Shakespeare 3

Send us Fan Mail

Mr. Shakespeare, in our previous episode, you were talking about your life and your literary career.   Could you briefly remark on the uniqueness of Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, as well as their importance to literature.

Shakespeare
Now I could not speak to this assemblage without addressing the subject of my play Hamlet. Many individuals have called it my greatest play. Here is a prince torn between revenge, morality, and his own inaction. With the simple, yet profound, words ‘To be, or not to be…,’ I attempted to capture a question that has haunted humans for centuries: what does it mean to act, and what does it mean to live? In King Lear, I explored family, power, and madness, peeling back the layers of human pride and vulnerability. In Othello, I explored jealousy and how manipulation destroy trust, while in Macbeth I examined ambition, guilt, and the blurred lines between fate and choice. In each play, characters are no longer symbols or types—they are fully human, with thoughts, fears, and contradictions that mirror our own.

To use a modern day analogy, this was like a musician dropping three platinum albums in twelve months. I wasn’t just producing — I was redefining what theater could be.
This is the run that still leaves critics amazed: the great tragedies. Between about 1600 and 1608, I wrote Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth.

Mr. Shakespeare, could you specifically comment on your play Othello.

Certainly. Othello (written in 1603–04), is a love story poisoned by jealousy. Add Iago, one of literature’s great villains, and you have a play that feels chillingly modern. In Othello, jealousy and manipulation take center stage.  

I understand that in the character of Iago, you make an excellent comment on the subject of jealousy.

Yes, Iago warns in the play, ‘O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; it is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.’ With just a few words, I tried to capture the destructive power of envy and the ease with which human trust can be undone.

That is very well said. Could you go on in the same vein.

It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!
It is the cause. Yet I’ll not shed her blood;
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.
Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.
Put out the light, and then put out the light:
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore,
Should I repent me: but once put out thy light,
Thou cunning’st pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light relume. When I have pluck’d the rose,
I cannot give it vital growth again.
It must needs wither: I’ll smell it on the tree.
Ah balmy breath, that dost almost persuade
Justice to break her sword! One more, one more.
Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,
And love thee after. One more, and this the last:
So sweet was ne’er so fatal. I must weep,
But they are cruel tears: this sorrow’s heavenly;
It strikes where it doth love.

Support the show

Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.