Change of Mind: The Purpose of Shakespeare

            I used to view Shakespeare as a difficult puzzle to be solved. His works were cryptic and the purpose of reading them was to figure out the solution to the challenge. But once I actually read Shakespeare, I found this to be completely false. My initial beliefs had been based in the teaching of Shakespeare's works, not the man himself.

            The first Shakespeare I was exposed to was naturally Romeo and Juliet. Our class was not allowed to check notes on the modern translations of the language used. According to our teacher, we were intelligent enough to figure out what the words meant on our own.

            Needless, I found this difficult. Simple and well known meanings were lost to me. When Juliet asked, "Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" I naturally assumed she was asking where he was, not why he was called Romeo.

            Because of the language gap between my time and Shakespeare's, a significant theme of the play, that of definitions and names, was lost on me. But Shakespeares original intent was never to keep his meaning hidden.

            For of course that would make no sense. He wrote performances, meaning he only had one shot at getting his point across to the audience. And if he didn't, his works would never have gained appreciation. In fact, the cryptic nature of the language was an accident of time.

            But once I was allowed to read the footnotes in the text of Romeo and Juliet, the play lost its innaccesabiltiy. I realized that Shakespeares purpose was not in the process of reading his plays at all, but rather in their meaning.

            Shakespeare knew an extrordinary amount about human nature. In Romeo and Juliet, for example, he deals with teenage love and lust, and the conflicting pulls of personal and familial duty.

            His plays are the way in which he best showcases this knowledge. Instead of writing an essay on the conflicting duties of an individual, he creates a fight scene where Romeo must decide between his wife and  his best friend.

            It is in this method of dialogue and and plot that Shakespeare embeds his messages. He did not want future students to curse his name, he simoly wnated to teache all the potential students of the world a lesson.

            Even with the altering hand of time, this message continues to thrive in the contents of Shakespeare, if not in the footnotes themselves.