[Apathy's_Child]

Of course he's overrated - no one person could possibly deserve the reputation that's been heaped upon as as the last word in lit and the fucking king of language, as though he invented the word itself. A lot of people I knew at school and college were put off by their convulsive resistance to certain of the professors, whose attitude was that if you don't like Shakespeare, you CLEARLY just don't get it. (These were also the guys bemoaning Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet whilst praising Zefferelli's sentimental piece of drywank version, because this shit ain't for you, kids and proles - it's for smart guys like us.)

That doesn't have to mean he's a total hack though, and while I get questioning the hype, I'm also of the mind that when he's good, he's very, very good. (Using the term "he" loosely, given how much of his shit was probably co-written.)