UNDER CONSTRUCTION 

From Erasmus to Victor Hugo

Shakespeare’s plays evolved from (1) Italian translations and imitations of Roman plays that copied the Greeks and (2) 500 years of indigenous religious plays, secular moralities, and lewd  farces. From the first he retained the useful conventions of the Neoclassical Ideal and Aristotle’s elements—the 5-act structure, dialogue in verse (frequently rhymed couplets), kings and heroes—and ignored those that retrained his imagination. His plays intentionally violated the unities of time, place, and action, mixed tragedy and comedy, with parallel plots and gruesome onstage murders. Indigenous medieval drama broadened his scope to include the wit and wisdom of the common man, who spoke contemporary prose (in words now archaic or extinct). What emerged is universally accepted as the best that ever was, and its challenges well worth the rewards.

Shakespeare’s plays, in turn, were imitated and adapted through the centuries that followed, whittled down from several hours to less the two; five acts to four, then three; now mostly two. His poetry turned to purple prose in the 18th Century and was condensed in the 20th, his lengthy, lofty language lost through generations to the Twitter limit of today. Nonetheless,  his lines (and those of the contemporary King James Version of the Bible) are quoted more than most of the others put together); his characters are models for our playwrights, and his plots and themes are universal.