Sunday, February 2, 2014
Is Shakespeare's Work Related At All To Us Today?
Shakespeare's work has inspired many things and remains famous among the world today. Almost anyone would spit out Shakespeare's name as soon as they are asked who is the most famous English writer. All of his plays have inspired movies such as Lion King, Romeo + Juliet, and Scotland PA. These three being a new theme, time period or just over all twist on the classic tales of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth. I personally believe that the majority of love stories in general are slightly related to Romeo and Juliet or possibly related to the romantic relationship between Tatiana Queen of fairies and Bottom the donkey man in A Midsummer's Night's Dream. The story of Romeo and Juliet involves a doomed relationship between a man and woman, the woman inadvertently kills herself or is extremely close to killing herself when the man comes along to save her or prove his love to her is true and dies with her. The relationship between Bottom and Tatiana, her being a beautiful pixie and him being part donkey shows that she saw something deeper than just his looks to make her fall madly in love with him, I saw this as being in a similar tie to a Beauty and the Beast story. Famous lines from the plays have been used in film and other books as well. The famous line " boil, boil, toil and trouble" has been used in association with Hollywood witches for years. This line was used by the witches in Macbeth as they were spell crafting over their cauldron. Not only are these plays and stories shared by visual media, but it is taught to students in schools all over the place. The vast majority, if not all of the language arts teachers you will meet would probably tell you that they had their class read a play by Shakespeare. Even if Shakespeare ever stops inspiring work done today, it will definitely never be forgotten.
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I agree with you in the respect that Shakespeares plays and works have influenced many works of art in modern times. However, do you think that they are beneficial to students and scholars academically (within the English language), or just for entertainment? Just because it influenced a lot of great things does not mean that they are worth reading in school. Sure, most teachers have their classing reading at least one act from a Shakespeare work, but is that because they really see it as beneficial, or just because that has become the norm to do, as everyone sees Shakespeare as an English god of sorts? Personally, I don't think that Shakespeare should be taught for English purposes in school. The way that he speaks in his works is so different to the way that English is taught now, that teaching kids how to speak English differently will only confuse them in how they should speak grammatically. I am not denying that his work is not intelligent and worth reading, I just don't think currently is it read in school for the right purpose. Like you said, it influenced other works like Romeo and Juliet and the Lion King, but it was for the plot and character structure, not the way that he spoke his words or the words that he spoke. I think Shakespeare is best served being taught in a theater class, not an English class.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on Shakespeare still relating to us today but I think it's more than just movies. He contributed a lot to the english language we speak today and introduced words that some use in their lives everyday. Not only did he contribute to the english language he was one of the first people to give women an important role even though it wasn't played by women it was still a critical role.
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