William Shakespeare has fallen on hard times. Studies of top universities’ curricula reveal that few still require English majors to take courses on the Bard. Many consider his “old-fashioned language” to be “too difficult” for Gen Z students’ social media-addled attention spans. Others are ditching Shakespeare to “make room for modern, diverse, and inclusive voices.”
Two books published late last year, however, take a different, more appreciative approach to exploring two different facets of Shakespeare’s character. R. V. Young’s Shakespeare and the Idea of Western Civilization gives readers a sense of Shakespeare as a poet of tradition, whereas the late Nalin Ranasinghe’s Shakespeare’s Reformation: Christian Humanism and the Death of God gives readers a sense of Shakespeare as a poet of liberty.
Although a definite tension exists between Young and Ranasinghe’s interpretations, they both capture essential elements of Shakespeare’s writing. He was a poet of both tradition and liberty—and that is why his poetry forms the foundation of the modern Western mind.
Read more at Law & Liberty.
