Throughout the course of my academic career, I have been so stranger to William Shakespeare. In high school, I remember we read many of his sonnets, as well as Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and The Taming of the Shrew. In college, I read Macbeth in Western Classics and Twelfth Night in Theatre Appreciation. It seems silly to have already read all that Shakespeare yet throughout my entire academic career from high school to my sophomore year of college, I never even considering picking up Hamlet, which is one of his most famous works and apparently, in terms of quality, Shakespeare's greatest masterpiece. I didn't particular enjoy it any more than I enjoyed some of Shakespeare's other plays, but I thought maybe this was because I just had too high of expectations for it, or that perhaps I am just not "cultured" enough to truly appreciate Hamlet.
However, I was relieved when I came into class the following day to realize that other people had the same grievances with the work as I did. I honestly did not like the character of Hamlet, but I overall just hated him. For example, I'm not a huge fan of Mercutio "as a person" in Romeo and Juliet, but I still found him an incredibly interesting character and a fun one to read about. He was a character that I loved to hate. Hamlet to me just seemed whiny and passive, and honestly, even his incredible complexity wouldn't redeem that for me. In terms of the play itself, I just had no emotional attachment to it. Sure, it was littered with death, but it didn't strike a chord with me in any way, which is definitely not the case for me when I have read other pieces by Shakespeare. For example, in addition to reading Romeo and Juliet, I also saw a production of it, as well as having seen a couple of movie adaptations of it, and every time I get to the end, I always wanna just scream at Romeo, "DON'T DRINK THE POISON, SHE'S STILL ALIVE!" and we're ultimately left feeling very depressed that Romeo and Juliet's romance was just not meant to be. I thought that Macbeth's downward spiral, brought about by his own hubris, was fascinating to read. I honestly felt terrible for Desdemona when Othello kills her and I was left in a state of shock.
However, when I read Hamlet, it just didn't have the same emotional impact for me. I mean, I did feel like the King's death was a long time coming, and I was pleased that Hamlet finally sealed the deal, but when he dies and doesn't really receive a happy ending, I am just happy this his whole ordeal is over, it didn't really matter much to me whether he lived or died. Gertrude and Ophelia didn't really do a whole lot for me either, they paled in comparison to other female Shakespeare characters like Desdemona, Katherina, and Lady Macbeth, who is my favorite Shakespeare character ever, male or female. In fact, the death that registered the most emotion for me was the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who were ironically exceedingly irrelevant to the story to begin with, and even at that, they weren't even tragic deaths, it was comedic for me in a way.
Overall, I was pleased that T.S. Eliot brought up a lot of points about Hamlet that quite frankly needed to be addressed that other people seemed to afraid to say, and I do feel a little more validated and more comfortable to express my own opinions about Hamlet after reading the article. But even then, I didn't really like the article that much. For me, it seems like Eliot really hated Hamlet, and I don't get me wrong, I don't hate Hamlet. I may not have entirely liked it, but I can totally 100% understand why other people do. It's just not my taste. Trying to compare Shakespeare plays are really like comparing apples and oranges in a sense. They're all good, and Shakespeare really has a way with his words, but at the end of the day, they're really different and everyone should be allowed to have their own opinions.
I mean, my favorite Shakespeare play is The Taming of the Shrew, which is a little embarrassing to admit for me just because no one I know has ever really said that that one was their favorite as well, but I just liked it. The pacing was good, the characters were interesting, and it was funny. That might be an unpopular opinion but I'm sticking by it. Maybe I just have bad taste when it comes to Shakespeare, but I feel like I have read enough of him to form opinions about his works as a whole.
P.S.
When doing this post I found a very funny/interesting article "What Your Favorite Shakespeare Play Says About You". I would encourage you to see where you fall.
http://flavorwire.com/394825/what-your-favorite-shakespeare-play-says-about-you
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