William Shakespeare was the most influential writer who ever lived. Even those who haven’t read his plays know his words, from “to be or not to be” to “let slip the dogs of war.” But his influence goes beyond quotable phrases. Here are five ways he altered our lives.
1. Starlings. On March 6, 1890, a New York pharmaceutical manufacturer named Eugene Schiefflin released 60 starlings into Central Park. His plan was to introduce every species of bird mentioned in Shakespeare into the New World. (Shakespeare mentions starlings once, in “Henry IV, Part One”) From those initial 60 birds, the starling population in North America has swollen to over 200 million individual birds. They have spread as far as the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Circle and, besides being a major nuisance for both farmers and city-dwellers, compete with many native species, including bluebirds and Northern Flickers. Shakespeare name-checked 43 bird species, but Schiefflin wasn’t successful with every one — morning larks, for instance, failed to prosper.
2. Our sex lives. Harold Bloom described Sigmund Freud as “Shakespeare prosified,” and he was right. Shakespeare described every kind of sex in his plays, including the freakiest and the most repressed. Not even the most prudish readers could avoid his works, which include pieces like Sonnet 137 (about masturbation) or the scene in The Winter’s Tale which refers to a sex toy. His unabashed frankness about sexuality made him the one canonical author who dealt openly with sex. Psychotherapy and the sexual revolution in the ’60s both drew heavily from his realistic descriptions of how human desire works. His frankness about sex has done more to foster permissive attitudes than any other writer or thinker.
3. The assassination of Lincoln. John Wilkes Booth was inspired to assassinate Lincoln by his performance, only a few months earlier, in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.” The parallels between the theatrical assassination of Julius Caesar and the real assassination of Lincoln are striking. Booth shot Lincoln in a theater, and burst into Latin after killing the President, shouting “Sic Semper Tyrannus” (just as Caesar speaks Latin after being stabbed in a play). In the diary, written while on the run from the authorities, Booth noted: “After being hunted like a dog through swamps, woods, and last night being chased by gun-boats till I was forced to return wet cold and starving, with every man’s hand against me, I am here in despair. And why? For doing what Brutus was honoured for.”
4. The Civil Rights Movement.
“ ‘Othello’ has taken away from me all kinds of fears, all sense of limitation, and all racial prejudice,” Paul Robeson, the great African-American actor and activist told reporters. “‘Othello’ has made me free.” When Robeson performed “Othello” in a record-breaking run at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway in the 1940s, the play made him the most famous African-American to that point, and gave him unprecedented access and influence, as well as bringing the image of a strong African character and interracial love to the widest possible audience. Robeson was the first black man to speak to the owners of Major League Baseball on the subject of integrating the sport. His activism prepared the way for the social-justice movement 20 years later.
5. Language. Shakespeare was the greatest inventor of words in English or in any language. He coined roughly 1,700 English words, including everyday ones like “jaded” and “bandit” and “mountaineer.” He invented words so common, you would never imagine they came from him, like “advertising” and “skim milk.” He invented fancy words like “sanctimonious” and “lackluster” and “consanguineous.” He invented ordinary words like “to dawn” and “glow” and “gnarled” and “gossip.” He invented wild words like “zany” and “buzzer.” The name Jessica was first used in “The Merchant of Venice.” His truest power is in our words, and his influence grows every time we open our mouths.
Stephen Marche is the author of “How Shakespeare Changed Everything” (Harper), out this week.