William Shakespeare
Has there been a more celebrated writer in the English language than William Shakespeare? Lauded, indeed, for enriching the English language itself, Shakespeare has not just endured, four centuries after his death, but thrives even now. His legacy “154 sonnets, two narrative poems and, above all, 38 plays” has been translated into every major language and sold an estimated four billion copies around the world, making him the bestselling fiction author of all time. His soundbites, to use the modern parlance, permeate the English language we use every day. Yet, the whole here is, definitely, greater than the sum of its parts. On the page, Shakespeare may come across as flat (as many a student of English literature will attest), yet, on the boards, he sparkles and flashes, full of wit, drama and exquisite insight. It is little surprise that he is the most regularly performed playwright, one that consistently draws the widest and most diverse crowds. It is not just the language that draws us, although there is much to take pleasure in: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep” (The Tempest); “Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind” (Henry VI, Part III); “Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving” (Othello); “But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes” (As You Like It); “If love be blind, it best agrees with night” (Romeo and Juliet). Yet Shakespeare’s greatest attraction is how we see ourselves in his words “love, envy, lust, fear, greed and every other form of emotion you can name are captured in his lines and how eloquently too. By immortalising humanity, he inadvertently ensured his eternality, and we are the richer for it. Little wonder, then, that his fellow playwright Ben Jonson would say: ‘He was not of an age but for all time!” – Christy Yoong
