Let’s consider the richness and immense diversity of human culture as a key defining feature of humankind & its achievements. We have to talk about language and literature. And there are few literary stalwarts as big as the great William Shakespeare. Shakespearean literature is a core aspect of human culture and has been & will always be a major subject of cultural studies. Shakespeare’s plays and stories explore numerous critical aspects of human nature & culture and profoundly impact the English language & culture. It will continue to do so as long as humanity is around.
In this article, Tophomeworkhelper from English Homework Help, a leading global homework help service, closely examine four of the most prominent Shakespearean plays to explore their impact on the English language & culture, and humanity.
How Shakespearean Literature Explores Human Nature?
What defines humanity? What does it all stand for? How are we different? – very few can think about such metaphysical questions, and fewer can answer them. The answers themselves are heavily subjective and will vary wildly from one person to the next. Some answers will highlight the biggest science & technological achievements; others will state the ancient dynasties, historical events, & the achievements of great warriors. In contrast, others will highlight the diverse nature & flavors of the different societies & cultures worldwide.
Language and literature are core facets of humanity and one of the biggest achievements of modern humans. After all, sapiens is the only species in the Homo genus that can express, introspect, retrospect, investigate & analyze complex ideas, abstractions, perspectives, and their very existence using the written word.
William Shakespeare does that through his tragedies, comedies, and history plays. Let’s look at four of his most famous plays and how they explore the crevasses of the human mind.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
One of the most infamous among all Shakespeare’s comedies, this play explores the myriad effects of love on human lives. It shows how love has the power to transform lives. It also looks at how often the line between lives & unhinged desire blurs and causes humans to do impulsive & foolish things.
Passion and desires conflict with reason, the burden of social conventions on human impulses & actions, & how true love suffers amidst them all is a major theme of this play. The overarching plot of the play is the clash between Egeu’s rigid, patriarchal view of the world & strict social conventions and his daughter’s notion of love & freedom. Also highlighted is the duality of reality and fantasy, & how our perception of reality is so often affected by our fantasies & imagination.
William Shakespeare showcases the skewing of reasoning and perception by imagination, emotion, & impulses through the characters, conflicts & story of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Julius Caesar
A great Shakespearean tragedy, Julius Caesar is a tale of greed for power & ambition, betrayal, jealousy, leadership, persuasion, and politics. Shakespeare uses the richness of the English language to weave a multi-faceted story that explores the best & worst of humanity.
Julius Caesar’s assassination is the central event that sets the ball rolling. Brutus and Cassius, the two key conspirators, and their conflict with Caesar’s allies, Mark Antony & Octavius Caesar, stem from a conflict of ideologies, lust for power, and personal vendetta. And it is these themes & ideas that make this tragedy so endearing & timeless.
Leadership, politics, ideals, thirst for power – Wiliam Shakespeare shines light upon some of the most intricate & powerful aspects of humanity through this classic tragedy.
Macbeth
Pride comes before fall – a recurring theme in human history. That’s what William Shakespeare explores in Macbeth. Macbeth’s greed for power triggers a deadly chain of events that ultimately results in his death. The perversion of honor, loyalty, and other important humane & societal elements is evident through the actions of Macbeth, his wife, & cohorts.
Another phenomenon highlighted in the play is the parallelism between the microcosm and the macrocosm. The disorder caused by Macbeth’s actions and his lust for power engulfs the entire kingdom, leading to conspiracy, paranoia, and even more deaths.
The story and characters in Macbeth, along with Shakespeare’s literary magic, weaves a world of deceit & betrayal. Macbeth and his wife commit the folly of betraying and misleading other characters to usurp power, letting the evil inside them take over their mind, body & soul. Their fall was tragic, and much deserved as well.
The play’s two central motifs are the fall of man and reason vs passion. Shakespeare also touches upon the ideas behind free will, fate, loyalty, kingship, and the natural order & how man can manipulate these aspects to some extent.
Hamlet
Many consider Hamlet to be Shakespeare’s most haunting and surreal play. It explores various powerful emotions, such as extreme grief, melancholy, despair, and vengeance. Hamlet uses supernatural elements, common in many of Shakespeare’s works.
Hamlet is a sad and cynical entity who frequently contemplates the philosophy of life and man’s existence in this world. Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle and the chief bad guy of the play, is the current husband of Hamlet’s biological mother, Gertrude, who has all the love for her son. Hamlet distrusts Claudius and does not appreciate his marriage with his mother. Hamlet’s melancholic & distrustful nature, the loss of his father, and learning about his uncle being his father’s killer exacts a heavy toll on his mind. He conjures an intricate plot for taking revenge but also introspects heavily on his feelings, impulses, and the emotions he is going through. Peace and answers elude him even after he has taken his revenge.
Hamlet is famous for offering an eloquent look into the human mind. Through Hamlet’s character & monologues, William Shakespeare looked into several complex abstract & psychological phenomena. The play presents a philosophical look into the concept of mortality, explores anguish, despair, passion, vengeance, etc., and how repressed desires & negative emotions can overpower reasoning and push one to the brink of insanity.
Hamlet’s introspective monologues, his nature, and his way of interpreting the world & events around him are Shakespeare’s way of interpreting the convoluted nature of human emotions & the human mind itself.
Well, that’s all the space we have for this article.
Whether one intends to make a career out of it or not, studying Shakespearean literature should be considered essential. They are considered the epitome of British, English, and world literature, offer a glimpse of bygone times & a peek into the mind & ruminations of an exceptional human being. Study well, and, if need be, seek aid from a professional English homework helper from Tophomeworkhelper, the best place to find the best English homework helper in the USA.
