Why should we study Shakespeare?

Shakespeare_in_Type_by_KawaiiChan789Lots of students seem to turn up their noses when they are asked to read the works of Shakespeare.  They wonder “why should I read works by someone who died a long time ago?”.  Well, what is your view?  Why should we study Shakespeare?  How do you think this Elizabethan playwright’s works are still relevant to our time?  As a student of English, why should you bother? Wouldn’t it be nicer or more worthwhile to read “Hunger Games” or other books that reflect your interests and most of all that are written in contemporary English?  How can we relate Shakespeare to Italy? How would you love to appraoch Shakespeare’s works?

 

Shakespeare’s Insults

Shakespeare and Hip Hop

151 Replies to “Why should we study Shakespeare?”

  1. In my opinion Shakespeare is still a contemporary writer. He wrote about the life and events in his time that, for some aspects, can reflect the nowadays’ life. By reading his opus, we can understand how the life was in 17th century and what was the way of thinking of people in that time. That century was characterized by some important events, like the transition from Catholicism to Anglicanism a very important change in the story of England. This aspect reflects what is happening nowadays, we are in an era of transitions and changing. We can also contextualize his poems in what is happening in Italy: people fight to get personal ambitions without thinking what is really important, like family, friend and love, or some people do not let others love who they really want because of social impositions. It is important to read Shakespeare because we can change the things by learning from the plots of the poems.
    Shakespeare is still an actual writer because he speaks about themes like love, revenge, social discriminations that are contemporary arguments. Also today we fell in love, we fight to achieve our objectives, we want to know the truth and those are themes that treated in Shakespeare’s poems.
    Most of the words that are used in English are invented or modified by him; also lots of expressions like “It’s Greek to me” are coined by him, so a lot of expression that are still used today are invented by him. It is important to study his poems because he is the father of modern English and we can discover the origin of most of the word that are used today. Also for us, that are not English, it is a tool to improve our knowledge of the story of England and its culture.
    I disagree with people who say that it is not necessary to study Shakespeare because he is dead 400 years ago. Everybody knows the story of Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Hamlet, King Lear and them are still performed in theatre and there are also some films based on them. Most of the major literary love story are based on Romeo and Juliet and that is just one example of how this poems influence everyday life. It is important to not read only books written in contemporary English because we cannot discover anything new in something that is really far from us.
    What Shakespeare wrote, was created to be played in theatre and not just read; I think that the best way to approach to him is understanding how really were performed by watching some videos or trying to find some review of that time.
    Shakespeare’s works and his messages still are actual and they will never die until someone will speak about his poems.

    1. “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee” (Sonnet XVIII)

  2. It is interesting to see all these videos and comments that say such good things about Shakespeare and his plays. Well, I have never read one of his plays yet but they seem to be wonderful: jealousy, lies, murderers, love… good stuff! It is like those books for teenagers with involving plots, princes, knights, moral problems and shocking finals. if you add creatures like dragons or orcs you have a Tolkien’s book… amazing!
    I have no competences for judging if Shakespeare’s writings are still current but if all of them have these themes i want to read them immediately!
    Personally, I have not read “The Hunger Games” but I am a big fan of fantasy books such as “Lord of the Rings” or “Eragon” that are perfect for people at my age because they make teenagers loving books and all the world of creatures and imagination, and they appreciate much more them with the special effects that you see in the movies.
    If Shakespeare had already these types of idea in the 1600 it would be great. the fact is that students, in my opinion, study this author at school and maybe they don’t appreciate him at all because maybe the school ambient or the teacher could bore them. If they read it alone without any pressure they would like it much more.
    So, I hope to have the right premonition, if that is right, please give me something of Shakespeare’s to read!

  3. Why should we study Shakespeare?
    William Shakespeare died four hundreds years ago but his prose, plots and characters are still alive today. The original plays who took place between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are nowadays performed in a big amount of languages all over the world, both on stage and on screen.
    He is in some way a contemporary writer, able to write about universal themes and human problems that are present in a society living four centuries after his death.
    Shakespeare affects us in a way nearly nobody has ever done; we refer to his quotes all time and most people do not know it, there is a quote for anything one wants to say. Even who has never seen one his plays know something about them and Shakespeare managed to make himself known through his success. For example, nearly everybody knows the story of Romeo and Juliet or the lines from Hamlet’s monologue “To be or not to be”. With his plays the English language has evolved, thanks to the terms, the expressions and also the insults he coined.
    What he wrote can also help us to understand to the history and the thoughts of those ages, because he lived in a period rich of changes in society and politics.
    The difference in reading “Hunger Games” and Shakespeare’s writings is huge, and I don’t think they can even be compared. “Hunger Games” is an enjoyable book but it lacks of the psychology of characters, the different cultural environment and the general feelings that something written by the greatest english playwright has. Shakespearen works leave the readers things to think about, while many “fashion” books are meant to be read once, then there is nothing the reader can do.
    Shakespeare’s engagement with Italy in shown in three of this famous plays, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar and Othello, which are respectively based in Verona, Rome and Venice. He was influenced by Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarch from whom he got inspiration for his sonnets.
    I would love to read it aloud in class, and everybody could interpret a different character from his plays. I also think it would be very useful to watch some plays performed in theatre or in the movies, to compare each other and find the best one.

    1. We will certainly deal with film adaptation (compare the original play with its adaptation). As to activing out some of the scenes we will analyse, that depends on you all. I would love you to do that. I would love you to act out the scenes simultaneously in English and Italian. That would be interesting, wouldn’t it?

  4. Shakespeare is considered without any doubt one of the most famous English poets thanks to the modernity of the topics addressed in his poems like love, history, death, drama and others.
    Shakespeare reveals a different face to different cultures and people and he relates to the English medieval traditions. His prose, plots and characters are as alive today as they were when the plays were originally written by him during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
    He was skillful on blending his stories and his characters with deep qualities that audiences and readers identify with.
    The plays have been performed in almost every language on stage around the world.
    A lot of people are influenced by Shakespeare even though they don’t actually know a lot about him. Shakespeare as Manzoni, Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch and other famous Italian authors are studied in high school to allow today’s young people, like us, to open their minds, to remember the past, to deal with current theme, to analyze closely the various conditions and social classes. They had casted light on humans values and flaws at the time which are still common nowadays. Shakespeare delves into the psychology of the individual, investigating the vulnerability, the doubts and fears.
    Generally students go into it because it is an indispensable requirement or only to take a good mark, but I think that they end up enjoying it, included me too. Teachers can help us to rise our awareness through authors like Shakespeare.

  5. WHY SHOULD WE STUDY SHAKESPEARE?

    William Shakespeare is one of the most famous play writer ever existed, but why should we study his poems although he died about 4 centuries ago?
    Despite his poems are 400 years old we still study them because of their modern topics, for example love and strifes, death and hate between relatives, it also deals with human behaviours and sexual identity which in the 17th century were sensitive themes.
    We also study him because is one of the fathers of Earl Modern English who invented hundreds of new words that are still used today and to know what, the people living in that epoch, were scared or in love of.
    A lot of his poems are set in our country and even if he criticised our society (population of poor people and a nobility who thinks only about their earnings and power), he really loved Italy but he couldn’t appreciate it publicly because of the common negative prejudices about Italians in England.
    Shakespeare furthermore wrote poems with very deep concepts, if we choose not to read these things we probably lose the big opportunity to have our heart touched by the words of a 400 years old play writer who still lives and will always live.

    1. I really hope I will manage to make you love the great Bard as much as I do. His PLAYS cast last upon the human soul and the human psyche.

  6. Questioning if it is useful to study Shakespeare, in my opinion, is like questioning if it is helpful to study Latin for romance languages speakers. As a matter of fact we, as Italians, study Latin because among the other benefits, lots of words we use today originate from this ancient language.
    So, English speakers must know the famous playwright in order to understand and be conscious from where the words, phrases and collocations they use every day come from.
    Furthermore many of the themes he deals with are still relevant 400 years after his death. It means that during his age he was ahead all his contemporary, we can definitely consider him a genius.
    From my point of view, the main reason why students find studying Shakespeare boring is that it is not simple to read and understand it, because nowadays we are accustomed to read books with a linear plot that cut directly to the chase. But I think that if we could be able to watch the plays instead of reading them (I know that’s impossible) we will be more involved, because those are tragedies and comedies and were written to be performed and we would be able to fully understand the coverage of the feelings only if we have an actor that makes those word come to life. That’s why, among all other aspects, he’s considered one of the most successful script writers that Hollywood ever had.
    So, in the end, if you are asking me if we should study Shakespeare, I’d say that we definitely should, or better, we have to!

    1. I like the comparison with the study of the Latin language, but I do not seem to understand the reference to Hollywood!

  7. Shakespeare has been one of the greatest playwright and poets ever in human history. Our culture is still strongly influenced by the plays he wrote. What made Shakespeare such a great inspiration source and an influent figure is the great attention he payed on deep human struggles and issues: he has been capable of depicting every single shade of the inner sides of each character in the plays. Love, hatred, betrayal, power, uncertainty of death, revenge, weaknesses, desires are just some of the aspects Shakespeare developed about psychology and ethics. An outcome of the depth and extremity in feelings and events is the outstanding contemporaneity of the plays: not only in common English idioms we quote some lines from Shakespeare’s literary works but we produce new novels, movies and tv series in which we can easily spot his influence. The ambiguity in the role of hero or villain of Francis Underwood, in the tv series House of Cards, for example, is a quite clear reference to Richard III by William Shakespeare; as a matter of fact, Kevin Spacey, the actor playing the role of Francis Underwood, has been reciting worldwide performing the controversial character of Richard III in order to get feeling of the part of a reprehensible, brash, sly and charming congressman. Another link to Shakespeare I can recall is the idiomatic expression “Winter is coming” that recurs many times in Game of Thrones: the opening lines of Richard III are, indeed, “Now is the Winter of our Discontent / Made glorious Summer by this sun of York…”. In both the series and the play the juxtaposition of summer and winter expresses the turnover between glorious and peaceful times with hard and perilous ones. We could also spot mentions of the great poet in Harry Potter and the Azkaban Prisoner, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) or The King’s speech and many others.
    So, going back to the question: why should we study Shakespeare? As far as I am concerned studying what are restlessnesses, conflicts and struggles of men and women throughout tragedies and comedies can help us understand our inner feelings and sensations better. Moreover we can actualize many characters in our contemporary society: we can easily find in everyday life a merciless merchant, a bipolar king or two passionate lovers.
    Personally I first approached to William Shakespeare via theatre and cinema: it happened to me to watch The Merchant of Venice live in Pordenone, starring the great Silvio Orlando as Shylock, and The Macbeth in the smoky and dark recent adaptation for the big screen. I remained astonished by the complexity of characters and power of the themes inside the two tragedies.

    1. Francesco, you have written one of the greatest comments I have ever read (written by a student). COngratulations. I have not watched the series House of Cards or Game of Thrones, so I was particularly interested in the references you spotted to Richard III. 🙂

  8. Shakespeare is one of the most famous writer in the history of English Literature, his name is known almost everywhere because of the study of his works and the several plays of his that are been played nowadays. In my opinion if we study English literature we must study Shakespeare because he is the father of the language and he is part of the identity of England. Although Shakespeare was born in 1564, the themes are still relevant nowadays because they deals with human feelings, such as love, hate and jealously, that will never change; that is why it is important to investigate, because knowing humans’ history we will better know ourselves and we will recognize some of Shakespeare’s characters in us. Although for a student of this generation it is nicer reading contemporary books and it is worthwhile for learning useful English, it is good even reading Shakespeare because somehow the language is related with him: he invented lots of words and he inspired other playwrights and writers. In my point of view it is also a shame not to know at least his themes because if we do not study it, the posterity will not and in this way all his play will be forgotten. In Italy were born many writers and their works are the roots of the poetry in the other languages, for example some of Shakespeare’s work are sonnets, which were invented by Giacomo Da Lentini in 13th century and they were used by Petrarca in his Canzoniere.
    During this period I would love studying his works investigating what is the message that the writers wanted us to learn and finding the relations between him and Italy, it is a way even to admire more our literature; I would like even watching or acting with schoolmates some of the most famous parts of his plays.

  9. I have never read anything from shakespeare and I know just a little about his most famous plays like “Romeo and Juliet” and “hamlet”. From what I have seen in these videos he is mostly appraised for the work he has done for the english language, but I couldn’t care less of his linguistic importance, if someone were to suggest me a book just because the author coined new words I probably would’nt read it. From what I understood from the video and from last lesson Shakespeare had to use expedients, such as sex, violence and swear words, to entertain the audience. The public also knew more about what was going on than the characters themselves so that they could get even more involved in the story, this trick worked so well that they often tried to give pieces of advice to the actors to help them. The first thought that I had when I heard this was that my grandmother did the same watching soap-operas, from this point of view Shakespeare plays and soap-operas are very much alike. Why does my grandmother watch soap-operas? Because she enjoys them, and these are the factors that make them enjoyable. Likewise Shakespeare’s plays became popular because they are enthralling and fun to watch. They might not be absolute masterpieces quality wise like it is the “Divina Commedia” by Dante, but they are probably much more enjoyable than that, and that is why I think I should study Shakespeare: Because he is fun.

    1. I had never ever read anybody write that Shakespeare can be as entertaining as a soap-opera for elderly women! You are definitely quite creative.

  10. I just had a brief approach to William Shakespeare in the last lesson but I am already aware of the importance that this author has assumed over the centuries. In particular, I am interested in find out why Shakespeare has achieved this worldwide fame.
    Surely he invented a lot of the words of english, so he contributed to laying the foundations for the language spoken nowadays, but probably the main reason why we study Shakespeare at school is that in his writings he deals with themes which are still actual now; for instance, he was conscious of the complexity of mankind and human feelings, he talks about love, good, evil, sex, time, death, beauty, he revealed the relationship between brothers, he was interested in art and much more… so I think that by reading his texts we may open our mind to a different perspective to see and analyze reality and feelings.
    As a student of English, I think that the the importance that Shakespeare has assumed can scare, because it alludes to a complexity of poet’s texts, however perhaps, we should interpret his lyrics not only as pages of history of english literature but even as means which give us the chance to broaden and deepen our experiences.
    There are many differences between Shakespeare’s books and the contemporary ones, of course in the language and in the way that they are written, but in books like ‘ Hunger Games’ or ‘Twilight’ we find a story that is already complete and our interest is to discover its plot through reading the book, while Shakespeare leads us to think about what we are reading and maybe he leads us to actualize this as well.
    He sets many of his plays in Italy, like Romeo and Juliet, Othello or Julius Caesar and he was influenced by a lot of italian poets.
    In the end, in order to answer the last question, I would like to find out and analyze the characteristics of Shakespeare’s poetry through the vision of some plays performed in theatre… I think I will love this author!

  11. Why should we study Shakespeare?
    Well, why shouldn’t we? I really can’t understand why people think that Shakespeare isn’t important nowadays. They say: “He died a long time ago”. What does it mean? Shakespeare is literature, history and culture; he wrote about themes that are still used nowadays.
    I really think that literature is timeless: in fact, we define it as all writings dealing with a particular subject. The time in which these writings are written, isn’t so important, because the themes and the feelings that they provoke, don’t depend on time.
    So, if we want to learn what literature is, we have to read author as Shakespeare. If we are not interested in literature, I think that read Shakespeare is a big waste of time.

  12. When we think about the English culture, one of first names (probably the first of all) that comes to our mind is undoubtedly William Shakespeare. Although he died over 400 years ago, during his lifetime he has dealt with themes that still concern the 21st century human beings: anger, love, envy, beauty, faith and so many others.
    One of the benefits we can get from reading his plays is enriching our vocabulary, since he has coined many words and ways of saying.
    He also makes us understand more of the English society as regards the social classes of that time, their life styles and so on.
    His plays involved complex characters, tragic heroes and double plots, which made them entertaining, educational and enlightening.
    From my point of view, every single book is worth being read although some are more educational than others. Taken “Hunger Games” as an example (even though I have not read it), it surely is more popular at the moment but probably it will not last as long as Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. We should not even compare them for obvious reasons.
    Nowadays people still perform Shakespeare’s plays around the world, and they have been translated into every major language. However, this should concern us a little more: we, as Italian people, should feel proud of the fact that this incomparable genius set many of his plays in our country, such as the globally renowned Romeo and Juliet, that took place in Verona, where we still can visit her balcony.
    Shakespeare was also influenced by Dante and Petrarch, so the writers of the classic Italian masterpieces.
    This consideration should make us think that Shakespeare is closer to our culture and us than we think.

  13. Why should we study Shakespeare?
    I think that the reason is given by the answer to the question: which is the first name that comes in your mind if you think about English literature?
    Everyone knows who Shakespeare is; even those who have not studied him. The great success of this playwright comes from the contemporaneity of his works. His plots are still relevant nowadays because they deal with topics that are always true: for instance, there are still lovers in all the world that cannot marry because of parents’ wishes, as in “Romeo and Juliet”. Shakespeare has been able to express the feelings and the ideas of the people of his time, that are very similar to ours.
    However, this is not the only reason for his importance. As a student of English, I can say that lot of the words and the expressions that we can find in an English dictionary come from Shakespeare. Because when he could not find the right word to express exactly what he wanted, he created a new one. In my opinion, there is not a possible comparison between reading the plays of this author and reading a modern book as “Hunger Games”. It can seem more interesting to read a book of our times, but it is certainly more intriguing and useful to read a play of this Elizabethan playwright.
    He is also a source of information about the life in the XVI century, because from his plays we can extrapolate the living conditions and the mores of his epoch.
    I have always seen that in American school, to study this great author they usually stage one of his plays, and I think that this is a fantastic method to understand what Shakespeare really wanted to tell us. I know that this is quite impossible, but I would like to approach to his works playing one of his opus.

  14. Although Shakespeare lived in the period between the end of 1500 and the beginning of the 1600 century, his poems, sonnets and playwrights are relevant for all the times, ages and generations. As a matter of facts his words endured for four hundred years but they had neither lose their power nor their strength.
    He treated themes that are still object of discussions and he dealt with problems that still exist in our time such as love, death, jealousy, need of power, ambition, revenge, corruption, hatred, betrayal, discrimination, order, disorder, change and many others.
    So he analyzed human psychology and behavior as much as he dug deeply in human soul. He makes us reflect on how things have changed but at the same time remained unchanged: as a matter of facts he give us the possibility to compare our society with the Elizabethan’s one and to see how humanity has evolved.
    Through his characters and his plots we can know Shakespeare’s society in all his different shades and features like entertainments, social classes, rights, life conditions, habits and way of thinking ; so he gave us a complete portrait of his age.
    Shakespeare, in my opinion, has the great ability to open our eyes and he encourage us to see beneath the appearances.
    It is essential for an English student to read his writings not only because he his regarded as the greatest English writer and he is famous all over the word but because he invented a half of the words and idiomatic expressions that we use in all days conversations; so we quote him almost every day without even knowing that. I think everybody know Shakespeare and all of us have heard his name or his plays’ title at least one time in his/her life; he have been a source of inspirations for authors and directors and a lot of movies and books are based or have some links with his stories.
    There are also references to Italy in some of his plays: as a matter of facts Romeo and Juliet and The Two Gentleman of Verona take place in Verona, then Venice is the city where he set The Merchant of Venice and Othello, Julius Caesar takes place in Rome as the Comedy of Errors is set in Syracuse. He was conditioned from Dante, Boccaccio and especially from Petrarch and this is proved by the fact that he was inspired by his sonnets.
    I think it is impossible to compare books like “Hunger Games” or others contemporary book with this Elizabethan playwright because although “Hunger Games” is easier to read and interesting for its original plot, it brings us far from reality, it is not able to show us human fears and emotions or to highlight the things that really count in our life like Shakespearians’ writings are able to do.
    I think the best approach to his works is also the simplest one: read his writings in class and try to understand the hidden meanings in his words all together.

  15. Why should I study Shakespeare?
    Because someone in the government decided so.

    Why should I be interested in Shakespeare?
    Well, this is harder to answer.
    In the first place we have the fact that he is the one who literally created the majority of English words, but this is not enough. The true reason is that it is simply ridiculous to think that only because he lived 400 years ago the things he wrote about are outdated. This is frequently applied to a lot of dead writers but it should not be done. It is extremely self-centered. Our concerns are not far from those of Shakespeare even if we live in a different culture and in a different time. We said it more than one time :”Literature is not linked to time and space”, and this is simply because the human consciousness is not neither. Shakespeare tried to deeply analyse the human mind, and that is why when we read about Shakespeare’s characters we are reading about a part of ourselves, and we should try to grasp the message instead of searching the differences.
    The other reason why we should study Shakespeare is that his work is a complete and accurate picture of Elizabethan era. This is important because it shows us how his works are much more than stories, they are true historical documents, and it is important to read them. And also, it is the main setting of “Doctor who”, and this should be an adequate reason to read it by itself.
    I am really excited to know more about his playwrights, but I hope we are not going to approach him in an academic way, but instead by reading his work and trying to understand it without being bombarded with impersonal interpretation.

    1. A very personal comment indeed!
      I need to clarify a point though: the government does not oblige me to teach you Shakespeare. Teachers are pretty free to choose what they want to teach in the Italian school system and I am very lucky. It is me, my decision and unfortunately, I am the one to blame!
      As to making the teaching of Shakespeare more fun, well, I will try to do my best. I think that the very existence of this blog and the fact that I asked you to express your own ideas is proof of my intention to promote the knowledge of Shakespeare among you in a less “academic” way. 😉

  16. Shakespeare is considered as the central pillar of English literature. Not only have his plays inspired other writers all over the world, but are also still performed nowadays.
    We study Shakespeare because his works raise issues that are still concerning our society. They deal with love, hatred, friendship, life and death. But above all, the playwright has masterly imbued his characters with qualities that audiences identify with. It is his understanding of human emotion that makes his plays so successful, and this in my opinion is the main reason why we should study Shakespeare. Through his works we also get to know historical facts and traditions in the Elizabethan era. Studying them is the best way to truly understand English culture in all its aspects.
    Furthermore, he has coined several words and expressions used in modern English. In fact, as the video mentions, we quote Shakespeare on a regular basis without even knowing it.
    However, students might find Shakespeare boring because his language is different from the English they are used to. Perhaps a good idea would be to see one of his plays, as they were originaly only meant to be watched.
    Shakespeare’s link with Italy can be seen in his plays, since many of them are set in our country. This should encourage us to study his works, for it gives us the chance to view Italy from a different perspective.

  17. Why should we study Shakespeare?

    Shakespeare is known to be a famous playwriter. He is the writer of Romeo and Juliet.
    Shakespeare is the most famous English artist. I think that studying Shakespeare is useful because it can help us to understand his age better. Studying his works allows us to examine the culture of that time and also to understand the ideas of the past. This eminent figure gave us a portrait of his society through his works. Shakespeare coined a lot of new words and aphorisms for his plays. He coined lots of words that we use today. As a matter of fact, everyday when we are speaking or writing we are quoting Shakespeare. So, he definitely revolutionized English.
    Shakespeare wrote in a fantastic way that no other one can imitate. The books are full of details that it is a challenge to find the deep meaning of the text.
    Shakespeare works are still relevant today. They deal with religion, sexuality, war and racism. Sure enough, everyday we hear about war and racism.
    He tickled some aspects of the society of that time. In particular, he raised some themes such as the corruption of the Church, the attachment to material assets and finally the need of power.
    Studying Shakespeare can be very boring if you learn all the dates of his life. In my opinion if we try to focus on his ideas and his morals we will appreciate all his plays. Shakespeare wanted to express himself by his performances. Using irony, he criticized the society of his age. Some of his most important operas are played today and lots of people like them.
    Reading is very useful to improve our English skills. Nevertheless, there are some books which are considered to be more proper for us. For example, reading Hunger Games can help us only with vocabulary.
    Whereas reading Othello or Romeo and Juliet is completely different for some reasons. In Shakespeare, you can learn life lessons and fun expressions. If you are interested, you can learn some original insults in Shakespeare. He used swear words to make people laugh. However, there are some fantastic phrases that creates a musicality that no other rapper can make.
    Therefore, the reasons for which we must study Shakespeare are relating to our historical process and to the modernity of his plays.
    In Shakespeare, we can find some main themes concerning sexuality, religion and nation that are tightly linked to Dante, Petrarch and Bocaccio. Bocaccio wrote about love and religion and he criticised the church too! But Shakespeare renewed the way of writing about love, faith and religion.
    Everyone has a specific way to approach a subject. Personally, I think the best way to approach Shakespeare works is to watch some plays and then try to study them in order to learn more about Shakespeare and bear in mind the main aspects. I have just started studying Shakespeare but I am already sure it will be a great challenge!

    1. Thanks for working hard Eros. Your English is getting better and better. I can see that you have watched the videos and taken in lots of info along with useful expressions and words.
      It seems that the idea that Shakespeare used lots of insults and foul language in his plays catches young people’s attention. It is obvious that he did that since his plays were written to be performed and people from all walks of society went to the theatre to be entertained.
      Shakespeare Insults
      Swearing in Shakespeare’s Plays

    2. Thanks for working hard Eros. Your English is getting better and better. I can see that you have watched the videos and taken in lots of info along with useful expressions and words.
      It seems that the idea that Shakespeare used lots of insults and foul language in his plays catches young people’s attention. It is obvious that he did that since his plays were written to be performed and people from all walks of society went to the theatre to be entertained.

  18. Why should we study Shakespeare?
    Shakespeare is probably the most important play writer of the English literature and I think that it is fundamental to study his works: we should give more importance to the reading of these plays because they could enrich us, literally and also as people.
    In my opinion he is absolutely a contemporaneous writer and the Elizabethan playwright’s works are still relevant today because of the use of the language and the themes, like love, envy, madness for pain, relationship between siblings and human heart.
    Some people think that by now nobody speaks in the way he wrote so it is useless to study the plays of Shakespeare because the language is not the same as today’s one, but we can find thousands of words in the English that we use every day that are created by him.
    Then somebody says that the characters and the themes treated in Shakespeare’s playwrights are distant from the modernity of the XXI century, but today we still have thwarted love, women murdered by their husbands, tormented teenagers in crisis, people that deceive one another even if for a good purpose, haven’t we? Perhaps Shakespeare is still relevant today and as an English student I really like the idea that problems at that time were about the same as the today’s ones.
    As far as I am concerned, it wouldn’t be nicer to read “Hunger Games” or stuffs like that because the content wouldn’t be the same. The difference in reading a book like Hunger Games and a play of Shakespeare is very big: that kind of books can be read with pleasure but they can’t make people reflect on life experiences and important issues such as those we can find in Shakespeare.
    Another reason why we should study Shakespeare is that he was particularly close to Italy: he took inspiration from lots of Italian characters that were in the art comedy, lots of plays were settle in Venice, Rome and Verona and he admired Italy as a country of deep sixteenth-century culture, but he also criticized it a lot because of the critics of the English people to our country.
    This year we will study Shakespeare, that wrote to being performed and not published, so I would really love to approach with him trying to act some of his most famous works in which everyone takes part, farther to read and analyze them doing different activities.

  19. Why should we study Shakespeare?
    It is a very common question, and the answers are always the same.
    It is important to study Shakespeare because it is a part of popular culture; almost anyone can quote from several of his works. The reason that people know them is because they have been a part of our culture constantly since they were published.
    Shakespeare’s stories transcend time and culture. His prose, plots and characters are as alive today as they were when the plays were originally staged during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; the language is rich, the characters are complex and many of his basic themes, like love, treachery, honor, bravery and political intrigue, are still actual today.
    His plays have been performed in almost every language, on stage and screen and at popular festivals around the world.
    Italy had a special hold on poets, Shakespeare included; it is often present even in those plays that do not have Italian settings, like “The tempest”.
    A lot of everyday references would be missed without studying Shakespeare’s work and a big part of England’s story and literature, therefore I think that we should study his plays.

  20. Why should we study Shakespeare?

    William Shakespeare is probably the most important poet and playwriter of the English literature. In my opinion we should study him because with his popular plays he became one of the founder of the modern culture and he has been able to make popular society enjoy the complexity of his plots and his characters.
    Shakespeare’s stories deal with themes that are still relevant nowadays like love, betrayal, revenge, political interests, religion, death, ecc., and they can still inspire new generations.
    His poems were thought for every kind of social class so that everyone could enjoy them although the difficult language.
    I think that for an English literature student not studying Shakespeare would be like studying Italian literature without considering Dante and it would be very incoherent.

    1. So if the Italian Ministry of Education changed the national syllabus and decided to replace the teaching of literature with the teaching of “language only”, what would your reaction be?

  21. We should to learn about Shakespeare because he was a one of the most famous writer in the world, he wrote many important books and scripts also the development of the English language. The works of Shakespeare have created a lasting impression. He has expanded the potential of performance to both the excellent act and the nature of the character, special story and style of play.
    We will get surprise of his life. The creativity Ability and new matter thinking that no one in those days. In addition, we are thrilled by the wonder of one of the most famous people of the world.

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