In comparison to his contemporaries in English Literature?
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My Shakespeare processor used to say that you don’t start liking Shakespeare until you read at least 4 of his plays
And you don’t REALLY like him until you read 14 of them
Shakespeare understood that his audience was made up of both upper class nobles and “standing room only” (literally) lower class people. His plays were constructed to be accessible to both of them at the time, with enough depth to be interesting and engaging to everybody
Additionally, Shakespeare was really really good at subverting expectations in the theater. Plays are either comedies (upward movement to a happy ending) or tragedies (downward movement to a usually sad ending), but many of Shakespeare’s plays do both. Some characters end up ok, others don’t. The audience may not know if it’s a comedy or a tragedy until the very end of the play.
All of that combined with just all around really good word play and prose makes Shakespeare the big cheese (at least starting the mid 1700s when his popularity really hit off)
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