Why read Shakespeare?

Shakespeare is like a ghost haunting us throughout our high school careers. He may just follow us further than that. Most of us, when i say most i mean, 99.9% of us, hate this topic and dread it every year. Then there are the ones who like going through Shakespeare and like being challenged to understand what he says. The author, Michael Mack, uses an effective argument speaking to the college freshman about Shakespeare and how his writings are worth the effort to try and understand his writing through rhetorical devices and his appeal to the audience. To begin with, the evidence that Mack uses to advance his argument is his use of evidence. Throughout his speech Mack had evidence that it isn’t just the present generations that find shakespeare difficult to understand. His contemporaries also knew this. That is why they wrote:“Read him, therefore; and again and again. And if then you do not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger, not to understand him”(lines 38-41). Not only did they understand that Shakespeare was in fact difficult to interpret, if you …show more content…
Mack does say,”Shakespeare shows how the head and the heart need each other”(line 116). It seems every book in literature has a type of love or liking. May it be family love or personal. Mack did say literature teaches you about life, But the only evidence Mack could use was that our head needs to intertwine with your heart(line 121-122). Appealing to a bigger portion of the audience he may have been able to open up more if they knew the possibilities Shakespeare could improve their emotional thinking. He also could’ve referenced more than one of Shakespeare’s plays to show the readers more into what Shakespeare has to offer and why it is so important that they understand how it applies to their life or how any piece of literature applies to their