This Guardian Unlimited article explores the possibility that Shakespeare wrote many of his worst lines while suffering from hangovers.
The loyal theatricals have turned. Dominic Dromgoole, artistic director of the Globe, has finally said the unsayable. Malevolently. There are “Monday morning” lines in Shakespeare’s masterpieces. They are the verse equivalent of the Friday afternoon lemons that used to roll off the production line at Dagenham.
Sir Peter Hall, the founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, suggests the bard’s bad-line days were the result of his being blotto the night before (as, often enough, was Ben Jonson. Sometimes they had to bring him home in a wheelbarrow). Or, more charitably, it may have been the pressure of deadlines – writing plays was a crazy-hurry line of work.
The proposition that not all Shakespeare is Shakespeare-great was put forward by Frank Kermode in his recent book on the bard’s language. Kermode came out and said what most audiences secretly think – a lot of Shakespeare is impossible to understand.