...Is Shakespeare relevant to modern students today you ask? Of course he is! As students, who doesn’t love a bit of murder and revenge like in Hamlet, or maybe a story of true love like in Romeo and Juliet, or to hate the real villain of a story, like Lady Macbeth. When you think of Shakespeare, you imagine a very old weird looking man with a daggy moustache and hair, whose words have to be repeated a few times to really understand them and story lines that make even the strangest shows on TV these days seem boring. It would be easy to say that his 39 plays are very old fashioned and not relevant for modern students, however, his themes of hate, betrayal, love, prejudice, revenge and family breakdowns are all relevant for us today. The fact that he was able to show all these themes in his many comedies, tragedies and histories is amazing, how many play writers or authors today can say they cover so many themes in their books or plays? Perhaps my favourite thing about Shakespeare after researching for this blog was his dislike for people in his plays by using insults like “lump of foul deformity” or “poisonous hunchback toad” and “mountain of mad flesh” or my favourite “not so much brain as...
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...Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, and is widely regarded today as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet. As quoted in an article,” The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry"”. In the 20th century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance, and is currently an active part of education curriculums. His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world. It is safe to say that although Shakespearean plays were set in the Renaissance Era, they are still the epitome of English literature and are revered by theaters, performers and audiences alike due to their remarkable credibility in portraying everlasting political, social and moral issues. http://www.neptunetheatre.com/content/Shakespeare_hat_trick His plays move from romantic to tragic, humorous to serious so much so that he not only caters to all tastes but also all times by portraying the political situation of his times as well as the way of living. Even Romeo and Juliet, considered by many as a die –hard romantic scripture actually highlights political issues. One of the main political aspects of the play was when count Paris uses...
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...First, ShakeSpeare has a very huge global influence through his plays. According to “Britain Puts on a Shakespeare Marathon as The Word Arrives for Olympic Games” the article states “ … Shakespeare is truly a writer for the whole world.” So then that being said that even though the Bard is dead he truly is an inspiring writer. That even though he is dead his plays are still being heard not only in America but even across the world and inspire many people today. Also, “His ability to speak to audience around the world is undimmed.” (“Britain Puts on a Shakespeare Marathon as The Word Arrives for Olympic Games.”) Another reason why Shakespeare has an global influence that his ability of writing could reach all people everywhere and of all size...
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...Intro Four hundred years have passed since William Shakespeare penned his last play. Yet his language, themes and characters are as alive today as they were when the first plays were. The plays have been performed in almost every language, on stage and screen and at popular festivals around the world. Shakespearean works are required to read for high school English students. Even in prisons, teachers find that Shakespeare offers contemporary connections that open pathways to learning for some of society’s weakest. The reason his work is so popular is that Shakespeare wrote about human nature and how people behave. That is why, although his words can be hard to understand, his ideas are as relevant now as they were four centuries ago. Characters...
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...Shakespeare writes about themes that are still relevant today because his themes of ambition, fate, violence and even the unnatural world is seen so often in our lives. We see ambition run amok in both Macbeth and his wife, who try so hard to fulfill their desires. For example, Macbeth a good, loyal and honest general os overrun by his ambitious personality was so dangerous, and destructive it led to his downfall. Lady Macbeth was overly - ambitious, too. In her eagerness to kill the king she prays to the unnatural saying "come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the toe – top – full of the direst cruelty. Make thick my blood,". Ambition relates to our lives today, as like Macbeth, many people aren't happy with what they have - they only want to attain power to attain more. Both today and in the Tragedy of Macbeth, ambition overthrows morals and virtues. Both Banquo and Macbeth question fate when the witches prophesies that Macbeth will be made thane (a rank of Scottish nobility) of Cawdor and eventually King of Scotland. Macbeth is rapped with ore at this possibility. This theme definitely relates to today, as so many people try and plan their future and believe they know what they will be doing in a decade, but in many circumstances, they end up doing something very different, due to choice. Macbeth shows that once one violent act is done, it only leads to another, and this does not stop. This means, violence usually does not...
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...may be over 400 years old but, is still relevant today due to popular and common themes in modern times. Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet is about two teenagers who fall in love at first sight, but is forbidden and unrequited because the two families (Capulet and Montague) are feuding. The lack of communication between the two in this play leads to both of the lovers taking their own lives so they can be eternally together. Love is unsurprisingly the play’s most overriding and most significant theme. The love that Shakespeare ultimately portrays in the play is a youthful lust that the kind of love that Romeo and Juliet display leads the star crossed lovers to enact a selfish isolation from their parent’s demands and expectations around them. Romeo and Juliet avoid their commitments to anyone else and choose to act selflessly only towards one another. Romeo and Juliet’s youthful lust is one of many reasons why their relationship grows so intense so quickly. Throughout the play, Shakespeare only describes Romeo and Juliet's love as a short-term burst of youthful passion. In most of his work, considering that no other relationships in the play are as pure as that between Romeo and Juliet, though, it is easy to see that Shakespeare respects the power of such a youthful, passionate love but also cries the impermanence of it. Death In Romeo and Juliet, death is everywhere. Even before the play shifts in tone after Mercutio's death, Shakespeare makes several references to death...
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...‘Shakespeare is interested in the essentials of human nature, holding a mirror up to our humanity’ Shakespeare understood humanity in a way that no other playwright before him had ever explored. Harold Bloom, a prominent Shakespeare authority and literary critic, contends that Shakespeare invented personality and human nature as we know it today. Up until Shakespeare, there was a “villain”, a “hero”, a “fool” and an “innocent” and the audience knew right away which was which. Shakespeare didn’t write “heroes” and “villains.” He wrote real people with real flaws, who were all equally capable of committing good and evil. One of the most important themes in Macbeth involves the witches' statement in Act 1, Scene1 that "fair is foul and foul is fair." (Act 1, Scene 1, Line 10) This phrase aptly describes the macabre status quo within the character Macbeth and without. When Macbeth and Banquo first see the weird sisters, Banquo is horrified by their hideous appearances. Conversely, Macbeth immediately began to converse with these universally known evil creatures. After hearing their prophecies, one can say that Macbeth considered the witches to be "fair" when in reality their intentions were quite "foul." Macbeth's possession of the titles of Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor and King of Scotland came by foul means. Macbeth became the Thane of Glamis by his father Sinel's death; he became Thane of Cawdor when the former namesake was executed for treason; and he was ordained...
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...Shakespeare: An Observation of Life What is it about Shakespeare’s characters and stories that make us all able to relate in some way or another 400 years after they are written? Maybe it’s his take on inner conflict, or is it how he never portrays a hero as perfect, or a villain as all evil? There is a certain universal truth about the human condition in every story. Whether it is the tragic outcome of unchecked greed and ambition, an unrelenting desire for revenge, or the pursuit of love, his representation of human nature is just as real and as relevant today, as it has been through the centuries. Most of Shakespeare’s characters are complex personalities led into tragedy by their shortcomings (Johnson). Even Shakespeare’s heroes are never just heroes; Shakespeare tends to build his stories through “false heroes” such as Othello, Anthony and Brutus, and “good villains” or “villains with a conscious” like Macbeth (Johnson). It is this type of inner conflict that makes Shakespeare’s stories so insightful and relatable. People love to identify with the hero. They like to think of themselves as heroes in their own lives and the success of a hero in a story makes them feel better about their chances of success in their own lives. While a hero may be the object of any story, a hero is only as great as the obstacle he can overcome (Pattison). The obstacle can be almost anything, it could be a tornado ripping through a city or a killer great white shark, but it is the human villain...
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...Today I will be pitching forward to you, my own vision for Romeo and Juliet. Why is Romeo and Juliet still relevant to a modern audience after over 400 years? Simply because it contains themes that are still applicable to a modern audience, of love, hate, youth, mortality, fate, foolishness and exile. All timeless themes and relatable to all age groups, specifically adolescents. Although these themes may resonate with youths, the target audience for this historical drama will be the older generations. By keeping the original text, costuming and setting, the film will aim to inform the viewer about the daily lives of the elite in the 1500’s, as well as conventions and struggles of the time whilst still using well-known actors to relate to the...
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...Literature December 10, 2012 Should Shakespeare be taught to Minority Students? Shakespeare is a staple in the English curriculum in American schools. Beginning in seventh or eighth grade, students are fed a steady diet of his tragedies, comedies, histories, and sometimes even the sonnets. Before Michael, Madonna or Prince, he was the one-name artist everyone could relate to globally. This wasn’t always the case. The branding of the name is not accidental. Even more than “William Shakespeare play-wright to American school students” the word Shakespeare, has become a trademark representing the culture and values of a nation. I approached this project with the firm belief that teaching Shakespeare to non-white students was harmful to their development. Shakespeare being taught to non-white students is a problem because they are being told that their culture isn’t enough. Is this a message we want to send after the last 40 years of minority groups demanding, and receiving, inclusion into society? Aren’t there any other works that could be substituted for the works of Shakespeare’s? Plenty of good candidates are published every year but they aren’t taken seriously. Why not? One reason is of course the name brand recognition of Shakespeare. He has had 500 years to gain a position in the public eye. Another reason is the many contributions that he has made to the English language. Many of the tried and true turn of phrases used today come from his characters. An additional...
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...Audrey J. Johnson Shakespeare Prof. Clair Berger William Shakespeare, Timeless Psychologist William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is considered the premiere playwright of the English language. His works have survived the passage of time, been studied by both young students and academic scholars, and produced many phrases still used in modern times. Shakespeare’s impact on English is so prolific, in fact, that many people quote lines without being aware they are using expressions coined by England’s favorite bard. Shakespeare wrote histories based on the British monarchs, light comedies with romantic plots and happy endings, and heavy tragedies with dark plots that ended abruptly and unhappily. The true genius of William Shakespeare, however, is in wordplay and his ability to comprehend the human condition. His works discuss such universal themes as love, ambition, jealousy, anger, despair, grief, and death – emotions common to people in all generations and still relevant today. Love is the first and strongest of human emotions. It is the glue that holds human family and relationship together; it’s the ultimate emotion. Sometimes, however, those who are perfect for one another are unable to see the compatibility of their own union. Well-matched characters Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing need a nudge in the right direction. Beatrice is sharp-tongued and has no intention of marrying because a prior relationship with rapier-witted Benedick has left her...
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...Redeeming Comedy William Shakespeare is one of the first people we think of when theater comes to mind. He made a name for himself in the world by becoming a playwright and writing comedies as well as tragedies for people’s entertainment that are still used today. However, Shakespeare is not one of the names that immediately come to mind when we consider the world of theology and religion. Yet the basic themes of Christianity play a foundational role in many of the classic scenes found in Shakespeare’s most famous works. We can examine this through the Shakespearian element of redemption, a view of taking kindness on humanity that academics believe was his own. Shakespeare’s plays still have relevance today because of his redemptive view of the world and of human experiences, particularly in the comedies The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, and All’s Well That Ends Well. Much has been made of Shakespeare’s religious and theological grounding. The issues have been centered primarily on whether Shakespeare was Protestant or Catholic. Many prominent Roman Catholic scholars, including the Rev. David Beauregard, have gone to great lengths to assert that Shakespeare was in fact Roman Catholic. Beauregard says a now-lost eighteenth-century document suggested that Shakespeare’s father, John, was a devout Catholics and his mother, Mary, was a member of the staunchly Catholic Arden family of Park Hall. Beauregard points to very Catholic theological concepts found in Shakespeare’s...
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...My earliest memory of poetry in school tastes yucky in my mouth. As a loud, somewhat, okay, real, defiant teen, my middle school English teacher and I did not enjoy each other’s company. Her idea of analyzing, memorizing, and presenting Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” was annoying, embarrassing, and dumb. No way was I going to get up in front of 25 friends, enemies, acquaintances, and unknowns to recite the same poem those 25 other people were going to say. Needless to say, my mother found a way to adjust my attitude: dish soap. Mrs. Gruhn must have enjoyed her discussion with my mother because the next time I sat in English class, I eagerly, yet secretly seething with hate, worked with my group memoring Frost’s famous words. Luckily,...
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...Foreshadowing is a literary device in which a writer gives an advance hint of what is to come later in the story. ("Definition of Foreshadowing." Literary Devices. N.p., 2016. Web. 11 Dec. 2016. ) The novella Animal Farm written by George Orwell and the tragic play Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare display various examples of foreshadowing that illustrates future events that happen later in these stories. In Animal Farm, George Orwell foreshadows the pigs’ gradual abuse of their power. “Never mind the milk, comrades!” cried Napoleon, placing himself in front of the buckets. “That will be attended to. The harvest is more important. Comrade Snowball will lead the way. I shall follow in a few minutes. Forward, comrades! The hay is waiting.So the animals trooped down to the hayfield to begin the harvest, and when they came back in the evening it was noticed that the milk had disappeared” (Orwell, 26). The animal’s had wondered what to do with the extra milk and tried to discuss it, but Napoleon, the pig, told them that it wasn't important compared to the harvest. Napoleon told the animals to follow Snowball and he would be with them, but once the animals had returned for the evening the milk was gone, implying Napoleon took it or did something with it. The soon betrayal of the hard working horse, Boxer is foreshadowed after the attacks Napoleon made. “To the amazement of everybody, three of them flung themselves upon Boxer. Boxer saw them coming and put out his great hoof...
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...Why is Macbeth is still relevant in today’s society? Is it not time we found something new? It’s been over 400 years, keep up people. Shakespeare’s plays are still relevant today; they explore the humanity in people. Macbeth was a greedy, jealous and unhappy with his life. He was extremely susceptible to pressure. Shakespeare managed to accurately depict many truths about the human race; many in modern society fit the profile of Macbeth in one sense or another, partly because human nature hasn’t changed a great deal since the Elizabethan era. Themes such as guilt, shame, anxiety, paranoia, trauma, mental illness, psychological vulnerability, envy, inferiority, manipulation, greed and murder are still relevant in the 21st century. Macbeth desired and in the end achieved the title of King of Scotland, but not without sacrifice. Not only did Macbeth desire the king’s title, but his wife Lady Macbeth also wished to be queen, mounting pressure upon him drove him towards darkness. Macbeth became exceedingly jealous towards Duncan. In Macbeth’s eyes he had everything he wanted including happiness. Duncan was the king Macbeth desired to be. With Duncan in the way Macbeth’s desires were unattainable. Macbeth was ambitious, but with the influences of the three witches and his power hungry wife he became greedy and thoughtless. Realising his dreams could easily become reality, with encouragement from his wife, Macbeth plotted against King Duncan, ruthlessly murdering him whilst in lay...
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