Content Category
Literary Criticism
Abstract/Description
This research examines the trend towards modernizing Shakespeare’s plays. Though Shakespeare is valued for his intricate wordplay and changes to his text are considered sacrilegious, I will explain how Elizabethan Era views on language value finding expressing Shakespeare’s important universal social commentaries in ways that are accessible to the largest number of people. Because the majority of Shakespeare’s global fame stems from admirers who have not encountered his original works, but translations of it, this research suggests that the value gained from adapting the original texts into more modern forms of English to engage a wider audience outweighs the arguments that the value of the plays are lost when the text is altered. This research demonstrates that modernizing Shakespeare’s plays with our evolving millennial vocabulary not only pays homage to his innovative wordplay, but also fulfills the overarching purpose of language— to communicate and connect cultures through ideas.
Copyright and Licensing of My Content
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Origin of Submission
as part of a class
Faculty Involvement
Gideon O. Burton
Location
4188 JFSB
Start Date
17-3-2016 12:15 PM
End Date
17-3-2016 1:15 PM
Included in
Wherefore art thou, bae Romeo? or, An Argument for Modernizing Shakespeare’s Texts
4188 JFSB
This research examines the trend towards modernizing Shakespeare’s plays. Though Shakespeare is valued for his intricate wordplay and changes to his text are considered sacrilegious, I will explain how Elizabethan Era views on language value finding expressing Shakespeare’s important universal social commentaries in ways that are accessible to the largest number of people. Because the majority of Shakespeare’s global fame stems from admirers who have not encountered his original works, but translations of it, this research suggests that the value gained from adapting the original texts into more modern forms of English to engage a wider audience outweighs the arguments that the value of the plays are lost when the text is altered. This research demonstrates that modernizing Shakespeare’s plays with our evolving millennial vocabulary not only pays homage to his innovative wordplay, but also fulfills the overarching purpose of language— to communicate and connect cultures through ideas.