Your subject line brought to mind when I took my Grade 8 and 9 honour students to see Hamlet at the local theatre last year. The girls--Gr. 8s especially--did seriously love Hamlet, in that they thought the actor playing him was very adorable and the play is long enough that they all had time to develop a crush on him. I was a bit worried about getting 'Why I love Hamlet' essays turned in as final projects ;-)

] The language. I will freely admit that not everyone “gets” or is comfortable with the rhythms of Elizabethan language. But for those who do, Hamlet is a feast.

] Shakespeare has so pervaded our language, he had an incredible impact on the English language, and Hamlet is the most well-known and quoted of his plays.

This is what gets to me, above all. Even people who have never read a word of it could tell you that the depressed-looking guy in a black suit holding a skull is Hamlet, should they see a photo or cartoon.

One reason I love reading the play over and over again is that I love knowing where these lines originated when I hear them or allusions to them--and you do hear them all the time.