Shakespeare in Love

The contribution of William Shakespeare can be gauged from the fact that he added 1700 plus words in the English lexicon. I read one of the words, 'tetchy', perhaps coined by Shakepeare. His works have heightened state of emotions and his characters are largely passion-driven. Any tome comrising stuffs like these can be melodramatic for a staid guy. For example, for a nerd who prefers being number-crunching geek it can be mawkish. But for a heathen, those emotions were as true as their existence because they were largely id driven.
Shakespeare's dramatic and scornful lack of formulaic contruct, especially by the use of transitory effects as switching between comedy and tragedy to heighten tension, his expansion of minor characters, and his use of subplots to embellish the story, has been hailed as being the genesis of great drama in the years to come. His tomes ascribed to a different realistic philosophy that talks many a times of accepting one's status with full raw ferocity and there was nothing collusive about his plot even in the factions that he decribed. His plays give different poetic forms to different characters, sometimes morphing the the form with the progression of the character. Romeo, for example, grows more adept at the sonnet form over the course of the play. Othello became "egotistical" in jealousy but William Hazlitt. Hazlitt makes a statement saying that "the nature of the Moor is noble...but his blood is of the most inflameable kind".
Hamlet is experienced in polemic. He uses highly developed metaphors, stichomythia, and in nine memorable words deploys both anaphora (as in example of Lincoln's “we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground” and asyndeton(as in example of “I came, I saw, I conquered”): "to die: to sleep— / To sleep, perchance to dream". on the other hand when need be arises, he is succint and forthright, as when he explains his inward emotion to his mother: "But I have that within which passes show, / These but the trappings and the suits of woe". Who can forget Lear declaring 'Never, never, never, never,.....'.
Perhaps Macbeth, 'the son of life' begins the play as a "nice guy." Unlike Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear, no one seems to genuinely admire or love him except as a warlord. Lady Macbeth dislikes him being full of the milk of human kindness. In reckoning the murder, Macbeth seems most worried about the perils and disadvantages to himself. You may enjoy listing these. ("Maybe destiny will make me king without murdering anyone." "It would be more fun to enjoy my current success and popularity for a while." "I'll go to hell." "Duncan is a good man and people won't like his killer." "I might get caught red-handed." "Somebody will assassinate me in turn.") Do you think he's also considering that his what he's doing is wrong? Different people will reach different conclusions.
All said and done, Shakespeare's unputdownable scripts still remain a favourite movie making stuff. Our very own percocious Bollywood moviemaker Vishal Bhardwaj has taken a cue from his novels and made Macbeth and Othello meet a tad east in movies like Maqbool and Onkara. Bollywood's "Last Lear" a treat for Shakespeare lovers by not about Shakespeare and is not based on "King Lear," but fans of the Bard may find traces of both in a new Bollywood film set in conetemporary India.
Amitabh Bachchan, Bollywood's biggest star, plays a reclusive stage actor in "The Last Lear," one who quotes Shakespeare with relish and is making his movie debut at an old age.
Passages from some of Shakespeare's best known works are sprinkled into the film's dialogues.
"Shakespeare almost becomes a character in the film," director Rituparno Ghosh says,"and metaphorically, the vulnerability of old age, an old man who is taken advantage of, is represented in the film,"
For Amitabh Bachchan, the role of Harry and the way he used Shakespeare's language to illustrate his points brought back memories of his own early acting days. It is almost as if Shakespeare himself is the central character of the movie.
Let us not bother about the borrowed rehashings for someting artistically good. After all, it art-for-art's-sake that we are aiming for in the truest of spirits!