Celebrating Shakespeare Day is not just celebrating the dramatist of genius who was born and died on 23 April. We are celebrating the still-living works that, four centuries after they were written, still offer a profound exploration of the human condition, illuminating our lives, choices, and moral landscapes with an immortal – and very humanist – acuity.

The English Renaissance was a time of renewed interest in classical thought and human potential outside of the confines of Christian thought and Shakespeare absorbed and reflected this. His stage became a showcase for human psychology embodied in characters so real that they will surely live for as long as human civilisation. Hamlet, paralysed by melancholy and existential doubt. Macbeth, consumed by ambition, trudging the path through moral compromise to tyranny and despair. These men are not merely puppets of divine fate; they are complicated individuals. They are driven by passions, agents making choices and confronting the deeply human consequences. 

Shakespeare’s characters are noble and base, rational and irrational, virtuous and cruel. He presents the rich, messy extent of human experience without recourse to easy answers or didactic moralising. This attitude – not just one of empathy but of fascination with human nature itself – resonates with a humanist outlook. As the actor Janet Suzman perceptively noted, Shakespeare was a “humanist in everything he wrote.” He held up a mirror not just to Elizabethan and Jacobean England, but to humanity.

Humanists have also often observed his nuanced approach to religion and morality. Despite the pervasively religious atmosphere of the 16th and 17th centuries, Shakespeare’s exploration of morality is remarkably grounded in the human sphere. Ghosts, witches, and appeals to providence feature but dilemmas are typically resolved – or tragically remain unresolved – through human agency. Characters grapple with conscience, loyalty, justice, and personal integrity, and the repercussions of their actions unfold in this world, affecting their lives and the lives of those around them here and now. Think of Isabella in Measure for Measure, affected by the hypocrisy of Angelo, or Brutus in Julius Caesar, weighing personal affection against perceived civic duty. Shakespeare focuses relentlessly on human motivation, human judgment, and human fallibility. Reason, integrity, and the consequences of our actions – central concerns for humanists today – are the stuff of his drama.

Why should humanists (and all humans!) still turn to Shakespeare? Because in his work, we can recognise ourselves. We see our own potential for greatness and foolishness and for love and cruelty. His works offer no simple creed, but instead endless material for ongoing reflection on our shared humanity – a very humanist mode. Exploring the world through Shakespeare’s Tudor eyes, we continue to learn about ourselves, here and now, in the one life we have.