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List of Shakespeare’s plays (with concise summary of the plot)

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List of Shakespeare’s plays (with concise summary of the plot)

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List of plays by Shakespeare | Britannica

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Below are alphabetically and chronologically ordered lists of plays by William Shakespeare. Dates following titles indicate the dates the plays were written unless otherwise noted. Asterisks indicate plays likely written by Shakespeare and other playwrights, though evidence has been disputed.

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In this section you can watch animated videos of five of Shakespeare's most famous plays. You can also read short stories and poems written by British authors.

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CURRENT ISSUES IN - AND THROUGH - LITERATURE...
"SHAKESPEARE WORK"

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Is The Play Romeo And Juliet Still Relevant To Modern Society?

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Is The Play Romeo And Juliet Still Relevant To Modern Society?

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https://edubirdie.com/examples/is-the-play-romeo-and-juliet-still-relevant-to-modern-society/#:~:text=In%20Romeo%20and%20Juliet%20there,very%20common%20to%20this%20day.

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Why should you read "Macbeth"? - Brendan Pelsue

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Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…

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Macbeth Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow soliloquy | Marquee TV

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Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow….

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Patrick Stewart as Macbeth ("Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow")

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Romeo and Juliet balcony scene with  subtitle

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Romeo and Juliet balcony scene | Shakespeare's Globe | Marquee TV

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E) An extremely competent, knowledgeable and a complete …Commuter-Artist!?

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E) An extremely competent, knowledgeable and a complete …Commuter-Artist!?

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Don't take it too seriously... Awesome TV Series!

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Don't take it too seriously... Awesome TV Series!

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E) Did Shakespeare have any neurological issues?

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E) Did Shakespeare have any neurological issues?

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C) An extremely cultivated ‘Family Man’  from/of an illiterate family… ?

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C) An extremely cultivated ‘Family Man’  from/of an illiterate family… ?

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Even 400 years after his passing, Shakespeare remains relevant in the 21 st century. The reach of the playwright is extensive, and people from all over the globe and all walks of life have read him, watched his plays, or have at least watched screen adaptations of his work.

Who amongst us doesn't know the famed question from Hamlet "To be or not to be?". Every day, we see readings of his poetry, performances of his plays, and see publications that analyze his time-honored and prolific texts.

We have all read or written an essay on William Shakespeare or his works in our English Literature classes.

The million-dollar question is: Why does the work of William Shakespeare continue to resonate with generation after generation and why he remains so popular in the 21 st century?

Different people from different cultures at different times see a different face of Shakespeare. Every time we read Shakespeare, we see a different perspective come into focus. Who hasn't read or seen a performance of Hamlet or Shakespeare's Macbeth?

Let's take a look at a few reasons why Shakespeare still remains relevant after all these years:

1. Influence on the English Language

The influence that Shakespeare has on the English language had very deep roots. We use several words daily that was first used by Shakespeare. Surprised? Don't be. If you look up roots of words in the Oxford English Dictionary, you'd see that Shakespeare is identified several times as the first user of a phrase or a word.

Several phrases that have become subsequently established in the English language have been used in individual ways by Shakespeare. If you have used words like " green-eyed jealousy," "It's Greek to me," "tongue-tied," " in a pickle," "hoodwinked," etc. you are inadvertently quoting Shakespeare.

2. Moons of Uranus

There are 27 moons of the planet Uranus. Most of them have been named after famous characters from Shakespeare's plays such as Puck, Oberon, Titania, Miranda, Ariel, Caliban, etc. Anyone learning the names of these moons will definitely look up Shakespeare, and thus, his influence and reach become cosmic!

3. Controversies around Shakespeare

Like every other good thing and person, Shakespeare is also surrounded by controversies that keep his name circulating in the news. There are several people who believe that Shakespeare didn't write the poems and plays that bear his name today.

The controversy over Shakespeare's authorship arose in the 1850s, almost 200 years after his death. William Henry Smith, a British bookseller, and Delia bacon, an American author, published their arguments as they contested his works. Many folks ask why Shakespeare is still relevant.

They suggested that the poet Walter Raleigh and the philosopher Francis Bacon are more likely to be the real writers of Shakespearean works like Romeo and Juliet, etc. On the other hand, there are various people who believe that the works of Shakespeare are entirely his own.

4. Shakespeare - A profitable brand

Shakespeare's likeness was first used in 1710 by Jacob Tonson as the corporate logo for his bookshop. Since then, the strength of Shakespeare as a brand has continued to grow, and his influence is ubiquitous. His work and likeness have been used to sell everything from cigarettes to computers and from chocolates to beers!

5. Shakespeare's Likeness - A mystery

To this day, we don't know how Shakespeare actually looks like. His image has been reproduced several times. However, all the printed portraits of Shakespeare that we see along with his works don't date back to his lifetime.

The image that most of us know and are familiar with is was engraved by Martin Droeshout. It was printed for the first time in 1623 on the 1 st edition of the First Folio, a collection of Shakespeare's plays. However, several people are of the belief that the editors of the First Folio were colleagues and friends of Shakespeare; thus, they knew how he looked like, and the portrait is really of Shakespeare himself.

However, it still remains a historical mystery!

6. Universal and enduring characters

The works of Shakespeare are hilarious, pithy, and emotional. He was a master when it came to imbuing his characters and stories with qualities and traits that the readers and audiences definitely identify with. You can see various Macbeth essay examples online and see for yourself how relatable his character of Macbeth is.

The love between Juliet and Romeo, the anguish that hamlet felt, Macbeth's craziness, the distress of Ophelia; we can relate with all of these at some points in our lives. His characters depict the emotions of common humanity.

The Final Word

The relevance of Shakespeare is timeless, and his relevance in the 21 st century can't be denied. He is popular today for all of the above reasons, and because he understands how a human mind works as well as - or better than - any other writer.

He portrays the most complex themes of human life with such ease and prowess; the way Shakespeare depicts murder, ambition, love, revenge, betrayal, and hatred, flames the fire within our own souls.

Our beliefs, assumptions, and prejudices are constantly challenged by Shakespeare. He created profound and complex characters that are extraordinarily heroic, irredeemably villainous, gut-wrenchingly tragic, and immediately identifiable.

After reading this article, it is easy to see how William Shakespeare is still relevant. With a fusion of prose, blank verse, and poetry, Shakespeare remains woven into the fabric of the English language, and will continue to be popular as long as time exists.

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Why Is Shakespeare Still So Popular In The 21st Century?

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Even 400 years after his passing, Shakespeare remains relevant in the 21 st century. The reach of the playwright is extensive, and people from all over the globe and all walks of life have read him, watched his plays, or have at least watched screen adaptations of his work.

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Terrorism, the rise of nationalism, migratory flows... Many of Shakespeare's plays directly address issues that would not be out of place in contemporary Europe. "New Faces," a research program entirely dedicated to drawing and understanding these parrallels was launched in 2016 for the 400th anniversary of the poet's death. Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin, a Shakespeare specialist who initiated the project, explains its scope.

Shakespeare died 400 years ago, on April 23, 1616. Is he still the object of worldwide fascination?
Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin: Yes. Today, Shakespeare is the world's most widely read and performed author. The reconstructed Globe Theatre, which stands near the site of the original playhouse where most of his works were first performed, has just completed a two-year tour during which Hamlet was played in nearly 200 countries, including North Korea. In 2014, in Jordan, King Lear was staged by Syrian refugees. And Nelson Mandela, while in prison, used to recite these lines from Julius Caesar: 'Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.' No other playwright has ever had such influence. His role in popular culture should also be borne in mind. The TV series Star Trek, for example, is full of Shakespearean allusions; in another television series called House of Cards, the character Frank Underwood is a mixture of Richard III and Macbeth; there's even a Shakespeare LEGO figure!

Shakespeare's works have frequently been used to reflect upon the thirst for power, the frontier between good and evil, or motives for vengeance. What makes the 'New Faces' project ('Confronting Europe in crisis: Shakespeare's world and today's challenges') different from previous attempts to show that the Bard of Avon is our contemporary?
N. V-G: The project stemmed from the realization that many of Europe's founding principles (human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, tolerance, solidarity, etc.) are under threat, while a section of public opinion sees the Old Continent as a source of economic, social, political, religious and identity problems. Europe is also confronted with an unprecedented influx of refugees since the Second World War, a wave of terrorist attacks, and the rise of extremism. Faced with this situation, we want to encourage MA and PhD students in the arts, languages, humanities and social sciences to explore the concept of crisis and find ways of looking at and soothing the tensions currently affecting Europe, by placing Shakespeare's works and world at the heart of their thought. 'New Faces,' which involves 10 European universities, 20 academics and researchers, and 180 students over a period of three years, seeks to show-not what Europe can do for Shakespeare-but what Shakespeare can do for a continent in crisis.

But in what ways does the late 16th and early 17th century society, in which Shakespeare lived, resemble our own?
N. V-G: Elizabethan society had been undermined by religious tensions ever since Henry VIII, father of Elizabeth I, broke with Rome in 1534 (because the Pope refused to annul his marriage with Catherine of Aragon), was excommunicated, and declared himself head of the Church of England. The terrorist threat in Europe today brings to mind the inter-religious conflicts between Protestants and Catholics that caused bloodshed in Europe for decades-all the more so as in 1605, Catholic conspirators tried to blow up Parliament and kill the King of England, James I (an assassination attempt known as the Gunpowder Plot).

The terrorists who perpetrated the attacks in Paris and Brussels hated the Europe where many of them were born and raised. Which of Shakespeare's works are relevant to reflect on the origin of these acts of murder and the preventive work to be carried out with the youngest and most vulnerable?
N. V-G: Macbeth, for instance. In this tragedy, the King, Macbeth, stirs up the resentment of two henchmen in order to bring about the murder of his rival Banquo. The first murderer says: 'I am one, my liege, Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world Have so incensed that I am reckless what I do to spite the world.' And the second adds: 'And I another, So weary with disasters, tugged with fortune, That I would set my life on any chance, To mend it or be rid on't.' Such is these two men's desperation that, for them, living or dying does not make any difference. This is a strange reminder of the suicide bombers recruited by the so-called 'Islamic State,' which exploits the feeling of social relegation among a section of European youth. Similarly, in King Lear, after the death of the Fool, society falls into chaos. Shakespeare reminds us that irreverence and impertinence are necessary, and that attacking the figure of the jester-like the terrorists did with Charlie Hebdo -means calling into question the foundations of social life.

What about the ongoing refugee crisis? What can we find in the work pf Shakespeare that could help 21st century Europe deal with this tragedy?
N. V-G: Sir Thomas More, a play written at the end of the 16th century by several authors including Shakespeare, features a powerful plea to take in refugees. In a long monologue, Thomas More, Chancellor of Henry VIII, exhorts a xenophobic crowd to show compassion towards migrants and reinstate solidarity. What would you do, asks the text, if you were in the shoes of these foreigners, rejected by an inhospitable and barbaric nation? The play denounces the rejection of others as 'mountainish inhumanity.' In a lighter vein, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, the English take exception to the way in which Caius, a French doctor, massacres their language. But at no time is the right to live and work at Windsor denied to this 'immigrant worker.' This same comedy is a sort of linguistic mishmash, with mouthfuls of French, but also chunks of Latin, washed down with Italian and seasoned with a sprinkling of Welsh accent. Shakespeare shows us a world of linguistic hospitality, where the languages of others enrich one's own.

Yet for a growing number of Europeans, the only possible response to the refugee, economic and unemployment crisis, etc., is to leave the European Union, as illustrated by the Brexit vote. Now, Shakespeare doesn't mention that, surely.
N. V-G: You're wrong there! The temptation of isolationism features in one of his last plays, Cymbeline. In this romance, Britain, in the first century AD, refuses to submit to the authority of Emperor Augustus. The character who declares: 'Britain is a world by itself; and we will nothing pay for wearing our own noses,' could actually be Boris Johnson, a staunch promoter of Brexit. At the end of the play, however, following a brief outbreak of nationalism, Britain agrees to come back into the Roman fold.

What other Shakespearean texts could provide insight into the crises facing Europe?
N. V-G: A play like Coriolanus is an incentive to ponder manipulation in politics, The Merchant of Venice raises the issue of prejudice between religious communities, Henry VI is about the loss of moral values that can lead sons to kill their fathers and fathers to kill their sons, while Henry IV touches on the devastating effects of rumors in the age of Internet and social networks, and so on.

Isn't the 'New Faces' project too much to ask of Shakespeare?
N. V-G: I don't think so-nearly the opposite, in fact. It is Shakespeare who asks so much of us! He prompts us to look at problems in all their complexity, rather than in black and white terms. He always offers several perspectives on the same issue. In his plays, the good are never totally innocent, and the bad may be partially good. Which is why, 400 years after his death, he is still performed everywhere. In this context, my colleague Florence March refers to the adaptability (adaptogénie) of Shakespeare's plays. We Europeans still have a lot to learn from his works, as well as from the Enlightenment, sorely needed today.

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Terrorism, the rise of nationalism, migratory flows... Many of Shakespeare's plays directly address issues that would not be out of place in contemporary Europe. "New Faces," a research program entirely dedicated to drawing and understanding these parrallels was launched in 2016 for the 400th anniversary of the poet's death.

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Six reasons Shakespeare remains relevant 400 years after his death

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USC professor helps to put the Bard’s influence into perspective on the upcoming anniversary of his passing.

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Gill Stoker considers to what extent Shakespeare would be at home in our contemporary world.

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Have you have ever used sayings such as "tongue-tied", "in a pickle" and "cruel to be kind"? If so, you have quoted Shakespeare. In fact, it's likely we each cite him every day without even realising it.

Shakespeare also crafted unique words like "hoodwinked" and "bedazzle", and even created common words by changing nouns to verbs, verbs to adjectives, and so on. But, aside from his immense contribution to the English language, there are many more reasons why his work is still studied today.

His works are timeless

Think about some of Shakespeare's most famous plays, such as Romeo and Juliet. It is a classic and tragic love story that we see time and time again. Or how about Macbeth, a good man consumed by ambition, ultimately leading to his downfall - a story of good conquering evil. Shakespeare's plays have formed a template for many books and movies produced today.

His characters are timeless

Shakespeare was a master in creating characters rich in personality and traits. They never go out of date, with their various qualities of jealousy, ambition, naivety, power, kindness, nobility - the list goes on.

His themes are timeless

Shakespeare's works have strong themes that run through each piece. And again, these themes are still relevant today - love, death, ambition, power, fate, free will, just to name a few.

So Shakespeare's works are timeless and universal. That also makes them relatable. His plays were written a long time ago, true, but they are based on his view of life as a whole. They are not just reflections of his own life within the confines of his own times.

Of course, social factors did have some influence. The Elizabethan audience, for example, believing in witches, would have gained a lot from Macbeth. These factors were never the main focus of his works, though.

You may question why we study the works of a writer who died over 400 years ago. But if you take into consideration that we quote him everyday and can still relate to his characters, stories and themes, the answer becomes a lot clearer.

Visit our related subject course(s): English Literature IGCSE, English Literature GCSE

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Why Shakespeare is still relevant over 400 years since his death I Oxford Open Learning

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Have you have ever used sayings such as "tongue-tied", "in a pickle" and "cruel to be kind"? If so, you have quoted Shakespeare. In fact, it's likely we each cite him every day without even realising it. Shakespeare also crafted unique words like "hoodwinked" and "bedazzle", and even created common words by changing nouns to verbs, verbs to adjectives, and so on.

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"MODERN SHAKESPEARE": CURRENT ISSUES IN SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS...

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"MODERN SHAKESPEARE": CURRENT ISSUES IN SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS...

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Students in pairs choose an article: pairs read, analyse and synthesise, focusing on Shakespeare's topical value and some current issues in Shakespeare's work.

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For an in depth look at the history of theater around the world, check out TheatreHistory.com.
Check out a review of the highlights of different periods of theater history, including plays, acting styles, staging convention, costuming, and playwrights at this website.
Musicals, Broadway and New York City . . . they are forever linked, helping to define each other. How did a rough Dutch frontier trading post (where stage performances were forbidden) develop into the theatrical capital of the world?
Do some research:
Do an Internet search of some images of the Globe theater. How is the theater similar to the pageant and how is the Globe unique to itself? Compare the Globe Theatre to theaters of today.
Do an Internet search of Cuthbert Burbage to discover why and how the theater was moved and rebuilt as the Globe.
Watch " York Mystery Plays 2010 - an Introduction." After viewing, do you feel that you could fill one of the jobs required to create such a production? Explain what value this has historically or artistically?

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When presented with the problem of hoards of illiterate commoners, English clergymen in the 11th century created plays (that is a "form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading") to spread word about the Bible.

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Worksheet 0 - Learning about the 'Conventions of Drama'

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Worksheet 0 - Learning about the 'Conventions of Drama'