Is Shakespeare Modern?

[Silvia]

Do you think Shakespeare is modern?
My English teacher wants us to write something about this topic and to comment Ben Johnson's words: "Shakespeare was not of an age, but of all times".
I do believe Shakespeare is modern, ( think about Iago....just to give an example), but I would like to see what your thoughts are....
In my opinion, what makes Shakespeare modern is the fact that all his tragedies leave an open question, so that we can read them and give our own answer, no matter which is the age we are living in.
And then, although he's not too politically commetted, we can see he is against racism, woman subordination ecc...
I hope you'll post something!
thank you!

[Virgil]

I think Slivia what I would focus on is that the characters are human and essentially humanity has not changed. The variety and extent of humanity when one considers the entire Shakespeare opus is as far reaching as any writer that has ever written.

[Silvia]

I agree with you, Virgil!
I think his characters are human and realistic, and I like the way Shakespeare is able to mix even the most dramatic dialogues with sentences coming from daily life.
I mean, even in critcal situations he pays attention to particulars...and this is what makes his characters human!
I think I'll write about this aspect in my paper! thank you for the suggestion!

[animeangel46]

I would say that the themes that Shakespeare's works portray are definitely timeless. Theme's such as love/hate, young/old, and loyalty/betrayal are still srongly apparent in life today. Although his lauguage becomes increasingly difficult for young generations to understand, the concepts that are brought to mind through his works will probably never fade.

[Redzeppelin]

Shakespeare's works are timeless because he sought to depict truth - and truth always stands the test of time. This topic came up in another thread - one concerned with the "message" of art - which I believe must be truth if the art is to be meaningful - at least beyond the generation that produced it.

I will take a card out of Virgil's deck and refer to Faulkner's Nobel Prize speech, where he said (paraphrased) that the only good writing is the writing that is concerned with the human heart in conflict with itself. Shakespeare's work followed that idea to a "T".

[Seb]

The number of people I know who have hated Shakespeare because they were forced to read his plays at school in a way that completely fails to engage people is shocking. What also shocks is the number of these people who would also rate the Baz Luhrmann movie of 'Romeo & Juliet' as one of their favourite films of all time.

I think examples such as this prove that Shakespeare is indeed 'modern' and he tells some amazing stories. In fact, 'Romeo & Juliet' and 'Hamlet' have been recently adapted into manga comics, and I don't think they've changed the text or content, just the setting. Maybe they should be showing things like this in schools!

[Panflute]

Shakespeare is not modern at all. Of course you can take a look at his themes, and see a link with certain present-day issues, but in that fashion pretty much everything ever written is modern. Whenever something contains injustice or love, you can stay it's still relevant, because both of those themes have always existed, and will always exist. I hate it when, on the back of, say, a 19th-century novel, I have to read that 'none of its relevance has vanished', because a very global theme of the book happens to be, love, war, injustice, or something equally vague as those subjects.