This document discusses Shakespeare's reputation and legacy. It argues that while Shakespeare was disliked by some thinkers for not engaging with social issues, he created psychologically complex characters and innovative plays that combined different genres. His works use beautiful language while also addressing intellectual uncertainty and the lack of clear moral lessons in life. Though mysterious as a person, Shakespeare's works remain profoundly relevant today through their exploration of the human condition.

1. Shakespeare
Does he deserve his reputation?

2. Reputation
• In the UK, Shakespeare has to be taught at
every key stage
• Prince Charles argued that teaching
Shakespeare would improve the behaviour of
youth
• Harold Bloom argued that Shakespeare
invented the ‘human character’

3. Bardolatry
• Made up of two words:"bard" and
"idolatry
• The term "Bardolatry" was coined by
George Bernard Shaw
• Shaw disliked Shakespeare as a
thinker and philosopher because he
did not engage with social problems

4. A Personal Story
• During my A Levels I quoted George Bernard
Shaw during a class discussion
• My teacher’s reaction was one of outrage
• The only coherent answer I received was that
Shakespeare was “the genius of the
metaphor”
• I was left very dissatisfied

5. My Mission
• Years later I have come to agree that
Shakespeare is the great genius of English
literature
• Over lunch I am going to explain to you why I
think that Shakespeare is so special and to try
to show why he remains relevant today

6. The Unknown Man
• Born in Stratford Upon Avon, April 23rd 1616
• At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, Three
children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith
• Shakespeare produced most of his known work
between 1589 and 1613
• Shakespeare the person remains more or less
unknown.
• This element of mystery means that it is very hard to
say what Shakespeare believed

7. Shakespeare: the rule breaker
• Mixes the high and low, comedy and tragedy
• Shakespeare speaks the language of the
countryside and knows the language of the
city
• Shakespeare uses ancient dramatic
traditions, especially the Mediaeval Mystery
plays
• Shakespeare did not go to university, he was
despised by many scholars in his day

8. Othello
• The story of how a Moorish General is
destroyed by his servant, Iago
• Othello is a magnificent and noble character
• Iago is a stage devil who speaks directly to the
audience and shows us the pleasure he feels
• Unlike previous stage devils, he is a fully
developed character

9. Brannagh and Fishburne
In the following clip:
• Iago brilliantly infers that Cassio has had the
chance of getting close to Desdemona who is
Othello’s wife
• He is laying the seeds of jealously and his
method is brilliant and subtle

11. Innovator
• Iago is a disturbingly believable character but he
shows many of the features of earlier drama
• Shakespeare shows a willingness to introduce
dark comedy into tragedy
• The tragedy does not teach us obvious moral
lessons
• Modern critics are especially interested in the fact
that Shakespeare’s plays often have endings that
show no pattern to life

12. A New Form of Characterisation
• Hamlet is perhaps the most complex of
Shakespeare’s characters
• Sinks beneath the task of avenging his dead
father
• In his agony, Shakespeare produces a new form of
characterisation
• The soliloquies present a character’s mind in real
time

13. Hamlet: Background
• Father dies and mother almost immediately
marries his uncle, who becomes king
• The play opens with Hamlet visited by his
father’s ghost which claims that was
murdered
• He demands that Hamlet avenge him
• The play concerns the twists and turns in
Hamlet’s quest for vengeance

14. O, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and
hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with
words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,
A scullion!

15. Freud and Shakespeare
• Freud was inspired by Hamlet when he
hypothesised the Oedipus Complex
• According to him, the secret of Hamlet’s rage
and inability to kill the king was his incestuous
love of his mother
• This has become an influential reading of the
play that influenced performances by
Lawrence Olivier, Richard Burton and Kenneth
Brannagh

16. Brannagh’s Hamlet
• In the following scene Hamlet
smashes his way into the Queen’s
bedroom
• He kills Polonius, the kings servant
• Then begs his wife to stop sleeping
with his uncle

18. Shakespeare’s Women
• There were no females on the stage so
Shakespeare had to make do with boys
• In spite of this he created a number of female
roles that actresses today fight to perform
• In an age when opportunities for women were
restricted, Shakespeare's woman have
agency, ambition and anger

19. Lady Macbeth
• One of the greatest ball breaker’s in literature
• Totally dominant over her husband
• Ingenious plotter whose sweet manner
disguises the heart o a tiger
• In the following scene she asks the spirits to
take away all feminine softness so that she can
become a heartless killer

21. Complexity of World View
• There were no Jews in England
• The Church taught that the Jews had
murdered Jesus Christ
• The propaganda in Elizabethan was worthy of
the Nazis
• In this climate Shakespeare created
Shylock, the Jewish money-lender in The
Merchant of Venice

22. Al Pacino at his Best
• In the following scene Shylock refuses to
change his mind pound of flesh from a man
• He speaks passionately about his ill treatment
• His words are extra-ordinarily
powerful, especially in light of the Holocaust

24. Shakespeare our Contemporary
• Some literature dates but, putting the
language aside, Shakespeare plots and themes
remain relevant today
• Shakespeare if often filmed in numerous
languages
• Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet is one of the
finest examples of using a contemporary
setting for a Shakespeare play

25. Magnificent Mercutio
• Mercutio is the crazy party boy of the
play
• Luhrman chooses to play him as a 6 foot
3 black guy he loves going around in drag
• The Queen Mab speech is challenging to
understand; Luhrman does it by having
Mercutio take ecstasy

27. Shakespeare’s Greatness
Psychological
depth
Linguistic Flexibility with
experimentation genre
Intellectual Diversity of
uncertainty audience

28. Withnail and I
• Drunken failed actor
• In the end when it is apparent that Withnail is
finished we are not given Withnail’s
words, but instead, those Hamlet
• The disillusionment of Hamlet, the sense that
in spite of man’s achievements, there is
ultimately neither rhyme nor reason to
life, have never been equalled