400 years ago today, William Shakespeare breathed his last.
While he lived and died in Elizabeth England, his characters and narratives are universal.
Falling in love, growing old, falling out of love, conflicts with friends, family and neighbors, jealousy, hate, greed were all used within the various narratives of his plays. In addition to being a playwright, Master Shakespeare was poet.
His poetry is so brilliant that it does not have to be translated into modern English to be understood or appreciated.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.
One of his brilliant strokes as a writer was to create characters that we all can relate to. We have all had to read at least one of his plays in an English class during our school days.
To show how universal his work is (and how easily it can be altered to a new interpretation), I present to you this clip from 10 Things I Hate About You.
A modern high version of Taming Of The Shrew, the Stratford Sisters, Kat and Bianca (Julia Stiles and Larissa Oleynik) are not allowed to date, until their father changes the rules. Bianca can go on a date when Kat does. The only problem is that Kat does not want to date and there is no boy at their high school who would dare approach her for a date.
Enter Patrick Verona (the late Heath Ledger). Initially bribed to take Kat out so Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), can take out Bianca, Patrick is the only one who would dare ask the fierce Kat for a date.
What this adaptation does brilliantly is keep the narrative and characters mostly intact while removing the almost virulent sexism and updating the plot to the late 1990’s.
Rest in peace, sir. Your physical remains are long since dust, but your name and you work lives on.