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Shakespeare enjoys a unique position in the world, unequalled by any other writer. While there are other great European dramatic poets from the 17th century, Racine and Calderon to name but two, no other playwright has found such a contemporary resonance in the modern world as Shakespeare has. He seems to transcend all national boundaries and all historical epochs. People from Asia to the
Americas
, from Europe to Africa and the
Middle East
, all find something in his works that is deeply resonant to the contemporary experience of their own lives. Why is this? If one examines the work of Shakespeare, one finds very little philosophy or religious belief. What one does find, however, is a detailed, discursive, chaotic writer, a man who has something to say on almost every conceivable subject, a restless, searching mind that poses far more questions than it answers. He was, of course, writing at a time of great social, economic and political upheaval, something very familiar to all of us who live in the modern world. His world, like our own, seems to suffer from the lack of a philosophical system of belief. What one finds, instead of a solid, theoretical body of thought, is a world in turmoil in which man finds himself confronted by moral dilemmas which multiply until they overwhelm him. His plays are, quite simply, morality tales in which man tries to find his way, not only through the darkness of the world, but through the darkness within himself, that impenetrable darkness that is found within the human heart.
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