Literature Entry Week 3
Well Shakespeare is an interesting fellow indeed he had a life some people would dream of and yet it is so hard to find out about the real Shakespeare because he didn’t leave a traceable mark on the world other than his sonnets and plays. He wrote so many excellent plays and sonnets in his time it just amazes me that a man had so much talent, emotion and ways of thinking about the world and not only that but the fact that he is still extremely relevant in today’s society unlike many other people of his time is just inspiring in itself, its no wonder that they have modern takes on his works, its as if we cannot get enough Shakespeare!
We looked at ‘twelfth night’ to begin with and I think that it was a good one to start with for the comedies. I like twelfth night as a play itself, because of its wittiness and the craziness of the play. I think that watching ‘She’s the man’ (being the modern version or spin if you like on the Shakespearean play)really helped me to understand the happenings in the play, not only that but it made it easier to comprehend what was happening like that Viola had decided to become a man for a while and why, it was all the reasons that weren’t so apparent in the play itself that were given better clarity and light in the modern film version, even watching the older one which is more to the script ’Twelfth Night’ helped to get the needed perspective on the play. The worst thing about Shakespeare’s plays is that they are written in old English and that makes them hard to understand and interpret when you aren’t used to reading things in that way. After reading sections of the play it became easier to begin to be able to understand the old English and because of this it made more sense as I got used to reading it. Not only that but it made it easier to try to interpret what Shakespeare wanted to say centuries ago in a language that seems foreign, I must say that it was a difficult task, though after we first started to decipher the play and watched a little bit of the older film version I began to understand it a lot more, and it made more sense. I have to say, that I do prefer the new one only because it has that wonderful way of helping the work of the great Shakespeare get out into the wider public audience that wouldn’t usually watch nor read Shakespearean plays. After looking at twelfth night though it was short I really enjoyed it.