So I just found a reference book in the library entitled Shakespeares after Shakespeare that has been very helpful to me in my quest to find more research on Shakespeare's influence on pop culture, specifically pop music. The reference book, edited by Richard Burt, makes the following observation about Shakespeare and pop culture."The conjunction of Shakespeare and popular music dates back to the original composition of the plays. Shakespeare often incorporated contemporary tunes in his plays, sometimes writing lyrics set to popular melodies, other times having his characters refer to songs and dances then in or out of fashion. Between his time and ours, many musical upstart crows have in turn beautified themselves with Shakespeare's feathers" (367). This quote shows that Shakespeare himself was influenced by pop culture, specifically pop music.
I also decided that I would post one of my favorite posts within Shakespeares after Shakespeare.
I personally am a huge fan of the singer-songwriter, Beck. I have been listening to his music for years, but I never knew that one of his album titles, Sea Change, was directly inspired by Shakespeare himself. Check out my findings:
"The title of this 2002 album invokes Ariel's speech in The Tempest as a way of describing the dramatic shift Beck makes in his sound, from heavily ironized postmodern collages of folk, blues, and hip-hop, to his new persona as a confessional singer-songwriter right out of the early 1970's. The songs themselves recount the story of the singer coming to terms with a failed love relationship, of a sea change, that has occurred in his own life, and of the artist's transformation of that pain into something rich and strange" (398).
I thought this information was really useful and informative! I owe it all to my library research!
Burt, Richard. Shakespeares after Shakespeare. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2007. Print.
