How does our modern perspective fail in analyzing old works such as those of Shakespeare?

Question

anonymous · Answer

In short think about our modern paradigm.  How we view women, and things like that which are big today and big back then.   An example might be the time when, in Hamlet,  Ophilia commits suicide.  We see that as an unfortunate tragedy, but they saw it in a religiously sense and thought that she would go to hell for taking her own life.  We fail to fully understand the impact of her suicide because suisde to us is a more normal occurrence and might not lead to going to hell because of religious diversity.