Happy Birthday Shakespeare! Happy World Book Day to all book-lovers. Its Shakespeare’s 450th birthday today. The adored, worshipped, loved, relished and cherished Bard of all time. The  man who came to London from Stratford and went back in his last days after  creating an immortal world of men and women who are so much like us, that they remained in our collective conscience ever since. The man who talks to us through his creations and yet remains an enigma.

Shakespeare haunts you, follows you everywhere and lingers on like the sweetness of a juicy fruit. He conquered all lands, all boundaries long ago. He is British, he is America, he is Indian and African… he belongs to all. Once you taste him, you become an addict. He may spring up in your mind anytime from God knows where and you will feel a kind of thirst that must be quenched. It can be quenched only after spending a few rewarding moments with him. He is an eternal celebrity… celebrated all over God’s earth. They quote him and they perform him even without knowing it sometimes. 

It is amazing how mystery has shrouded this man from last 450 years. Perhaps he himself chose to be shrouded in mystery… and how well he has done that! He is read, he is talked and written about incessantly, yet we know almost nothing of him. Scholars keep debating, exploring, researching and the commons keep relishing him.

For all Shakespeare lovers, Oxford Journals have created a resource of over 20 journal articles culled from across their journals in the humanities. All these articles can be downloaded FREE till July. Go to:

http://www.oxfordjournals.org/subject/humanities/shakespeare-birthday.html

Happy Shakespeare Jayanti to all of us !