Samuel Johnson on Shakespeare:
“Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirrour of manners and of life. His characters are not modified by the customs of particular places, unpractised by the rest of the world; by the peculiarities of studies or professions, which can operate but upon small numbers; or by the accidents of transient fashions or temporary opinions: they are the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world will always supply, and observation will always find. His persons act and speak by the influence of those general passions and principles by which all minds are agitated, and the whole system of life is continued in motion. In the writings of other poets a character is too often an individual; in those of Shakespeare it is commonly a species.”
There you have it - Shakespeare is for all time.
I’ve also noticed a rash of current ‘novels’ that take stories from Greek and Roman Mythology and embellish them, trying to make the ‘gods’ more human and tell their back story.
I’ve loved the classic Myths and the characters since High School, so I gave ‘The Song of Achilles’ a shot. While it was well-written and held my attention, of course they had to bring in the ‘pretend fact’ that Achilles was gay. The book would’ve been just as good WITHOUT that cr@p.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11250317-the-song-of-achilles
Fer Pete’s Sake! Why? Why, why, why? Thank goodness I can then cleanse my brain with a manly man like Jack Reacher, or Travis McGee, LOL!
P.S. Tom Cruise is NOT Jack Reacher! The movies are awful! How could Lee Child (Author) go along with that! Aarrggg!
Also - ‘A Thousand Acres’ by Jane Smiley, was a fabulous re-telling of King Lear - as are any number of dysfunctional family novels. The ‘classics’ will always be the best story lines, IMHO. ;)