Why is Shakespeare important?

+47 votes
asked Jun 7, 2015 in Education by Laquisha (690 points)
Why do I have to study William Shakespeare’s work? All his overly fancy “olde” English that I can’t apply in my real life. Yet, every week in high school I still need to take up English class studying his work. It is not just me that can’t appreciate his literature, all my friends agree with me. So why is William Shakespeare important?

1 Answer

+26 votes
answered Jun 9, 2015 by Carla (900 points)
William Shakespeare is considered the greatest writer in the history of the English literature and language. His contribution to the theatre world, playwright and poems is so prominent and even used till today. He progressed the way characterisation of a, well, character through plots, something like soliloquies to reveal a character’s conflict and hidden motivation, instead of just to use it for introduction and expositions. The thematic of his writing too is modern for the time, with many of his theme in writing, exploring the human emotions and psychology, all he did in words.

If you never enjoy any of his works, no matter, you probably would have come across it anyway. Writers love to adapt his works, in novels and movies, which is just how influential he is. “Titanic” was “based on Romeo and Juliet”. The story of “Moby dick” by Charles Dickens was based on Hamlet. Pretty much if you had seen it in the Box Office, Shakespeare probably is part of an inspiration for it. Not to mention, he is notorious for inventing new words, around 1700 of them, which includes dawn, exposure, excitement and many more others that we used daily now.

Also, William Shakespeare is important due to the fact that he could have single handedly evolve the English language and the use of it for in writing to such extent that we still are studying his works. Don’t forget that his works were originally written for the illiterate and poor villagers, and they love his plays so much he ended up famous. Then again, they don’t have to study the scripts.
commented Jun 18, 2015 by David (880 points)
Well, I have no idea why is Shakespeare important before, now I totally get it, he is indeed the greatest English writer!