Shakespeare in Silent Film. "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "Romeo and Juliet" and "Macbeth" (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, LMU Munich, course: Literature and Film: Shakespeare on Screen, language: English, abstract: The following paragraphs will focus on the early period with the start of the silent movies. A period, in which, plays went from stage to screen for the very first time. The analysis will be carried out in the light of three Shakespearean plays: "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "Romeo and Juliet" and "Macbeth".

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) is considered to be the greatest writer and dramatist in English language. Most of his work was produced during 1589 and 1613 but in 1594, Shakespeare's talent was recognized by the public. His early plays were mostly histories and comedies like for example "A Midsummer Night's Dream". It was later on that he started writing tragedies, such as "Hamlet", "Macbeth" and "Henry VI". In his last working phase, that is to say from 1608 to 1613, Shakespeare produced romances and tragicomedies like "The Winter's Tale". After the plague in 1599, his own playing company built the Globe theatre where his plays were also performed. However, the theatre closed its doors in 1642, but was reconstructed and reopened in a modern form in 1997. Ever since it is referred to as Shakespeare's Globe.

The ambition is there in the range and scope of the work, the determination to master all the dramatic kinds, the restless experimentation, the exploitation of the conventions of poetic drama in manner hat never quite loses sight of the need to entertain while constantly stretching the imaginative and intellectual responses of its audiences. The emotional turbulence is there in the frequent depiction of extreme states of mind, both comic and tragic.

Shakespeare lived and wrote during the period of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The queen had a great fondness for theatre, which means that plays were used a tool to please and capture the royal attention. She saw almost every Shakespearean play. The Elizabethan Era was a very peaceful period in which theatre, literature and music were in the foreground and consequently, the Shakespearean plays had and still have an enormous influence in art.

Keeping his success in mind, it is not surprising that Shakespearean plays were performed all over the world and were also produced as films. In the nineteenth century with the start of the silent movie productions, his plays went from stage to screen. One of the first movies was the French version of "Hamlet" in 1907 by Georges Méliès. The film "Shakespeare in love" (1998) was directed by John Madden and is about the early life of William Shakespeare.