Relevance of Shakespearean poetry and drama to the present Indian scenario
Abstract
Abstract: Literature is the mirror of the society. Time changes and world with its different pockets change shapes with passage of time, but the fundamental elements of Nature remain always the same. It is also true that great people of the world think always the same. What a great thinker thought long ago may be matched with the idea of another thinker much later. Besides, great authors are philosophers capable of seeing into the heart of the future. Shakespeare was such a visionary. What he thought three centuries ago and used as the materials of his dramas – both tragedies and comedies as also histories and sonnets – may now be seen happening in countries all over the world not excluding India. India, which now is a democratic country, after more than seven decades of her independence has much common with the countries in Europe, the basis of Shakespeare’s dramatic art. Political murders in line with Macbeth’s assassination of King Duncan and that of Banquo by mercenaries employed by Macbeth have their reflections in many political murders taking place almost everyday in India. But the plethora of crime cannot retard the flowering of the sweeter emotions like kindness, love, and charity. Even today there are many people, the Christian saints like Mother Theresa, the Buddhist and Hindu monks who employ their all energy for the purgation of the rotten human society. With the seven deadly sins running in the society there is also the strong undercurrent of love and forgiveness. In Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant of Venice’, Portia, disguised as a male law-clerk, delivered a rich and long lecture on the quality of mercy in order to make change of Shylock’s heart, but she succeeded when she blended her legal acumen with a measure of witty tricks. This mixture may worsen the quality of truth and may bring some instant gain, but an unmixed truth is always victorious. Shakespeare propounded this victory of religion over villainy and it is what happens in the present Indian situation.
