Foster states “There is a kind of authority lent by something being almost universally known, where one has only to utter certain lines and people nod their heads in recognition.” (38). People recognize parallels to his stories. Foster also writes that Shakespeare provides a character in which authors can bounce ideas off of to further develop their own stories. Some famous books and movies that parallel Shakespeare are The Hunger Games, Star Wars, and The Fault In Our Stars.
Authors throughout literature use his work to tie their characters and story to Shakespeare’s more commonly known writings.
Why is Shakespeare relevant today? Shakespeare is relevant today in our modern world because of hip-hop. If he was never born, then there wouldn’t be any signs of hip-hop anywhere in the world. He was also the one to make English language better, and add some new words to learn.
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so," this is a quote from Hamlet, one of William Shakespeare's greatest tragedy's. William Shakespeare was a great poet and playwriter. Known throughout the world, the extravagant works of Shakespeare have been performed in thousands of villages and cities. William Shakespeare has many famous works including Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and Much Ado about nothing. Shakespeare made these plays all the way back in the 1500's.
First, pop culture shows us how much of an effect Hamlet has had on Western culture. One example of Hamlet being referenced in pop culture is Disney’s The Lion King. The plot of The Lion King is very similar to the plot of Hamlet. In Hamlet, the play starts with Hamlet’s father being killed by his uncle Claudius. In The Lion King, Simba’s dad, Mufasa, is killed by his uncle Scar.
Hamlet is a powerful story of love, life, revenge, and death. The themes within the play are written to live on for eternity. It is difficult to fully and accurately represent a play as great as this one. The movie that we watched in class did not wholly represent the wonders and the magnitude of the themes within Shakespeare’s work.
We study Shakespeare even when we are in middle school, even though we may not understand everything he is saying. His work is beautiful. We use his words in everyday life. “To be or not to be”, from Hamlet, is a very popular quote of his. Romeo and Juliet is a popular play for schools to read, and William Shakespeare wrote it when he was only thirty-three years old.
The Impact of William Shakespeare on American Culture “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them” (Shakespeare). William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright who is considered one of the greatest writers to ever use the English language (“William Shakespeare his life...” 2015). Known for many of his great works containing poems, plays, and sonnets dating back to 1592. “He was a man of his times, writing for his contemporaries on topics that were the hot-button issues of his day” (Tumiel, 2017). In the times during Shakespeare’s birth there were events taking place such as the age of protestant reformation and the Renaissance, contributing to his works.
Shakespeare's world is very different than our world now but there are similarities. Shakespeare lived in Elizabethan England, a time of new discoveries. Many people were exploring almost every part of what makes us human, the arts, and the world. London was a very diverse place that gave Shakespeare "information and inspiration behind his plays." According to "Shakespearean Snapshots.
The literature world in the English Renaissance period was brimmed with adventurous stories of chivalrous knights going on epic quests to slay dragons and rescue the princess, gain her affection and skirt off happily ever after, to live their lives in peace. Consequently, this could show how the literature during this time was influenced by the fantasy aspect. More often than not, poems written during this period told of the beauty of a woman or the overall magnificence of nature, often including a lot personal emotions like love and lust, or resentment and melancholy. William Shakespeare, one of the greatest known writers of all time with his infamous works Hamlet and Macbeth, was very influential in the literature world now with his theme
Shakespeare may be a highly praised author due to the massive popularity around the world and from how we can learn from each of his stories, but some of the messages which are represented in his plays are not complex/updated enough for today’s society. Due to the time period of Shakespeare's writings, it can be difficult for students of the 21’s century to connect with the stories and gain something from them. While Shakespeare's themes are not absolutely useless as they still are universal themes; I just believe that they could be presented in a way in which people can better connect with the events that form the theme. For example, if a teacher wanted his/her students to learn a lesson about how to treat others with compassion, a story about
William Shakespeare has undeniably influenced the course of literature, but he has also affected our modern pop culture. Some universal themes he analyzes within his text include, but are not limited to: appearance vs reality, order vs disorder, greed, lust, free will, and love. Because these topics are ones the public can relate to, many of his plays have been adapted into movies and other forms of storytelling to further expose younger viewers to these themes at an age-appropriate level. Theses movies include: West Side Story (1961) which directly take their plots for Romeo and Julie (1595-96); the Disney film The Lion King (1994) which is an adaptation of Hamlet (1600); and the popular teen film She’s the Man (2006) which is a modernized version of Twelfth Night or What You Will (1599) (Royal Shakespeare Company.)
William Shakespeare William Shakespeare was an actor, poet, and playwright, but he did so much more than that. He changed psychology, the english language, theater, writing, and created thousands of words we still use today. William Shakespeare wrote and acted in his plays during the Renaissance, which was a time from the 1300s until the 1600s when ideas of society changed. During the Renaissance, a new concept started to form that changed society which was humanism.
In fact, many of the expressions and vocabulary one uses every day can be traced directly back to Shakespeare ’s works themselves. According to Source A, the article “Shakespeare influences the way we speak now” by Hephbizah Anderson, Shakespeare “gave us uniquely vivid way in which to express hope and despair, sorrow and rage, love and lust” (Anderson 1). Anderson cites many examples: “bedazzled,” “gloomy,” “grovel,” “sanctimonious,” the expressions “wild goose chase” and “in a pickle” (Anderson 1-2). It is clear that the effects Shakespeare’s contributions to the world of literature and language are so profound that they still see common use today in day-to-day conversation.
3 Shakespeare’s Contributions In the early 16th century, The English language was not highly rated. It was rather seen as a language spoken day-to-day by the lower-caste society due to it sounding barbaric and lacking the sophistication that foreign languages required. Therefore, it was not promoted at schools. Children were taught Latin and Greek in schools, because they were the default languages for scholarly and ecclesiastical communication.
