How many Shakespeare plays have you read/seen?
Zero, only know his works from cultural osmosis
1-4, typical of what you would've read in school
5-10, burgeoning hobbyist numbers
11-15, still a hobbyist but more experienced, including lesser-known works
16-22, making your way downtown, walkin fast, faces pass and you're homebound
23-30, have read most of them by now, with some exceptions
31-36, could very feasibly finish the complete plays soon
37-40, have read the entire canon and perhaps apocrypha, like an obsessed person
I'm curious about people's levels of familiarity; I intend no judgment or elitism and it's absolutely fine not to be a completionist, btw. I didn't think I would've intended to have read them all at age 25; it just sort of happened that after I passed the halfway point in the middle of 2023, I came out of a reading slump and was motivated to finish. Fwiw I consider myself a hobbyist (I am not involved in academia or professional theater) but I realize that that label is usually attributed to people with less experience.
I also have always loved seeing other bloggers' Shakespeare polls where they put certain plays or characters up against each other, but I'm often left wondering if it's really a 'fair' fight all the time if you're putting up something like Hamlet or Twelfth Night against one of the more obscure works, like the Winter's Tale. It's not a grave affront to vote in those polls if you don't know every play, but I am curious about it.
Please reblog for exposure if you vote; I would appreciate it a lot. Also feel free to elaborate on your own Shakespeare journey in tags, comments, reblogs, because I love to hear about other people's personal relationships to literature.
