William Shakespeare was
an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer
in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often
called England's national poet. Four centuries after his death, we are still using
Shakespeare's phrases in our everyday speech. These phrases Shakespeare invented
are a testament that the Bard has had a huge influence on the English language.
Hamlet tops the list simply because it is so perfectly written and sets a new
standard for English literature – a standard that writers of today still try to
meet! The character Hamlet is one of the most psychologically complex
characters ever penned – even by today’s standards. But what makes this so
remarkable is the fact that Shakespeare constructed this character centuries
before the concept of psychology had emerged – at the time of writing,
Shakespeare’s contemporaries were writing two-dimensional characters.
Shakespeare’s plays altered the course of English drama and the films, plays
and TV programs of today still use many of the Bard’s conventions. But the
masterpieces of Shakespeare are always unique and remarkable as context. Social
influences on Shakespeare and his writings are visible to the readers and
audiences. The list of plays is easy to find out though but the information is not
exact and authentic sometimes.
“Shakespeare; Human
Relations and Social Complexity"
William Shakespeare
(April 1564- April 23, 1616) has become the most prominent and influential
author in English Literature. It’s very easy to think of Shakespeare as a
one-off genius with a unique perspective on the world around him. There were
very much cultural shifts occurring in Elizabethan England during his lifetime.
He was working in the theatre at the height of the Renaissance movement,
something that is reflected in Shakespeare’s plays. The Renaissance movement is
used to describe how Europeans moved away from the restrictive ideas of the
middle ages. The focus on humanity created a new-found freedom for artists,
writers, and philosophers to be inquisitive about the world around them. In fact,
Shakespeare himself has been Catholic. Shakespeare was born during the
Renaissance period and was one of the first to bring the Renaissance’s core
values to the theatre.
- Shakespeare updated the simplistic, two-dimensional writing style of pre-renaissance drama. He focused on creating “human” characters with psychological complexity. Hamlet is perhaps the most famous example of this.
- The upheaval in the accepted social hierarchy allowed Shakespeare to explore the humanity of every character regardless of their social position. Even monarchs are given human emotions and are capable of making mistakes.
- Shakespeare utilized his knowledge of Greek and Roman classics when writing his plays. Before the Renaissance, these texts had been suppressed by the Catholic Church.
His plays are often
categorized as historical, tragedies or comedies. But most of the time reader
will find out the similarity of our social complexity in his writings. Readers
will find the politics, romance, essence of love, muscular feud, gigantic death, and so many things. Intellectuals say that he has established his own brand.
Shakespeare’s words have an uncanny ability to reach out beyond their original
place and time and to speak directly to us. In his writings, readers will
discover quotes and quotas. Those quotes have a sharpness to hit on human’s
mind to change their point of view about life. The lines of Shakespeare undoubtedly throw a light on his stories and characters. He has also expressed
how the human brain and mind fight to take any decision through his writing
patterns. He has tried to dramatize the sufferings of a human when he faces the
debate between mind and brain.
The general consensus is
that Shakespeare wrote thirty-seven plays. If we include The Two Noble Kinsmen
(1634) and two lost plays attributed to Shakespeare, Cardenio (1653) and Love's
Labour's Won (mid-1590), then we could say he wrote, either alone or in
collaboration, forty plays. Shakespeare's Sonnets is the title of a collection
of 154 sonnets by William Shakespeare, which covers themes such as the passage
of time, love, beauty, and mortality.
Putting Shakespeare in
context, examining the relevance of his work to the controversies of his day,
and developing conceptions of history that connect Shakespeare's time and our
own, offer to rescue Shakespeare from an abstract "greatness" and
make his works meaningful to students and their lives, societies in today's
world.
Shakespeare’s plays
reflect the cultural, social, political, philosophical, and psychological
conditions of the Elizabethan age. In Shakespeare’s play, the social influences and
concerns are very close. The social issues of Shakespeare’s day which feature
in the plays- class division, racism, sexuality, intolerance, the role and
status of women, crime, war, death, disease- are still the burning issues in
today’s dysfunctional global society.
Furthermore, the themes of Shakespeare’s writings are Ambition, Appearance & Reality, Betrayal, Conflict, Corruption, Deception, Good & Evil, Hatred, Order & Disorder, Revenge, Suffering, and Transformation.
Play & Themes:
Romeo
and Juliet- 1597
Youth violence, love
across ethnic divisions, sexuality & censorship, parent/child relations,
teenage suicide
Macbeth-1623
Code of manhood, stereotypes
of women, witchcraft and women, the relation of humans and environment, authority/rebellion
Hamlet-1603
Role of women, family
power dynamics, teenage suicide, social class
Taming
of the Shrew-1900
Role of women,
male/female relationships, Renaissance Education
The
Tempest-1623
Colonialism, racism,
gender relations
Othello-1604
Racism, spousal abuse,
gender relations, social class issues
Merchant
of Venice-1710
Anti-Semitism, gender
relations, social class
Midsummer
Night's
Dream-1600
Social class, gender
roles, and relations
King
Lear-1608
Masters and servants,
patriarchy, religion
William Shakespeare is a
rich and suggestive author in terms of alerting students to issues in women's
studies and gender ideology. Although Shakespeare reflects and at times
supports the English Renaissance stereotypes of women and men and their various
roles and responsibilities in society, he is also a writer who questions,
challenges and modifies those representations. His stories, as we all know,
are used in secondary and college classrooms even today and, thus, afford
opportunities not only to understand Renaissance culture better but also to
confront our own contemporary generalizations about gender, especially what it
means to be female. In his own time, Shakespeare seems to have been raising
questions about the standard images of males and females, about what the
characteristics of each gender are, what is defined as masculine and
feminine, about how each gender possesses both masculine and feminine qualities
and behaviors, about the nature and power of hegemonic patriarchy, and about
the roles women and men should play in acting out the stories of their lives.
Since feminist criticism today focuses on many of these same issues, we can
bring such critical inquiry into the classroom by asking straightforward
questions of and about Shakespeare's stories.
The drama – Hamlet is one
of the most great tragedy plays by William Shakespeare. It is Shakespeare’s
most famous play but also one of the most influential and significant works in
all of Western literature. The theme of this drama covers indecision, revenge, retribution, ambition, loyalty, and fate. It was first published in 1600.
There are several aspects
of Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare, which reflect the social conflicts
and mores of that era. Two come easily to mind: the first strong social
conflict that relates to Elizabethan values deals with committing regicide—the
killing of a king.
Killing a king is a
weighty matter, and many modern critics have argued that, in his particular
circumstances, Hamlet is wise to defer action.
While people of
Shakespeare's time would have debated the righteous act of Hamlet killing
Claudius, the King, another issue present would be whether it was ever
justifiable to kill a king if he was evil and dishonorable, like Claudius, or
Macbeth in Shakespeare's play by the same name. The presence of the
supernatural, the witches especially, would have represented a common value
that things and people in the service of the devil should be brought to God,
and/or killed. The conflict over regicide and the supernatural was part of the
social fiber of the time.
Themes within William
Shakespeare’s tragic play, Hamlet are central to understanding Hamlet as a revenge
tragedy and identifying Shakespeare's social and political commentary.
Mortality: The weight of one's mortality and the
complexities of life and death are introduced at the beginning of Hamlet. In
the wake of his father's death, Hamlet can't stop pondering and considering the
meaning of life — and its eventual ending.
Madness: Hamlet
originally acts mad (crazy, not angry) to fool people into thinking he is harmless
while proving his father's death and Claudius's involvement.
Women: The presence of
only two named female characters says something about the role of women within
Hamlet. The death of both women also indicates a social commentary.
Political Livelihood: The
state of the nation in Denmark is deteriorating. The death of a king throws any
nation into political turmoil. With a new king on the throne and the deceased
king's son acting erratically, something's clearly off.
If we think something
like the events Hamlet dramatizes could never happen to us (wherein the ghost
of one’s murdered father demands vengeance)—well, okay, we are probably correct
about that in the particulars. But we are often called upon not to care when
certain lives are rendered disposable, and there are plenty of instances in our
digital world where what initially seems like straightforward retaliation gets
out of hand.
For example, ‘Haider’ is
a 2014 Indian movie directed by Vishal Bharadwaj which is adapted from
Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Vishal Bharadwaj transmutes Hamlet into Haider with an
unbilled fearlessness. In ‘Haider’ besides Hamlet, the other truly tragic hero
is this cinematic marvel ‘Kashmir’.
The plot outline of ‘Haider’
is similar to Hamlet but not the same.
Almost all corresponding
characters’ names start with the same letter.
Like Hamlet in ‘Haider’, Ghazala Gertrude has wielded power both as a lover and a mother.
Haider broods like
Hamlet feels cheated feels betrayed.
Khurram plays Claudius with such grayness such
stunning complexity that actually cannot sympathize with Haider’s choice of
violence. He manages to become truly Shakespeares.
A puppet show or drama
played by Haider like Hamlet which is exposing the truth about Khurram.
Both play and the movie
leave the end open for the audience’s interpretation.
The movie is set in a
different era.
‘Haider’ is just not an
intriguing film on love and revenge but may offer much more of the Kashmir
Valley.
A certain character is
missing in the movie especially Horiatis- a good friend of Hamlet.
The revenge system is
quite different than what we see in the movie. Hence climax is different.
Hamlet sees a ghost who
told Hamlet about his father’s death but here this role has played by Rhuddhar
who was the prisoner mate of Haider’s father.
In the movie, Ghazala
didn’t know about her husband’s death. She thought her husband was alive but in
Hamlet, Gertrude knows about her husband’s death.
Hamlet is a Shakespeare’s
tragedy where a very major character dies unlike a movie like ‘Haider’ and his
father’s murderer is alive at the end of the movie.
This adapted movie
‘Haider’ is the perfect resemblance of masterpiece Hamlet. Through this movie, we can connect with Shakespeare’s play Hamlet and the Elizabethan age and
conditions like social conflicts, political feuds, death, religion, social
class, revenge, pride, politics, and social isolation. And talking of films,
this modern medium has given Shakespeare’s plays a new lease of life and
introduced them to a much wider audience than would ever contemplate going to
the theatre.
‘Haider’ is a remark in
Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I think director Vishal Bharadwaj successfully
transmutes Hamlet into Haider. Besides this movie has shown the condition of
Kashmir and there people. The movie has also shown the brutality of the Indian army
against the Kashmir people. Kashmir is just like a prison and the people of that area
are prisoners if they want to take a breath they need permission.
The movie ‘Haider’ is a
little bit long but the choreographing, plot, and casting of this movie are very
praiseworthy. It is difficult to compare and contrast line by line Haider with
Hamlet. The movie tries to keep the theme of Hamlet in Haider. Here is also
some Bollywoodish touch like- Salman’s character. The noticeable point of this
movie is that the puppet show and Bismill Song through Haider tried to expose the
truth and set to a thrilling folk rhythm and Kashmir traditional instrument. Even
each and every actor and actress has played their role very well. All are gives
their best in their role. Shahid Kapoor as Hamlet and Shraddha Kapoor as
Ophelia’s sparkling chemistry and Tabu as Gertrude’s eye-catching presence is
really praise worthy. The director didn’t bring so many changes in the movie
except for the last climax scene where the audience gets a surprise.
Actually, Shakespeare
knew how to write to please audiences of all classes; he was successful enough
to gain royal patronage and to attract the enmity of rival playwrights and
poets. He also had the magical ability to write the most amazing plays to
entertain his contemporaries. Those plays are still entertaining people,
whether in authentic historical performances or modern interpretations on the
stage or in countless films and TV adaptations throughout the world.
Shakespeare was writing
for the mass audience and his plays were incredibly popular in his own lifetime
... popular enough to enable him to perform to Queen Elizabeth I and to retire
a wealthy gentleman. Shakespeare’s writing lives on in today’s language,
culture, and literary traditions because his influence (especially the influence of
the Renaissance) became an essential building block in the development of the
English language. His writing is so deeply ingrained that it is impossible to
imagine modern literature without his influence and idea of social conventions.
References:
1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare
2.
https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/how-shakespeares-plays-reflect-cultural-social-204057
( October 4, 2010 at 11:58 PM )
3.
http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/plays.php
Program code and database © 2003-2016 George
Mason University.
All texts are public
domain.
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4. http://www.folger.edu/shakespeares-works
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