William Shakespeare, one of the first and most important ones that come to mind when it comes to English Literature, has continued to increase his popularity dating back 400 years with each passing year, and his plays, sonnets, and other works have accomplished reach more and more audiences day by day. Well, today, what are the reasons Shakespeare’s writings can still appeal to people’s selves and souls, producing works containing a piece of everyone’s essence?
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1. External to the internal: Intertwined prose to verse
When reading a play, I always prioritize learning general and more superficial information rather than getting lost in the story’s background while examining the play’s details. Because, ordinarily, diving from the surface is more manageable than coming to the surface from the depths. Toward this, Shakespeare’s plays are written predominantly from prose to verse, making it painless to be gradually drawn into his plays. Therefore, readers have no difficulty in keeping in their minds their impressions about the subject of Shakespeare’s works, the characters in his works, and the character’s development. It helps the readers ingrain their minds with its easy-to-remember descriptions, typologies, and idioms.
2. The pertinence of their characters and their urges to real life
It is also delightful to read not only the bad or only good characters but also the characters whose character development is uncertain, who are flawed, and whose in a situation to make an unexpected move at any moment. This pleasure may also be due to the mistaken conjecture of what might happen at the play’s end or the plot’s unpredictability. In Shakespeare’s plays, we often observe that pride and wealth can completely change people’s lives directly and indirectly. Not so different from real life, is it?
3. Being Universal
People whose observations are based on their own “small life” experiences become universal if they successfully transmit these particular life experiences. Our “small life” experiences are significant to us because the elements that constitute our experiences impulse us to be conscious about who we are and what makes us real. The fact that Shakespeare was sensitive to his own life and feelings and that he reflected this side in his works transparently amplified the realism of his experiences with absolute strength. In this way, even centuries after him, people were still able to find an element of their inner world in the genuineness of his works and associate their selves with these experiences. Passion, jealousy, authority combat, the imbalance of daily life, and the human spirit, which were present in Shakespeare’s time and experienced in his private life, are likewise at the core of modern life.
