Angel's Book Reviews 2.0

Well... This was a lot more fun than I expected.

I don't usually read literature books (I'm even a little bit prejudiced against them), and I don't really like poetry, but I had never read Shakespeare before, and I thought I should. I didn't want to read something whose story I already knew from top to bottom, so I decided on one of his less known works. This particular play is... well... different from what I assume the rest of his work would be.

As a drama play, it's probably very bad. As a comedy, however, it's priceless. He even kind of pokes fun at himself; the tropes in here are like a "best of Shakespeare": insanely jealous husband whose wife was not being unfaithful after all, eloping lovers from countries that supposedly hate each other, royal assassination plots, the works. I suppose, if you're looking for literary content, this would be a bit of a letdown; but if you don't take what you're reading too seriously, it's a hoot.

I'm not going to comment on the metric, rhyme or any poetic aspect of this since I don't know a lot about it, and I don't feel qualified enough to do it. But in the format of the story, the only thing that really bothered me was the scene 2 from act 5. Instead of making scenes showing what happened, he puts three people talking to each other and explaining what happened. I understand that this is a play, and you have to worry about budget and not making it too long so the people watching won't lose interest, but I still think that was just cheap.