Summary: How Shakespeare’s Works Reflect The Renaissance Era In Britain’s Beliefs

Summary, Pages 4 (938 words)

Views

Shakespeare lived in the Rennaisance era, and his works reflect the era’s beliefs. He is extremely influential towards poetry and English. He is spoken about in all English classes and is one of the most household names. Not only that, but he was also an extremely successful playwright and poet in his own time. Shakespeare works connected to the era he wrote in through the language and the underlying messages of his works.

Shakespeare was born in the 1500’s, in the same time period as the renaissance art era.

Don't use plagiarized sources. Get your custom essay on

“ Summary: How Shakespeare’s Works Reflect The Renaissance Era In Britain’s Beliefs ”

Get custom paper

NEW! smart matching with writer

He connects with the era as most of his concepts were traditional and normal beliefs at the time. The main concepts of the time are explained in this quote, “While the spirit of the Renaissance ultimately took many forms, it was expressed earliest by the intellectual movement called humanism...it took human nature in all of its various manifestations and achievements as its subject. Second, it stressed the unity and compatibility of the truth found in all philosophical and theological schools and systems, a doctrine known as syncretism.

Third, it emphasized the dignity of man”. Humanism emphasizes the value of human beings. It also generally tends to prefer critical thinking and evidence over the acceptance of superstition. This is shown in Shakespeare’s sonnet 109, “For nothing this wide Universe I call, Save thou my Rose, in it thou art my all”. This couplet rejects the superstition, the stars of heaven, in favour of the truth in the eyes of the youth.

Shakespeare shows value for human life as he states that the universe is not as important compared with the youth who is his ‘Rose’. One of Shakespeare’s philosophies is that there can be no maturity without acknowledging the need to maintain human life. Another concept that Shakespeare portrayed was “the conventions upside down, the lady no beauty but dark and treacherous, the loved one beyond considerations of sexual possession because he is male” . Shakespeare’s sonnets showed the exact opposite of the norms of the time, as no female love interest was shown as beautiful and there was more to a relationship than sexuality and the possession of the women. At this time, women would only marry if they were seen as the norm for beautiful, usually would be wed for money and would be seen as the husband’s property. In sonnet 109 the first tercet states, “O never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seemed my flame to qualify, As easy might I from my self depart”. The theme of absence is a metaphor for the large age difference between the narrator and the youth, the love interest. Age gaps were not seen as immoral at the time as many older men married very young women because of the girl’s fathers giving them away with a certain amount of money, a dowry. Shakespeare’s works portray the beliefs of his time.

Shakespeare’s works reflect his time period through his language and word choice. He wrote in Old English, and although many believe that Shakespeare wrote in an exaggerated version of the language, those of his time would go see his plays and would easily understand the language used. “Old English had three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) in the noun and adjective, and nouns, pronouns, and adjectives were inflected for case. Noun and adjective paradigms contained four cases—nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative—while pronouns also had forms for the instrumental case. Old English had a greater proportion of strong verbs (sometimes called irregular verbs in contemporary grammars) than does Modern English” . In Shakespeare’s works, he often used all three genders in his adjectives, nouns, and pronouns. In sonnet 109, he says, “As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie: That is my home of love”. As shown in the quote, Shakespeare uses the neutral pronoun, thy, to describe the person that the poem is directed to. All throughout the poem, the poet only uses neutral terms towards the reader not specifying whether it is a boy or a girl, allowing for interpretation of what the poem’s true message is. Shakespeare’s wordplay was also so influential that it is still commonly used in today’s day and age, “Phrases and whole lines from his works have become part of daily speech—for example, “the milk of human kindness” or “the play’s the thing.” Entire speeches are universally familiar—“To be or not to be,” from Hamlet; “All the world’s a stage,” from As You Like It; “The quality of mercy is not strained,” from The Merchant of Venice. No one in all history has had a greater command of the right word, the unforgettable phrase, or the sentence that strikes straight to the heart of the truth” (William Shakespeare). The metaphors he would use interested the people of his time and the twenty-first century. This shows that his speech, although difficult to understand, clearly impacted the people of his time as he was also an extremely successful playwright while he was still alive. Those people enjoyed and could connect with his word choices and felt they could relate to it and understand it.

Shakespeare’s works reflect the renaissance era’s in Britain’s beliefs. He influenced many lives in his time and in this century. This shows that his messages are understood by two different times and that there are many similarities in human behaviour and understanding. His poems and plays connect to the renaissance era as he wrote in Old English and his ideologies in his works were shared with his fellow men.