William Shakespeare lived in the late 1500’s, around the turn of the century. In his time, he was widely known and respected; but he was also an enigma. Who was this man and how did he create what he did? People questioned everything about him: his sexuality, his appearance, religious beliefs, even if he wrote his writings or stole them from others. Despite all these mysteries, there’s no doubt that he had a part in shaping the world--but how? Shakespeare had both a positive and negative influence on society because he gave the English language many new words and he helped people understand emotions, but he was also very misogynistic and immoral.
One of the ways Shakespeare had a positive impact on society was how he increased the vocabulary of English speakers. Shakespeare invented around 1700 new words, switching verbs, nouns and adjectives, adding prefixes and suffixes to already existing words, connecting words together, and just creating new words wholly. Some of these words he created we use every day, such as “addiction” (Othello), “eventful” (As You Like It), and “eyeball” (The Tempest). …show more content…
Shakespeare himself understood people; he understood how they thought, how they felt, even how they came up short in their ideal expectations. This is seen in many of Shakespeare’s plays, like “Macbeth”. In “Macbeth”, the main character goes insane with greed, and Shakespeare shows the effects of that, then he goes completely insane with guilt. His guilt is shown and described in every line of the play, whether indirectly or directly. By Shakespeare explaining these feelings and the consequences of these feelings helped people then, and still continues to help people, have a better understanding of human emotions and the way the brain processed and dealt with different
One of the ways Shakespeare had a positive impact on society was how he increased the vocabulary of English speakers. Shakespeare invented around 1700 new words, switching verbs, nouns and adjectives, adding prefixes and suffixes to already existing words, connecting words together, and just creating new words wholly. Some of these words he created we use every day, such as “addiction” (Othello), “eventful” (As You Like It), and “eyeball” (The Tempest). …show more content…
Shakespeare himself understood people; he understood how they thought, how they felt, even how they came up short in their ideal expectations. This is seen in many of Shakespeare’s plays, like “Macbeth”. In “Macbeth”, the main character goes insane with greed, and Shakespeare shows the effects of that, then he goes completely insane with guilt. His guilt is shown and described in every line of the play, whether indirectly or directly. By Shakespeare explaining these feelings and the consequences of these feelings helped people then, and still continues to help people, have a better understanding of human emotions and the way the brain processed and dealt with different