Common Themes In Romeo And Juliet By William Shakespeare

Watching plays written by Shakespeare reveals the connections between his time and the 20 to the 21st century through theme. William Shakespeare started his career in theater in 1585 and continue his career of writing plays until his death. Over his lifetime, he has written 38 plays, 154 sonnets and many other English texts. Unfortunately, Shakespeare passed away on April 23rd, 1616, the cause of his death is still a mystery. Although he passed away in the 17th century, the common themes that Shakespeare used are still repeated today in books, movies, television series and plays such as love, violence and fantasy before and after his time. Shakespearean plays are apart of the English language curriculum that students around the world follow.
Although centuries have passed since Shakespeare has written a play, he is still used in many different ways today. His stories have not cease to disappear. Directors and producers still created movies based on the plays Shakespeare wrote. We watch movies and television series and even read books that are based on Shakespeare without even knowing. For instance, in 1623 Shakespeare published his most popular play of his whole career “Romeo and Juliet”. “Romeo and Juliet is a tragic love story of a young man and woman who come from rival families. The reason as to why I have chosen this piece by Shakespeare is for its relatedness to the film industry around the world. “Romeo and Juliet” is by far the most timeless Shakespearean play out of all of them due to the amount of remakes. Subsequently, more than 50 movies based on “Romeo and Juliet” were remade by producers from all around the world throughout the 20th and 21th century. For example, the anime television series from Japan “Romeo x Juliet” written by Reiko Yoshida in 2007 has successfully produced 27 episodes directed by Fumitoshi Oizaki. It was also turned into an american cartoon for children titled “Gnomeo and Juliet” which was directed by Kelly Asbury and
Shakespeare wrote many plays about love and romance just like “Cymbeline” a play that follows the story of the daughter of a British king who goes against her father’s wishes and marries a man with a low social status. But love is a feeling of personal attachment or deep affection to a child, parent or that special someone. With this in mind, the influence of love and romance from William Shakespeare have been used throughout the years due to people’s interest towards the theme. The most popular movies in the 21st century significantly include some sort of love story. Such as, the classic movie “The Notebook” is a love story based on a novel written in 1996 of the same name by Nicholas Sparks and directed by Nick Cassavetes in 2004. “The Notebook” is about a penniless man who falls in love with a rich woman but sorely they get seperated by reason of their class levels. To point out, “Say Anything..” is another example of an American love story written and directed by Cameron Crowe in 1989. The movie film follows between Lloyd Dobler, an average high school student and Diane Court, the valedictorian shorty after they graduated from high school.