Shakespeare: life, works, and literary influence

Shakespear

Although very little historical information is known about the man responsible for many of the greatest literary achievements of all time, the audiences which have witnessed Shakespeare's plays have felt a close personal relationship with him. Through his work, Shakespeare has shared his deepest feelings and most personal experiences over and over again. Art is an expression of the self, and regardless of how many factual events are placed in a body of work, true art remains autobiographical. This is the reason that Shakespeare's writing has become such an important part of our culture and society; the amount of personalized energy with which his work is infused makes every word a personal experience. This is also the reason that Tom Stoppard felt drawn to write Shakespeare in Love, a fictionalized biography of Shakespeare's experiences that inspired him to write the masterpiece Romeo and Juliet. Elements from the historical events surrounding the development of theatre and generally accepted speculations about Shakespeare's life are combined with elements from Shakespearian plays as well as autobiographical pieces from Stoppard's own life. In no way is Shakespeare in Love a simple retelling of Romeo and Juliet, and there are many differences between the romantic affair of the Shakespeare play and that present in Stoppard's work. The characters of William and Viola do parallel the infamous couple from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet throughout the film Shakespeare in Love, and this is presented through specific scene recreations, overall plot similarity, and cinematic devices which emphasize the similarity.

One scene that exemplifies the similarity between Shakespeare in Love and Romeo and Juliet is that which takes place the morning after the consummation of the lovers Will and Viola. This event is presented in the movie as being the inspiration for the scene which takes place the morning after Romeo and Juliet are married. In the fictionalized biographical scene, Will must leave to continue writing the play which is horribly overdue. In the Shakespearian play, Romeo has been banished, and their affair together must not be discovered. In both cases, there is an important reason why the male must depart from the room. Neither of them wants to leave, but they are forced to leave because of the situation. The nurse is the one who breaks up the lovers in both of these scenes, being presented as the inspiration for the Nurse in the play. Both of these scenes also take place in the early morning, around the time of dawn.

There is not one single scene that shows the similarity between the characters Will and Viola and Romeo and Juliet; the entire relationship of the first couple is meant to parallel and be the inspiration for the relationship of the latter. Will meets Viola at a ball which is being held by her father. The ball is celebrating her engagement to another man, Wessex. This is very much like the scene where Romeo and Juliet first meet, at a ball being held by Juliet's family. Will cannot speak when he meets Viola because he is struck by her beauty, which is unlike Romeo who is able to speak magnificently of his feelings. The bravado with which Romeo handles his situation is certainly the way in which Will, looking back, would wish to have handled his! In an attempt to meet with the beautiful Viola, Will comes to her home at night and tries to climb her balcony to speak to her. This is very much like the well-known balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. Again, however, Will idealizes events before putting them into his play. When Will tries to climb the balcony, he is intercepted by the nurse, falls down, and has to flee before getting caught; Romeo is agile and able to scale the balcony without a hitch. Later, Will does manage to climb the balcony, leading to the consummation scene, during which the lovers speak lines which Will writes into his play. In the play by Shakespeare, the lovers in the end are not together because they are dead, killed in an attempt to escape from the boundaries of society, and in Stoppard's play they remain alive, but not together because of the confines of society.

Cinematically, the screenplay and direction of the film Shakespeare in Love help to convey the similarities between the two sets of lovers. Scenery is designed to match the scenery of Romeo and Juliet. For example, the bedroom, balcony, and ballroom settings are made to look similar to the traditional sets used for the play. Additionally, scenes are put together in such a way that parallels are made obvious. The intimate scene between the lovers Will and Viola are cut together with scenes from the actors portraying Romeo and Juliet on stage, with images and sounds from the two overlapping; lines from the Romeo and Juliet production are heard while the screen shows Will and Viola. There is an obvious connection made by the way in which these scenes are spliced together. Finally, the similarities are also enhanced by the opening night performance of Romeo and Juliet in this movie, where the characters of Will and Viola are in costume portraying Romeo and Juliet in the play, which is being performed within the movie. This further blurs the lines which are meant to separate the movie's own defined reality, and to draw Will and Viola closer to being one with Romeo and Juliet.