Man Of The Millennium

April 23, 2001

On this date, 385 years ago in 1616, William Shakespeare died. He was 52 years old – a long life for that time.

In the 1000 year age recently closed (December 31, 2000), who but William Shakespeare can be named Man of the Millennium? I am aware that some would nominate Martin Luther or Gutenberg or Mozart or Michelangelo or Charles Darwin or Albert Einstein or whomever. But for me, William Shakespeare is the ONE.

His productivity was prodigious. From 1587 to 1613, 26 years, he wrote 36 plays and probably collaborated on 2 more, poems: The Sonnets, The Rape of Lucrece, The Phoenix and the Turtle. Furthermore, he was more than playwright and poet, he was producer, director, sometimes actor. Create, rehearse, perform, manage – his was genius with great energy and business know-how. He retired a wealthy man for his time.

But it was the quality of his genius which has endured. He had unique insight into the foibles, faults, hopes, deceits and glories of the human character. When we consider Hamlet, Lear, Richard III, Henry V, Falstaff, Brutus and a host of others, it shines through that he had an unsurpassed knowledge of the human self. One biographer, Anthony Holden, wrote, “...we do not read Shakespeare, he reads us.” No wonder, that every day, somewhere in the world, in some language, a book about William Shakespeare is published. “A rarer spirit never did steer humanity...” as the Bard of Avon himself has Agrippa comment about Antony. (Antony and Cleopatra, Act V, Sc. 1).

J. B. Priestley, in his study, LITERATURE AND WESTERN MAN, wrote, “If the day ever comes when Shakespeare is no longer acted, read and studied, quoted and loved, Western Man will be near his end.”

If you are one of those who might say, well, “Shakespeare has not influenced me”, a few years back on a PBS program, English journalist, Bernard Levin expressed it this way:

“If you cannot understand my argument, and declare ‘It’s Greek to me’, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger, if your wish is father to the thought, if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have refused to budge an inch or suffer from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool’s paradise – why, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then – to give the devil his due – if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stonyhearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then – by Jove! O Lord! Tut tut for goodness sake! What the dickens! But me no buts – it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.”

Ben Jonson, Shakespeare’s contemporary, testified:

Soul of the Age!
The applause! Delight! The wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare, rise! ...
He was not of an age, but for all time!