Elizabethan Culture vs Modern Day Culture



Upstart Crow. Ever heard of it? Originally a derogatory expression used by Robert Greene to describe Shakespeare as a lowly uneducated scavenger. Robert Greene was a 16th Century dramatist and critic of his fellow artists and this description is one of the few documented views of Shakespeare and his works during the 16th century.

It is also a BBC TV series written by Ben Elton. David Mitchell plays a hilariously egotistical and clueless Shakespeare, even Harry Enfield makes an appearance as Shakespeare’s dad John. The likes of Christopher Marlow, Anne Hathaway, Richard Burbage, William Kemp and Robert Greene are key parts of the story. I absolutely love it. Why? Mainly because it is historically incredibly accurate, cultural references are spot on and comparisons to modern day culture are startlingly similar.

So how accurate was Shakespeare’s work? Well, in Series 3, Episode “Sign No More”, the character Kate, Shakespeare’s London landlord’s daughter, remarks to Shakespeare that; “Your histories are not histories at all, just laughable propaganda designed to shore up the legitimacy of the current monarch.” I find this a humorous jeer at his works and a direct cultural reference to how theatre was (and expected to be) presented at the time.  

16th Century England, the Golden Age in English history, where Queen Elizabeth ruled from 1558 to 1603. It was an era of religious uncertainty, flourishing literature, disease and plague, poverty, Spanish rivalry and specific gender roles within society.

I argue we also have religious and political uncertainty, poverty, unemployment, and gender roles within society are still unequal. How much as really changed? I argue, not a huge amount, just a minor shift in attitudes and a development on how we now communicate our culture. We now have Web 2.0, we have more freedom of speech but as a human race our values remain similar. To provide for our families, we are ultimately human beings, male and females with similar wants, needs and desires superseding the Elizabethan era of history.

To quote a fantastic play, Don Juan in Soho by Patrick Marber, “Man didn’t evolve, he just got nicer tools”.



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