Shakespeare

Given the manic quality running throughout this farce of Shakespeare's, the first element the new production would stress is setting. In plain terms, mistaken identity and frantic action is at the heart of the comedy; this being the case, the set should be both very spare and very functional. More...

A great deal was happening politically, socially, and religiously in early 17th-century England. One significant political discussion, centered on the idea that foreign cultures were "seductive, different, and dangerous," had a potent impact on the content of one of William Shakespeare's most well-known plays, Othello (Vaughan, 1996, p. 14). Colonialism...

The play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare is likely the most well-known dramatic work in the English language. It follows the story of a Prince of Denmark, Hamlet, who discovers that this father, the King, was murdered by his uncle, the King’s brother. His mother, Gertrude, than quickly marries his uncle....

Throughout Shakespeare’s sonnets, he conveyed strong feelings about both his positive and negative experiences with love through symbolic imagery. Shakespeare, as one of the world’s most renowned and prolific poets, is a master of his craft. In his different sonnets he has a clear motif of his feelings about love,...

One of the notorious features of Shakespeare’s genius is the ability to interlace comedy and tragedy. For the framework narrative of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he chose the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta. This is the most “stable” part of the comedy in the sense that there is nothing to...

From the years 1593 to 1601, English poet and playwright William Shakespeare wrote a series of 154 sonnets. The sonnets were broken up into two sets, 126 of them were about an unnamed young man referred to as “Fair Youth” and the others were about whom Shakespeare referred to as...

William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is a play that provides ample opportunity for allusions and analogy. "Evidence for this popularity is mainly deduced from allusions to the drama in contemporary works, most notably in the writing of Ben Jonson" (Zander 12). The use of these literary devices begin with what has been...

Without a doubt, Romeo and Juliet belong to one of the best known written pieces of all times. The role of characters and their charisma is somewhat that left such a significant imprint in history. Even though the piece was written in the early career of William Shakespeare, the tradition...

Two film versions of William Shakespeare’s classic tragic play Romeo and Juliet, Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 version and Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 version, are vastly different interpretations that each offer a different perspective on the original text. Time period plays a large part in the cinema of both films, with Zeffirelli’s work...

Thematic DevelopmentOne central theme of Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare, 1994), is the constant revolution around the destruction that love brings. In contemplating the events of the play, I am reminded of something that Oscar Wilde is famous for saying: "Behind every beautiful thing there is something tragic" (Wilde, 2008). Behind...

Theatre has long had the power to celebrate national heroes and thus William Shakespeare’s Henry IV two-parter is most definitely an example of political theater, but depending on the perspective that an individual production takes, the theater of politics also holds the power to propagandize the exact same hero into...

As one of the most well-known literary works, the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare discloses numerous significant moral issues. Among the range of problems and concerns, depicted by the author, the theme of death appears to be one of the prominent. As well as the protagonist of the play, Hamlet,...

IntroductionAlthough John Donne’s “The Flea,” and William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130” may each contain elements of honesty and deceit, Shakespeare’s work is far more honest than Donne’s. A thorough examination of the two works lends evidence to this claim. There is a certain level of honesty in “The Flea.” For instance,...

Jack Gold’s 1983 BBC version of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is one of the most popular modern film adaptations of Shakespeare’s famous play. Starring Nicol Williamson (Macbeth), Jane Lapotaire (Lady Macbeth), Ian Hogg (Banquo), and Tony Doyle (Macduff), Gold’s film stays true to Shakespeare’s original dialogue, setting, and characterization while updating...

Ophelia is a minor female character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but she has an important role by being a foil for all the corrupted characters in the play. She comes from an aristocratic Danish family, being that daughter of the king’s chief-counsellor, Polonius. She also has a brother called Laertes, who...

“Twelfth Night” is one of the finest comedies to have ever been created by Shakespeare. The play tells the story of the twins Viola and Sebastian. Shakespeare investigates the phenomenon of gender swapping. For the most part, Viola is dressed as a man. Comedy is derived exactly from this confusion...

The images of beauty and love in western poetry are pretty stereotypical, and the Shakespearean sonnet seems to be just as stereotypical a way to tell of a woman’s beauty as are those images. A sonnet has a form that needs to be met in order to call itself a...

On the surface, the first couple of scenes of Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream strike a modern audience as oddly regressive with regard to gender relations. One of the primary themes, male domination, is readily apparent within the first scene. In a matter of lines, utmost obedience to one’s...

IntroductionIn his play, Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare shows that although friends and family may play a role in influencing romantic choices, people ultimately choose whom they will fall in love with themselves. Protagonists Claudio and Beatrice attempt to match up their friends Beatrice and Benedick, although the two...

William Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, is considered to be one of his greatest masterpieces. The play is well-known as a psychological struggle about the effects of political ambition on the individual. In the play, Macbeth is pressured by his wife, Lady Macbeth, to seize power. While Macbeth is considered to be...