Lessons from the Bard – Shakespeare and the power of education

You might not have heard of William Shakespeare – bit of an underground figure. You know, Romeo and Juliet? King Lear? Nah, probably a bit too obscure.

I jest, I jest. Pretty much everyone’s heard of the most famous playwright in the world, but you might not know that the Bard is celebrating a very special occasion on the 23^rd April – his 450^th birthday.

In his 52 years on the planet, this preeminent English playwright wrote 38 plays, 154 sonnets and two long-form narrative poems. Makes you feel pretty lazy, doesn’t it?

Despite this, little is truly known about the man himself. His personal history is shrouded in so much mystery that numerous conspiracy theorists have even claimed that he didn’t exist (his plays have been attributed to rich dukes, fellow playwright Christopher Marlowe and even Sir Francis Bacon).

But, ignoring the wild conspiracy theories, there’s one lesson that Shakespeare has taught us about life outside of his plays – if he wrote them, his education was exemplary.

One of the reasons that so many authorship queries have been raised is because Shakespeare had such a vast wealth of knowledge – people find it difficult to believe that one man could know so much.

Just flick through a single Shakespeare play and you’ll find in-depth references to history, alchemy, metaphysics, surgery, botany, and a host more knowledge nuggets, from the populous to the obscure. That’s not even mentioning a vast vocabulary that had the confidence to create new words on the fly (he invented over 1700 words, including “moonbeam”, “addiction” and “hobnob”).

Whatever his education, Shakespeare shows the real power and verve that effective learning creates. In pouring his knowledge into every line of his plays and poems, Shakespeare showed the positive effect that striving to learn can have on the human mind and, by extension, the world.

As this undeniably brilliant playwright attests on his 450^th birthday, knowledge is a power that can let you live through the centuries. So, take a look at some of our courses to see how you could benefit from a well-rounded education.

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Lessons from the Bard – Shakespeare and the power of education