Term 4. Shakespeare Oral

Topic: Shakespeare's tragedies - Are we still fascinated?


Are we still fascinated in Shakespeare's tragedies?
Today, I am going to talk about a specific topic. The topic is Shakespeare's tragedies and if we are still fascinated or not. Wait- firstly, what is a tragedy? A happy ending story? A normal romantic story? Definitely not, tragedy is an event resulting in great loss and misfortune.

Now, who is William Shakespeare? Of course, He is the most famous playwright of all times. His forceful expression and unique writing style make an impact on the reader.

Shakespeare wrote tragedies from the beginning of his career because he thought the tragic plots used by other Enlgish writers were lacking artistic purpose and form. He produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613 including Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, the life of Timons of Athens, Titus Andronicus, and Cymbeline.

One of the most famous tragedies is Romeo and Juliet. Well, actually, it's a romatic tragedy. In Verona, Italy in the late 1500's, two powerful families, the Montagues and the Capulets have been enemies. Capulet's daughter Juliet falls in love with Motague's son Romeo. Romeo slays Tybalt Capulet and he killed his dear friend Mercution Montague from a fight and was exiled to get out of the country as soon as possible in a maximum time of a week. Meanwhile, Lord Capulet plans a wedding for his daughter with Count Paris which Juliet strongly disagrees. Romeo leaves, and Juliet struggle to find out a way to stay together and get rid of the wedding. She finally asked for help to Catholic priest, Laurence who is trustworthy to Romeo. Laurence gives a drug to Juliet which would take her in a coma for 24 hours to pretened she's dead and cancel out the wedding. Juliet's nurse find out that she's dead in the wedding day's morning and sends her to a traditional place where dead people's body is stored. Laurence sends an extremely important letter to Romeo telling that Juliet is not dead and what has been happened. The letter does not reach in time and Romeo finids out about her death and thinks she is really dead. He goes to see Juliet's dead body as he couldn't believe it until he sees it and buys some poison incase she is reallly dead to kill himself. Romeo finally dies and she wakes up after he's dead. Juliet takes his dagger and kills herself to follow romeo.

This is a tragedy as two lovers face death in the end and two powerful families lose their precious one and only son or a daughter. This is some of the famous quotes from the play, Juliet says, 'O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?' and Romeo says, 'What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.' This tells us how much they loved each other but at the end, they get separated.

So, back to the subject, are we still fascinated? Well, yes, we are. If not, why would St.Hilda's be learing about Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet? I mean, why would I be even doing this speech if we are not interested in Shakespeare's tragedies? In 2009, over 20 performances of Romeo and Juliet were performed around the world. Twenty? You might think twenty is a samll number but look, Shakespeare died a kazillion years ago. Well... to be exact, not really but you know... he died a long period of time ago for sure. For the last thing, ask yourselves this question. How do we even know his name when he died apporoximately about 400 years ago? This tells us that people have been interested in his tragedies and therefore his tragedies were passed on for a long time by publishing books, plays, etc.

We are still fascinated in Shakespeare's tragedies even in modern days. We still learn about them, and we still perfrom them and people love it.