Ten common misconceptions about Shakespeare
As this Saturday sees the 400-year anniversary of William Shakespeare‘s death, we thought we’d turn our attention to the Bard and the numerous myths that have grown up around his life and work. Here are ten of our favourites. As with many of the details of Shakespeare’s life we cannot be sure these are all complete nonsense, but nor can we confidently say the opposite; but we should be wary of making too many assumptions about Shakespeare’s life.
The word interesting obviously varies in its definition from person to person (and depending on which other words we use to describe it). But we hope you find the following corrected misconceptions about the Bard at least mildly interesting.
He coined hundreds of new words. Shakespeare was clearly a linguistic innovator, a poet who could use words in ways hitherto unseen. ‘Light thickens’ (Macbeth), for instance. But did he really coin all of the words usually attributed to him? He may well have invented some of them, but the actual number is undoubtedly somewhat exaggerated. The more we learn about word history, the more we realise that words once attributed to Shakespeare actually predate him. He used to get the credit for ‘alligator’ for instance; scholars have since traced that word back to the mid-sixteenth century, before the Bard was born.
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