Shakespeare Macbeth and the Struggle between Good and Evil Like all of Shakespeare's tragedies, the action of Macbeth is based around the fatal flaw of the man who would otherwise be a hero. For Macbeth, his flaw is his ambition. He allows his ambi Continue Reading...
Of all Shakepeare's works, sonnets seem best to portray this word marriage from past and present. Not only do the words and style of the sonnet show this transition of time, but the era in which it was created was a great transitory time as well. Continue Reading...
They believed in the idea of Wyrd, or the Nordic version of fate. This fate was based on past events of an individual's life. Their future would be adjusted accordingly by Wyrd, much like the Eastern idea of Karma, (Herbert 1995). It was the destiny Continue Reading...
Exile Literary Characters in Exile Exile can be the self-imposed banishment from one's home or given as a form of punishment. The end result of exile is solitude. Exile affords those in it for infinite reflection of themselves, their choices, and t Continue Reading...
This is a point that many critics miss. One cannot decide if Prospero is a protagonist or antagonistic based on his actions. Neither can we determine whether Caliban is a victim or a foe. Shakespeare raises a very important social question for peopl Continue Reading...
Renaissance Both William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope mocked the times in which they lived in their respective works of literature: The Tempest and The Rape of the Lock. In using elements of the supernatural and pagan universes, these two authors Continue Reading...
Renaissance Art An Analysis of Love in the Renaissance Art of Sidney, Shakespeare, Hilliard and Holbein If the purpose of art, as Aristotle states in the Poetics, is to imitate an action (whether in poetry or in painting), Renaissance art reflects Continue Reading...
Greenblatt also provides us with some thought into what be hidden in Shakespeare's strange epitaph. Perspective is also gleaned on many of Shakespeare's works, including the Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear IV. He also goes into h Continue Reading...
Relationship of Love in Shakespeare Within the writings of Shakespeare there are many great loves. Some of the greatest are also the greatest examples as love for purpose. The love between a man and a women are often the avenue by which intrigue tr Continue Reading...
Description Hamlet is one of William Shakespeare’s best-known plays. Although written in England, the play centers on the life of the titular Danish prince. In the first Act of the play, Hamlet meets the ghost of his dead father. The ghost tell Continue Reading...
Magic in a Midsummer Night's Dream and the Tempest By examining the use of magic in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest, one can see not only how magic functions within the context of the plays, but also how the use of ma Continue Reading...
They attempt to enforce their conception of the true Roman law by murdering Caesar. They want to use the controlled power of violence to restore order. This fails miserably and ultimately Mark Anthony uses the power of persuasion in his funeral orat Continue Reading...
Both of these characters show Prospero's twisted sense of justice. Prospero's use of magic to control Caliban through "pinchings" and chains is somewhat more justified, given the story of Caliban's attempted rape of Miranda. It also clearly shows, Continue Reading...
The Merchant of Venice, though ostensibly a comedy, is one of the more serious plays in the comedic genre. The Taming of the Shrew is far more humorous and light hearted, but it is not without its lessons. The specific lessons vary greatly dependin Continue Reading...
Taming Comedy is a vehicle for satire, and satire is a means by which to convey social commentary. In The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare uses the medium of comedy to transmit potent yet socially subversive ideas related to gender roles and norms. Continue Reading...
Theatre: English-speaking versions of Hamlet vs. European versions The many contemporary interpretations of Shakespeare enacted on the modern stage underline the fact that Shakespeare was a playwright for the ages, not simply a man of his own time Continue Reading...
) "Sonnet 130" by Shakespeare and "Sonnet 23" by Louis Labe both talk about love, as so many sonnets do. Their respective techniques however, differentiate them from each other. Shakespeare uses a rhyme scheme that became known as Shakespearean rhym Continue Reading...
Even physical relationships are prone to dissolution -- as Webster shows: the lovers are murdered one by one. Webster and the other Jacobeans appear to pine for an era of old world spirituality -- for the new modern world, while full of scientific i Continue Reading...
Diasporic Identities: In Othello and Heart of Darkness The issue of Diaspora is often associated with only a single culture, that of the Jews who were challenged by the secular and Islamic leaders of their "homeland" to flee for their lives and beli Continue Reading...
Warrior Hero: A Stranger in a Strange Land The figure of the hero is set apart from the common herd of ordinary men by virtue of his special qualities and abilities; in some works, this separateness is literal - he is in a strange land apart from h Continue Reading...
Myths - "The Other Side of Wonder" Like the empty sky it has no boundaries, yet it is right in this place, ever profound and clear.2 So run the lines from Cheng Tao, describing signifying, identifying myths - always there explaining existence and e Continue Reading...
Homer and Caliban The development of the theories of art education by various theories has been influenced by the various artistic works, especially poetry. In the past few centuries, poetry has become an important element in the development of Engl Continue Reading...
Play-within-the-Play Developing a cultural understanding of the relative power of theater upon culture creates a sense of the traditional and the dramatic. Within many works of antiquity is a demonstration of analogy, in much the same manner as the Continue Reading...
In "After Apple-picking," the speaker reflects explicitly only on the feel of picking apples, and the lingering feelings and thoughts that this work leaves in the mind and body. The commonality in theme that this bears to the epilogue Shakespeare w Continue Reading...
Art Creation and Analysis "Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds Or bends with the remover to remove: O no; it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests, and is never shaken" William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116. Retrieved from Continue Reading...
Brave New World: Oh Wonder! That Has Such Similar People (to us) in it! Aldous Huxley is often cited as an architect of a society that is eerily prescient of our own future. "In a number of specifics Huxley's prophecies are tellingly accurate," wri Continue Reading...
" James a.S. McPeek further blames Jonson for this corruption: "No one can read this dainty song to Celia without feeling that Jonson is indecorous in putting it in the mouth of such a thoroughgoing scoundrel as Volpone." Shelburne asserts that th Continue Reading...
Screwtape and Lear: What Both Say About Duty and Christian Love The underlying perspective that both King Lear and The Screwtape Letters share may be called a Christian perspective, in which duty, humility and sacrifice are indirectly valued as the Continue Reading...
Science Fiction A Definition of Science Fiction -- a Frightening realistic glimpse into a probable future "Oh Brave New World! O. Wonder! That Has Such People in it!" This is the poetic exclamation that John the Savage of Aldous Huxley's novel Brav Continue Reading...
(Shakespeare V.ii.201-4) In these scenes, the Chorus adds something significant to the play. The Chorus encourages us to use our "imaginary forces" and create the "might monarchies./Whose high upreared and abutting fronts/the perilous narrow ocean Continue Reading...
Othello: Fool & Hero Every Shakespearean hero has his own unique qualities, whether those be virtue or savagery of the soul, a tragic turn to the character or a humorous nature. To some degree this may be altered and shaped by the play-actors. O Continue Reading...
John Keats The most widely respected source for the history of the English language, the Oxford English Dictionary, records as early as Chaucer in the fourteenth century a meaning for the word "star" used (as the OED puts it) "with reference to the Continue Reading...
"(Bloom, 41) Any act of evil is seen thus to change the basic structure of the universe and to transform nature into a desolated chaos. It is not only the natural, physical environment that becomes extremely chaotic through evil, but the human natur Continue Reading...
Merit: Reflection David Brooks (2015) makes a valid point in his New York Times article "Love and Merit." His aim is to show that parental love is more important and effective than meritocratic love. The difference between the two is that the forme Continue Reading...
By the second night, a group of men had mutinied and attempted to kill the officers and destroy the raft, and by the third day, "those whom death had spared in the disastrous night […] fell upon the dead bodies with which the raft was covered, Continue Reading...
James does imply in the prologue of the Turn of the Screw that there is a deeper meaning to the governess' narrative than merely a straightforward ghost story. So it is unlikely that, as some critics claim, it was merely meant to be a simple ghost Continue Reading...
Globalization plays a major role in the economy and sociology today. It is important to understand what globalization is, how the world-systems theory explains inequalities between different parts of the world, and what is meant by core, semiperiphe Continue Reading...
Post-Colonial Drama Approaching the complexities of the colonial or post-colonial situation has been a major theme in drama for as long as colonialism has existed: Shakespeare wrote his Tempest on the heels of the very first English efforts to estab Continue Reading...
That is not it, at all." (Eliot, 875) In these lines the poet makes a play upon words with the word "all": it is either to know all, or else not to be able to render one's meaning in a work of art. Eliot finds it impossible to actually unveil the Continue Reading...
Mirror of the Face of America Robert Takaki's book A Different Mirror is a history of the people of the nation of America. The book is not, however, a history of America that a reader might expect when he or she first opens an introductory text. Th Continue Reading...
