays was not only an erudite and supremely gifted wordsmith, but also a very experienced and well traveled sophisticate: the literary/historical/geographical allusions bear this out. This is why the idea of the historical William Shakespeare, a glover's son and itinerate actor with a fifth grade education being the author of the plays that bear his name is absolutely ludicrous. However, the play's the thing as the bard says in Hamlet, and the plays are truly magnificent: from Richard II and Richard III and the Prince Hal plays, to the great tragic foursome of MacBeth, Hamlet, Othello and King Lear, to the saturnalian comedy of A Midsummer Night's Dream to the romantical Tempest, the canon has no peer in any literary tradition on the planet in terms of variety, size and depth. As the English language is sprinkled with hundreds of common expressions that either have roots in Shakepeare or are direct lifts from his plays, his influence goes well beyond the scope of literature. Many of the idiotic posters on this site are disdainful of Shakespeare's language, which tells you much about their intellectual caliber. Keep in mind that the vocabulary desplayed in Shakespeare's canon constitutes something like 26,000 different words, while the vocabulary of a contemporary playwright like Arthur Miller is somewhere between 3,000-4,000: thus, the dumbing down of our culture has been at work for 400 years, and the erosion of mental acuity, knowledge and linguistic variety has been staggering in that time. These dolts who pan the archaic language of Shakepeare are the living and breathing evidence of this aesthetic and intellectual entropy. They should stick to comic books.

I hate Shakespeare. His plays may have had their place back in the 16th century but I get irritated why he is always set as compulsory text in Eng. lit studies. There are so many others to choose from, why him all the time?

Shakespeare is a great poet - perhaps the best ever - but IMHO the characters in his plays are not fully convincing.

I will admit that I am not a master at reading Shakespeare, nor have I read many of his works, but I have to give this man credit. I think he had a very clear understanding of the human psyche and deserves much of the popularity given to him considering it wasn't his plays that he wanted to be remembered for. His words post such passion and emotion. And even now, hundreds of years after his death, Shakespeare remains to be the most talked about and loved author of all time. There aren't many who can claim such a feat as that.

Shakespeare's characters were the first developed and introspective characters in drama/literature. His characters questioned their existence and philosophies in an abstract way that had never been done before and (some say) haven't been done since. The fifth act of Othello, Macbeth, and Hamlet are just some of the best examples of the finest work that western literature has to offer. People who give up on the language simply aren't paying attention or they are too impatient. . .

One of the greatest authors in the history of the world. I especially enjoyed Hamlet, and Othello.

Has there ever been a greater author? No one in drama comes close.

overrated and dreadfully boring. Didn't like any of his works.....

I use to read a great deal of his works, and loved them all.

Overrated *clap* *clap* another big *clap* etc.

The standard all others are judged by.The besT ,I love "As you like it","Twlefth Night" and "Much Ado About Nothing",not forgetting "A Mid Summers Night Dream".His work is everything entertainment is at it's best.Firstly it is a delight,something you can enjoy over and over again,and each time get a little something different out of,secondly it speaks to everyone,because it relates events in ones lives we all have experienced in one form or another.And because of all of these features it is timeless and therefore worthy of the praise given to it.

I will never understand the appeal of this man or his work. English was my favorite subject in high school but I would cringe every year when we had to start reading more of Shakespeare's rubbish. I'm not so sure it takes that much talent to rearrange your words and make it harder to understand in attempt to make it sound more artistic than it really is. Is that what good writing really is? I say piss on Shakespeare. There are plenty of better authors out there.

Who hasn't heard of William Shakespeare? He is, to this day, still one of the greatest writers in history! If his stories have survived this long, people will still be quoting him hundreds of years from now. I love his use of language, I never really had a problem with understanding him however, which made most of my middle school classmates angry, since they are not a literature "freaka", like I am. Still, Shakespeare will always be remembered and no one can convince me otherwise.

Some of his works are quite enjoyable, and a lot of his sonnets were excellent, but in the main i feel his work is average at best

He's just incredible. I hate having to read his plays for English class and then being quizzed on them, because it keeps me from enjoying them like I should.

All his stories are based on true stories.

He's not my fave, but good enough to get five. Why weren't Cervantes nor Moliere included?

I think the way Shakespeare is taught in schools ruins it for many people. So do some of the more stuffy performances that have been done through the years, treating it like Holy Writ and forgetting to make it theatrically interesting. Even so, it's probably better to see a lackluster production than to try to wade through his Elizabethan poetry on the page, unless you're used to the language. But it's amazing when it's done well, by a company whose actors can handle the language (the best in this line are usually British) and whose director understands that it's not supposed to be snooty, snobby, ivory-tower, high-culture, good-for-you-like-spinach fare, but rather art for the masses--just as in Italy grand opera was always popular entertainment for everyone. Shakespeare's themes, characters, and insights into human nature are for everyone, and for the ages.

Fraud.

I think, usually, once one passes the language barrier one has unlocked a beautiful treasure. I must whole-heartedly agree with the user who said that Shakespeare's plays were meant to be seen and not read! What a shame it is that our first encounter with the Bard's work is almost always on the printed page. How lifeless! How mundane! And YES, how difficult to understand! The recent movie version of "Romeo and Juliet" unlocked Shakepeare for me. Egad! I discovered he was funny, cleaver, and I have never had trouble "understanding" his works since. I must also pick a bone with those "purists" among us that think such updates desecrate his work. Indeed they glorify it and prove that his work is indeed timeless.

Is Shakespeare the greatest writer of all time? I don't think so, don't think his writing is perfect or that everything he wrote is wonderful. At the same time, I do think he is one of the great writers. As several other reviewers have noted, though, his words need to be heard, his plays need to be seen to be appreciated fully. Obviously the English of the 16th century is not the same English we speak today -- why on earth would anyone expect it to be? -- and it's easier to understand the sense of it when you're caught up in the story. 500 years from now, the language we speak will not be understood by people expecting to read popular fiction -- if we're very lucky, there may be a writer or two whose works survive to be studied and admired. One comment, though, for people who may have been discouraged by exposure to Shakespeare in school. Why not try again now, by choice?

OoOoOoh I so totally lOoOove Shakespeare. He is awesome. His works are the masterpiece. McBeth, Hamlet, his poems and all the rest of his works are just awesome

I'm probably going to get some "Not helpful" votes from you Shakespeare nuts out there, but here's my opinion. I admit, I haven't read a heck of a lot of Shakespeare, but I have read three entire plays, including Romeo & Juliet, and segments of others. I think he was a good writer who often made clever use of language and wordplay, and his comedies are actually still pretty funny some 400 years later. However, I do NOT think he is the absolute greatest, Godly, influential-to-the-nth-power Holy Patron Saint of English Literature that he has come to represent. He is very entertaining to read, I'm not denying that any, though the archaic language can be a bit confusing sometimes. I'm just saying I don't completely WORSHIP Shakespeare as the GOD of literature. There is no God of literature, there are merely many good/great writers, but even Shakespeare's Almighty reputation in literature doesn't make him any especially better than, say, Edgar Allan Poe. Really now, isn't "He who has never swooned is not he who sees strange palaces and wildly familiar faces in coals that glow, is not he who beholds, floating in mid-air, the sad visions that the many may not view, is not he who ponders over the perfume of some novel flower, is not he whose mind grows bewildered with the meaning of some musical cadence which has never before arrested his attention" much more interesting and colorful a piece of writing than "To be or not to be, that is the question. Wether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by oppressing, end them"? I can identify with POE'S concepts much more than Shakespeare's. Poe talks about the inner workings of the human mind, albeit using bizarre and unrealistic situations to illustrate the point; THAT can be understood by anybody, because we ALL have psyches. Who today can identify with and understand all the swordfights and soliloquies and appearances of ghosts? I can subconciously identify with Poe's concepts much, much easier, not to mention that he articulates himself in a much more clear-cut manner, instead of cramming in a lot of "i'"s and "o'er"s and "wi'"s and "what"s, even though that was the language of the time. But I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. All I'm saying is that I see Shakespeare as a good writer whose works are entertaining and interesting to read, and not as the completely flawless GENIUS and overall-influencing-every-word-ever-written-up-to-this-day multi-God of literature that he is so often considered to be. OK? I'm not saying he's without merit, just that he isn't any ESPECIALLY better than any other writer. Just think about it for a minute or two before you click the "No" button under my comment. Maybe I'm wrong, but I may also be right. Depends on how open-minded you are. Or it could be that I haven't read enough.But thank you for taking the time to read what I have to say.

Shakespeare is the most overrated author to ever pick up a quill pen! I'm not saying he's without merit, far from it. He wrote some interesting little 17th century soap operas. Yet, to put this man in a category with Poe is ludicrous! Every thing this man has done is known as an immeasureable linguistic feat.Even those who are not very fond of him seem to revere his work work as above criticism. Our culture has come to associate the peak of literature with Shakespeare, when so many others deserve the honour. It's a toal miss to me why so many hop on the shakespeare band wagon. A clever sonnet is not worthy of the acclaim he regularly is endowed. Ole shakey was worthy of a 3 but I was forced to dock him points for the after death ego-boasting he's unduly recieved.

Beautiful language and enchanting stories.

I have tried numerous times to enjoy his works but I find them to be arcane and overrated. But it cannot be argued that Shakespeare was one of the greatest contributors to the English language, with his use of rhyming couplets, his creation of Shakespearean sonnets (as opposed to the Petrarchan sonnets), his liberal use of vulgar humor (bastardized to varying degrees by playwrights to this day) and his biting, satirical wit. It annoys me that certain fans of Shakespeare fancy themselves "purists" and either dismiss or vociferously denounce interpretations of his plays and poems. I would think that Shakespeare would have welcomed these varying points of view because the fans of his plays in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were just as loud, brutish and vulgar as Shakespeare's characters were, yet Shakespeare's audience was remarkably attuned to social mores and were highly appreciative of the numerous puns and ribald humor that he wrote. In college, I hated Shakespeare, because the professors I had were arrogant Shakespeareans who fancied themselves masters of the Bard's works and thought that scholarly input from a lowly college pissant such as myself wasn't worth their time. To this day, Shakespeare puts me to sleep (and I'm an English teacher by training!). What a shame that my experience wasn't a better one, because I believe I would have enjoyed "As You Like It" and "Much Ado About Nothing." I enjoy "The Taming of the Shrew" and "Hamlet" and that's about it, with a hey, and a ho, and a hey, no-ni-no.