Shakespeare the artist

William Sh. is best remembered as a writer. A writer at best is an artist. The artist feeds on his own mind and passions to prove to himself the something else that he creates. That thing, his art, is hard to define; it even works with this same principle in mind. A great artist gives from himself what is himself. The true artist and his work are inseparable. This is not to say an artist must share his darkest secrets in his work, but he cannot subdue himself so far as to be totally hidden behind his work. The artist also cannot work without a body of art from past to present, with which to compare and contrast his own art. An artist is usually recognisable through his style. Others copy that style, diluting its art for mass consumption, whereupon it becomes a trend. Trends die as new styles are born.

Shakespeare embodies his Age yet he is always held up for all time. At worst he is severed from his contemporaries as if he lived and worked in an unassailable tower of glory attuned only to cosmic frequencies and universal emanations. Simply I say he was a man, take him for that. What kind of man was he? Not I, nor you, nor a billion experts can ever really know, unless someone finds his diary. His sonnets are often read as a diary. Others shun this idea as ridiculous and say they were simple conventional love poems.

“…Let them say more that like of hearsay well; I will not praise that purpose not to sell…” Q21.

I Love Shakespeare