Tip #8: Don’t Get Confused by the Poetry

Remember, Shakespeare wrote his plays mostly in verse. Some parts are in prose—usually the less important parts and parts where the speaker is lower class or someone unimportant in the story. The important parts are in poetry.

Because it’s meant to be poetic, there will be frequent poetic flourishes. These plays are not just straight-forward story-telling. People speak in eloquent speeches colored with sometimes extravagant detail, references to mythology, history, and the Bible, and lengthy metaphors and allusions.

Don’t get lost in all that.

When I first read Hamlet, I was confused by a dramatic speech given by an actor, or player, in Act 2, scene 2. I remember thinking, “Why are we talking about Priam and Pyrrhus, and the Trojan War? What’s that got to do with the prince of Denmark’s troubles?” Well, it had nothing to do with it. The actor was performing lines from a play because Hamlet asked him to. An actor in a play speaking lines from another play is confusing! Later, Hamlet wrestles with the fact that the actor giving the speech was more emotional about a fictional murder than he is himself about the actual murder of his own father.

The action in these plays unfolds slowly and the poetic sections can be confusing until you get used to it. Once you do, however, you’ll start to see that the poetry is the best part of Shakespeare.