3 ms·
a supportive word for those of us who just don’t enjoy Shakespeare Speaking as another who loathed Shakespeare at school and worked against that beginning to u
by mellosouls 3y ago
a supportive word for those of us who just don’t enjoy Shakespeare
Speaking as another who loathed Shakespeare at school and worked against that beginning to understand him and eventually revere him, precisely because I (rightly) assumed I was wrong:
You have to frame the dissenters you quote in the context of overwhelming literary consensus that he's the greatest writer who ever lived.
It's not like there's a roughly equal opinion on both sides as to his being good or not.
If you don't enjoy Shakespeare it's absolutely ok, but be in no doubt: it's a you thing.
- telmo 3y agoThere is no objective true to claims such as "X is the greatest writer who ever lived". Even if you could objectively determine the best writer for a certain culture and context, there are countless other cultures and contexts. Is Shakespeare greater than Cervantes? Goethe? Dostoevsky? Who knows? Who cares? The world is not only the anglo world. Other cultures have their own literary giants and you can bet that they value them more than they value Shakespeare. When I have to force myself to enjoy something, I tend to wonder if the thing is really worth enjoying or if I am instead just trying to acquire a taste that I deem prestigious. To each their own.
- mellosouls 3y agoWhen I have to force myself to enjoy something, I tend to wonder if the thing is really worth enjoying or if I am instead just trying to acquire a taste that I deem prestigious Whereas I would consider myself rather arrogant to assume the general consensus of hundreds of years to be wrong just because I needed to put a little effort in to understand it and thereafter enjoy it.