1341 Words Essay on My Favorite Author (free to read)

Nor could I believe the story of Orlando in “As You like It” with its hackneyed beginning showing discord between two brothers, escape of Orlando to Forest of Arden, his chance meeting with another disinherited Princess Rosalind, the subsequent change of heart of his brother and happy family reunion accompanied by celebration of marriages of the young protagonists.

I found it no better than a run of the mill Bollywood film. In spite of my aversion to Shakespeare, I could not abandon studying his books as I had to pass and do well in my examinations. However as I matured and had first hand experiences of the people and the world ,I gradually came to appreciate the true to life portraits and deep insight into the human psyche found not only in “King Lear” and “As You Like It” but also in most of his other tragedies, comedies and histories.

I slowly overcame my resistance to Shakespeare’s improbable narratives and progressively developed a lasting admiration for his mastery of portrayal of the universal man and woman. I find new meanings and discover new beauties in every successive reading of the same play of Shakespeare.

I am enthralled by the great variety of human portraits found in Shakespeare’s plays. From highly philosophical Hamlet to farcical Falstaff, there is hardly a character type which is missing from Shakespeare’s repertoire of human species. Which author has created a more vivacious girl than Rosalind whose irrepressible sense of humor brightens up and radiates to every inhabitant of the Forest of Arden.

Nobody can surpass Melancholy Jacques in cynicism who could not find anything cheerful in all the seven stages of life from infancy to old age, where the infant mules and pukes in his nurse’s arms, the schoolboy is unwilling to go to school, even the young man has nothing exciting in store as he is always sighing like a furnace and this unpromising existence ultimately ending in the extreme old age, sans eyes , sans teeth, san everything .Othello devoured by the ‘green-eyed monster jealousy’ has almost becom synonymous with the emotion of jealousy.

Shakespeare’s characters have becom almost universally accepted symbols for certain specific human flaws. You just mention ‘ambitious like Macbeth’ and the listener will instantly smell the impending dangeroi negotiating with such a man. Where else do you find a more skillful orator than Antony who changed the history of Rome with his masterly understanding and shrewd manipulation of mob-psychology whereby he turned honorable Brutus into a villain in the eyes of Romans?

I am still to see a more cunning advocate than Portia, who turned the tables on Shylock by her extremely intelligent interpretation of the agreement signed by Antonio promising Shylock that he would give him a pound of flesh in case he fails to repay his loan.

I like Shakespeare as he enhances my understanding of human beings that I come across in everyday life. Shakespeare exhibits great psychological insight in delineating the inner drama played inside the minds of his tragic heroes like Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth.

The indecisiveness of Prince Hamlet in executing his revenge is rooted in his strong attachment to his mother (later characterized as Oedipus complex by Freud). Othello’s jealousy is born out of inferiority complex as the black moor. Othello suffers from inferiority complex and is not very sure that the white -skinned Desdemona can truly love him and remain faithful to him.

King Lear is the archetype father who would not admit that a daughter can love her husband more than her father. There is no dearth of ambitious politicians today who, very much like Macbeth, would not mind walking over the dead bodies of their dearest colleagues and supporters to reach the top.

Shakespeare is surprisingly modern in his treatment of women. None of her women characters can be dated .They are suffused with emotions, qualities and charm which are commonly found in women of all ages throughout the world. Beatrice of “Much Ado about Nothing” is a liberated woman as modern as a woman of today who can hold her own in talking about love and sex against any clever man.

Portia is a successful lawyer who can practice in any court today. Juliet is a quintessential lover who will give up anything for love. Lady Macbeth appears to be very much like the wife of a chief executive of an MNC who would urge her husband to pull out all the stops to reach the top.

Shakespeare has endured because he deals with basic human emotions which move and motivate the people of all countries and all ages. His characters have become role models and reference points for the coming generations for demonstrating the overwhelming intensity of basic human emotions like filial love, romantic love, friendship, loyalty, jealousy, ambition, anger.

It is difficult to find a better specimen of filial love than Cordelia who is ready to give up all her possessions-‘He that helps him, take all my outward worth’-and she actually stakes and loses her kingdom to save her father.

Romeo and Juliet have become the standard-bearers of romantic love for the young people all over the world. Antonio in The Merchant of Venice pledges his pound of flesh for obtaining loan for the sake of his friend. He has become an icon of friendship.

The turbulence caused in marital life by the feeling of jealousy has been powerfully brought out in the doom of Othello as well as in loss of marital bliss in the case of Leontes in The Winter’s Tale’.

Lear’s anger with her daughter leads to his fall. A reading of Shakespeare brings us face to face with our own failings and warns us to be vigilant .We may save ourselves from the pitfalls which ruined Shakespeare’s characters. We identify with his characters and suffer with his tragic heroes.

By imaginatively living through their vicissitudes we are purged of many toxic effects of the evil doings of the fictional characters. It gives us thorough understanding of the impact of certain traits and prepares us better to deal with them when we come across them in our real life.

A basic human sympathy and tolerance permeates his dramas. He is not a strait- jacketed preacher but scrupulous painter and an interpreter of life as it is. He delineates life in all its variety and complexity, in all its greatness and grossness, in all its glory and excitement, in all its ecstasy and anguish. It is for the reader to draw his conclusions in the light of his life experience. He is free to become a misanthrope like Jacques, a meliorist like Edmund, fatalist like Kent, or he may cry with Macbeth and term life ‘a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing’.

But everywhere we come across the humanity of Shakespeare’s heart and nature. He seemed to love life as it was and rendered it in his inimitable drama with a great poetic intensity.

There is hardly any aspect of life which has not been thoroughly probed by Shakespeare in his plays. Shakespeare enriches our understanding of life and makes us better equipped to deal with the problems of life. He holds up a mirror to life in which we can virtually glimpse our past, present and future.

He is a complete author if ever there was one. And he truly belongs not only to England , the country of his birth but to the whole world which reads him , learns from him and looks upon him as a constant guide for going through the journey of life.