How Shakespeare has influenced modern culture?
Have you ever heard of William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, or Hamlet? Heard or seen the famous line from Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy? Chances are you have. Despite William Shakespeare being born in the mid 1500 's, he is known as one of the most influential people in modern culture because his plays are very common today and relate to today 's culture. Some of his early work such as plays and poems has helped shape modern movies, books, and the way we read and write today.
William Shakespeare was born April 23, 1564 in England. According to Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia Shakespeare as a boy was most likely educated at a local grammar school where he grew up. Since
He stretched the ideas of many things that were not really discussed during his time and were addressed hundreds of years later, and even might not be resolved in some parts of the world today. In plays like Macbeth they had a role of a female character that was one of the leads and in Othello they had a lead role of an African-American. He also created hundreds upon thousands of new words, phrases and sentences that are found commonly today. He formed words, according to the Academy of American Poets by combining Latin, French, and Native roots. His impressive expansion of the English language, according to the Oxford Dictionary, created words such as birthplace, bloodsucking, downstairs and leapfrog just to name a few. Some of these social issues of Shakespeare 's day which feature in the plays - class division, racism, sexuality, the role and status of women, crime, war, death - are still the ongoing issues in today 's dysfunctional global society (“Shakespeare: Our Contemporary?” 1). These issues showed up in Macbeth when one of the lead characters which was lady Macbeth who is a women. Women did not have the rights like they do today and were usually a stay at home parents that cleaned all day. So when he made a women part of the lead cast and had a really big part in Macbeth convincing Macbeth to kill in the play it raised lots of questions during his time. Also another example of this would be another famous play of Shakespeare called Othello where there was a lead black character who was criticized for being in an all white town. Shakespeare was probably called crazy multiple times for doing this. Shakespeare’s language and themes that he used are still comparable today because we are dealing with the same issues such as equal rights, murder and
Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564. He lived in Stratford-Upon-Avon from 1564 to 1616. He lived and worked in London from 1585 and 1592, he also opened The Globe Theatre in 1599 and the first place that he showed his own plays. He was considered radical as he brought about a new way of performance in theatres all over London.
Macbeth was favoured in that time as a play to be acted out, and not as a play to be read, and this is why even though his work was being used in many theatres at the time, none of his work was ever published as a book. During Shakespeare’s lifetime, women were seen as second class citizens, which meant that they did not have a say in society. Women were seen as slaves, which is surprisingly not portrayed in the play. This may be because Shakespeare may have been influenced by the way that Queen Elizabeth ruled England before James I. He may have chosen to portray Lady Macbeth to be strong willed and powerful, just like the previous queen which may have influenced Shakespeare’s work.
Throughout Macbeth, Shakespeare dramatically shows what can happen when our common gender roles are broken. He shows the power that people can have over others when they aren’t acting the way they’re expected to.
“To be or not to be, that is the question.” It is a well-known quote from Hamlet who was created by Shakespeare. William Shakespeare is known as a great poet, playwright, and actor. He had written about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and many other writings (Bevington, 1). He was not only a playwright, but also he was the father of 1,380 characters (Bevington, 2), including Hamlet, Romeo, Juliet, Claudio, Prospero and Henry V. Shakespeare successfully created different characters and each of them had their unique personalities. Most of the well-known characters were not only alive in the plays, but also their characteristics could be found in the reality.
He has retained that modernity for seemingly three centuries. Thirdly, he is the father of all western playwrights. Everybody from Ibsen to O'Neil uses techniques and ideas which can be traced back to Shakespeare. Whatever dramatist in whatever language you are required to study, familiarity with Shakespeare can only be an advantage. Finally, it is fun to study drama. It is fun to dramatise and dress up and fall over dead behind improvised curtains and fence with blackboard pointers, cook up a witches brew and come to school with a spade over your shoulder for the Graveyard Scene.
In some of William Shakespeare's most famous works, he deviates from the historical truth to create the final product of his works. He does this to please loyalty, as well as appeal to his audience at the time. At the same time, Shakespeare also does this to help create a stronger bond between the reader and the characters. To satisfy this, he implements many fictional pieces to his famous works. Macbeth was one of these works as he wrote this in 1606 to honor James I becoming the king of England. To please him, he altered many features of characters, as well as add in fictional characters. This changed the plot of the story greatly, making it very different from the story Shakespeare bases it off of. In addition, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar also features these fictional pieces to avoid complicating the plot of the story. The assassination of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is still, to this day, one of the greatest and complicated murder cases in history. Because of this, Shakespeare does manipulate what really happened. By cutting out details he felt were unnecessary, this allows for him to delve into what is more important. Shakespeare also wanted to write more of a political play, which is why he left out some critical information that he felt wasn't important. The changes that Shakespeare makes are critical, as there are many historical inaccuracies that change the plot greatly.
Shakespeare has perhaps contributed the most to the English language of any writer known to man – literally. Over 1000 words and phrases that he coined as part of his plays and prose are now in common use across the globe. He changed nouns into verbs, verbs into adjectives, added on previously unheard-of prefixes and suffixes and in some cases made words out of nothing. Even culturally sensitive words such as ‘ode’ (The ANZACS) and scientific jargon (‘epileptic’) are in fact products of Shakespeare. Bernard Levin probably summed this up best when he wrote: “If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to me", you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger, if your wish is father to the thought, if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle… had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, … - why, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare;…” (Bernard Levin. From The Story of English. Robert McCrum, William Cran and Robert MacNeil. Viking: 1986).
Even though that Shakespeare influenced the world over 400 years ago, his stories, sonnets and plays are all still relevant today. But why are William Shakespeare still so relevant today? It’s the idea and the issues that that Shakespeare addresses that constantly draw people towards him. Shakespeare had a very rare, but good, understanding of the daily situations and the many different emotions that human go through, which are portrayed in his characters.
William Shakespeare has become landmark in English literature. One must be familiar with the early days of English literature in order to comprehend the foundation of much of more modern literature’s basis. Shakespeare’s modern influence is still seen clearly in many ways. The success of Shakespeare’s works helped to set the example for the development of modern dramas and plays. He is also acknowledged for being one of the first writers to use any modern prose in his writings.
Arguably the greatest playwright of his time, perhaps in all of history, William Shakespeare's literary works have had a tremendous impact (see Appendix 2). Reaching into the pop culture of the modern world through movies and quotes used in everyday conversation, Shakespeare's influence is astounding (see Appendix 1). One rarely stops to think, however, about events that had an impact on Shakespeare's life, particularly his writing. The outbreak of the plague, social disparity, political unrest, just a few of the historical happenings that impacted Shakespeare's plays, including Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and Henry IV
Shakespeare can be shown to be a strong influence on many modern aspects of everyday life today, ranging from comedies, tragedies, history, modern television, and many other examples. Shakespeare is well known across the world and will continue to be an influence in the future. His true birthdate is unknown to this day, but his Baptized date was April 26th, 1564 in England.
Lady Macbeth is probably one of the most influential characters in all of Shakespeare’s plays. Its appearance vs. reality throughout the play; the way Shakespeare goes against the context of 17th century Britain. In 17th century Britain things were much different than things are today; women had few rights and people then. This belief is much against the play of Macbeth, so what Shakespeare did was try to change people’s views, which caused great upset.... ... middle of paper ...
William Shakespeare was an English writer who was regarded as one of the best writer during the Elizabethan era. Shakespeare is known for many of his poems and plays that he wrote. Historically women weren’t regarded equally as men were. The education level that was offered during that time was different for men and woman. Woman weren’t getting further education unlike men were. Woman were homeschooled while men went to schools. During the Elizabethan era witches were being prosecuted and executed. William Shakespeare was influenced by the historical and cultural events that took place during the Elizabethan era and implemented it into his play called Macbeth. Major historical events that affected how the play Macbeth was written was witchcraft,
William Shakespeare's Relevance Today For as long as formal education has existed in Britain it has been a largely standard assumption that teaching the works of William Shakespeare is relevant and necessary. Perhaps the relevance of his writing is taken for granted, perhaps it is necessary to re-examine the role of Shakespeare for the modern audience. There are indeed many people who question the relevance of this 440 year old playwright to a 21st century audience, taking it even as far as perhaps the greatest heresy of all, questioning the necessity of GCSE pupils learning Shakespeare at all.
Shakespeare’s ability to mold the English language into eloquently written poetry gave him the ability to affect the language as he did. Hundreds of clichés that are used daily by English speakers were invented in Shakespeare’s writings. Few people are aware, but expressions such as “dead as a doornail” (Henry IV, Part II) or “something wicked this way comes” (Macbeth) can both be accredited to Shakespeare. In The Story of English, Bernard Levin writes that “if [the reader] cannot understand my argument, and [declares] ‘It's Greek to me’, you are quoting Shakespeare” (McCrum, Cran, MacNeil 99). Levin is simply reminding the reader that much of common English speech can be traced back to idioms used in Shakespeare’s writing. Shakespeare even took the liberty to invent words of his own, supposedly inventing over one thousand commonly used words. Shakespeare was able to create words in multiple ways, including changing nouns into verbs, changing verbs into adjectives, connecting words never before used together, adding prefixes and suffixes, and coming up with words that were completely original (pathguy.com). Shakespearian words include “assassination” and even “obscene” (McCrum, Cran, MacNeil 99), and other such words that are used by English speakers daily. Although a number of writers have used the English language to their advantage, no writer has taken the language to the level that Shakespeare was able to do.