The Bard for Twelfth Night

Lina has declared this Shakespeare Week in honor of Twelfth Night, January 6. (Or as Christians know it- Epiphany- the timing of the visit of the Magi to the young Jesus.) I thought I left the Bard in high school- it is what I call HEAVY reading and not something relaxing to consume. Since then, movies like Shakespeare in Love and Dead Poet Society have brought the Bard to life in a new way.

So how does Shakespeare relate to society nearly 500 years later? Probably not nearly as differently as we would think (although no one speaks in iambic pentameter in 2008!) First proof of this is the earring in his left ear. I know boys in the 1980's would like to think they were the first to defy authority by making this statement, but here is Billy, sporting a hoop all his own (and search the internet yourself- that is not a photoshopped picture!)

Secondly, you only have to take a broad look at Billy's work to know that the problems and immorality that we think are so specific to our time have been around much longer.  Cross-dressing (as the hapless Viola/Cesario in Twelfth Night), star-crossed lovers like Romeo and Juliet, and even murderers (Macbeth) were obviously well known in his time Throw in the workings of the fairies on unknowing humans, as in A Midsummer Night's Dream and the entire comedy of errors in, what else, The Comedy of Errors, and it doesn't take long to realize that the world was not all that different 500 years ago.

How would Shakespeare hold up in today's society? He probably wouldn't feel too out of place at all!