Does Shakespeare still influence writers today?

Answer 1

People of all ages feel that their time is unique and totally different from all the times that have gone before. This is especially true of those who are too young to remember more than the last few years. But the situations Shakespeare used as the core of his plays are the kind of situations that people of all ages have gotten into--both before and after his time. Does the idea of two teenagers who keep their secret love life from their bickering parents sound bizarre or unreal? Does the idea of an old man who wants to retire but at the same time keep all the trappings of authority he had when he was in charge of the business sound unfamiliar? Do two people who ought to get together but are prevented by their habit of bickering sound like they are from another planet? Of course not. The basic human tendencies and relationships which Shakespeare explores are eternal.

Answer 2

If you don't think that 21st century people ever have to deal with:

getting in debt over their heads, or

wanting to get together with someone that they have a habit of fighting with, or

teenaged kids that don't listen to their parents, or

parents that don't listen to their teenaged kids, or

having to deal with crotchety elders, or

having to do something you don't really want to do, or

letting their personal feelings get in the way of doing their jobs right, or

getting talked into doing something you regret later, or

having a revolution and then not knowing what to do next, or

getting jealous of your lover or spouse, or

wanting to get away from it all, or

finding yourself in an awkward love triangle, or

a con artist, or

the problems of being a leader, or

corrupt judges

then I guess Shakespeare has nothing to say to them. But all of these things are still happening, just like they happen in Shakespeare's plays. And Shakespeare has an amazing way of putting them into perspective.

Answer 3

Well, no, because the term "modernist" alludes to a particular historical period (the late 19th and early 20th century) which Shakespeare did not belong to. However, in some ways Shakespeare more closely resembles artists of the modernist period than those of his own time. His work was intensely conscious of the conventions of art and representation, and he often works to subvert or expose those conventions. Hence his frequent use of the image of life as a stage play, said as part of a stage play which imitates life. Likewise the ending of the play Love's Labour's Lost is intended to subvert the convention of the day: "Our wooing doth not end like an old play", as does the whole poem "My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun." It has been noted that the age in which Shakespeare lived involved change, turbulence and uncertainty about religious, political and artistic values, much like the century which produced modernism. Therefore his plays speak more clearly to us than they did, for example, to the Victorians, who lived in a settled and stable period.

Answer 4

Shakespeare has been dead for several centuries. So no, he is not our contemporary.

Answer 5

There is insufficient information to answer this question.

Answer 6

Shakespeare's contemporaries are people who lived at the same time as Shakespeare or people who were the same age as the author.

Answer 7

Yes. The world continues to be populated with human beings, just as it was in Shakespeare's day.

Answer 8

Yes, he does.