An interesting take on Shakespeare's style

Bryson made many interesting points during the course of the novel. He discussed many legal documents that Shakespeare could be traced to, which proved different things such as where he was in a certain year or how wealthy he was at certain points in his career and so on. While these were all very interesting and valid, my favourite part of the book was when Bryson got down to the real details that make Shakespeare the literary legend he is today; his writing style. The ways in which his style differed from others of that time period is truly fascinating, and certainly explains why he is so highly esteemed even after centuries have passed. Some of the most fascinating examples are as follows.

Stages during this time period had little to no scenery or curtains, meaning there was no way to distinguish night from day, fog from sunshine, or even room to room. Needless to say this caused plenty of confusion during most plays. Shakespeare, however, had an excellent way of making up for this. He set scenes using words. For example, in the opening lines of Hamlet, Francisco asks Barnardo to unfold himself. While this might not be overly siginificant to us today, "unfold yourself" meant to take off your cloak. Therefore, from just a few lines, Shakespeare was able to establish that it was nighttime, as well as cold out.

In addition to this ingenius way of expressing himself, Shakespeare's plays varied immensely in terms of length and style. The number of scenes varied from each play from seven to forty seven, lines varied from 1800 to over 4000. (2700 was the average during the time).