A big part of his supposed genius was commonplace back then...

A big part of his supposed genius was commonplace back then. He only seems esoteric and mysterious to us because of his obscure language. He was forgotten until Voltaire or some faggot revived him from oblivion and now every literary academist jerks off about how amazing he was while in truth he was alright for the times. There's nothing in Shakespeare that doesn't also happen in other artists from the period.

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>the metaphor that is the thing, not the play
I don't even like Shakespeare that much but no, no one does metaphor as him. He stole plots though. This is well known.

Yes, Beaumont and Fletcher are great aren't they?

Shakespeare's genius is in psychology before it was a thing

Freud was a big fan of Shakespeare

No one would remember Ben Jonson and Christopher Marlowe if it weren't for shakespare. They are only famous as shakespeare contemporaries

People don't like Shakespeare because he is esoteric and mysterious. What the hell are you on about? People like Shakespeare because of the beauty of his verse (present in some contemporaries but not as consistently), his interesting characters (again better than the others) and his practiced theatrical skill (this is where he stands out the least or not at all among the other Elizabethans).

Also, he wasn't revived from oblivion. Never happened. He lived, was celebrated, people moved on, a lifetime later people take a new interest. That is normal for anyone.

>He lived, was celebrated, people moved on, a lifetime later people take a new interest.
That's literally being revived from oblivion but with extra steps.

Shakespeare was never forgotten and from his own time to the present he has been regarded as one of the best (and the best more often than not) English dramatist.
Dedicatory poems by Ben Jonson and Milton in the 2nd folio show his preeminence in his own time.
Dryden (late 17th century) called him "the incomparable Shakespeare". Although at this time Shakespeare's plays were not the most performed in the theater, he was acknowledged for his artistic superiority, his untaught genius and his realistic human characters.
In the 18th century Shakespeare 's plays dominated the English stage. He was praised by Samuel Johnson, pope and Addison.
>every single character in Shakespeare is as much an individual as those in life itself.
>among the English, Shakespeare has incomparably excelled all others.
Also in the 18th century in Germany goethe praised Shakespeare. In Russia Catherine the Great.
And of course the romantics in the 19th century, probably where you (erroneously) assumed Shakespeare was "revived from oblivion".

Is it worth reading Shakespeare? If yes, then why? and what plays?

Yes. Read him and find out. Any and all (start with one of his most famous tragedies though)

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righto

>this side idolatry

'Tis not due yet; I would be loath to pay him before
his day. What need I be so forward with him that
calls not on me? Well, 'tis no matter; honour pricks
me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I
come on? how then? Can honour set to a leg? no: or
an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no.
Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What is
honour? a word. What is in that word honour? what
is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it?
he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no.
Doth he hear it? no. 'Tis insensible, then. Yea,
to the dead. But will it not live with the living?
no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore
I'll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon: and so
ends my catechism.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

i prefer young hal, especially his very first speech. the seed and first shoots.of his character already coming through, and the image of the figure he will become standing huge behind him.
he has time still to do right by his friends then
but he chooses to be a sun instead

His linguistic inventiveness is unmatched, and the depth of his characters along with his poetic talent are similarly without peer.

Yeah I prefer young Hal too and think he did Falstaff dirty.
But I just wanted to show user an example of Shakespeare's range. How he can effectively esspous both fallsatff's and Henry V's opinion of honor. The empathy that man must have had! And to be able to put it in such beautiful effortless verse.

>His linguistic inventiveness is unmatched
You mean all those words he stole from Latin and French?
>and the depth of his characters along with his poetic talent are similarly without peer.
You're kidding, right?

>You're kidding, right?
I certainly am not.

yea you are, stop memeing

Shakespeare stole all his work from a black woman, everybody knows that

He coined literally more than a thousand words still in use today, and helped to systematize the English language in a way no other single person did.

Shakespeare *was* a black woman
FTFY

Every single thing you wrote here is wrong.

>A big part of his supposed genius was commonplace back then.
No, it wasn't.
>He only seems esoteric and mysterious to us because of his obscure language.
No.
>He was forgotten until Voltaire or some faggot revived him from oblivion
Wrong.
>and now every literary academist jerks off about how amazing he was while in truth he was alright for the times.
Academic circlejerking has nothing to do with the work itself as quality.
>There's nothing in Shakespeare that doesn't also happen in other artists from the period.
He surpasses all his contemporaries by a mile.

t. guy who is studying to be a PhD in English history from roughly the time Shakespeare lived in