I know what you're thinking- "she's a theater major, or course she wants us to read Shakespeare", but to be honest, I was never really a huge Shakespeare guru until I started reading more of it, and then I began to understand it. Once I did, it opened a whole new world for me to explore. Here are a couple of reasons why I think it's important to read/study Shakespeare:
We don't know much about his life, so why not learn more? I remember when I first learned about Shakespeare in about second grade. All I learned about him was that he was a poet and a playwright, he lived in Stratford-Upon-Avon and that he was born and died on the same day. That doesn't really give us much, the only way to learn more is to read his plays!
Shakespeare was meant to be watched, not read. A lot of people HATE Shakespeare because they just remember sitting around in a circle and listening to each other stumble over words they don't normally use in everyday conversation. But, you have to admit, when you watched the film versions or acted the scenes out in class, it was pretty entertaining. I never realized this until I started working on tech for more Shakespeare shows, but it's meant to be watched rather than read. It's so much easier to understand when all of the characters are in front of you and when you get to see what's actually going on rather than reading the translation in the margins. There are so many innuendos and jokes that people don't get when reading it right off the page. Even if you don't understand the verse perfectly, (if an actor does it correctly), you'll know what's going on.
When you understand the language, you can impress other people with it. I'm not trying to hint anything there, but poetry is pretty romantic. Nuff said.
His characters are much more in depth that the other crap we find ourselves reading today. Believe me, I'm all for some Twilight, but compared to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, etc. those characters are very two-dimensional. There is never just a villain and a good guy, There's a villain who has an insane backstory that made him this way, and a good guy that secretly wants to kill himself. So if you want a good three-dimensional character, pick up Cymbeline and read about Iachimo and his crazy ways of trying to prove a point.
The story lines are wild. Talk about plot twists. The second you think there's going to be a happy ending, everyone dies. Or the second you think everyone is going to die, they end up living happily ever after. So, if you want what one of my English Professors here would call "sexy bedtime reading", Shakespeare is your guy.
He's the father of English Literature. Lastly, this kind of speaks for itself. If you're looking to studying the English language and you don't ever study Shakespeare, you're kind of doing a disservice to yourself. A lot of people say that he is the best playwright to ever exist, and while I won't shove my opinions down people's throats (more than I already have), I think Shakespeare is definitely in the top play writes I really enjoy. With every play or sonnet I read (even though they're usually for assignments in schools or because my school is doing a production of something), I gain more respect as an actor and a reader, the more you read the more you'll learn!
