Here is the paper of the cultural significance of Shakespeare, his play and us!
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| The Man |
William Shakespeare is a name recognized by everyone. Although he is not American, he has influenced American theatre and American people greatly. William Shakespeare was said to be born on April 23, 1564 in England, and was raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. He was married at the age of 18 and had three children with his wife, Anne Hathaway. Shakespeare began his career in London with a small theatre, acting and writing as much as he could. With the help of the Earl of Southhampton, Shakespeare’s work became very popular and he became a very well-known playwright in London, being one of the first playwrights to see such success and have popular literature in the midst of his career. Over the course of his life, Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets and although much controversy at the time surrounded his work he has been called the greatest writer of the English language. William Shakespeare has deeply impacted the world in literature, culture, art, theatre, language and is the most performed playwright still today. With all his works being translated into every language, it is easy to say that he has been profoundly influential.
In American society, besides adding 1700 words to our dictionary, Shakespeare had an overwhelming effect on Americans. He inspired and influenced many future American writers and all of his works are well known to Americans. In 1730, there was an amateur performance of Romeo and Juliet in New York City, marking the first recorded production of a Shakespeare play in America. Although Americans were not fond of anything British at this time, they made an exception for Shakespeare and his works assimilated quickly into society. By the 19th century, Shakespeare’s plays were spread by travelling theatre groups into all corners of America. To attend theatre was becoming very popular and it was seen as a high class activity to attend Shakespeare.
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| The Play |
We performed a scene from Shakespeare’s comedy-Two Gentlemen of Verona, which is speculated to maybe be his first written play. The plot centers around friendship, infidelity and the battle between loyalty and passion. The play has many of Shakespeare’s prominent themes and ideas that become more developed in his later plays, such as a girl disguising like a boy, confusion and chaos in the woods and the exchanging of rings. Today this play is seen as one of his weaker and least accomplished plays. The plot of male friendship, loyalty and fighting over a girl is a plot we see today in so many movies and television shows that I think that alone is a great influence.
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| The Performers! |
This play was one of the first plays I had read of Shakespeare’s, it was very hard for me to understand some of the language and what was really going on, but after watching it on stage for the first time, the story finally made sense. Although this may be acclaimed as a weak play, I love this comedy by Shakespeare and that it was an early youthful one of his hays, maybe written before his success and fame affected him? I think the scene that we performed depicts girls so perfectly, even modern girls have the same secret loves and dramatic rants, and that is why we chose it, because it wasn’t much acting at all. I am sure my cousin Kylie and I have had very similar conversations, just with a little different language. After memorizing and performing this scene, I learned that Shakespeare really did have the ability to showcase so many true emotions in such an eloquent manner and provide such comedy even in the midst of a drama. I truly enjoyed performing and learning about this play and it will always be one of my favorite Shakespeare moments when Julia is lying on the floor in a scatter of torn love letters “Now kiss, embrace, contend, do what you will!”
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