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The Beauty of the Bard
—Rhett Straube
Generations of high school students have asked their teachers the same question: “Why do we have to learn Shakespeare?” The Bard, who would have turned 450 years old this year, continues to be taught in school. Why is the work of this sixteenth century playwright considered so important?
One of the reasons Shakespeare's work has endured is his use of themes that transcend eras and cultures. His plays, sonnets, and narrative poems deal with life and death, love and jealousy, and greed and revenge. For this reason, classics such as Romeo and Juliet, with its tale of forbidden love, and Hamlet, with its analysis of the morals of revenge, have been remade and adapted time and again in film and onstage.
Shakespeare's ability to create complex characters is another factor in the continued popularity of his work. Most dramatists of his age wrote plays with two-dimensional characters. Shakespeare, on the other hand, gave us insight into human psychology. While Macbeth struggles with his conscience after murdering people, King Lear loses his mind in his inability to recognize truth from appearance. Because of their complexity, these characters remain a constant challenge for students and actors to understand and interpret.
走進莎翁的文學世界
一代又一代的高中生都會問老師同樣的問題：「為什麼我們必須學莎士比亞？」莎翁今年將過四百五十歲冥誕，而學校都持續有在教授莎士比亞。為什麼這位十六世紀劇作家的作品如此受到重視呢？
莎士比亞的作品得以歷久彌新的原因之一是他使用的主題超越時代及文化。他的劇作、十四行詩和敘事詩討論生死、愛與嫉妒、貪婪與復仇。因此，經典作品如講述禁忌之愛的《羅密歐與茱麗葉》以及分析復仇的道德寓意的《哈姆雷特》，一再地在電影和舞台上被重新製作和改編。
莎士比亞創造複雜角色的能力是其作品得以持續受到歡迎的另一個因素。他那個年代大多數劇作家寫的劇本角色缺乏深度。而另一方面，莎士比亞讓我們深刻了解人類心理。馬克白殺了人之後經歷良心的掙扎，而李爾王則因無法分辨真實和表象而發瘋了。由於這些角色的複雜性，對學生和演員來說，要了解並詮釋這些角色仍一直是個挑戰。
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