mrislam

It is distasteful, to say the least, when a writer comes off as pretentious and a “try-hard”. Many would think of Shakespeare's works as befalling this category — with fancy words, references to old legends, and just their critical acclaim.

But I find his work to be the exact opposite. He is immensely humble with his plays in particular.

It's not that he does not have ambitious hopes at what message he tries to convey, or how greatly he wanted to entertain his crowds — but rather, he most humbly accepted that at the very end of the day, what he produced was entertainment.

No matter how in depth, how life-changing, motivating, depressing, and accurate in portraying the human condition his plays were, he accepted that what he produced was entertainment. I make this claim based upon how at the end of each of his plays, no matter what has preceded that curtain call — every character gets up and just dances with everyone else, in tune with a merry song playing in the background.

Instead of a more cynical interpretation (life is pointless, so just chill), or a more practical one (crowds needed to be reminded a play is not reality) — I just think he embraced that he produced a good night's entertainment that people would love as recreation.

And in doing so, he did not take on the heavy and futile task of proving how deep or significant his plays would be, which would only induce pretentiousness. He embraced the fact that he “only” made entertainment. And thus he made the most deep, touching, and accurate pieces of enriching entertainment in the history of man.