William Shakespeare is a name known and feared by many high school students around the globe. We are all familiar with words he coined, his most famous characters, and everyone's heard at least the first line of "To be or not to be." But what is it, exactly, that launched this man to such great fame? Why is it his work we study in schools, rather than that of his equally qualified contemporaries, like Marlowe, Johnson, Fletcher, or Middleton? What is it about his plays specifically that have captured, and continue to capture, audiences around the globe for the past 450 years?

To put it simply: His language.

Will's words are what keep his works alive today. Though many people fear getting lost in translation, a good performer can make the meaning come true no matter who is listening - and what a meaning it is. The themes that loudly resonate throughout his works: love, betrayal, honor, bravery, and politics are ones that matter to us today. Although he has some topical references and jokes that only a true Shakespearean scholar would understand, he wrote the vast majority of his work to be timeless. His characters use such rich, passionate language, that their souls speak loudly enough to transcend time and the evolution of language and writing style. He was also a master of comedy - his dumber characters who speak in prose often steal the show. "Poetic License" was his specialty, just look at the histories! Many are only slimly based on what actually happened - much of the time, he used figures from the past as metaphors and representatives of the present. And his sonnets are like journals - we get glimpses into his actual life, his thoughts, his worries and insecurities... Through them, we can see beyond the brilliant playwright who can don many masks, and glimpse what the real Will thought and felt like. Which is good, because for all the obsessing we do, we don't know that much about him.

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