The Wisdom Of Others

There is a sense of great abundance in Shakespeare's plays - so much so, indeed, that in every generation there are interpreters who cut and simplify, unable to cope with the wealth of ideas and experiences in the plays, or supposing their audiences incapable of doing so. I believe, on the contrary, that abundance is a great strength of Shakespeare's plays, that they are designed deliberately to expand the mind - to generate a sense of concentrated vigorous life in emotions and ideas, to promote as multiple an awareness as possible of differing facets of a story; and that this aim, already discernible in Shakespeare's earliest work, is at the core of his development, and of his power and distinctiveness as an artist. (Brian Gibbons, Shakespeare and Multiplicity)

This hits the nail so squarely on the head that I won't expand upon it save to say that when I read it I thought I ought to share it with you.

"I believe that the conditions of the twenty years which precede a man's birth set the pattern of his early thinking, and leave a permanent mark upon him" Joel Thursfield quoted in Emrys Jones, The Origins of Shakespeare)

Jones goes on to expand upon his theory that Shakespeare is thereby shaped by the middle years of the sixteenth century. For my part I am taken by Thursfield's position and am struck just how true this is of my own generation. Born in the early sixties, the dominant factor in setting the patterns of our thinking was World War II. There is an interesting piece to be written about the exercise of this factor upon the gnarly issue of Brexit. Perhaps another day.