Why Is Shakespeare Still Relevant Today
Have the modern adaptations of ‘Taming of the Shrew’ and other works of Shakespeare proved that Shakespeare still has a place in modern society?
To be relevant or not to be relevant, that is the question. It has been over 400 years since Shakespeare wrote his last work and the world continues to reference, adapt, teach, discuss and question the great bard of Stratford upon Avon. Maybe he was incredibly ahead of his time, or maybe the world just hasn’t changed for 400 years, either way, the themes and issues used throughout Shakespeare's works are still relevant and interesting to today's audience. Themes like love, gender roles and comedy were popular to the audiences of the 17th century as well as the 21st century.
The theme of love is an everlasting …show more content…
Not only was Shakespeare a leading dramatist he was also an incredible jokester and liked to weave the two themes of love and comedy together. “While many romantic comedies are chided for their predictable plotlines, it was William Shakespeare who first created these well-known story arcs” (Cadle, 2011). A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Taming of the Shrew and The Comedy of Errors are all known for their humour but the odd joke can be found throughout pretty much every Shakespeare piece. There is much conversation on the use of humour in the Elizabethan era, for example, why it was used in theatre and literature and the difference in meaning of the word compared to today. “In those days, five hundred years ago, humor referred to four personality types: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic” (Brown, 2015). Definitely a different interpretation to the name now used but the concept was still there in the day of Shakespeare even if it was under a different title. Nowadays, modern society loves a good laugh to distract from the horror that is today's world, and that laugh can often be found in a work of
To be relevant or not to be relevant, that is the question. It has been over 400 years since Shakespeare wrote his last work and the world continues to reference, adapt, teach, discuss and question the great bard of Stratford upon Avon. Maybe he was incredibly ahead of his time, or maybe the world just hasn’t changed for 400 years, either way, the themes and issues used throughout Shakespeare's works are still relevant and interesting to today's audience. Themes like love, gender roles and comedy were popular to the audiences of the 17th century as well as the 21st century.
The theme of love is an everlasting …show more content…
Not only was Shakespeare a leading dramatist he was also an incredible jokester and liked to weave the two themes of love and comedy together. “While many romantic comedies are chided for their predictable plotlines, it was William Shakespeare who first created these well-known story arcs” (Cadle, 2011). A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Taming of the Shrew and The Comedy of Errors are all known for their humour but the odd joke can be found throughout pretty much every Shakespeare piece. There is much conversation on the use of humour in the Elizabethan era, for example, why it was used in theatre and literature and the difference in meaning of the word compared to today. “In those days, five hundred years ago, humor referred to four personality types: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic” (Brown, 2015). Definitely a different interpretation to the name now used but the concept was still there in the day of Shakespeare even if it was under a different title. Nowadays, modern society loves a good laugh to distract from the horror that is today's world, and that laugh can often be found in a work of