William Shakespeare Research Paper

Shakespeare’s plays were mostly written during the 1600’s and every high school english teacher who has taught about his plays has been asked by their students “How will this help me in the future?”. Other than the mandatory requirements for high school students to study at least one piece of Shakespeare, his plays are unquestionably important to high school life. No other generation has the opportunity to use such sensible shakespeare quotes as captions to their selfie on instagram or to be able to use one of his quotes as their own senior quote in the yearbook. Shakespeare is everywhere, and today’s society has been looking into the meaning of his plays even deeper. Examining the meaning of life, listening to hip-hop music, and reviewing

Shakespeare has taught us all a deeper meaning of life and death. Similarly, we see this happen in Hamlet through his father showing up as a ghost to the final bloodbath where Hamlet achieves his revenge and dies. On the other hand, this also accompanies the concept of mortality of the Human Condition. Professor Stephen Brown said in a Ted Talk conference, “In the moment of life, I apprehend constantly what it means to be living.” (Brown, Tedx Talks). Examining life means to subsequently examine death, and as humans we must always understand our purpose and our own Human Condition. We are always apprehending life, but are we at any time comprehending it? High School students are at a stage of life where they are soon going to be out on their own, and try to find their purpose in life. Shakespeare helps us comprehend the meaning of life and death. Without knowing it, high schoolers may underestimate their

Students listen to nearly 2.5 hours of music a day. (Parker-Pope, The New York Times) This is the largest way teenagers are influenced and, ironically, Shakespeare is what influenced hip hop music. From watching another Tedx Talk and listening to a social entrepreneur, Akala, he speaks about the resemblance between hip hop lyrics and Shakespeare’s lyrics. He says one lyric that is either from a hip hop song, or Shakespeare’s play, then the audience votes on which they think it is. One lyric he says is “To destroy the beauty from which one came.”, and initially most of the audience votes that it is Shakespeare, however it is hip hop (Akala, Tedx Talks). Although we see two different worlds between music and poetry, Shakespeare allows us to combine the two. Furthermore, this identifies unity in the ideas that humans pursue. This combination inspires and encourages students to find their own artistic and cultural accents. Again, this connects with the Aspiration aspect of the Human Condition. As high school students begin to take on life, they can find their aspirations and goals through Shakespeare. Shakespeare also never worried about making money off his plays, so shouldn’t we also find something we aspire to do without money being the only thing on our