From the Dalhousie Magazine Fall 2011
If you had to choose one person to study in the whole English canon, William Shakespeare is your man, says Stephen Marche (BA’97). In his new book, How Shakespeare Changed Everything, he declares Shakespeare to be the most influential person who ever lived.
He’s not short of evidence, but incredibly,
Dr. Marche may be the first to claim this title for the bard of Avon.
In the book, Dr. Marche turns a mountain of history into a breezy, thoughtful read, spinning a far-reaching web of influence over the last 400 years.
Proof ranges from the fanciful – who knew Grenadine islanders recited passages from Julius Caesar every Shrove Tuesday – to the linguistic – Shakespeare’s invention of over 1,700 words and countless quotable phrases.
Each chapter tells a story that demonstrates the playwright’s cultural impact, from how he created the first teen-agers; to inspiring Abraham Lincoln’s murder; to improving our sex lives, all the while managing to remain unknowable as a man.
Dr. Marche studied English and contemporary studies and recalls a great Shakespeare class with Ron Huebert. When he immersed himself in Shakespeare’s world during his PhD, what a strange world he discovered it to be.
“You don’t have to go far for these crazy Shakespeare stories,” he says. “Actually, it turns out Shakespeare produced a lot of very eccentric people who have been very obsessed with Shakespeare.” The plays are “very easy to get obsessed with,” he admits. “When I left being a professor, the one thing that was a little sad was leaving Shakespeare behind.”
Dr. Marche left teaching at the City College of New York for Toronto when his wife, Sarah Fulford, became editor of Toronto Life. Having already written two novels, Raymond and Hannah (2005) and Shining at the Bottom of the Sea (2007), he decided to pursue writing full-time.
Currently, he writes a wide-ranging monthly column called “A Thousand Words About Our Culture” for Esquire magazine; and in 2012, he will have a new novel out with Gaspereau Press.
“Every writer’s fantasy, right? It’s one of these accidental tourist things,” he says, almost bashful about his success.
To abuse another phrase from the Bard, right now the world appears to be Stephen Marche’s oyster.