Such ideas are not necessarily first encountered today in the realm of literature - or even of drama and theater.

I will suggest in what follows that Shakespeare has scripted many of the ideas that we think of as 'naturally' our own and even as 'naturally' true: ideas about human character, about individuality and selfhood, about government, about men and women, youth and age, about the qualities that make a strong leader. But the idea that Shakespeare writes us - as if we were Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, constantly encountering our own prescripted identities, proclivities, beliefs, and behaviors - is, if taken seriously, both exciting and disconcerting. Indeed, it is one of the fascinating effects of Shakespeare's plays that they have almost always seemed to coincide with the times in which they are read, published, produced, and discussed. The idea that Shakespeare is modern is, of course, hardly a modern idea. But the very changes marked by these appropriations tell a revealing story about modern culture and modern life. As will become clear, the modern versions of these figures often differ significantly from their Shakespearean 'originals': a 'Romeo' is a persistent romancer and philanderer rather than a lover faithful unto death, a 'Hamlet' is an indecisive overthinker, and a 'Lady Macbeth,' in the public press, is an ambitious female politician who will stop at nothing to gain her own ends.

But in fact it will be my claim that Shakespeare and 'Shakespeare' are perceptually and conceptually the same from the viewpoint of any modern observer.Ĭharacters like Romeo, Hamlet, or Lady Macbeth have become cultural types, instantly recognizable when their names are invoked. I could perhaps put the second 'Shakespeare' in quotation marks, so as to indicate that what I have in mind is our idea of Shakespeare and of what is Shakespearean. The premise of this book is simple and direct: Shakespeare makes modern culture and modern culture makes Shakespeare.

Shakespeare in love common sense media