William Shakespeare may have been born on this date in 1564, but he did die on this date in 1616. We know next-to-nothing of his personal life, his appearance, his religion, his political views or his sexuality and lot of scholars think he didn’t even write those 39 plays and 154 sonnets. As a young man, he may have had to get out of Stratford-upon-Avon because he poached a deer from local aristocrat. Yet, his work is the most translated and performed is human history. His writing included crude sex jokes, gorgeous prose, characters you’ve met in everyday life and deep psychological insights. In the “To Be or Not to Be” speech, for example, a tormented Hamlet wonders if he’s better off dead than alive, but then thinks, “What if the afterlife is way worse than life?” The playwright never mentioned his wife, but once. In his will, he left her is “second best bed” - perhaps an insult or a charming reference to their marital bed. My own relationship to Will is simple. I owe him my livelihood of 20 years.
© 2024 John Oliver
Substack is the home for great culture