How popular is Shakespear today in US-UK?

Tired and outdated works? One of the main problems many people have with US English literature curriculum is it focuses so much on multiculturalism that American students end up reading modern works by authors they've never heard of who are just as difficult to understand (Chinua Achebe comes to mind, sorry to those of ya'll that like his writings, I would have rather read the Hobbit).

My senior year of high school we read Hamlet, MacBeth, Twelfth Night, and As You Like It (as well as Dante's Inferno and, ugh, All the Pretty Horses). He's not difficult to read... Not like Chaucer, which I had to read in college...

I chose to take a Shakespeare class in college... Students definitely still read Shakespeare... His works may be more difficult than All the Pretty Horses, but they are certainly better written.

high-school students forced to read his works? That goes too far.

Of course students of English read Shakespeare, but the population in general does not. They may go to his plays, but they don't read his works in printed form very often.

Since you are all emphasising the theatrical aspects of his works, why do people regard his work as 'literature'? He's as far from a writer as Steven Spielbergh. Ha ha ha.

Yeah. The real question is
Do the population in general (young people in particular) (under 30, under 20, for example) READ his unabriged works (NOT summaries, NOT going to theater for watching them performed)?

<<
William Shakespeare will forever be the greatest exponent of the English Language, and the greatest playwright of all time, now and forever. I doubt he will ever be replicated, either here in his homeland or anywhere else in the world. The man will remain unique.>>
Anglocentric views!

Guest raises an interesting point... A lot of students do use Spark Notes or Cliffs Notes, or Shakespeare Made Easy, but I'd say in general students do actually read the plays.

And I would also say he is the greatest playwright of all time... Who else would be considered? Perhaps Moliere, but he doesn't have the staying power that Shakespeare does. Perhaps the Francophone nations are still made to read him, but I've never heard of anyone having to read him.

I have lately been writing plays and having some fair success. Maybe I will one day surpass Shakespeare myself.

<,I have lately been writing plays and having some fair success. Maybe I will one day surpass Shakespeare myself.>>

Lol, good one! But seriously, I get what you're trying to say here. Shakespeare was a legend that's for sure, but some people make him out to be a bit more of a God than I feel comfortable with... People need to keep their minds open to new things, it is completely feasible that someone nowadays could surpass Shakespeare, not that it would invalidate him or anything, but what I mean is Shakespeare is not the eternal golden standard for the English language as a whole. He's just one guy who contributed a lot to the language, but he doesn't own it.

<<high-school students forced to read his works? That goes too far. >>

Being forced to read Shakespeare, and even Chaucer, in high school English class is nowhere near as unpleasant as being forced to read Molliere and Racine in high school French class.

At least we weren't forced to read Beowulf in high school, nor Cicero's orations nor anything in Greek, like you would have a century and a half before.

<<I have lately been writing plays and having some fair success. Maybe I will one day surpass Shakespeare myself. >>
Wish you the best of success!

<<Being forced to read Shakespeare, and even Chaucer, in high school English class is nowhere near as unpleasant as being forced to read Molliere and Racine in high school French class.

At least we weren't forced to read Beowulf in high school, nor Cicero's orations nor anything in Greek, like you would have a century and a half before.>>

How do you make such judgement being forced to read Shakespeare, and even Chaucer, in high school English class is NOWHERE NEAR AS UNPLEASANT as being forced to read Molliere and Racine in high school French class?

People should read what they like to read and what they choose to read.
They don't need somebody to force them to read stuff of whatever kind.

The only reason people think Shakespeare is "deep" is because of how archaic his writing is. That vocabulary was typical back then. It's just fallen out of use with the passage of time, just as his plays should have stopped being read with the passage of time, but unfortunately we are still forcing them on kids, unnecessarily making kids think that literature has to be hard.

<<How do you make such judgement being forced to read Shakespeare, and even Chaucer, in high school English class is NOWHERE NEAR AS UNPLEASANT as being forced to read Molliere and Racine in high school French class?>>

Maybe I should have used the word "was", instead of "is".

It's just that I found reading Tartuffe and Phedre (in French) the absolute pits. In fact, I can still remember to this day (decades later) what a miserable experience it was, especially Phedre. It was even worse than studying tensor analysis using indicial/comma notation in college with a professor whose i's, j's, and commas all looked the same on the blackboard. :)

<<The only reason people think Shakespeare is "deep" is because of how archaic his writing is. That vocabulary was typical back then. It's just fallen out of use with the passage of time, just as his plays should have stopped being read with the passage of time, but unfortunately we are still forcing them on kids, unnecessarily making kids think that literature has to be hard.>>
Point taken!

I always couldn't help but think Shakespeare was kind of like the 16th century equivalent of modern blockbuster Hollywood... Silly over the top plots, stupid language, lots of remakes, and feigned deepness...