Differences From Contemporaries
Shakespeare's works express the complete range of human experience. His characters were human beings who commanded the sympathy of audiences when many other playwrights' characters were flat or archetypes. Macbeth, for example, commits six murders by the end of the fourth act, and is responsible for many deaths offstage, yet still commands an audience's sympathy until the very end because he is seen as a flawed human being, not a monster. Hamlet knows that he must avenge the death of his father, but he is too indecisive, too self-doubting, to carry this out until he has no choice. His failings cause his downfall, and he exhibits some of the most basic human reactions and emotions. Shakespeare's characters were complex and human in nature. By making the protagonist's character development central to the plot, Shakespeare changed what could be accomplished with drama.
Read more about this topic: William Shakespeare's Style
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“When was it that the particles became
The whole man, that tempers and beliefs became
Temper and belief and that differences lost
Difference and were one? It had to be
In the presence of a solitude of the self....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)