The New Historicism

August 27, 2008

"Shakespeare in Love" and The New Historicism

It's been thirty-five years since I graduated from high school, so I really don't have much recollection of studying Shakespeare. My views of him are very limited. I thought of Shakespeare as being a very dry and eccentric person who wrote plays. The movie "Shakespeare in Love" gave me a whole new perspective of Shakespeare. Yes, he did write plays, sonnets, and poems, but he was also an average person. It almost seemed too modern for its time. In our reading assignment it was stated that little was known about Shakespeare. This makes me wonder about how true to life he was portrayed in the movie. Looking at the New Historicism in "Shakespeare in Love" and looking at time, place, and social, political, and economic circumstances in which it was written, this is well represented throughout the entire movie. At the beginning of the movie political/economic circumstances were portrayed well. When the theater operator hadn't paid his taxes, he was bound and his boots with his feet in them were placed over hot coals and burned until an agreement could be reached to pay the taxes. Something that seemed to be a product of political/economic circumstances for the period.