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. This “proposed vandalism from the policymakers”
(Guardian 09/02/01) is opposed wholesale by supporters of “the Bard”
ranging from critics to academics to thespians. However can it be said
there is truly grounds for the importance attributed to the works of
Shakespeare, or is he, rather like Beefeaters and Ravens at the tower,
an anachronistic national obsession really only appreciated in the
modern era by history hungry tourists?
The most obvious first point to consider in answering this question is
the undeniable fact that the intended audience for Shakespeare’s work
was late 16th century Elizabethan England and not early 21st century
Blairite Britain. Anyone with even the most rudimentary understanding
of history would be more than aware that much has changed in society
since this time. Taking what is widely acclaimed as Shakespeare’s
crowning artistic achievement, King Lear, as an example (as is the
intention of the majority of this work), a strong case can perhaps be
made to say that much of the intended theme and content is, by and
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...yman, Norfolk
Marsh, Nicholas, “Shakespeare: The Tragedies” 1998 Macmillan Press,
London
Rehder, R.M, “York Notes: William Shakespeare: King Lear” 1980 Longman
Group, Essex
Websites and Online Resources
BBC Education – King Lear (various authors, none cited.)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/bookcase/lear/info.shtml#from
Revolinski, Elaine 2002
http://drama.pepperdine.edu/shakespeare/lear/elaine/cordelia.htm
RSC – Online Play Guides, King Lear (various authors, none cited.)
http://www.rsc.org.uk/home/344.asp
Schneider, Ben Ross, Jr. "King Lear in Its Own Time: The Difference
that Death Makes." 1995, Lawerence University
http://www.shu.ac.uk/emls/01-1/schnlear.html
Sutherland, John 2001, Guardian 09/02/01
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/classics/story/0,6000,435595,00.html
Mcneir, Waldo F. "The Role of Edmund in King Lear." Studies in English Literature 1500-1900.Vol. 8, No. 2, Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama (1968): 187-216. JSTOR. Web. 11 Feb. 2014.
Harbage, Alfred. " King Lear: An Introduction." Shakespeare: The Tragedies: A Collection of Critical Essays.
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.
8 Kiernan Ryan, 'King Lear: The Subversive Imagination' in New Casebooks: King Lear, ed. Kiernan Ryan, Macmillan 1993, p.80
Greg, W. W. "The Staging Of King Lear." The Review of English Studies 16.63 (1940): 300-03. Print.
Bevington, David, "Introduction to King Lear." The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
Wherever we go today, we just can't seem to get away from him. He is in movies, in the theater, even on TV. Whether modernized or back in Elizabethan times, his influence is everywhere in the things we use for our entertainment. We think we know who he really was and what his life was all about. He almost seems immortal in our eyes. Who was William Shakespeare? Who was this man we still have placed on a pedestal almost four thousand years after he lived? Was he really the man that Hollywood glamorized? Shakespeare's life, work and controversies come together to form our beliefs of who this great writer really is.
Muir, Kenneth. "Great Tragedies I: King Lear." Shakespeare's Sources. London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1957.
Bradley, A.C. "King Lear." 20Lh Century Interpretations of King Lear. Ed. Jane Adelman. New Jersev; Prentice-Hall, 1978.
The impeccable style and craft of Shakespeare’s writing has always been looked upon with great respect, and it continues to serve as an inspiration to writers and thinkers today even as it did when it was being first performed in London. Shakespeare’s modern audience, however, is far less diverse than the one for which he originally wrote. Due to the antiquity of his language, Shakespeare’s modern readership consists mostly of students and intellectuals, whereas in Shakespeare’s own time, his plays were performed in playhouses packed with everyone from royalty to peasants. Because of this, Shakespeare was forced to write on many different levels, the most sophisticated of which appealed to his more elite audience members, while the more straightforward and often more crude of which appealed to his less educated viewers, and the most universal of which still appeals to us.
Across the Universe of Time: Shakespeare’s influence on 21st century society. It is harder to imagine a more universal writer than William Shakespeare. Rarely, if ever, is one of his many plays not being performed anywhere in the world and similarly rare is the tertiary English student who has not examined his work at length. His plays, sonnets and poems are common fodder for high school English departments across the globe.
Everyone knows that William Shakespeare was one of the greatest poets and playwrights of all time but he lived over 400 years ago. So is he still relevant to people of today’s world? The answer is YES, he definitely is, his writing is brilliant and everyone can learn from it. Especially teenagers who are always like “Why do we have to learn about Shakespeare? It isn’t relevant anymore!”
Bengtsson, Frederick. “King Lear by William Shakespeare.” Columbia College. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.
Shakespeare’s dramatic theatre performances have long endured the test of time. His tales of love and loss, and even some history, make a reader think about events in their own life and what they wish to accomplish in life. Though written for the stage, Shakespeare’s plays have life lessons that readers of the great works can take put into effect in their own lives. Some may say that his plays are out dated, and are something of the past; though they were written in the 1600’s, they have morals and themes that can apply to life. “You've got to contend with versification, poetic license, archaisms, words that we don't even use any more, and grammar and spelling that were in a state of flux when the works were written,” says Pressley in an attempt to explain how to read Shakespeare. Once read and understood, however, one can start to compare and contrast different plays. The ways in which Shakespeare’s two plays King Lear and Much Ado About Nothing are similar out numbers the instances they are different, even though one is a Shakespearian tragedy while the other is a comedy.
Shakespeare's tragic play, Othello, is an amalgam of diverse antecedents, including the generic influences of the ancient Greek and Roman tragedies, Italian fiction, as well as Renaissance history such as the progression of Christian humanism. Additionally, although Shakespeare incorporates some elements of the medieval morality play into Othello, the fact that his play is a tragedy shows how he modifies it from the typical ending found in a morality play. Furthermore, not only does Shakespeare include the stereotypical Englishman's view of the black race during the Elizabethan era, he also modifies it to convey the importance of looking beyond the skin color, showing the progression of a racially prejudice society to one in which people are treated judicially based upon their character.