How has your study of Shakespeare in the context of his times deepened your appreciation of literature and deepened your sense of its importance in the modern world?
When I read, watch or listen to Shakespeare’s work, I am transcended into a time that encompasses both Shakespeare’s era as well as my own. The details fall away, the clothes, the inventions, the political climates and all other distractions, disappear. What I am left with, are two vulnerable human beings from different moments in time. Both standing in the middle of a ticking clock, facing each other and asking the exact same questions about socially constructed beauty ideals, what true happiness is, whether the city or country life is healthier, how much time we may or may not have left to live, can possessions make us happy?, what is love?.
Shakespeare challenges the socially constructed ideals of beauty in Sonnet 130. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream and in The Tempest, he questions whether true happiness is in the life of the court or in the forest. All the while he is reminding his audience of the evanescence of life. This is primarily evident in The Tempest when Prospero explains that like dreams, life is also fleeting (1.1:146-158). Furthermore Shakespeare questions materialism in Sonnet 146, where he asks whether the pursuit of happiness through materialistic venture is enough to create a meaningful life. I wrote a creative piece expressing the 21st Century sentiments on this topic, entitled Merry Note. In this post, I comment on the relentlessness and unapologetic drive of today’s mining industry, https://patriciaha.wordpress.com/2015/03/29/blog-5-merry-note/. Shakespeare questions whether monetary goals are worth it in the end and reminds the reader of their own mortality when he writes, “Shall worms, inheritors of this excess/ Eat up thy charge?”(4-8). Additionally, Shakespeare continuously questions what love is, its nature, whether it is controllable, spiritual, a decision or the work of the Gods. This is particularly evident in the conflicts and resolutions of love which are depicted in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I introduce these conflicts in a simplistic form in my first blog https://patriciaha.wordpress.com/2015/03/06/3/.
Evidence of the links between Shakespeare’s time and the present can be observed in the fact that today’s society’s increasing obsession with beauty, keeps a lucrative beauty industry operating (Carl et al. 174-176). Developed nations’ emphasis on owning ‘the next best thing’, keeps advertising companies in business and sweatshops workers exploited (Carl et al. 60). The increasing divorce rates (Carl et al. 60) as well as the recent and wonderful push in many countries to legalise same sex marriages, is a prime example of how abstract a definition for love or marriage (Carl et al. 153-158) is. Shakespeare does not answer any of these questions, in fact his work highlights how elusive the answers are and in turn generates more questions.
The more I learn about Shakespeare’s work, the more I am convinced that in essence, human beings from whatever date and time, were and still are asking the same questions in their search for truth. In a way, I feel that it is these questions that keep humans going, moving forward. This drive is enhanced by the awareness of their vulnerability to their ticking clock. Ticking away like the cycle of life, until that person, if they are lucky enough to reach the, “Last scene of all/That ends this strange eventful history” (2.7:162-163) dies and is then replaced with a new human being who is just as vulnerable as the previous one. Seeking answers to the same questions. The only noticeable difference between the old and the new, is fresh technology in their home, different surroundings and their new garb which would be foreign to their predecessors. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 65 might be right, time ravages everything. It cannot be stopped, controlled or eluded. Maybe that is the secret to contentment, to beat the clock by living a life that might leave behind a legacy, possibly in “black ink” (14) for the future that will exist without us, or maybe not. I further analyse this point in my blog, Fleeting Moments In Time https://patriciaha.wordpress.com/2015/05/10/blog-10-fleeting-moments-in-time/. Either way, in my opinion, it is safe to say that Shakespeare’s work as well as many other artists’ works have an impact on human consciousness, I express this in my fourth blog titled Art Has impacted My Thoughts https://patriciaha.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/blog-4-art-has-impacted-my-thoughts/. Perhaps the best way to summarise Shakespeare’s influence is a sentiment expressed in a blog by one of my peers, Rachel M Barrett, it is “deliberate and not without serious consideration”, https://rachelmbarrett.wordpress.com/2015/05/10/falstaffs-image-wk-8/comment-page-1/#comment-65
Works Cited
Carl, J, Baker, S, Robards, B, Scott, J, Hillman, W, & Lawrence, G 2012, Think Sociology, Pearsonn Frenchs Forest, NSW.
Greenblatt, Steven et. al.The Norton Anthology of English Literature.9th ed. Vol B. New York: Norton, 2012. Print.
Greenblatt, Steven et. al. The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Edition. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 2008. Print.
Shakespeare, William. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Greenblatt et al. 849-896.
Shakespeare, William. “As You Like It.” Greenblatt et al. 1625-1681.
Shakespeare, William. “Sonnets.” Greenblatt et al. 1171-1186.
Yee, Man, and Lee, Karen. “Equality, Dignity, and Same-Sex Marriage : A Rights Disagreement in Democratic Societies. Leiden.” NLD: Martinus Nijhoff, 2010. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 May 2015.