{"id":7430,"date":"2026-04-23T13:46:48","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T11:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/booksfactory.pl\/blog\/did-shakespeare-write-the-modern-human\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T14:32:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T12:32:33","slug":"did-shakespeare-write-the-modern-human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booksfactory.pl\/blog\/did-shakespeare-write-the-modern-human\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Did Shakespeare Write the Modern Human Mind?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Shakespeare<\/figure>\n\n
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World Book and Copyright Day \u2013 a symbolic anniversary<\/h2>\n\n

Every year on 23 April we mark World Book and Copyright Day. The date wasn\u2019t chosen by chance: it was on that day in 1616 (according to the Julian calendar) that William Shakespeare died. And although more than four centuries have passed since his death, the influence of the brilliant playwright on our culture remains absolutely fundamental. But have you ever wondered how deep that influence runs? According to one of the most important literary critics of the twentieth century, Shakespeare not only shaped theatre \u2013 he actually helped create who we are today.<\/p>\n\n

Bloom\u2019s thesis: How Shakespeare \u201cinvented\u201d the human<\/h2>\n\n

In his 1998 book \u201cShakespeare: The Invention of the Human\u201d, the American critic Harold Bloom advances a bold, almost provocative claim: Shakespeare \u201cinvented\u201d the modern personality. Out of the 38 plays attributed to him, Bloom singles out as many as 24 as absolute masterpieces \u2013 works in which a revolution of human consciousness took place. What exactly does this \u201cinvention\u201d consist of? Bloom argues that before Shakespeare, literary characters developed mainly through action or divine intervention. Shakespeare\u2019s figures, by contrast \u2013 Hamlet, Falstaff, King Lear, or Rosalind \u2013 gain depth thanks to a unique mechanism Bloom calls \u201coverhearing oneself\u201d. Notice how it works in practice:<\/p>\n\n