Is Shakespeare Still Alive?

The answer is YES.

He is alive not just amongst those students who, like me once, have had to compulsorily catch up with the Bard (whether they appreciated him or not) but the theatergoers, actors, and writers who celebrate the memory of their favourite playwright, who share a common admiration.

Today, all of us use his words in our day to day communications. His words are so embedded in our common usage that it has become a linguistic second skin.
The impact of isolated words from his works definitely has a deep influence on our language. Through Shakespeare's wordplay, we experience a genius that has become so usual that we are almost ignorant about it. "Refuse to budge an inch" and "tongue-tied" are so familiar that they sound like cliché.
Nothing else can prove this point any better than this quote by Bernard Levin:
" …if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinkin idiot, then - by Jove! O Lord! Tut, tut! For goodness' sake! What the dickens! But me no buts - it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare."
Yet, it is only once we think in tranquility, the instancy and preciseness of such phrases that we realize these have become cliché because they makes the artifice of language seem entirely natural. I often wonder if Shakespeare ever diverged from “Imagination with Precision.”
And why just language? Shakespeare is so close to us that we find our own faces reflected in the characters he created, our own stories refracted through the tales that he tells.
His plays are informative, tragic, romantic and comedy. For instance the Romeo and Juliet is still considered the most tragic drama world-over; As You Like It and the Comedy of Errors are the plays famous for their remarkable comedy; while The Tempest and the Winter’s Tale display great romanticism.
And now that I am recollecting my experience with Shakespeare, how can I forget the theatrical show of Habib Tanvir’s translation and adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, translated as Kamdeo Ka Apna, Vasant Ritu Ka Sapna, (The Love God’s Own, A Spring time Dream), which made us “laugh into stitches.”Though Shakespeare is no more with us, he has become eternal in the form of his words and works, and will forever remain so.