A Year of Shakespeare

I searched the internet for a satisfying answer to that question and this is the best that I found.

It comes from No Sweat Shakespeare and may be read in full HERE.

An excerpt:

The word is very old and referred, originally, to a poet generally, especially one who wrote impassioned, lyrical, or epic verse. Bards were originally Celtic composers of eulogy and satire; the word came to mean more generally a tribal poet-singer gifted in composing and reciting verses on heroes and their deeds. As early as the 1st century AD, the Latin author Lucan, referred to bards as the national poets or minstrels of Gaul and Britain.

The word ‘bard’ has lost its original meaning, although we might use it ironically to refer to a friend or local person who writes poems. In present-day usage the term ‘bard’ has become synonymous with a revered poet. Given the reverence in which Shakespeare is held worldwide, and given that the original bard’s tale was of great deeds, great events, and the great themes of heroism, love, war and death, it seems indisputable that Shakespeare is entitled to the name.

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