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MCozzolino - why do young people study Shakespeare?
[author: Mirta Cozzolino - postdate: 2008-01-07]

Why should the young study Shakespeare?

 

In the present essay I'm going to discuss the reason why I believe that young people should study Shakespeare.

At school I have analysed two of Shakespeare' sonnets: Sonnet number XX and Sonnet number CXXX. The sonnets belong to a collection of 154 poems.

The sonnets are organised into three quatrains and a rhyme couplet; they are different from the Petrarchan's sonnets. They are organised into two quatrains and into two tercets.

Shakespeare composed a series of dramas and comedies and he speaks about  death, homosexsuality and jealousy.

Sonnet number XX was addressed to the Fair youth, who was probably his partner; in the sonnet we can find modern themes: for example homosexsuality.

People wonder why Shakespeare addressed the sonnet to another man because poets usually write for women.

In my opinion Shakespeare addressed the sonnet to the Fair youth because  women cheat their men who are more faithful than ladies.

In sonnet number CXXX Shakespeare describes his lady "The dark lady"; in  Shakespeare's times, sonneteers used to describe a lady's beauty which was idealised in the tradition of courtly love poetry, but Shakespeare talks about modern themes and he describes a different lady, surprising the reader's expectations.

The woman of courteous love poetry had light eyes, fair skin and blond hair and she looked like an angel, but the lady of Shakespeare was very different from her.

In my opinion he  wanted to describe the dark lady because in his opinion  a perfect woman didn't exist or I think he wanted to describe " The dark lady" because in order to convey fellings the woman  must be real and not recall an angel.

In my opinion Shakespeare wants to underline that the most important thing was fellings and probably he wrote the sonnets because he wanted to show that you mustn't forbid yourself to love someone only because it's just like you.(sonnet XX)

In the end I think that students should study Shakespeare because reading his works, you can understand the meaning of life, and the student can talk about some themes like homosexsuality, jealousy and death.