is Year, Read Shakespeare

This Year, Read Shakespeare

WORDS BY Shane Murphy

Th e 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 prolifi c 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.

Th e 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 Twel h 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 defi nitive representation of love. Th e two, Shakespeare and love, are almost as

inextricably linked as Romeo and Juliette: standing alone, they seem less complete.

Shakespeare didn’t hide from the brutal ugliness or messiness of life and pain. Th ere is no hesitancy to be seen, no fi lling language. Many of Shakespeare’s characters may twist and evade the truth, but the playwright himself never does. In actuality, he dives into his themes and characters completely and with total confi dence. Shakespeare explores settings and dynamics deliberately, delivering characters like Hamlet and Ophelia so messy and confused that it plays as madness, as scrappy and indecipherable as life itself. With all of the skill and fl awless execution of plotlines, a reader is struck by the interiority of the characters who dwell on life, who are obsessed with it. Th ey all express a functional psychology, one that is unique and totally plausible. Yet at the same time, Hamlet, and his protagonist peers, Macbeth, King Lear and Othello are not inspiring heroes, they murder people and at times lack remorse for doing so. Th ey cannot express sympathy in their stories but surprisingly, the audience cannot but express sympathy when reading them or watching them on stage. No characters, from the raging Tamora to slimy Shylock, play a one-tone, in a Shakespeare play, all the roles are prizes. Th e rare accolade of Shakespeare’s work is that it is never judgemental or virtuous, there is no singularity of thought, in any moral or religious sense. In that respect, Shakespeare as a writer is cruelty-free.

Not all of Shakespeare’s plays are serious and heavy; A Midsummer Night’s Dream is about a group of teenagers in ancient Greece who ingest psychedelic drugs from fairies and get lost in the woods. As for the 16th century English used in the plays, that can easily be adjusted to. Once you lock into the metre oft he speech and sync up to the sense of humour then understanding the play becomes something incredibly rewarding and fertile. To feel connected to a piece of art at all is a blessing, it is nonexhaustive in its ability to comfort and to teach. Not all of Shakespeare’s plays are serious and heavy; If nothing else, the stories themselves are also just fun to read. Quick insults and lewd comments litter the pages of dialogue. In the stiff confi nes of ‘English literature’, where Shakespeare is institutionally protected, it is easy to forget that his plays were produced to be commercial. Shakespeare’s production company, Th e Lord Chamberlain’s Men, was a for-profi t business, having its main venue in the relative red-light district of London in the late 16th Century - far from the glamourous setting Shakespeare is reverently performed nowadays. It was to be enjoyed by people of all interests and tastes.

oft he speech and sync up to the sense of humour then understanding the play becomes something incredibly rewarding and fertile. To feel connected to a piece of art at all is a blessing, it is nonexhaustive in its ability to comfort and to teach. Shakespeare’s plays have so much breadth and organic complexities to them, like a plant that rises from the ground with thousands of internal pathways and interactions to be understood. Hearing from many who love the works of Shakespeare, they agree that the inexplicable beauty of his work preserves it so well, and to take the fi nal words of the Tempest, to not see this would “project fails which was to please.” Th is is Shakespeare and this is why he should continue to be read.