Why I don't like Shakespeare (Gasp!)

Okay... Okay... let the shock and horror of someone who doesn't like the bard, or as some people treat him the literary "god" of the English language, the one, the only, Shakespeare, be done and just hear me out on this one please.

So now that I have your attention and you may be thinking, "who is this idiot think he is dissing on Shakespeare?"

I have read two of his plays, Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. A Midsummer Night's Dream is done okay I guess, but Romeo and Juliet... it sucks really, really badly.

So to start with Romeo and Juliet what do we know about our star crossed lovers? Well there from families that absolutely hate each other, their young, rich, and naive. Besides that we know that they are head over heels in love for each other! But besides that, what do they have in common? Anyone? Anyone? Do they share any values outside of their love for each other? I could be wrong, but there is nothing else that comes to mind. "So what," you may be thinking, "It's about the bond they share over the time they have together!" Ohh... you got me... but it's not like they have no character development though right... right? Generally in a story a character(s) go through an arch that brings about change by the end of the story, this shows development and lesson learned from the events that the characters went through. Don't believe me? Well let me show you what I mean; when we first meet Romeo here is the first exchange with him:
Benvolio good morrow, cousin.
Romeo   Is the day so young?
Benvolio But new struck nine.
Romeo   Ay me! sad hours seem long.
              Was that my father that went hence so fast?
Benvolio It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?
Romeo   Not having that, which, having, makes them short.
Benvolio In love?
Romeo   Out--
Benvolio Of love?
Romeo   Out of her favour, where I am in love.

So you can see at the start of the Play Romeo is depressed because of a failed love interest. Then at the end of the play Romeo believes that his love Juliet is dead so he kills himself. So there seems to be a small pattern here: falls in love (Rosaline), loses love (With Rosaline as she rejects him), falls in love (Juliet), loses love ( thinks she is dead). So we start with his losing love with Rosaline, then he refalls in love with Juliet... instantly... then he basically forgets all about Rosaline. So his character in the beginning of the Play is depressed, then his end in the Play he is depressed, but on top of that he commits suicide. There was a hint of forbidden love between him and Juliet sense there families hated each other, but think of it like this, "If Juliet was from a different family that his was not feuding with and she dumped him, as I said, 'loses love,' would he just do the same thing with another girl then?" If the answer is Yes, then he treats his women as the flavor of the month and when they go away he gets sad until he tries the new flavor. To me this says the character easily becomes overly attached and somewhat clingy. I could see this cycle continuing backwards for him, but when he meets Juliet and they fall in "wuve" for each other, it's like the next flavor for him, and my evidence is how quickly they fall for each other. So Romeo starts and ends as the same character by the end of the story, there is no growth.

Now turning to Juliet, when we meet her she is to be married to Count Paris, but the wedding is to be delayed by about two years as the request of her father. Juliet does not wish to marry Paris however, this will be important. So during a ball that Juliet's family is hosting Juliet falls in "wuve" with Romeo, as he basically flirts with her big time, and they have a kiss. We are basically viewing this from the side of Romeo. Now lets take a look at the mind frame of Juliet, she is to marry someone she does not want to, she just got kissed by a young good looking stranger, and as she finds out he is a member of her families enemies which makes it a sense of forbidden love. So basically she falls in love with Romeo not for the sake of love itself, but to spite her family for making her do something that has life long consequences that she does not want to deal with. And remember that both of these characters are teenagers and still going through puberty so the emotion is heightened for them. 

So the reason they fall in love is because from Juliet's point of view this is her own selfish way to spite her family, and from Romeo's point of view she is the new flavor of the month for him to try out which is kinda shallow of him.  Wether they know this consciously or not is beside the point, they love each other out of vice rather than virtue, they are doomed to fail, which is why this play is a tragedy. These characters don't need each other. No. They each separately need a therapist. Shakespeare could have made this a good Play however, the characters don't grow at all, or if they do it's very very little. I guess you could say that their growth is in their vice version of love for each other which blinds them from basic common sense. From what I gather most people think this story is a tragedy because their love is forbidden because their families are in simple terms at war with each other, and I am here to say that this is merely a consequence that lead to their own vice version of love.

A few years latter Shakespeare decides to copy himself by writing Antony and Cleopatra, which is based on history. I'm going to keep this one brief, there's a "forbidden" love, and other important people don't like it, so at the end the main characters kill themselves. Does this sound vaguely familiar to Romeo and Juliet?

Regarding A Midsummer Night's Dream, it's the only Play of his that I would is okay. And if I were to give it a letter grade it would be a C+. Some of the jokes are done well and others are just so low brow that they lack any semblance of comedy. With so many main characters to focus on this leaves little time for development for each of the characters, however their development is highly better than the development in Romeo and Juliet. Besides Robin Goodfellow who is a puck, the rest of the characters aren't that memorable, unless you are a die hard Shakespeare fan. 

I didn't lay down the thought that Shakespeare is boring, because I'm guessing most people would just pass this post up and not pay any attention to it, for what's already been said about this. Yet I do agree that he is a bit boring. In this post I went over some of his plays, but not his poems, that would be a different post altogether. I will admit I'm not a big fan of poetry and this could be a bias I have for myself not enjoying the bards poetry, however I will list a few people I believe have written better poems than dearly beloved Shakespeare, and they are: Edgar Allan Poe, Lewis Carroll, and Jane Austen. 

So these are my basic thoughts of the Plays of Shakespeare, take it or leave it, not everyone likes the bard and that's okay.