Isabel Richardson

Hi guys,

Isabel here. I’m certainly not one for introductions, but here goes nothing; I’ve been given the task to create a blog about the relevancy of Shakespeare in modern Society and Studies through text posts, examples, themes, images and a lot of words. So here is where I will be posting about how amazing and inspirational and relevant Shakespeare is to most things modern.

So since everyone seems to know a brief bit about Shakespeare, there’s no need to explain who he is. And since everyone knows at least something about Shakespeare, he is easily promoted and his fame continues to grow. Popularity is something Shakespeare has always had. Even in the 16th Century, he was a man everyone knew of, this is because of the amazing plays, poems and sonnets he wrote. Often in the books I’ve read, there are quite a few Shakespeare references, even in some movies. A few examples are; The Hunger Games; With Rue’s birdcall being the beginnings of a song from Romeo and Juliet, the referencing to Star Crossed Lovers, their almost double suicide. The Iron Fey Series; A lot of character referencing from A Midsummers Night Dream. Quite a lot of versions of plays (particularly Romeo and Juliet) have been written or remade into movies. This just continues to add to his popularity. In most, maybe even all, schools, poetry is something students learn about, and we learn about it through Shakespeare. Take my English class now as an example, we’re all writing a blog about Shakespeare and creating our own understandings of him and his works.

 

Since English is a class of language, Shakespeare seems almost fitting to learn about, because he invented around 3 000 words/phrases with his work, and over 1 700  of those words/phrases we still use to this day.  A few examples of his words and phrases are; “faint hearted” I Henry VI, “Forever and a day” As You Like It, “For goodness sake” Henry VIII, “full circle” King Lear, “Heart of Gold” Henry V, “pale faced” A Midsummers Night Dream. A lot of people find themselves using these words and phrases everyday. 

 

 

A lot of Shakespeare’s plays share similar themes or categories. Shakespeare had put all of his plays into 3 categories; Tragedy, Comedy and History, and then later on in his years, Tragic Comedies. History is full of tragedy, which is what we sort of learn about in our History studies, as well as comedy in our Drama classes. Those 3 categories that Shakespeare had put his plays into create a sort of area in which most of our learning takes place in our Humanities and English classes, where we learn about almost everything we know now.

 

 

A Midsummers Night Dream is a play based on love. Love is a word people throw around so easily now-a-days, without really knowing its meaning. Everything in the play, is motivated by the theme love. The play is not a romance, but a comedy, in which the audience laughs at how love can make people blind, foolish and desperate. In various parts of the play, the passion the characters have of love threatens to destroy friendships, turn people against one another and even in the argument between Oberon and Titania causes nature to fall into a state of unrest. In modern life, people will marry, but most of the time, it isn’t love, it’s money, arrangements and more legalities. Because we all throw around the ‘L word’ about everything all the time, we don’t even really know what love is anymore. Between 11-14 couples every 1000  marriages, will divorce every year, this is a result of it all.

 

A theme in the play Macbeth is gender inequality. In the Elizabethan times, in which the play was written and performed, males were often the dominant of either gender, with the women being unable to play the  roles in plays, work jobs like men. In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth propels her husband towards murder, she takes the dominant role and believes she would only be taken seriously or seen as a threat by all was if she were to change her gender. Her famous speech in which she talks to spirits into ‘unsexing’ her can be seen in Act 1, Scene 5 of the play. Gender equality is something men and women strive for, though the interactions between both genders has become more fair, it is still not equal, some women are paid less than men in the same job area, and there has only ever been a female Prime minister once, and that was barely more than 3 years! Gender equality and inequality is definitely something that relates to modern societies and studies that Shakespeare questioned through his plays.

 

King Lear also features the theme of gender. His two eldest daughters, Regan and Goneril, take over his rule, land and cast him out. They want to be powerful, rather than pawns or trophy wives for kings and dukes with no power what-so-ever. Another theme in King Lear is justice, as he betrays his youngest and most faithful daughter, his other daughters betray him and cast him out. Justice is something our government strives to have. Punishing those that have done wrongs. Hence, the reason we have the police and jails and laws.

 

 

As you can probably tell by my previous arguments, I do in fact believe that Shakespeare is relevant in modern society and studies. He will continue to inspire people and have people aspire to be like him.