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The diminished value of Shakespeare

Aldo Horn

William Shakespeare’s work has been called “timeless masterpieces”. Is Shakespeare’s writing truly timeless and invaluable? I shall argue that Shakespeare has lost his value in the modern day by paying particularly close attention to his work as study material in schools, the loss of meaning in his work due to difficult English, his portrayal of women and modern-day writers who surpassed him in his writing abilities.

Shakespeare wrote to be heard and seen in the 17th century and not to be studied behind desks in the 21st century. Mark Powell writes in an article in “The Guardian” on 17 March 2014 that Shakespeare is unnecessarily difficult to understand. Not many people enjoy his work, yet schools have made it a habit to study it. His work puts a lot of stress on teachers who might struggle to explain it themselves. His writing is also riddled with historical inaccuracies such as Greeks worshipping Venus the Roman goddess of love. The language is also very outdated.

Much of his stories are lost because of the language difference. Peter Beech states in an article in “The Guardian” in 2016 that it is meaningless to “read” Shakespeare if a teacher must translate every sentence anyway. His comedies are affected most by these vast language differences. In Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream Lysander calls Hermia an acorn. This is supposed to be an insult but has lost all meaning. What was once acceptable in Shakespeare’s era, has changed.

Additionally, Shakespeare depicts all women dependable on men. Sean Ford states in an article on Word Press on 14 April 2009 that Shakespeare has no independent female characters. All of them are controlled by men or at their mercy. This was a typical Wednesday in the 17th century although in our time this is known as domestic abuse. Portia from the play The Merchant of Venice was controlled by the rules stipulated in her father’s will even after he was dead. She had disguised herself as a man to be able to exercise a shred of power. Even Lady Macbeth who manipulated Macbeth had to “unsex” herself and then went mad! These pieces did not age well.

In addition to that, we have many modern-day writers who write better than Shakespeare does. Eoin Colfer depicted the fall of man, hubris and arrogance perfectly in his book series, Artemis Fowl. John Green is a writer who writes great love stories, depicted forbidden or doomed love, with humour. Lastly, Joseph Delany closely compares to Shakespeare in his character development. Like Shakespeare, he doesn’t have evil characters. He shows how “good” people must compromise their integrity, in the series, The Spook and Arena 13.

The value of Shakespeare’s work has completely diminished throughout the years as seen in the language difference between the 1600s and today, old-age depictions and modern day writers who are better at writing than Shakespeare as well as how ineffective his work is in schools.