The Elizabethan Era's Effect on Shakespeare's Works

Still this event would have had an exciting impact on am Elizabethan audience as Shakespeare is venturing out of the ordinary and into the unknown

The morals and values presented in his works speak to the audience, often offering a new perspective on the world in which they live. Students are affected by the powerful and complex characters and are rewarded with profound insights into human nature and behavior.I firmly believe that Shakespeare's works, like no other literature in the high school curriculum, challenge and invigorate the minds of students. Because of the complex characters, difficult vocabulary and style in which he writes, students must elevate their level of learning to grasp a clear understanding of his works. Shakespeare's plays hold intricate meanings and messages. His

The play is set in two principle locations, Cyprus and Venice. ‘Renaissance Venice was both a city and a world’ (David McPherson Shakespeare, Jonson and the Myth of Venice). Italy is the world’s largest Catholic country, It has been hinted that William Shakespeare was a Crypto - Catholic.(Clare Asquith 's, Shadowplay) Some believe that he spent time in Italy studying abroad, as he disappeared from the local parish role (which is how the Government kept track of the people that lived in the country). He reappeared on the parish role when Elizabeth stated that every English person should return to England. Which explains why

The Elizabethan drama was almost wholly secular; and while Shakespeare was writing he practically confined his view to the world of non-theological observation and thought, so that he represents it substantially in one and the same way whether the period of the story is pre-Christian or Christian (40).

Shakespeare was characterized by the fact that he does not give the spectators and readers and gives a clear result, but leaves it up to the individual to make his or her own opinion about the particular issue. The characters appearing in the plays are very diverse. Their diversity gives Shakespeare's stories thrill and ambiguity. I was also intrigued by this ambiguity of Shakespeare’s works and I wanted to express my own opinion about this matter.

Shakespeare's time has many differences including the profit you get when you write a play. As well as how you are valued if you are an actor, the role women play when it's being decided who they're going to marry, and their knowledge of history.

In the opening act of Shakespeare’s Othello, Iago feigns great panic when he warns Othello of an approaching mob of angry men, “Those are the raised father and his friends,/ You were best go in” (1.2.29). Although he responds to Iago with great confidence, “Not I, I must be found” (1.2.30), Othello’s soul is soon to be tested, and his confidence will ultimately be broken. Othello’s soul, far from perfect, is masterfully spun by a craftsman who drew inspiration from a culture steeped in religious controversy and violence. Othello is a prideful man whose tragic fall and subsequent rise are modeled after the Reformation process of salvation. Though often pitied as an outsider and even more often condemned as a jealous monster, Othello is a Reformation saint whose struggle with sin and depravity places him within the ranks of an everyman. Othello’s flawed character, not an issue of his race but of his sin and depravity, are not unique to his character but are drawn from a view of man that was widely propagated in Shakespeare’s England by Reformation theologians, pastors, preachers, and writers. This study of Othello will engage most specifically the works of Martin Luther and John Calvin, as they relate to the nature of redemptive humiliation.

Cox, John D. "Was Shakespeare a Christian, and if so, what kind of Christian was he?." Christianity & Literature 55.4 (2006): 539-566.

At the time that Measure for Measure was written, England was a Protestant country, meaning that the monarch at the time, James I was the head of the Church of England. However, the England that Shakespeare was brought up in was still living with the remnants of a Catholic history, and so the religious beliefs that he would have learnt about as a child would have been those of the Catholic faith. Although Shakespeare was writing the play for a Protestant audience and a Protestant king, he was setting the play in a Catholic country, so this gave him an opportunity to feature his religious beliefs as a Catholic in the play.

Religion was a major factor in a number of Shakespeare’s plays. Religion motivated action and reasoning. In Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” religion was more than a belief in a higher being; it reflected moral standards and ways of living. In the “Merchant of Venice,” “a Christian ethic of generosity, love, and risk-taking friendship is set in pointed contrast with a non-Christian ethic that is seen, from a Christian point of view, as grudging, resentful, and self-calculating.” (Bevington, pg. 74) Although Shakespeare writes this drama from a Christian point of view he illustrates religion by conflicts of the Old Testament and the New Testament in Venetian society and its court of law. These Testaments are tested through the

Along with being translated into every language, Shakespeare’s words reach and are accepted by multiple races and cultures (McMillan). A reason William Shakespeare is accepted by multiple races could be the fact that he does not ignore the issues and “tensions” between them and instead makes light of them by including them in his plays such as Othello and The Merchant of Venice. He addresses the struggles between different colors and religions. He never takes a designated side; he simply tells a story which is what has helped him be so well accepted (“Race – Introduction”).

There he began his training as “hireling”, working odds and ends jobs and taking small roles. It was as a hireling, though, that Shakespeare received his true education. He arrived in London during the reign of Elizabeth I, who had just firmly established her rule as queen by destroying the Spanish Armada. For the first time in decades the people of England felt safe and sure of their monarch, who also happened to be a lover of the arts. The London theatre scene experienced an event similar to the Golden Age of film after the end of the Great War. Instead of the rise of the silver screen, we see the beginnings of true English playwrights. Shakespeare’s arrival in London could not have been more perfectly timed. Acting troupes were frequently among the Queen’s court mingling among nobles, scholars, and poets. These interactions are evident throughout Shakespeare’s works. There is hardly one of his plays that does not revolve around court life, including The Tempest. Elizabeth even took a troupe under her own patronage (Halliday). Among these men was Robert Greene a well-bred, well-educated writer, who a young Will Shakespeare gave a run for his money. An early play of the Bard’s was brought to Greene’s attention, and he was so threatened by the blank-verse drama he said Shakespeare was “in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country”. Shakespeare had obviously observed and absorbed enough knowledge to challenge the university educated Greene

Shakespeare was first referenced in 1592. In 1594 he was an important member of the Lord Chamberlain’s company of players. During his life, Shakespeare wrote around thirty seven plays, one hundred and fifty four sonnets, and a lot of poems. He was a very influential man that inspired people with his works. The characters, phrases, and plots Shakespeare used in his plays influenced many films of

   Though William Shakespeare accurately portrays both Christianity and Judaism in his play The Merchant of Venice, the characters in the play do not represent their religions well. A reader unfamiliar with these religions could easily misinterpret flaws in a character's nature as the teachings of his religion. After a preliminary glance at the play, one would assume that Shakespeare wrote unjustly of the two religions depicted therein. However, Shakespeare had to write the play to please his audience, so he added a twist. By making characters not wholly perfect in their faith, in compliance with reality, Shakespeare was able to add the insults and bigotry and anti-Semitic feelings

The renaissance was both affected by and had affects on the art of its time and later on. Whether this art be in the form of paintings or literature it clearly shows today how the renaissance had taken time to affect everything around it. While some pieces of art from this time period are as simple as a piece of canvas and some color in the form of pigment, they have stood the test of time and held up not only as beautiful images for us to see, but also as devices to give us a window into the minds of those long past. This is exactly the kind of thing done today when looking at artwork such as the “Mona Lisa” or even more so when reading one of the many pieces of Shakespearian literature, Macbeth specifically.