I have heard plenty of mysteries regarding the identity of the famous Shakespeare. Many people believe that Shakespeare was a lower-class fellow because writing was not a respected profession back in Elizabethan times. Others believe that the degree of education held by this master of playwrights could not be obtained by anyone other than nobility. That is to say, Shakespeare could have been a mere alias to a nobleman looking to save face. Yet I never considered the origin and inspiration of his stories to have relevance in identifying the man behind the works until I watched Shakespeare in Love at this week’s Rose Movie Night.

Whether he was a solitary genius or a man of social experience was not a question that had crossed my mind, but I believe that in order to get inspiration for masterful poetry and other forms of expression, a person must be emotionally driven or inspired by experience. While I realize that the movie was fictional, it brought to consideration a valid point. Shakespeare must have drawn inspiration for his numerous sonnets from something, even if it was mere observation of his surroundings and the interactions between others. He may even have been a confidant amidst the drama in the life of others. Yet, there is a very likely possibility that he drew from his out heart-wrenching, emotional experiences in order to concoct his masterpieces. Like the Shakespeare portrayed in the movie, Shakespeare in the real world could have used writing as an escape from his internally conflicting emotions about what was happening around him, without actually having lived through struggles similar to his characters’.

Whoever the real Shakespeare was, he could not have been a lonely man without friends or family to depend on. His life remains much of a mystery, but his poetry contains universal struggles and messages applicable to people of different time periods, heritages, and social classes, that would be overlooked by someone solitary and without personal experiences. Maybe Shakespeare wasn’t being threatened for stealing a forbidden heart, but I truly believe he must have had his own real-life Juliet.