Shakespeare

Let's think about perhaps the top 10 things that people would like to know, ought to know about Shakespeare if they're getting into his works. The first thing to say is that he did live quite along time ago. He lived 400 years ago. So if you're reading Shakespeare or listening to Shakespeare, you're listening to somebody whose language is not quite the language of our current time. You're listening to someone who was writing in a language which is a bit out of date for now. It takes a little bit of effort to understand that language but the understanding will be done partly for you by the actors if you're hearing it, or if you're seeing it performed. Another thing is that Shakespeare was a very great poet. He wrote poems like narrative poems and sonnets but he was also, and this is my third point, he was also a great theatre poet. His poetry is dramatic poetry in the plays. He's not just writing static poetry, lyric poetry in the plays, which is therefore declamation. He's writing dramatic poetry which consists of interaction between the characters in the plays.