In medieval Gaelic and Welsh society, a bard (Scottish and Irish Gaelic) or bardd (Welsh) was a professional poet, employed to compose eulogies for his lord (see planxty). If the employer failed to pay the proper amount, the bard would then compose a satire (c.f. fili, fáith). In other Indo-European societies, the same function was fulfilled by skalds, rhapsodes, minstrels and scops, among others. A hereditary caste of professional poets in Proto-Indo-European society has been reconstructed by comparison of the position of poets in medieval Ireland and in ancient India in particular.[4]
Bards (who are not the same as the Irish ‘filidh’ or ‘fili’) were those who sang the songs recalling the tribal warriors’ deeds of bravery as well as the genealogies and family histories of the ruling strata among Celtic societies. The pre-Christian Celtic peoples recorded no written histories; however, Celtic peoples did maintain an intricate oral history committed to memory and transmitted by bards and filid. Bards facilitated the memorisation of such materials by the use of metre, rhyme and other formulaic poetic devices.
You are viewing: Why Is Shakespeare Called The Bard
William Shakespeare is called The Bard and also The Bard of Avon, because he is considered to be the greatest poet that ever lived.
Shakespeare’s Influence Part of the genius that is Shakespeare was the fact that his work appealed to everyone, from kings to peasants. More than 400 years have passed since his birth, and his plays are still being read and performed all over the world.
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There are some common themes in movies and television shows that were first used by Shakespeare, such as:
Romeo and Juliet – two young people fall in love, but are from feuding clans The Taming of the Shrew – giving a person a taste of their own medicine A Comedy of Errors – mistaken identity Hamlet – being torn between loyalty and revenge Shakespeare had influence in shaping the English language more than anyone has ever done. Over 2000 new words and phrases were created by him, including: football, schoolboy, mimic, upstairs, downstairs, shooting star, and partner.
There are many famous quotes of Shakespeare that have lasted through time that most educated people know. These show how he is still influencing our lives today:
“O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” (Romeo and Juliet) “To be, or not to be, that is the question.” (Hamlet) “Out, damn’d spot! out, I say!” (Macbeth) “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” (Sonnet 18) “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players.” (As You Like It) Shakespeare’s Sonnets Most of Shakespeare’s sonnets are constructed of three quatrains, or four-line stanzas, and end with a couplet (two lines). This makes up the 14-line sonnet.
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The rhythm of each line is iambic pentameter. In English, to have a certain rhythm in a poem, you use a combination of stressed and unstressed syllables. Iambic is two syllables; the first is not stressed, but the second is accented. Each set of two syllables is called a foot, and five feet make up a pentameter. So each line of a Shakespearean sonnet has ten syllables.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bard
http://biography.yourdictionary.com/articles/why-is-shakespeare-called-the-bard.html
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