Is Shakespeare the Greatest Writer of All Time?
Walk into any high school classroom and say the name Shakespeare and most of the kids will roll their eyes and groan in protest. Many read a passage or two and conclude that the writing is too dense and hard to understand to be enjoyable. Aside from the few English nerds found in every classroom, most young students turn to Sparknotes to get them through Shakespeare.
Those of us who love the playwright may have felt this way at first, but possibly a brilliant teacher or production of a play changed that and unlocked the door to Shakespeare’s world for us. Is he the greatest writer in the world? Who gets to decide that? The answer is that you get to decide. The beauty of his work is that it is different to every single person who has read, listened, or seen it performed since the first Shakespeare performance in 1590. I’m here to provide you some evidence, and then you can decide for yourself the merit of the Bard.
Shakespeare is the Master of Human Experience
Shakespeare reaches deep into the human soul and psyche in a way that no one else can. On the complex spectrum of human emotion, he has covered everything, and anyone who has read and understood his work can find something they identify with. Anyone who has experienced love, grief, or anger knows that these feelings are not simple, and they are felt and expressed in complicated ways. The plays are either comedies, tragedies, or histories, but each one holds complex themes of positive and negative emotions, regardless of which category it falls into. Much Ado About Nothing, as the title suggests, follows a wild journey of trickery and gossip, only to end with love, marriage, and celebration. Considered a comedy, there are many moments of frustration and deceit that ultimately lead to a happy ending.
On the contrary, Romeo and Juliet is recognized as the most famous tragedy ever written but holds one of the funniest characters in Shakespeare’s history, Mercutio. Even as he realizes he is meeting death after being stabbed by Tybalt, Mercutio upholds his witty personality responding to Romeo’s concern, he says, “Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, ‘tis enough. Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.” Here, he calls a stab wound merely a scratch, while in the same sentence, telling his best friend that a small scratch was enough to end his life.
Shakespeare Had a Deep Connection with Grief
When it comes to grief and sadness, no one seems to capture it better than Shakespeare. During his life, England still experienced regular bouts of the Bubonic Plague. No one in 16th - 17th century England was a stranger to death. Every few decades, when another outbreak would reach Europe, 20% of London’s population would die, according to the Museum of London.
The tragedy of death found in Shakespeare’s plays was drawn from real experience, which is necessary to properly illustrate grief into the written word. It is a complex emotion with multiple stages, and those who have experienced it in their lives are often touched by the tragic scenes in his plays. King Lear follows the slow walk into the insanity of a former great ruler, as his daughters take advantage of his fraying condition and fight amongst themselves for his inheritance and throne. The viewer of this play is grieving with Lear and for Lear, in a complicated storm of emotions including fear, betrayal, and loss.
Macbeth is a play with heavy themes of death and murder, but more importantly, invites the viewer into the mind of absolute fear and paranoia. This intense anxiety builds over the course of the play and reaches a breaking point at the famous scene where Lady Macbeth washes her hands frantically, unable to remove the blood from them.
“…But Never Doubt I Love” - Hamlet 2.2.5
There is one universal emotion that no one else seems able to define better than the Bard. There are thousands of books, movies, and cheesy pop songs that attempt to capture the experience of love, but none come close to the works of Shakespeare. Like the other emotions previously touched upon, love is not simple, and it too comes in stages. Heartbreak is the most painful thing another person can inflict on you, and they don’t even have to touch you to do it.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream captures all of the nuances and complexities of love and does so with humor. In Act 1, Scene 1, Lysander tells his secret love Hermia, “The course of true love never did run smooth” as she faces the wrath of her father for not wanting to marry the suitor of his choice, Demetrius. Demetrius continues to pursue Hermia who couldn’t care less about him, while Helena pursues Demetrius, who couldn’t care less about her. All the while, fairies cause more confusion by meddling with the four lovers using love potions, and a play within a play happens, which just adds to the absurdity of it all. This catastrophe ends announcing that it was all just a dream as the four lovers sleep. Theseus sums it up at the start of Act 5 by saying,
“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.”
He is pointing out how much love is akin to madness, and how love drives people to do foolish things and act erratically. Lovers turn the ordinary into extraordinary, and share the same imagination that lunatics have. In AMidsummer Night’s Dream, this is approached with comedy. In contrast, Romeo and Juliet is a meditation on the insanity and impulsivity of love in a much more tragic light. Viewers of this play often experience frustration bordering on anger at the famous death scene, when Romeo finds Juliet asleep and ends his own life, while the audience knows she is just sleeping. Have you ever had a family member or friend point out your unusual behavior when you were under the spell of love? Romance is proven to chemically alter our brains and make us act in mysterious ways, and Shakespeare does an amazing job of capturing this.
The Writer Who Never Gets Old
Another reason that Shakespeare is considered by many to be the greatest writer of all time is because his work remains culturally and socially relevant throughout centuries. A lot has happened since the 16th century, the United States States of America was formed, the Industrial Revolution happened, the internet was born, and still, over 4 centuries later, we continue to appreciate, perform, and teach the works of Shakespeare. His work covered many topics that are still extremely relevant, like the fluidity of sexuality you will find in his 154 sonnets, and the topic of racism tackled in Othello.
Othello covered the complexities of interracial marriage and public scorn before many people in England had ever even seen a person of color, written about in-depth here in this article by Kiernan Ryan. It is clear throughout the play that Desdemona and Othello’s love is so pure and true that they’re willing to risk their lives and leave their homes to stay together. This is, unfortunately, a battle that we still face today, on a global scale but particularly within the United States. There is still so much to learn from the tale of Othello.
Shakespeare Belongs to Everyone
The Folger Shakespeare Library Podcast Episode, titled “Freedom, Heyday! Heyday, Freedom!” covers the African American experience of Shakespeare, both good and bad. The episode discusses multiple examples of the specific African American interpretation of Shakespeare and the importance of oral storytelling in the black experience in America, including watching and performing plays like those by Shakespeare. The first black Shakespearean playhouse was established in 1821 in New York City, called the African Grove Theater. Here, Ira Aldridge was the first known black actor to make a stage appearance as a Shakespeare character in his powerful performance of King Lear. The theater served as a haven to black people who had fled from the south for freedom. Sadly, after 3 years of performances the theater was burnt down.
Shakespeare is a friend to the oppressed and gives voices to those who have none. The Bard of Avon belongs to everyone and does not discriminate. Over the past four centuries, Shakespeare has been translated into over 400 languages and adapted as a vessel of communication for people of all ages, genders, races, and ethnicities. If all that has been talked about in this article is not enough proof for you that Shakespeare deserves the title of the Greatest of all Time, let the celebrated writers and thinkers of our time speak for themselves.
Nelson Mandela’s Connection to Shakespeare
Many notable people have cited Shakespeare as a major inspiration, but possibly the most impactful example is when Nelson Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island in South Africa for over 20 years. The prisoners had a copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare, and each prisoner would sign their names next to excerpts they felt were important. Mandela marked his name next to a passage from Julius Caesar,
“Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear,
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.”
- Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene 2
Is it any wonder that a man who was inspired by this passage had risked his life countless times and spent decades in prison for trying to bring racial equality to South Africa? Is it any wonder that he went on to be the first black president of South Africa? Someone who was afraid of death wouldn’t have done what he did.
Shakespeare’s Inspiration on Four Centuries of Literature and Language
Not only do the greatest thinkers of human history study Shakespeare, but the most impactful novelists draw inspiration from him, too. The title of Aldous Huxley’s greatest literary achievement, A Brave New World, was taken directly from The Tempest, Act 5 Scene 1. Ray Bradbury titled his novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes, a phrase uttered by the Weird Sisters in Macbeth, Act 4 Scene 1. At least 25 of Charles Dickens’s titles are drawn from Shakespeare.
Shakespeare’s impact becomes even more obvious when you study the English language. Without realizing it, you are quoting the Bard every day. He introduced over 1,700 new words into the English language that we still speak today, including bedroom, fashionable, hurry, obscene, puppy, and jaded, to name a few. Aside from language, he also invented hundreds of idioms that we still use in our everyday lives. If you’ve ever said the phrases “heart of gold”, “apple of my eye”, or “you wear your heart on your sleeve”, you’ve quoted Shakespeare. He just has a way of putting things so perfectly into metaphor, that they’ve stuck into our daily lexicon for centuries. Along with language, Shakespeare’s archetypes, storylines, themes, and characters have worked their way into popular culture for centuries.
Shakespeare in Hollywood
Shakespeare holds the record for the most film adaptations of any author that has ever lived, with over 400 renditions of his stories on the big screen. His plays became modern retellings that keep that heart of the story while changing the circumstances to fit modern issues. An important example of this is West Side Story, a retelling of Romeo and Juliet, was released in the 1950s as a musical, and eventually a film in 1961. It told the story of the star-crossed lovers who weren’t members of feuding families, but feuding gangs of white Americans and Puerto Rican Americans. The story took on an entirely new life and meaning when put in this context while keeping the major themes.
Are Simba and Hamlet The Same Character?
Disney’s animated mega-hit The Lion King, was based on the story of Hamlet. Scar’s character mimics Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle who murdered his own brother out of jealousy for his brother’s power. Just like Horatio brought Hamlet to his father’s ghost, Rafiki helps Simba speak to his father’s spirit in the Lion King. The ending to the Disney version was slightly more pleasant than the original play.
Viola As A Modern High School Student
Another great example of this is the parallel between the 2006 teen comedy She’s the Man, starring Amanda Bynes, and Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. The characters even share the same names. In She’s the Man, Viola pretends to be her twin brother Sebastian at an elite boarding school, so he can secretly pursue his musical career in London, and she can continue playing soccer. Just like in Twelfth Night, hilarity and chaos ensues as Viola, acting as Sebastian, falls for her roommate, Duke, who has a crush on Olivia, who is Viola / Sebastian’s lab partner, who starts to have feelings for who she thinks is Sebastian but is actually Viola.
In the end, once the real Sebastian returns, all is well, and everyone is coupled off successfully, just as Twelfth Night ends in merriment with the coupling of Sebastian and Olivia, and Viola and the Duke, Orsino. The works of William Shakespeare are universal enough to be converted to a Disney animated film and an early 2000s romantic comedy starring, both of which were wildly successful.
From Comedy to Rom-Com
And film provides yet another example of a modernized Shakespeare rendition is the 1999 romantic comedy 10 Things I Hate About You, starring Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles, which is based on the play The Taming of the Shrew. Once again, the character’s names are mimicked, as the shrewish and difficult main character Katerina is reflected in her modern version of Kat, played by Julia Stiles. In both the film and play, Kat’s younger sister Bianca is not allowed to date anyone until her older sister does, a rule made by their father, knowing that the likelihood of Kat finding love with her tough personality was slim. This leads Bianca and her suitors to devise a plan to find a suitor for Kat so they can get a chance with Bianca.
The major difference between Shakespeare’s version and the modern adaptation is that in the play, Katerina’s love interest works intensely in abusive ways to change her into a more “suitable” bride. In 10 Things I Hate About You, Kat’s love interest goes into their relationship on a bribe and ends up falling in love with Kat for who she really is and embraces her assertive and independent personality. Modern audiences might receive the ending of the film adaptation better than the original, as some aspects of Taming of the Shrew didn’t age well, but the story still plays out to be a funny and interesting one.
So… Is Shakespeare The Greatest Writer of All Time?
The Globe Theater in London has a motto inscribed on its exterior: “The Whole World in a Playhouse”. This means that the theater that is home to Shakespeare’s performances contains the world within its walls, because the works of the Bard cover every human experience and emotion, and will touch every person that witnesses his plays, regardless of their background. It also means that Shakespeare exists all over the world, in the way we think and speak, but most importantly, in the way we feel. It is clear that his work is universal, and what Shakespeare didn’t know is that more than 400 years later, we’d still be reading, performing, analyzing, and relating to his work.
Is Shakespeare the greatest writer of all time? That opinion belongs to each individual that studies or encounters his work. Whether or not he is the greatest, he has made more impact than any other author that has ever lived, as his archetypes and use of language shaped the modern world. For better or for worse, his words leave our lips every single day to communicate complicated emotions eloquently. He was a master of the human experience in a way that can be applied to almost anything. I will leave you with a quote from As You Like It: Act II Scene 7,
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players”
By Olivia Pasquarelli for The HARK Journal
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