Shakespeare living in 2015
Alive and well
Shakespeare is relevant today
Shakespeare is living timeless through his sonnets and plays. Many artists and writers have used his characters, plots and sonnets to create inspiration for songs and movies. He is relevant today in our modern world giving inspiration and letting us create something beautiful with his work.
Romeo and Juliet
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy love story where girl meets boy and fall in love. But their families are enemies with an ancient grudge between them, the Montague and the Capulet. Romeo and Juliet become star-crossed lovers that every teenage of our century wants. But the romance turns into tragic. They both take their lives for love. This love is taken and fitted into society as movies and songs.
Themes
Love and hate is themes from Romeo and Juliet. The theme love has many different types like fickle love which is when someone falls in and out of love very quickly “puppy love” which is common in our century. Romeo loved Rosaline but when he saw Juliet, he fell in love with her. Romantic love which everyone wishes they had is another theme of love and Romeo and Juliet’s love is significance which the rules don’t apply. This is related and appreciated by a modern general public like how “Romeo” is used to describe young players.
The Montagues and Capulets conflict between one and another is a theme of hate. Their ancient grudge is motivation to many movies like Gnomeo and Juliet, the bitterness between the red garden and blue garden. Tybalt’s hate is another in which it is unreasonably hate. That hate angers him to the point of wanting to murder Romeo, e.g. Romeo at the party. Romeo is Tybalt’s object of his murderous desire.
Characters
The characters in Romeo and Juliet are like people today. Like how the nurse is kind and helpful to Juliet that is like an aunty or a big sister. The nature of the characters and their function are relatable and recognizable to the people of our society. Shakespeare has created characters that are meaningful; and who are like actual people.
Characters who are opposites are foils. There are many different foils in it like Lady Capulet and the nurse, Tybalt and Benvolio, and Romeo and Paris. In Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio who is a realist, jokester and believes you should enjoy life that is a foil to Romeo who is a dreamer, more serious and believes in the ideals of passionate love. These functions are what make Mercutio and Romeo friends.
Language
The power and beauty of Shakespeare’s language is not like anyone else’s. He uses setting although no specific date is given like the play perhaps takes place around 1200 or 1300 A.D, Foreshadowing events which hints of things to come like when the Chorus foreshadows young romantic couple take their lives, and imagery which representation in words of an intense sensory experience like in Act 1, Scene 5, Romeo uses imagery to describe Juliet’s beauty when he says,
“So shows a dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.”
Romeo is saying the dove is Juliet who is the beauty that stands out of the crowd.
Adaptability
There are many adapts of the plot for modern telling in film like Lion King 2, West Side Story and Warm Bodies. Songs are also adapting from the plot or the characters like Love Story Taylor Swift. Warm bodies have the same conflicts like zombies and humans are like the Montagues and Capulets hating each other. The star-crossed lovers is like Romeo and Juliet with R and Julie in Warm Bodies who come from different race, religion or social class.
Lion King 2
Warm Bodies
Gnomeo and Juliet
Garden gnomes are continuing their owner’s war. The red garden has a daughter named Juliet and the blue garden has a son named Gnomeo and when their eyes locked, they fall in love.
Conclusion
The timelessness of his sonnets and plays prove that Shaespeare is living through his creativeness in our modern world. He is relevant today because he moves us with his language and the way he writes . His plots and characters have been adapted to many things like songs and movies.
Shakeaspeare is an inspiration for our world and he is relevant today and always.