If all the world’s a stage, then today its centre is occupied by the world’s greatest ever playwright. Take a bow, William Shakespeare, on this, your 461st birthday.
We know very little about Shakespeare. We know he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in the heart of England, that he was the son of a well-to-do glovemaker and that he attended school. We know that he married and had three children, one of whom died in childhood. We know that he moved to London, became an actor and writer and made a good amount of money.
But that’s about it. What remains a mystery is how this ordinary man from an ordinary background was able to write 38 plays, 2 narrative poems and 154 sonnets of such enduring scope, skill, depth and insight that they live on in our imaginations nearly half a millennium on.
Think of the many terms and phrases Shakespeare invented that are still current:
There’s “method in the madness,” “all of a sudden”, the “green-eyed monster”, “heart of gold”, a “wild goose chase”, “wear your heart on your sleeve”, and “the world’s my oyster”.
Think of the many cinematic re-interpretations of his works. 10 Things I hate about You was based on The Taming of the Shrew. Then there’s sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet (The Tempest), West Side Story and zombie romcom Warm Bodies (Romeo & Juliet), A Thousand Acres (King Lear), L.A. Story and Get Over It (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), And, of course, The Lion King (Hamlet). OK, that last one’s a stretch.
His works are so ingrained in our consciousness that we refer to tragic-comic situations as Shakespearean. There’s a whole theatre company dedicated to his works. We have a British Shakespeare Association, local Shakespeare societies all over the world, and the world-renowned theatre where he first plied his trade is still going strong.
You may be lucky enough to visit Shakespeare’s birthplace. This year, the Trust celebrates the complexity of Shakespeare’s female characters.
We at Edinburgh Napier do Shakespeare in a big way. To read his plays, poetry, and the abundant commentary on his ever-intriguing work, log into LibrarySearch.
By Lesley McRobb
Photo by Mana5280 unsplash
Read another literature great, Charles Dickens