William Shakespeare 's Influence On Modern Culture

-Shakespeare has left a huge impact on the world as we know it. Shakespeare affects almost every piece of literature in some way.

In London 2012 Olympics Games, the opening ceremony started with "the ringing of a giant bell inscribed with a line from a speech by Caliban in William Shakespeare's The Tempest: 'Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises'" (Magnay 2012). Olympics opening and closing ceremonies provide significant opportunities for a country to show the richness of its own culture to the whole world. Given that, the use of the line by Shakespeare for the very first performance in the ceremony suggests that Shakespeare is one of the greatest cultural symbols for the United Kingdom. More than four hundred years have passed since his death. However, despite the four hundred years after his time, the significance that he holds as the greatest playwright and poet

Many authors have had a lasting impact because of their literary work. During the Elizabethan time period, William Shakespeare began his remarkable career as a playwright changing/impacting blank. William Shakespeare’s life and work transcends time because of their relative relatability.

Shakespeare still affects people today, he slowly gained influence throughout his life, and his memory has lasted even till today. Shakespeare is the most influential person in the United States and

His effect on modern day English can hardly be overstated. Since the laws of English hadn’t fully solidified in his time, Shakespeare had the freedom to come up with his own words. By changing nouns into verbs, verbs into adjectives, or adding prefixes and suffixes, Shakespeare created words like “Dislocate”, “Premeditated”, and “Amazed”. Another English contribution credited to Shakespeare is his phrases. Modern phrases like “in a pickle”, “waited ‘with bated breath’”, or gone on “a wild goose chase”, are all quotes from The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, and Romeo and Juliet respectively (Anderson).

He uses love, violence, comedy, and manipulation, to draw in the reader, viewer, or listener. Shakespeare greatly contributed to the modern English language, creating about two thousand new words and phrases. Some of them, like, “honey-tongued”,”flowery”, “foul-mouthed”, and “madcap” are unusual and not frequently used, but there are plenty of other necessary words he created. They include “exposure”, “useful”, and “amazement” (A Few Questions, Mr. Shakespeare by New York Times). Shakespeare’s words were adapted from other cultures and languages, which he had heard from the immigrants in the cultured city of London.

Although many people do not realize how important Shakespeare is, he has changed the world. Shakespeare’s influence on the English language and literature can be seen through many different ways. One of the ways that Shakespeare has influenced our language is through the vocabulary that he added to our dictionary. Shakespeare had a working vocabulary of more than 30,000 words. But if he did not have a word that he needed in order to adequately describe something, he would simply create and merge existing words together.

William Shakespeare left a good, lasting legacy that we see almost every day and we don 't even know it 's there. A legacy is something that you leave behind weather good or bad, Shakespeare 's left a legacy of books and being thought as one of the greatest writers in the world. In William’s life he created many pieces of literature and words that people use everywhere today. We may not know a whole lot about William Shakespeare’s life but we can see that he was a very gifted man in playwriting. Some people still today, with all the knowledge we have about his think he may not have written all of his works, and that someone else wrote them and he was credited for them. Shakespeare was a man that wrote many pieces, and many inspired and helped teach other people a lesson.

Pop Culture is a way of living for people, how they speak, what type of music they listen to, and their way of life. Shakespeare had changed the way English could be spoken by making more descriptive words for the emotions people can feel like lust or despair , if it weren't for the changes he made, Pop Culture could hardly cease to exist today. William Shakespeare has also made iconic characters and people that are still referenced to today like, Romeo, Juliet, and Hamlet. He has also made many popular lines or phrases like for example, ''To be or not to be.'' From his poems and sonnets, he has been able to make his work bring forth emotion from people.

Shakespeare expanded what could be accomplished through characterization, plot and genre. At the time plays were with characters and plots that were symbolic rather than realistic. Shakespeare made changes that resonated on emotional levels with audiences. “In a play like Hamlet… Shakespeare ‘integrated characterization with plot’ in a matter that plot becomes dependent upon the development of characters.”( ). In Romeo and Juliet, the new genre romantic tragedy was created. Shakespeare mixed tragedy and comedy to create the genre. The romance genre had not been a topic under tragedy prior to Shakespeare doing this. Shakespeare’s main categories had included: tragedies, comedies and histories. Shakespeare had written 37 plays, 2 narrative poems, and 154 sonnets. All of these works were created in a time span of approximately 30 years. He was the first at the time to merge together: verse, poetry and drama. He used a blank verse his whole career and perfecting the way we see it today. With the combination of those three, the beginning of the modernization of English literature was marked. Shakespeare gave us new ways to express hope, despair and sorrow with his styles of writing. The English language was also enriched by Shakespeare as he made it more expressive and colorful. “… He is credited with introducing nearly 3,000 words to the English language.”( ). It has been said he used 15,000 words in his plays, a portion of these he created by merging existing words together and anglicizing vocabulary from foreign languages. His works are the second most often quoted after the Bible. With that title to his name, he is the most quoted playwright of all-time with fellow writer trailing behind him. Shakespeare’s works are also continually performed in non-English speaking nations. The writings are usually literally translated in order the true originality to Shakespeare’s

Just like now Shakespeare influenced a lot of writers. The way he wrote was different he used words that were nouns and changed them up into verbs and he used words that were never used and used them together.

In 1814, Thomas Carlyle described William Shakespeare as the “strongest of rallying-signs; indestructible” who would be fancied “as radiant aloft over all Nations of Englishmen, thousand years hence,” which has remained true today (Mabillard). William Shakespeare is a historical figure whose life has remained a mystery, and yet is still considered to be the greatest writer and dramatist of all time. All of his works are widely revered, some of which include the famous Hamlet, A Midsummer’s Night Dream and Romeo and Juliet (“Shakespeare, William”). Despite it being over 400 years since their creation, this literature has stood the test of time and continues to be analyzed and performed today in both classroom and recreational settings. This relevancy of his works for so long has, in turn, made Shakespeare one of the most influential writers on the modern day culture. Shakespeare and his literary works have had a considerable impact in regards to the pop culture of today, notably in movies, and on the words that are used in the English language, such as those that describe emotions and everyday phrases.

William Shakespeare's Relevance Today For as long as formal education has existed in Britain it has been a largely standard assumption that teaching the works of William Shakespeare is relevant and necessary. Perhaps the relevance of his writing is taken for granted, perhaps it is necessary to re-examine the role of Shakespeare for the modern audience. There are indeed many people who question the relevance of this 440 year old playwright to a 21st century audience, taking it even as far as perhaps the greatest heresy of all, questioning the necessity of GCSE pupils learning Shakespeare at all. This “proposed vandalism from the policymakers” (Guardian 09/02/01) is opposed wholesale by supporters

Shakespeare may have made up 1700 words that modern day society has changed to suit our language, but the themes he used are still the

William Shakespeare became a standout amongst the most celebrated and powerful writers in American and English history, while additionally having a major effect on its literature. Shakespeare composed thirty-seven plays, one hundred fifty-four sonnets and five poems that all assisted and characterized the English and English dialect (www.opensourceshakespeare.org/concordance/). It is also said that Shakespeare’s work is the finest work ever written in English (www.folger.edu/shakespeares-works). Shakespeare's work affected many writers, for example, Charles Dickens, Herman Melville, and numerous others, even in the present society.