A Function in Society

The function of representing culture in text is one that Shakespeare filled and bloggers now fill; indeed, is the key to their influence. Shakespeare’s writing became popular because as “the new commercial theatres were demanding new content… Shakespeare and his contemporaries endeavored to fill the gap,” filling a societal need, just as bloggers today “deliver innovative and vibrant content that best speaks to the blog-savvy audience” (James). For a writer to be innovative in the literary field is admirable, but to become useful in society marks significance like nothing else. The volume Renaissance Men and Ideas notes that “the Renaissance was... a restless and chaotic era, a period of accelerating change, and of discontinuity” (Schwoebel viii); surely so is the current economic and social atmosphere in the twenty-first century. It continues, “[the Renaissance] experienced sharp demographic fluctuations and severe, recurrent economic and social dislocations” (Schwoebel viii), which conditions are remarkably similar to situations today.

This realization unlocks the significance of the relationship between Shakespeare’s work and blogging, evidenced in how masterfully both engage and divulge the characteristics of their audiences. For Shakespeare, the contributors mentioned before—medium, linguistics, societal needs—shaped his work. While his plays and their performances in the playhouses engaged a high society audience, it is perhaps even more important to note that they also engaged the most uneducated and the poor. In a time of extreme class system, famine, and death in Europe, Shakespeare’s plays provided worthy entertainment.

The exact same thing occurs in blogging. One blogging preoccupation, both common and popular, is to post a list of twenty five things about oneself. In a comment left by Richard Grayson on a friend’s “25 Things” post, he muses that “as a time-waster, it's cheap [and] egalitarian,” the perfect preoccupation for people whose minds are too much upon economic downturn and the struggles of daily life. He continues, “from the little of them I've read, [they are] relatively free of bragging about one's annual bonuses, net worth or Birken handbags.” This brings out the notable point that both examples, Shakespeare’s plays and the “25 Thing” post, have uniquely humanistic characteristics. Shakespeare’s plays all dealt with themes that encouraged self-reflection, often upon one’s own faults and nuisances, taking after the Greek tradition, typical of European Renaissance writers, in teaching a moral lesson. It seems that this approach has become inherent in the online world, placing emphasis on the individual and its “mundane” features.

When Shakespeare and bloggers alike present texts as free, entertaining preoccupation, they create an invitation to self-reflection that is true to humanism but also that fits into the cultural context of each.