Bittersweet

He did it again. William Shakespeare has succeeded once more to remind me of my feelings of love and hate (or shall I say strong dislike to put it more civilly?) for his work. After every one of his plays I come away thinking, "genius". Shakespeare has a unique talent for writing; one of the, if not the most striking and outstanding of all time. According to Wikipedia he is, "regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and [is] the world's preeminent dramatist." Who could disagree? His writing is revolutionary. I am continually amazed at the amount of creativity, imagination, and skill of language he brings forth in his writing. I don't know if anyone will ever be able to top his artistry. So then, after a time, anger and sorrow find their way into my emotions. The majority of his plays that I have read always have some kind of tragedy. It's the kind of tragedy that makes you want to enter into the story and prevent the bad from happening. I understand that not all stories have happy endings but why do so many unfortunate, preventable events like death take place within his stories? The deaths of Romeo and Juliet: preventable. Those in Julius Caesar and Macbeth: preventable. Othello's deaths: preventable. It is just really upsetting to know that the deaths of the innocent or tricked could have been interrupted. And we, the audience, can't do anything about it! I guess I am blaming Shakespeare's skill of being able to trigger the audience's emotions by bringing both the relationships between characters and the plot lines to life, for my anger and tension. I just wish that his tragedies didn't leave me wanting to throw my script against the wall because these unfortunate deaths could have been prevented. But I suppose I will just have to accept the fact that Shakespeare's plays are genius because of what they are and hope that his goal was to make me feel somewhat helpless. In the end, Shakespeare is an incredibly talented artist whom I admire, I would just like to feel a little less angry and a little more relieved by the end of his plays. Would one happy ending hurt?