c. 2000 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) With intriguing tales of love thwarted and ancient wrongs avenged, William Shakespeare has long reigned as English literature’s Renaissance scribe sans pareil. But some 400 years after the Bard’s death, a California Shakespeare buff has unearthed a new niche for the 16th century playwright: Renaissance Oprah.

“We’ve taken so much advice from Shakespeare’s works over the centuries and we don’t even realize it,” said Jess Winfield, author of “What Would Shakespeare Do? Personal Advice From the Bard (Seastone/Ulysses Press). “It has really become a part of our culture.”

Indeed, to Shakespeare we owe “Neither a borrower nor a lender be” and “To thine own self be true.”

Credit him also with “Things without all remedy should be without regard; what’s done is done” and “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Winfield’s book includes those nuggets of wisdom among some 100 culled from Shakespeare’s 37 plays and 150 sonnets. The book “fills in some of the gaps” left by the spiritual-turned-trendy What Would Jesus Do? phenomenon.

“Not all of us can take Jesus as a personal role model,” said Winfield, a Disney animation writer and story editor. “He may be a little inapproachable for some, so that certainly leaves room for a slightly more humanist and secular take on how to live your life in a righteous manner.

“Shakespeare was a businessman and an investor, he had a marriage and a mistress and difficulty with his love _ a lot of the same things we encounter in everyday life now which Jesus may not have.”

What would Shakespeare do about his stock portfolio?

“My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, nor to one place; nor is my whole estate upon the fortune of this present year.”

What would Shakespeare do about choosing a college major?

“No profit grows where there is no pleasure ta’en. In brief, sir, study what you most affect.”

His view on gun control?

“How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done.”

And credit card debt?

“In Hamlet, Polonius’ advice is `neither a borrower nor a lender be,”’ said Winfield. “What with Internet commerce and trading and eBay, it’s even easier to get in debt today than it was in Shakespeare’s day, so that advice is something we can all understand.”

That timeless wisdom is precisely why Shakespeare’s words still resonate with readers some 400 years after they were first penned, said Winfield, co-founder of the Reduced Shakespeare Company comedy group in California.

“His understanding of the human psyche was just extraordinary,” said Winfield, who co-authored “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged),” the longest-running comedy _ five years _ in London’s West End theater district. “More than any other playwright before, Shakespeare’s characters really are based on needs and desires that are universal to all of humanity.”

Winfield gleaned that appreciation for Shakespeare’s works early, as an eighth-grader encountering Shakespeare for the first time in the play “Romeo and Juliet.” “I took to it immediately; I found it magical,” he said.

Later, while studying English and Theater at the University of California at Berkeley, Winfield revived Romeo, Hamlet and half a dozen other Shakespearean characters in theater productions.

“There’s nothing like playing Hamlet to give you a keen appreciation for the creative power of Shakespeare’s work and the keen psychological insights he has to offer,” said Winfield, whose college thesis focused on Shakespeare’s historical plays. “Most of it was far ahead of his time.”

In Shakespeare’s method of crafting characters Winfield sees parallels for constructing one’s own identity.

“You build a character moment by moment, scene by scene, and the sum of a character is all of those moments,” said Winfield. “In real life we do the same thing _ we’re building ourselves moment by moment, too.”

What Shakespeare would do in some situations isn’t always clear, acknowledged Winfield, particularly given the varied parade of characters in his works.

“With Shakespeare, you have to sift through the layers of different characters to find out what has the ring of the Bard’s own philosophy,” Winfield said. “I had to read between the lines sometimes to find out what the Bard really thinks.”

For those who find that advice a bit difficult to heed at times, Winfield’s book includes a memory tickler _ a purple cloth wristband stitched with the acronym “WWSD?”_ What Would Shakespeare Do? _ similar to the What Would Jesus Do? bands.

Winfield says the wristband comes in handy on the golf course.

“A lot of times I have to remind myself that when I hit a shot into the trees I should just move on to the next shot,” he said. “I can’t dwell on the bad shot I already made _ `What’s done is done,’ as Shakespeare would say.”

DEA END DANCY