Why William Shakespeare still endures

A biscuit or a Bard? As the world marks the great writer’s 400th anniversary, Ger Fitzgibbon reflects on how Irish people drawn to his work included rebels holed up in Jacobs during the 1916 Rising.

AYOUNG man in black looks intently at the skull he is holding. Anywhere in the world, someone will recognise this picture as Hamlet. They may have never read or seen the play, but they will know this figure and what it represents: life contemplating death. Four hundred years ago, on his 52nd birthday, the man who made that image — William Shakespeare — died, and an enigma was born.

How did a glover’s son from a small provincial town become the world’s greatest playwright? The plays were written quickly (he “never blotted a line” according to one contemporary) and rehearsed in ten days.