How Is Shakespeare Relevant Today

. Rationale: More than 400 years later, we can relate to the everyday life and situations that Shakespeare and his contemporaries wrote about for people from all walks of life during the Elizabethan era. The plays and poems have universal themes that are as relevant today as they were then, and students will read and explore love, hate, jealousy, anger, contempt, fear, joy, sadness, ambition, evil, guilt and conscience, conflict, madness, and courage as they are transported back in time to experience what morality, mortality, politics, war, and death through battle or bubonic plague looked like in that period.
Shakespeare, Jonson, Marlowe, Kyd, and Fletcher were fascinated with language in both drama and verse, and students will experience rich and poetic language as they read and listen to their writings. Plays and poems are meant to be read aloud and listened to, and students will have the opportunity to interact with soliloquys, monologues, speeches, poems, and sonnets in Early Modern English while discovering the beauty of the language. …show more content…
Students will discover that language is always evolving and changing, and will be exposed to the nuances of the English language as they read and explore the etymology of words. Through this discovery process, students will learn that the meanings of some words have shifted, but that words and phrases from the 1600s continue to be part of our everyday