shakespeare is taken real seriously for a guy who wrote “‘What, you egg?’ [he stabs him]” and “Methought I was enamoured of an ass.“

@zombeesknees

shakespeare is not pretentious. fans of shakespeare are pretentious. shakespeare is twelve hundred dirty jokes strung together by increasingly ridiculous plotlines and increasingly homosexual characters. don’t let the archaic language fool you

writing tip #2201:

defeat writers block by asking “what would shakespeare do?” and add in a dick joke

one thing I find hilarious is when Shakespeare quotes are used out of context

like, people are always saying “some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them” as if it’s all deep and meaningful when actually it comes from a prank letter in Twelfth Night

and “This above all: to thine own self be true” comes from Polonius in Hamlet wherein the joke is that he’s an old pompous dude giving a long and rambling speech full of contradictory pointless advice to his son

“Brevity is the soul of wit” is another joke, because again, it’s made by Polonius who will just not shut up

it’s “we are such stuff as dreams are made on” not “of “, as in, “such stuff as dreams are built on”

“wherefore art thou, Romeo” doesn’t mean “where are you, Romeo” it means “why the fuck are you called Romeo, shit, I wanted to bang you but I can’t because you’re a goddamn Montague”

all these lines have acquired a kind of dignity in text that they never had in performance or are constantly misinterpreted

It’s not necessarily bad but it is kind of funny, sometimes.

#GREATNESS THRUST UPON THEM WAS A SEX JOKE#THE GREATNESS#WAS HIS PENIS#HIS FUCKING PENIS#STOP USING IT SERIOUSLY IT WAS A DICK JOKE#IM B E G G I N G YOU (x)

If you ever see a Shakespeare quote your initial instinct should be to take it as innuendo