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William Shakespeare Research Paper

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A playwright is a person who writes the text for plays that actors then use in their performance. William Shakespeare was a playwright and a poet that is well known for his poetry and plays, some of which are still being performed to this day. His plays and poetry are commonly hailed as some of the best in the world and are being used in a variety of ways. Shakespeare grew the popularity and demand for plays and playwriting throughout the world by building the Globe Theatre, giving his plays more depth, and writing plays in a poetic and musical way. Every play requires a stage and every stage a builder. Shakespeare was an actor and playwright who lived in London in the late 1500s. It is not clear how he started his career in theatre, but in …show more content…

William Shakespeare was a talented writer, but most of his plays were not that original (“William Shakespeare”). William Shakespeare’s first full-length tragedy, titled Titus Andronicus, had most of its theme, structure, and language borrowed from Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy (“William Shakespeare”). Shakespeare rarely invented the plots of his plays, many times he used older stories such as Hamlet or Pericles (“William Shakespeare”). It was no secret that Shakespeare had sources he used as inspiration for his plays, but he did not just copy his source (“William Shakespeare”). A play must be long enough to supply the information an audience needs to know to hold their interest and imagination (“Dramatic Literature”). This is what Shakespeare strived to do with his stories, if he could inform the audience and keep them interested with the story being told, then he would have achieved the goal of the playwright. He would often exclude undramatic material to keep the audience interested in the play and not make them feel bogged down with meaningless details (“William Shakespeare”). Shakespeare would treat his sources as suggestions for the story and characters, but he was not afraid to change anything (“William Shakespeare”). Shakespeare would take elements from different stories and combine them in his plays (“William Shakespeare”). He would often rearrange the plot, change features about characters, and even develop …show more content…

Plays have the unique ability to bring together performing and nonperforming arts such as music, poetry, and mime (“Dramatic Literature”). Shakespeare was a master at using musical-like poetry to tell his stories (Evans). Music was not that uncommon in many of the professional playhouses of the Renaissance (”William Shakespeare”). Many of Shakespeare's plays, specifically his comedies, were written in a way so that they could be accompanied by music (“William Shakespeare”). There are many writers and composers today who are setting Shakespeare’s work to music and creating musicals out of them (Evans). This is one of the reasons the demand for Shakespeare’s plays still exists, because they can be transformed. Shakespeare’s musical writing style is what has kept him in the spotlight throughout history. It elevates his work above the rest and gives his plays a rhythmic feel (Evans). Even when some of Shakespeare’s plays have problems, they can be remedied due to their musical nature (Evans). Writers will use Shakespeare’s musical form to fix structural problems in some of his lesser done plays, making them more enjoyable for the audience (Evans). Michael Friedman, a composer, says “Shakespeare is great enough to survive all sorts of transformations” (Evans). It is these transformations that have kept Shakespeare relevant in the world. Shakespeare kept the demand for plays and playwriting alive with his musical

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