TN2 March 19/20

This Year, Read Shakespeare WORDS BY Shane Murphy The name and work of William Shakespeare needs no introduction, but acknowledging his status is fun, like explaining the overwhelming idea of God, almost too big to comprehend.

Being the most prolific writer of the Elizabethan Age and the single best-known playwright of the English language, it is possible that his literary corpus has done something more than just embed itself into Western culture, it has inscribed itself into the bedrock of our understanding of government and interpersonal relationships. Shakespeare is revered not just from a conscious love of his work but more deeply than that, a collective and certain awareness that he is the greatest creator of English literature the world has ever seen. And thanks to the works of translators, he can be read everywhere.

The accuracy with which Shakespeare represents human feeling and complexity of emotions is one of the most convincing explanations of his longevity. From jealousy in Othello, to lust in Twelfth Night, Shakespeare seems on one hand to document with encyclopedic thoroughness, the humane highs and lows of living, and on the other, accomplishes it with such marvelous empathy that it appears he has created them himself. He is the mechanic of human emotion, the inventor. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare created love in a cauldron, drawing two young souls to dramatise his idea of love perfectly; capturing the drama, pain and annihilating power of love. In the West, it almost seems there’s no understanding of love that exists without these two young protagonists. For most people they are seen to be the most authoritative and definitive representation of love. The two, Shakespeare and love, are almost as inextricably linked as Romeo and Juliette: standing alone, they seem less complete.