His plays contain timeless themes which are as relevant today as they were 400 years ago. Revenge, jealousy, love, rivalry - they never go away. Shakespeare, more than any other writer, captures what it is to be a human being and although some of it is quite hard to understand his language is incredibly beautiful and the owrk of a genius. Why should we be restricted to studying 21st Century literature when we can study it all? As with history, you can't begin to understand the present and the future unless you have a knowledge of the past.