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This year marks the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death.  Like most kids in high school, I found Shakespeare tough going, but I didn’t despise the Bard.  What always amazed me is that one man’s work had lasted so long.

We went through one of the standard curricula for reading Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and MacBeth.  We memorized the famous speeches and learned the words and phrases he gave to our language.

While involved in a romantic relationship after college (where no Shakespeare was required), I decided to read Romeo and Juliet on my own.  I was surprised that I didn’t need to use the notes as much as I recalled.  Reading, I suppose, helped fill in some of the blanks.

I have wanted to read more Shakespeare over the years.  A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, and others that I had missed.  This year, however, I decided to begin with King Lear.

I had known the story of King Lear only in a minimal way.  It was said to be among Shakespeare’s most tragic plays.  Based on the body-count, I suspect that’s true.  While reading this play I found I seldom needed to glance across the page to find a rare word.  Context helps more than I remembered.

King Lear is a tragedy of the first rank.  No one, it seems, is completely free from guilt in this play.  Why he demanded professions of love from his daughters, and why his two eldest turned on him is never clear.  Then again, what human motivations ever are?  It is a story to ponder.

Even so, I still wonder about Shakespeare’s staying power.  Others were writing in his time.  Novels had not yet really come to the fore, so plays were among the most representative of fiction.  With the world so full of fiction writers now, few will ever have a chance to be remembered beyond their own time on earth.  The Bard took the lion’s share.