No matter how you choose to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, the history of this holiday is certainly worth examining. The original St. Patrick accomplished much more than ridding Ireland of snakes, and he emerged from his pagan roots to become one of Christianity’s best known figures. 

The history of St. Patrick’s Day owes its origins to the Christian church, celebrating St. Patrick’s feast day on what was believed to be the anniversary of his death. Way back in 1737, Irish immigrants living in the US began to celebrate this important holiday, and the first St. Patrick’s Day parade took place in 1766 in New York City. 

These annual parades soon gained popularity not only with Irish immigrants but other residents of the city as well, and today the St. Patrick’s Day parade is one of the most popular and most well attended events in the city. These days St. Patrick’s Day parades are held throughout the country, with Irish and non-Irish residents alike enjoying the comraderie, the festive floats and of course lots of Irish treats. 

Despite the fun and frivolity of the St. Patrick’s Day parades and other celebrations, this holiday has its roots deeply embedded in the world of Christianity. Even today, the country of Ireland celebrates St. Patrick’s Day primarily as a religious holiday. This religious ferver spread even to the famous Irish pubs, and as late as the 1970’s all pubs in Ireland were ordered closed on March 17. 

As time went by, however, the Irish government began to see the tourist opportunities of this uniquely Irish holiday. Beginning in the mid-1990’s the Irish government started a campaign to use the holiday to drive tourism to the island, and this strategy has worked very well. Close to one million people visit Ireland each year to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day where the holiday first got its start. 

In Legend

Some Irish legends involve the Oilliphéist, the Caoránach, and the Copóg Phádraig. During his evangelising journey back to Ireland from his parent’s home at Birdoswald, he is understood to have carried with him an ash wood walking stick or staff. He thrust this stick into the ground wherever he was evangelising and at the place now known as Aspatria (ash of Patrick) the message of the dogma took so long to get through to the people there that the stick had taken root by the time he was ready to move on. 

The 12th century work Acallam na Senórach tells of Patrick being met by two ancient warriors, Caílte mac Rónáin and Oisín, during his evangelical travels. The two were once members of Fionn mac Cumhaill’s warrior band the Fianna, and somehow survived to Patrick’s time. They traveled with the saint and told him their stories. 

Saint Patrick’s Bell

Although today, one or two of the jewels are missing as well as some of the panels of Celtic artwork, full appreciation of the workmanship in the shrine is still possible and it is kept, along with St. Patrick’s Bell, in glittering condition by the National Museum as a priceless national treasure. The bell itself is simple in design, hammered into shape with a small handle fixed to the top with rivets. Originally forged from iron, it has since been coated in bronze. The shrine is inscribed with three names, including O’Loughlin’s. The rear of the shrine, not intended to be seen, is decorated with crosses while the handle is decorated with, among other work, celtic designs of birds. The bell is accredited with working a miracle in 1044 and having been coated in bronze to shield it from humans eyes for which it would be too holy. 

Sainthood and Remembrance

He had for his parents Calphurnius and Conchessa. The former belonged to a Roman family of high rank and held the office of decurio in Gaul or Britain. Conchessa was a near relative of the great patron of Gaul, St. Martin of Tours. Kilpatrick still retains many memorials of Saint Patrick, and frequent pilgrimages continued far into the Middle Ages to perpetuate there the fame of his sanctity and miracles.  

In his sixteenth year, Patrick was carried off into captivity by Irish marauders and was sold as a slave to a chieftan named Milchu in Dalriada, a territory of the present county of Antrim in Ireland, where for six years he tended his master’s flocks in the valley of the Braid and on the slopes of Slemish, near the modern town of Ballymena. He relates in his “Confessio” that during his captivity while tending the flocks he prayed many times in the day: “the love of God”, he added, “and His fear increased in me more and more, and the faith grew in me, and the spirit was roused, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers, and in the night nearly the same, so that whilst in the woods and on the mountain, even before the dawn, I was roused to prayer and felt no hurt from it, whether there was snow or ice or rain; nor was there any slothfulness in me, such as I see now, because the spirit was then fervent within me. “ 

In the ways of a benign Providence the six years of Patrick’s captivity became a remote preparation for his future apostolate. He acquired a perfect knowledge of the Celtic tongue in which he would one day announce the glad tidings of Redemption, and, as his master Milchu was a druidical high priest, he became familiar with all the details of Druidism from whose bondage he was destined to liberate the Irish race. 

March 17, popularly known as St. Patrick’s Day, is believed to be his death date and is the date celebrated as his feast day. The day became a feast day in the universal church due to the influence of the Waterford-born Franciscan scholar Luke Wadding, as a member of the commission for the reform of the Breviary in the early part of the 17th century. 

For most of Christianity’s first thousand years, canonisations were done on the diocesan or regional level. Relatively soon after the death of people considered to be very holy people, the local Church affirmed that they could be liturgically celebrated as saints. As a result, St. Patrick has never been formally canonised by a Pope; nevertheless, various Christian churches declare that he is a Saint in Heaven (he is in the List of Saints). He is still widely venerated in Ireland and elsewhere today. 

St. Patrick is also venerated in the Orthodox Church, especially among English-speaking Orthodox Christians living in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland and in North America. There are Orthodox icons dedicated to him.

In this inspiring sermon Saint Bernard exhorted young men to join the Knights Templar, a monastic military order formed at the end of the First Crusade to protect Christian pilgrims on route to the Holy Land. These knights have recently been in the news because of the popular book, The De Vinci Code, a mystery involving the bloodline of Jesus, the Knights, and the Holy Grail.

For an idealistic younger son unable to claim an inheritance because of the rule of primogeniture this was a prestigious and altruistic way of life. (This rule required that the family’s land would be left to the eldest son.) Chastity seemed a small price to pay to join this Order, founded in 1118 by Hugh de Payens and eight companions from Champagne and Provence.

Poor Beginnings
The first Crusade began when Alexius Comnenus, Emperor of Byzantium, wrote to Pope Urban III requesting help to repel the Turks from the Eastern part of his Empire. The Pope seized this opportunity to save the Holy Land from the Moslems and men flocked to fight for Jerusalem. After three difficult years the Crusaders gained control of Jerusalem. Pilgrims could at last travel to the land where their Savior was born, but both the land routes and the sea ways were very dangerous. The route through Constantinople, Nicea and Antioch was beset by bands of highway robbers and the sea routes were roamed by pirates eager to take possession of ships and capture slaves.  Originally called The Poor Knights of Christ, the Templars at first escorted pilgrims from Jerusalem to the banks of the Jordan, living on the alms they received. Later they protected the route from the Mediterranean Coast to Jerusalem, providing safe escorts for Christian pilgrims. They had no habit or rule.

Ascent to Power
In 1128 the luck of the ‘Warrior Monks” as they were nicknamed changed. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, called the Second Pope, and the chief spokesman of Christendom at that time, gained the Pope’s backing for these knights with whom he was greatly impressed. “First of all, there is discipline and unqualified obedience…they live in a community, soberly and in joy, without wife and children…Never overdressed, they bathe rarely, and are dirty and hirsute, tanned by the coat of mail and the sun.” he said. (They don’t sound too attractive – not my idea of ‘knights in shining amour’!) The Rule of Saint Benedict was approved and they now had a habit – a white mantle emblazoned with a red cross.

The Knights were now immune from all authority except the Pope’s and exempt from taxes and even tithes. They also gained great wealth from the possessions of new recruits who had to sign their worldly goods to the Order, donations flooding in, and the ownership of land which included much of London and grand temples in Paris and Jerusalem. There are still remarkable ruins of castles built by the Knights in the Holy Land. In 1307 they even bought Yorkshire for the very cheap price of 1300 pounds and for a time they owned Cyprus. The Knights virtually invented banking, getting around the rule against usury, and lending money to monarchs and merchants. The clergy of the Holy Land disliked the Knight’s privileges and power because the revenue of their churches had been diminished, as the Knight’s revenues grew.

The Knights were considered brave soldiers, the scourge of the Moslems, and fought alongside King Richard the First and other famous monarchs. Their courage in dying for their religion unfortunately led to a large decimation of their numbers. If they were taken prisoner they refused to deny Christ, and many died martyrs. Almost 20,000 may have died in the wars.

Decline
In 1314 Philip the Fair (perhaps that should be unfair?) annoyed by the Knight’s influence and power, and needing money for his war against England, decided to destroy the Knights. The secret initiation ceremonies and meetings of the Templars gave him the means to do this. Gaining the Pope’s support, he charged them with heresy, accusing them of blasphemy and homosexuality among other things, so that he could seize their money and assets. Many confessed under dreadful tortures and most were burnt at the stake.

The last Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, was burned at the stake, before the gates of the palace. According to legend de Molay cursed King Philip and Pope Clement as he burned saying that both men would join him within a year. Clement died one month later and Philip IV seven months after Clement.

Donovan is a staunch Irishman, with a temper, who has obviously been a soldier for sometime. Based on Bonaparte’s observation, Donovan appears to be a farmer by trade, a big man who wears a small cloth hat and seldom has his hands out of his pockets. As a character, Donovan does not change throughout the story, but maintains his continued duty as a patriotic soldier of the Irish army. Even when Belcher and Hawkins poise no threat of escaping and causing any problems, Donovan scolds Bonaparte for following him into the village and tells him he should be guarding the prisoners. Donovan does not display any hatred towards Belcher and Hawkins. When he admits to Bonaporte that, “I thought you knew we were keeping them as hostages” this would indicate that Donovan had been involved in hostage taking in the past. It makes perfect sense to Donovan that if the enemy shoots prisoners belonging to them, then they will shoot Belcher and Hawkins. While this would make sense to a solider of war, Bonaparte tries to explain the difference in the situation, but does not because he knew Donovan would not understand. Bonaparte makes the analogy that “If it was only an old dog that was going to the vet’s, you’d try and not get too fond of him, but Jeremiah Donovan wasn’t a man that would ever be in danger of that.”

 Through out the story, Donovan keeps his distance from Belcher and Hawkins. Although he supervises the card games between Belcher, Hawkins, Noble and Bonaporte, he hardly played in the game. In fact, Bonaparte does not even notice Donovan’s apparent lack of interest in Noble and Hawkins. Not until after Bonaparte has befriended the two British men does it occur to him that Donovan “had no great love for the two Englishmen.” Donovan, as a solider of the war, realizes that he can not befriend the enemies, as he knows what their ultimate fate is. Noble and Bonaparte do not realize this and Donovan, so consumed with the duty of country and war, does not warn them of the possibility of execution until it was too late and the doomed friendship had already begun.

When word of the execution of the four Irish lads comes, Donovan wastes no time in proceeding with executing Belcher and Hawkins. The impact the war has had on Donovan shines through when he angrily tells Bonaparte that he wants “those two soldier friends of yours”, as if almost expecting resistance from Bonaparte. Donovan tries his best to explain to Belcher and Hawkins that he is only doing “his duty”, that he holds nothing against them, but he makes a point to Hawkins when he says, “but why did your people take out four of our prisoners and shoot them in cold blood?” He then takes Hawkins by the arm and drags him along. Through out the execution Donovan asks each man for any last words and last prayers, then quickly executes each of them with a shot to the head.  Donovan, without emotion or regret, performed the executions quickly and without hesitation. His actions speak louder than words. Numb to what he was about to do, he makes sure that he tells both victims that he is only doing this because of duty, as if that is the justification of which he basis the executions on.

‘Guests of the Nation” is a powerful story that teaches us what war is really all about – killing. When Noble and Bonaparte become soldiers, they desire the excitement of the battlefield and to help defeat the British in their political rule over Ireland. Both of them are naive to what war is really about. The last place they wanted to be was guarding two prisoners of war that seemed to be more intent on being their friend, than being their enemy. Donovan, the seasoned soldier, knows what the war is about and knows that the prisoners are the enemy and are to be dealt with as enemies. He keeps his distance from them and when it comes time to perform his duty, he does so. On the other hand are Noble and Bonaparte who have not experienced the cruelty of war. They do not understand, as Donovan does, that war is about people being killed, just like themselves. From a distance, the enemy seems real, vicious and does not regard human life. But up close, you find out that the enemy is no different than you and I. ‘Guests of the Nation’ personifies this and provides insight into how a war can change a person, from the green and naive Bonaparte, to the seasoned soldier of war, Donovan. In the end, Bonaparte would become like Donovan because he was numbed by the cruelty of war. As Bonaparte states after the executions had taken place, “And anything that happened to me afterwards, I never felt the same about again.”

In the summer of 1692 terror reigned in Salem, Massachusetts, USA. On the word of several young girls in the village, who were exhibiting strange behaviour that they said was brought on by witchcraft, many of the townsfolk were brought to the prison and tried on the charge of witchcraft. There was no-one exempt from the adolescents’ accusing fingers. Popular people, professional people, men, women and even children were brought before the court and interrogated.

First to be accused was Tituba, the Carib Indian slave belonging to Reverend Samuel Parris. Along with Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne were also arrested. Of these, only Tituba confessed to witchcraft – and remarkably, of the three, she was the only one to survive!

The youngest of the accused was four years old. Imagine the horror that little girl, Dorcas Good – daughter of Sarah Good, must have felt to be CHAINED to the wall of the rat-infested prison for almost 10 months before she was found not guilty – but not before she watched her mother convicted and taken to the gallows to be hung. In the period that her mother was imprisoned, her sibling also died – a child that Sarah was still nursing was taken to the prison with her but died before Sarah was hung.

In total 19 of those accused of witchcraft were hanged on Gallows Hill. 13 of the convicted were women, and 6 of them men. Giles Corey, also died as a result of the trials – he was pressed to death when refusing to plead guilty or otherwise. His wife was hanged for witchcraft 3 days after his death. Although prison records offer conflicting information, it is thought that as many as 13 other accused people died in prison during the witch trials. Between 100 and 200 people were arrested on charges of witchcraft – and two dogs executed.

Who was to blame for this gross miscarriage of justice, created by ignorance and fear? Perhaps it was the physician who could not identify what illness Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams (aged 9 and 11 respectively) had which caused them to have convulsions, trance-like states and other strange behaviour. His diagnosis was therefore to suggest that they were under Satan’s influence. Perhaps it was Tituba who created the “witch cake” that was made up of rye meal and urine from the sick girls and given to a dog to eat in the hope that the witch who had inflicted the girls would be identified. It was also Tituba who confessed to witchcraft and then gave evidence against Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and others. Perhaps it was the young girls themselves – not only Abigail and Elizabeth, but also Ann Putnum, Elizabeth Hubbard, Susannah Sheldon, Mercy Lewis and Mary Warren – who were guilty of mischievously accusing anyone who had crossed them? Perhaps it was the townspeople who allowed hysteria to override commonsense and set one neighbour up to accuse his/her neighbour of witchcraft because they did not conform to normal social standards or because the butter turned sour after one of the accused had visited . Perhaps it was the court that allowed hearsay and malicious gossip convict and kill innocent people. Perhaps it was the laws that covered the court and said the trials were “legal”. Whoever or whatever was to blame, the outcome was the same. Many innocent people were condemned to death – and their sentences carried out – whilst many others spent months in prison needlessly and never recovered from their experience.

In 1697 Samual Sewall, one of the judges in the witch trials publicly confessed to the wrong doing he had helped to escalate, and offered an apology to the relatives of those who had died. The matter has never been allowed to die however. In 1706 Ann Putnam apologised for her actions during the summer of 1692. In 1711, a bill was passed through the legislature that restored the names of those accused, and gave £600 in restitution to their heirs – this included money for those like Dorcas Good who never recovered from her ordeal and required to be looked after for the rest of her life. In 1957 the State of Massachusetts formally apologised, and in 1992, a memorial to the witch trials was dedicated in Salem – now renamed “Danvers”.

Those who died needlessly have not died quietly. Their memory lives on, not only in the minds of their generations of relatives that followed them, but also those who strive to prevent such an atrocity happening again.

“I am no witch. I am innocent. I know nothing of it.” Bridget Bishop, first of Salem’s accused to be hanged on June 10th 1692.

When Mircea died, his crown did not immediately pass to his descendants. The leader was elected by the boyars, the highest rank of the nobility. Vlad’s father was Mircea’s illegitimate son. Since Mircea had no legitimate heirs, his brother Dan II, contested the senior Vlad’s right to rule. The elder Vlad married Cneajna Musati, the daughter of King Alexandru cel Brun (Alexander the Kind) of the kingdom of Moldova. They had three sons. Vlad III was their youngest.

The year that Vlad III was born, his father, who had been brought up in the Hungarian court of King Sigismund of Hungary, was made governor of Transylvania. Previously, he had been inducted by the same Sigismund into the Order of the Dragon, a secret order of knights that were supposed to defend Christianity against the Ottoman Turks. 

Because of his father’s involvement with the Order of the Dragon, Vlad III became known as Dracula, “The Son of the Dragon”. His father became known as Vlad Dracul. In 1436, Vlad Dracul killed the Danesti king, Alexandru I Aldea (he came after Dan II, the very man who originally opposed Vlad’s first attempt at kingship). Then, Vlad II crowned himself King of Wallachia.

Vlad II didn’t have an easy reign. He was both a liege of the Hungarian king and subject to paying tribute to the Ottoman Turks. In 1442, he was accused by Hungary’s new king, Ulaszlo I, of failing to defend Wallachia from the Turks. He was ousted. Vlad II appealed to the Ottoman sultan, Murad II, for help. He regained his throne but was forced to give the Ottoman his two youngest sons, Radu the Handsome and Vlad Dracula. Vlad Dracula was only 13 at the time.

Dracula spent the next four years as a prisoner of the Ottomans. During that time, there was a crusade against the Turks. Vlad’s dad sent his oldest son, Mircea, to fight for Hungary and hoped it wouldn’t anger the Turks. This upset the powerful Hungarian warlord, John Hunyadi, as well as the Hungarian king. After the Hungarians lost the Crusade of Varna, Vlad and his oldest son, Mircea, were killed. A puppet king ruled in their stead.

The Turks released Dracula at this time (1448). They gave him an army with the intent that he would overthrow this new king. He got the throne but, in the fashion of the time, didn’t keep it very long. By the end of 1448, he was living in exile in Moldavia. The Hungarians put back their puppet ruler, Vladislav II.

Three years into his exile, Prince Bogdan of Moldavia was assassinated. That kingdom was thrown into turmoil. Vlad Dracula fled and sought shelter in John Hunyadi’s court. Although Hunyadi was his family’s enemy, Vlad Dracula and he now had a common enemy, Vladislav II. Yes. Vladislav had recently begun implementing pro-Turkish policies which angered Hunyadi and the Hungarian court.

Dracula became Hunyadi’s vassal. Hunyadi presented him as the Hungarian candidate for the kingship of Wallachia. He remained in Transylvania for several more years, under Hunyadi’s protection before retaking Wallachia in 1456. That same year, Hunyadi led an unsuccessful campaign against the Turks, to whom Constantinople fell in 1453. Hunyadi’s failure would impact Vlad’s successes. He would only rule Wallachia until 1462 when the Turks laid siege to his castle. During that siege, Dracula’s first wife committed suicide so as not to be captured by the Turks.

Dracula escaped and became a prisoner of the Hungarian King, Matthias Corvinus (Hunyadi’s son). He was held in a tower at one point; but, towards the end of his imprisonment, he had married a cousin of the Hungarian King, Ilona Szilagy. They eventually struck an agreement to return Vlad to the throne. Interestingly enough, Vlad’s older brother, Radu, was King of Wallachia during this time. Vlad’s return to the throne was accomplished in 1475; however, Dracula would not remain there long. He was murdered during a battle yet under suspicious circumstances in 1477. Some say that the bogyars, perhaps led by Radu or inspired by revenge, had him killed.

Of course, this confusing but basic history doesn’t really explain where Dracula got his reputation from does it?

During his lifetime, Vlad was known for his brutality. He enjoyed impaling people. Legend has it that he began impaling rats while a teenager in the Turkish prisons. One account says that he had impaled over 20,000 men, women and children and left them on the battlefield so that the Turks could see his cruelty. Of course, many of these stories are exaggerated and perhaps even fabricated.

But, there is still some truth to the fact that he was a bit on the blood-thirsty side.

On Easter Sunday of 1457, Vlad, who had just reclaimed the throne of Wallachia a year before, invited the bogyars (nobles) to an elaborate Easter feast. After their meal, his soldiers rounded up the able-bodied and marched them to Poenari to build his castle. Those that survived the arduous construction process were then impaled.

In fact, even minor transgressions in his kingdom were punishable by death. Thieves and adulterers were subject to the stake. So were the poor. One story distributed via a German pamphlet in the late 15th century mentions that he invited a group of beggars to his castle. He had them all burned so that no one would be poor in his lands. Those merchants he thought that had ignored his trade laws would often find their towns raided; and, in some cases, burned to the ground. He did not discriminate between man, woman, or child. All were subject to his punishments.

Another story says that he nailed a turban to the head of a Turkish emissary from the Ottoman sultan when the man refused to remove his turban from his head in the Wallachian king’s presence. Other rumors say that Vlad would often eat while watching his victims’ die. Others say he even drank their blood or at their flesh. It does seem that impaled bodies often surrounded the king in his banquet hall.

Although Bram Stoker’s classic novel Dracula tells the story of a Transylvanian noble, it has become quite clear in recent years that Stoker didn’t base his story on any particular historical figure. He used an amalgam of a bunch of these old wives’ tales and legends from the region. It so happens that this blood-thirsty Romanian noble of the latter 15th century, gets the credit for being the ultimate blood-drinker, a vampire we still fear and desperately want to believe in.

To the Romanian people, however, Vlad Tepes has become somewhat of a national hero. He is the man who united Wallachia and tried to keep foreign influences i.e., Hungarian and Turk, out of his realm. He is credited by many as the father of the modern Romanian state; and, his memory was revamped and revitalized in Romania during the time of Ceausescu.

Whatever the truth is, the fact remains that Dracula is a myth that has grown above and beyond any one historical figure. Vampires are part of our Halloween lore and legend. To some, the truth is scarier – and stranger – than the fiction; however.

By Deanna Couras Goodson

First, “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”, provides historical literary significance because of who wrote it and when they wrote it. William Shakespeare, by himself, is recognized world wide as one of the greatest poets and English playwrights. Although there is very little documentation on the life that Shakespeare lived, a lot can be said of Shakespeare through his poems, sonnets and playwrights. Reading through Hamlet, one can gain insight into the attributes that were important to Shakespeare and thereby know the person, whom so little is known about. Another significant feature of Hamlet, in historical context, is the time that the play was written, in 1600. Through the verses that Shakespeare has written, the period of the Renaissance comes alive to the reader. Kings, Queens, Lords and realms, with all of the glory of nobility, envisions the mind of the reader and brings the past to life.

The second reason how Hamlet is important to us can be thought of as a bridge to the past. The people that enjoyed the playwrights of Shakespeare were perhaps not all that different from the people of today. Whereas a family of today enjoys a good movie that contains action, adventure, romance and surprise, a family of 1600 enjoyed the very same attributes that can be found in the content of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Shakespeare’s literary works have bridged space and time, effecting the lives and our learning experiences in the world of today. Perhaps it was more of Shakespeare, bridging his writings into the future, that seem to have withstood the age of time and still remain as some of the most important writings in human history. As his contemporary, Ben Johnson, stated, “he was not of an age, but for all time!”

Finally, the third reason Hamlet is pertinent to us is for the social and political statements that are emphasized through the thoughts and human expressions of Shakespeare’s characters: statements that are just as emotional today as they were in 1600. While Hamlet by itself is an intriguing and entertaining story, it is the messages and expressions of human nature that lay underneath the story line, embracing generations of readers, from 1600, to 2010 and beyond. Such is the case when Hamlet discovers that his mother has married his deceitful Uncle, within two months of his father’s death. The shock of learning of this revelation, and the fact that Hamlet was disillusioned by his mother’s actions, brings to light a theme that is common to human nature, that a person may not be the person that they portray to be. In the innocence of our youth, there is goodness in the faces of the people we meet and have come to know. As Hamlet discovers, the innocence of youth quickly turns to disillusion when a loved one acts in a manner unbecoming to the nature they have portrayed. This is but one example of the many examples of symbolism and hidden messages that Shakespeare has creatively interwoven into Hamlet. What is remarkable about Shakespeare’s writings in Hamlet, is that so many different interpretations can be concluded from the thoughts and impressions of the characters Shakespeare has created. From political statements, to questions facing our own selves in our struggle to make sense of life, Shakespeare strikes a different chord in the thoughts and interpretations of each reader’s mind.

The mystic of William Shakespeare is not that he wrote about ideas and themes that people could not understand, but that he wrote about real life events and expressed the human character that we can all personally related to. Through Shakespeare’s Hamlet, we can understand that Shakespeare was a real life individual who thought, questioned and dreamed at an important time in human history, a time that holds the same values as we do today. It is intriguing that for a man who wrote so much, that there is so very little written about the life he lived. Perhaps Shakespeare wanted to be remembered in the words he wrote, and not judged by the life he lived. A fitting tribute for one of the world’s most known English poets and another example of the mystic of William Shakespeare. The beauty of Shakespeare’s writings is that 400 years later; his writings still have meaning and significance. Shakespeare’s writings are relative to yesterday, today and tomorrow. This is how Hamlet and other Shakespeare writings are pertinent to us today.