The President’s Blog

A Sea Change….

I hear the expression “a sea-change” used fairly often these days at conferences and on cable news shows. At times, it seems that it is being used to describe almost any change in the business climate or political climate of our country. Yet that is not the way Shakespeare intended it to be used.
From Shakespeare’s The Tempest, 1610:
ARIEL [sings]:
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell
I think that the change Shakespeare describes is more mystical and radical than the changes I hear about from our print and broadcast media these days. Most interesting to me, however, is that Shakespeare continues to influence our language and culture almost 400 years after his death. Long-live his influence!