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William Shakespeare's Influence In Literature

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William Shakespeare has undeniably influenced the course of literature, but he has also affected our modern pop culture. Some universal themes he analyzes within his text include, but are not limited to: appearance vs reality, order vs disorder, greed, lust, free will, and love. Because these topics are ones the public can relate to, many of his plays have been adapted into movies and other forms of storytelling to further expose younger viewers to these themes at an age-appropriate level. Theses movies include: West Side Story (1961) which directly take their plots for Romeo and Julie (1595-96); the Disney film The Lion King (1994) which is an adaptation of Hamlet (1600); and the popular teen film She’s the Man (2006) which is a modernized version of Twelfth Night or What You Will (1599) (Royal Shakespeare Company.) Hundreds of other movies also make subtle references to Shakespeare within their storylines, such as the character of Iago in Aladdin (1992) who takes his name from the main antagonist from The Merchant of Venice (1596-97), and the choir in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) which sings part of the spell by The Three Witches from Macbeth (1606). These modern adaptations, along with countless others done in most languages around the world, display how immortal Shakespeare’s stories are.

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