37 Silly Reasons to Study Shakespeare

Studying Shakespeare can feel daunting. Especially if you are doing so not out of a love of theater but because your high school English teacher thinks it is part of a well-rounded education (it is). Shakespeare’s speech can be hard to understand, and some of his plots are so convoluted that only a venn diagram or long wall and string will get you through them.

But trust me oh fair Groundling. There is a lighter side to the study of Shakespeare’s work.  If you have found your way to this website as a grasp for some kind of study life line rest assured, you’ve come to the right place! Before you panic or give up, take a deep breath and enjoy

Sari’s 37 silly reasons to study Shakespeare

1. We wouldn’t have anything to compare our lovers to.
2. He makes us think about the hard questions in life. Does a rose by any other name actually smell as sweet?
3. The only western playwright to use the word honorificabilitudinitatibus correctly in a sentence.
4. To be or not to be is still the question. 
5. He gave us countless blathering foolish wits and conversely, some loquacious witty fools.
6. He makes shipwrecks seem like a lot of fun.
7. He gave us daddy issues way before Freud invented mommy issues.
8. He left us with some great names. Let’s be honest; we are all a little disappointed that we left college without making friends with cool last names like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
9. He gave Kenneth Branagh a purpose in life.
10. He reminds us to always treat a stranger as if he were our brother.
11. 400 years later we still don’t have a better sonnet writer.
12. 400 years later the only people who know the difference between a poem and a sonnet are poets and Shakespeare fanatics.
13. Three words: Gnome & Juliet.
14. Best stage direction ever: exit, pursued by a bear.
15. He gave us teenage angst, extreme teenage angst.
16. We all now know that when presented with three boxes, always take the least desirable looking one.
17. He legitimized the breaking of the fourth wall.
18. Two words: Folger Library.
19. He gave us some of the world’s best female characters and one of the world’s worst male characters (I’m looking at you Iago).
20. He gave us the best lines in all of the theater. Oh, we argue over which ones they are, but not over who wrote them.
21. He taught us that geography really doesn’t matter when writing stories.
22. He taught us never to give our children their inheritance before we die.
23. A lot of us wouldn’t know what to do without our Sundays. #ShakespearSunday.
24. Without him, errors would not be so comical.
25. Quoting Shakespeare will impress your date, even if they don’t know what the hell you are talking about.
26. Without him, would anyone really care about the Ides of March?
27. Hamlet didn’t need eyeliner to be a morose teenager.
28. Let’s face it, a lot of people went into acting just so they could speak the speech.
29. Let’s face it, only real Shakespeare fans will get #29.
30. Without him, Harold Bloom would still be wondering who invented the human.
31. Without him no amount of explaining would make the skull on your bookshelf any less creepy.
32. He gave us much ado about everything.
33. He taught us that it’s best to avoid talking to that small group of women we encounter on the road.
34. He taught us excessive hand washing might be a sign of more than just OCD.
35. College students would be agonizing over Chaucer right now.
36. One word; Dogberry.
37. He added over 1700 new words to our collective vocabulary and enriched our language. A better speech was never spoke before. Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Studying Shakespeare can tough, but the rewards are many. I hope you stick to it, and I hope to continue to be one of your guides.

Anon!

Sari