William Shakespeare is one of the most influential playwrights of all time. His infamous characters have made for some of the most creative and well-known storylines throughout literature’s history. His words have affected almost every literate person since his time thus giving many people the inspiration to adapt and interpret his plays throughout time, giving them modern twists. In my opinion, this makes the value of the “original story” much higher and should be reveled as greater.
Plays such as Twelfth Night, Taming of the Shrew, and Romeo and Juliet all have been adapted and put into modern contexts. In a book I once read entitled How to Read Literature like a Professor author Thomas Foster points out that “there’s only one story” and “stories grow out of other stories, poems out of other poems” and this what creates the phenomena of recognizing elements of stories as parts of others. To Shakespeare’s credit, he created some of the most original pieces that have the flexibility to be recreated.
Romeo and Juliet has been adapted throughout time, but most recognizably in West Side Story. Almost all the elements of the story are the same, except in order to become a Broadway production, music was added to the 1950s version of Romeo and Juliet. Without first the original, West Side Story might not have been has loved.
It’s kind of like drinking a Diet Coke, although there is nothing like the original, but you can still very much appreciate what has come since.
Other Shakespearean plays that have been updated are Taming of the Shrew, to the 90s film, 10 Things I Hate About You. The characters’ names and premise are the same, bringing to mind that not much changes between male and female behavior between the 16th and 20th centuries. The play was also famously recreated as a “play within a play,” Kiss Me, Kate, which is a famous line in the Shakespearean original.
In recent years, the film She’s the Man depicts the Shakespearean comedy, Twelfth Night. Again like, 10 Things, the characters’ names and premise are recreated, just in modern times.
These examples prove that William Shakespeare’s originals hold more worth than any duplication/recreation because of the fact that they are creative, flexible, universal, and eternal enough to be able to be depicted again and again under different interpretations.
I like how you used several of Shakespeare's many adapted plays to show just how often people use old literature to make new film. I agree that the adaptations will never reach the same creativity as the original because they are, after all, not a new idea. Conversely, I know that often history repeats itself and stories may unintentionally have the same plot because that's just how human nature intends it.
ReplyDeleteDid you choose to read Foster's book on your own, or did you read it for a class? At one point in his book he says that if that familiar line isn't from the bible, it's probably from Shakespeare.
ReplyDeleteI read it for my English class last year. I loved the Shakespeare chapter so much and had always wanted to discuss it.
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