When many people think of William Shakespeare, they think of a long ago time where life was harsh and cruel, illness wiped out hundreds of thousands, and the wealthy lorded it over the struggling working-poor. But times haven't changed all that much, really. The main themes of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets are universal.
Our modern day, with its texting, movies on demand, communication across the world in seconds, and flying through the skies in hours that took weeks in Will's day, is still influenced by the Bard. His themes of love, death, ambition, power, fate, racism, and free-will still resonate with people today. Shakespeare was also a master at creating characters rich in personality and traits. These detailed characters never go out of style, with their faults and frailties of jealousy, ambition, naivety, power, kindness, nobility, and so on.
The great Nelson Mandela once said that "To be taken seriously as a politician, one must always quote from Shakespeare," and a lot of his speeches when he was president quoted the Bard. While he was a political prisoner for over 20 years in jail, he found inspiration in a smuggled-in copy of Shakespeare's complete works. There is one passage from the play "Julius Caesar" that Mandela signed while imprisoned: "Cowards die many times before their deaths/ The valiant never taste death but once."
But Shakespeare has influenced more than a luminary social justice beacon. The American English language is filled with words, phrases and expressions that Shakespeare coined in his writings (37 plays and 154 sonnets that we know of).
He penned one-tenth of the most quoted lines ever written or spoken in English, and he is the second most quoted writer in the English language. He introduced nearly 3,000 words to the English language--many of which we use regularly every day, such as: addiction, assassination, courtship, eyeball, impartial, luggage, swagger, hoodwinked, bedazzle, and tranquil for a short list.
Plus phrases we use regularly like: all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players, Knock, Knock! Who's there?, in a pickle, tongue-tied, heart of gold, faint-hearted, good riddance, lie low, cruel only to be kind, fight fire with fire, baited breath, send him packing, come what may, wear your heart on your sleeve, not slept a wink, laughing stock, naked truth, out of the jaws of death, too much of a good thing, break the ice, wild goose chase, heart of hearts, seen better days, dead as a doornail, love is blind, breathed his last, vanish into thin air, makes your hair stand on end, for goodness' sake, off with his head, a sorry sight, the green-eyed monster, brave new world, the world is my oyster, and be all-end all.
As a writer, many of the tropes we have today came from Shakespeare. Forbidden Love from Romeo and Juliet, hidden identities and disguises from "Twelfth Night", revenge and betrayal from "Hamlet" and "Othello," coming of age with "The Tempest" and "Hamlet," the prodigal son in "Henry IV" and "The Merchant of Venice," and he regularly wove power and corruption throughout his plays.
Some other tropes he generated were the affable or charming evil person, the ambiguously gay character, the double entendre he used a lot, evil versus evil, love triangles, rags to royalty, prophecy twist ("no man or woman born"-reused particularly well in JRR Tolkien's Return of the King), the slap-slap-kiss or "shut-up" kiss, the sub-plot to keep interest, the truly evil villain, and a woman disguised as a man (nicely employed in Disney's "Mulan".) This is only his plays, for his sonnets contain even more tropes we see regularly today.
Even in the realm of psychology, Shakespeare was recognized. Sigmund Freud thought the Bard was the greatest poet and quoted him often. Freud greatly appreciated his insights and use of the unconscious. Macbeth is practically a psychiatrist's textbook of guilt and self delusion and a roadmap to insanity.
But what Shakespeare gave us, the lasting quality of his work, was insights into humanity at our best and worst presented in memorable fashion with equal parts laughter and tears. He knew how to tap into large universal themes and understand his audience and give them what they wanted, an escape for a few moments and to feel seen at the same time.
What is your favorite Shakespeare work and why? Do you see echoes of his influence around you today? Reply and let me know.
Here is a short piece with the amazing Dame Judy Dench giving us an impromptu bit of Shakespeare.
