How Shakespeare continues to shake our World!

Shakespeare

This name invokes variety of emotions and memories in many especially students and writers. Whether it was happiness and awe on reading his masterpieces or headaches on trying to decipher his thous and thys. It might even be the simple memory of getting chided by your english teacher back in elementary - middle school for writing the guy's spelling wrong (If you ever did write Shakesphere, a digital high-five coming your way)

Though he lived around 4 centuries ago, he still impacts and directs the modern world in many ways than we realise. In this post we will be diving into the impact caused by this english legend.

Vocabulary and Lit

Before Shakespearean time, the language of English was accurately not consistent. His writings significantly contributed to the standardization of English grammar, language, spelling, vocabulary and literature. Shakespeare included approximately 1700 unique words into the language many of them are still used in modern time. His unforgettable phrase-making recurs in many writer's works who do not realise they are quoting Shakespeare: “a fool’s paradise”; “the game is up”; “dead as a doornail”. The next time your character drinks skimmed milk in a lonely cafe at the break of dawn, don't forget to thank Shakespeare without whom that above sentence wouldn't have been possible ( They are three words in the sentence invented by Shakespeare, Type it out in the comments if you figure them out! )

Politics

The British Library displayed a rare book that attracted as much media attention as J.K Rowling did when she launched the 7th Harry Potter book ( which is basically alot) It was a mass-produced edition of a text once owned by Nelson Mandela, inked with his pen. Mandela had kept this volume by his bedside for more than 20 years and it had sustained him through his darkest hours on Robben Island. Sometimes he had read aloud from it to his cellmates.

We can see how Shakespeare's works worked as an inspiration for the man who changed the history of Africa ( and also the whole world).

His characters

Shakespeare is responsible for the elevation of certain historical characters through is works, the most famous being Cleopatra. Every high school has a Romeo-Juliet, People are still described to be as ambitious as Lady Macbeth. His characters have the tendency to jump out of their pages and be percieved in our every-day life too.

Physcology

Shakespeare was wonderful at illustrating exactly what social psychology is, the study of how the everyday behavior of the individual is affected by the presence of others. ‘Julius Caesar’ and ‘Othello’ are perfect case studies on the impact of jealousy and envy. His description of how the characters act and react with eachother is used as a rich resource for physcologists to study human nature!

So we see how Shakespeare continues to shake our literature sphere ( Yes, I really had to use that pun) and our earthly lives!