A Midsummer Night's Dream
Title: A Midsummer Night's Dream Author: William Shakespeare Date of Publication: 1600 Historical information about the period of publication: The 1600's were a time when North America was being colonized and starting to become a country. Shakespeare was in his prime and writing many plays during his time. Biographical information about the author: Shakespeare was born in 1564 in Stratford-on-Avon, a prosperous market town in Warwickshire, England. When he was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, who was much older than him, and they had three children. By the time of his death in April 23, 1616, he had written three dozen extraordinary plays and over 150 poems. Characteristics of the genre: The play is a combination of Comedy, fantasy, and romance. Characteristics of these genres include making the reader laugh, in the case of comedy, wonder and imagine, in the case of fantasy, and feel deep down, in the case of romance. Plot Summary: The play starts out when the Duke of Athens, Theseus, is going to marry Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons. During the celebrations, Egeus walks in with his daughter, Hermia, and 2 young men. Egeus wishes Hermia to marry Demetrius (who loves Hermia), but Hermia is in love with Lysander and refuses to marry him. Theseus gives Hermia until his wedding to consider her options, warning her that disobeying her father's wishes could result in
The Role of Gender in Shakespeares King Lear
Kirby Southerland November 11, 2012 English 2010 The Role of Gender in Shakespeare’s King Lear The famous tragedy, King Lear, was written by William Shakespeare between 1603 and 1606 and later revised. [Originally titled The True Chronicle of the History of Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters and later The Tragedy of King Lear, which was a more theatrical version, many modern editors shorten the title, though most insist that each version has its individual integrity that should be preserved.] Lear’s daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordeila, are three of the main characters in the play. [The daughters are all treated differently, as Goneril and Regan flattered their father in elaborate terms, Lear’s youngest daughter Cordelia was straight forward and honest, though she felt she did not need to express her love for him in elaborate ways in public, and because of her silence, she was banished from the kingdom.] The mistreatment of women in general by all of the men in the play, but mainly by the king himself, is evident throughout King Lear, with the description of them being “promiscuous and disloyal,” and thus their role in the play was very miniscule. Cordelia is the exception to the promiscuous and disloyal stereotype, as she is portrayed as being a more ideal daughter, by the standards set by Shakespearean times, though according to
Richard III: A Four Act Spider and One Act Human
O’Neil Catherine O’Neil September 27, 2012 Shakespearian Tragedy Dewitt Henry Richard III: A Four Act Spider and One Act Human Scholars have debated about the essence of the tragic figure in Shakespeare’s tragedy Richard III, Richard, Duke of Glouchester and later King Richard III, toes the line between misunderstood human and complete monster. Richard does not appear as a human until the end of the play in Act V; until his downfall in the last fifth of the play, Richard has no qualities, relationships, or singular moments of conscience that qualify him as a feeling, full-fledged human as opposed to villain. In Acts I-IV of Richard III, Richard is seen as inhuman due to his lack of guilt over any of the murders he is behind, the way he ebbs and flows with his loyalties, and the lack of maternal love the Duchess of York feels toward him; because of this the audience is not able to feel that his death would cause any pain upon society. It is only in his failings in Act V that the audience is given a glimpse at his human qualities and immediately before his death begins to feel that there is something more to him and behind his plans than the villain façade he has had on during the previous four acts. If Richard had died at the end of Act IV, the audience would lack any feel of loss or grief. Richard is not burdened in the slightest by the murders he has either
A Comparison between Strindbergs Miss Julie and Henrik Ibsens A Dolls House
A Comparison between Strindberg’s Miss Julie and Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House Miss Julie which was published nine years after Ibsen’ realist play A Doll’s House, is an example of naturalist movement which tried to show that heredity, environment and social conditions rather than hard work shape an individual’s fate. Strindberg considering himself a naturalist and being an opponent of Ibsen’s ideas in A Doll’s House, wrote Miss Julie with a naturalist pessimism and rejected the idea of women being independent and liberating themselves from the unfortunate situations they were in. The physical worlds of the two plays are somehow the same. In both cases the space is an interior one and the scene is a single room fully described by the author. However Ibsen has used more props on the stage in order to make it more lifelike. Time plays an important role in the two plays. As the time passes the peaceful happy mood of the beginning of the play changes to a nervous one and the protagonist approaches her doom. We can feel the same anxiety that the central characters feel from passing of the time. However, the social worlds of these two plays are different. Strindberg has portrayed the world of aristocrats and their servants where the differences between the social classes is important and referred to continuously while Ibsen has chosen people who are almost of
THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES IN "MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING"
BATTLE OF THE SEXES IN SHAKESPEARE’S “MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING” Love is a heart wrenching yet common emotion recognised worldwide. Fairytales consist of two people falling in love, getting married and living happily ever after, because we believe that love is illusory. However, ‘things are not as rosy as they appear’ and it is only by Shakespeare cleverly centring his play ““Much Ado About Nothing”” upon the eternal battle between the sexes and manipulatively crafting two pairs of contrasting lovers that he answers our burning desire of how to love. Claudio and Hero are the fairytale couple who personify the idealisation of love, but interestingly it is Beatrice and Benedick who we identify with because intrinsically we connect with these outspoken individuals and secretly we would like to be like them. Witty, spontaneous and gutsy, they are portrayed with a certain depth, possessing the more serious human virtues. They mellow in the course of the play as they come to experience a sincere love that the other characters are incapable of feeling and inevitably it is these two who create a marriage of true minds, a union of equals. ““Much Ado About Nothing”” is not merely a play about the composition of courtly love, because Shakespeare pits our protagonists against both their society and the social conventions of Messina. As we watch Beatrice and
MALE HONOUR IN "MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING"
HONOUR IN SHAKESPEARE’S “MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING” Shakespeare’s 16th century portrayal of Messina in southern Italy is a place where social conventions rule and order is kept through the strong bond of honour that exists among men. Honour is the only measure of the man and serves as a way for others to determine and evaluate that person’s character. Thus a person ‘becomes’ their honour. While women’s honour revolves around the womanly virtues of chastity and fidelity, men, being more complex beings, naturally have a more intricate and structured honour paradigm. The Knights of the Middle Ages epitomised honour systems with their strict adherence to the chivalric code. Knights were elite warriors, holding immense military and political power, and honour was a central component in the concept of conduct known as chivalry, which influenced models of behaviour for nobles during the Renaissance and was admired and exalted as a sign of nobility and social standing. Because this period of time marked an age of instability and constant conflict, honour for men was inevitably tied up in the act of war. In this environment, where one’s life lay in the competency of his fellow man, one who proved to be proficient and capable at war was naturally held in high esteem and regarded as honourable. War was an ever present reality and provided both an ideal and valuable test
THE ROLE OF MESSINA IN "MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING"
SETTING IN SHAKESPEAR’S “MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING” Messina is a place where people find it hard to behave with appropriate seriousness and in William Shakespeare’s well known play “Much Ado About Nothing” the most important ‘character’ in the play is in fact, Messina itself, detailing as it does a Shakespearean comic world, by nature light hearted, witty, optimistic and destined for a ‘happy’ outcome for its trials. Yet Messina also deals with serious matters. Love, the impediments to love, and the pain that must be reconciled before love can be confessed, reciprocated, and fulfilled, are all a part of life in Messina. All of Shakespeare’s great comedies explore in one way or another the problems of being serious in a society ruled by laws of comedy and it is this concept that we relate to in the world of “Much Ado About Nothing”. In this witty and light-hearted play there are verbal jokes, puns and forms of word play which the characters deliberately employ in their zest for life and there are practical jokes and tricks of varying levels of seriousness which the characters also play on one another. One of the most successful jokes is the parallel practical jokes played on Beatrice and Benedick in order to trick them into admitting their love for each other and as long as sensitive feelings and serious fates are not too much at stake, which they are
The Long, the Short and the Tall
The Long the Short and the Tall Willis Hall has claimed that he wrote the play "simply as entertainment." How far do you agree with the statement that The Long and the Short and the Tall is only meant to entertain an audience and not educate them? The Long and the Short and the Tall is a play set in the Malayan jungle in 1942 during the Second World War. The play focuses on a small British patrol group who were sent north into the jungle to check for signs of Japanese advance. The playwright is Willis Hall who was first a regular solider serving in Singapore. The play was written for amateur actors in Edinburgh as they had regional accents, which suited the roles for 1950's characters. The title "The Long the Short and the Tall" came from an anti-war song, which was popular during the Second World War. The Long and the Short and the Tall offers the reader a new perceptive of war, responsibility, and isolation while also entertaining. The author Willis Hall makes use of his first hand experience as a solider to give the impression that the realities of war were off-putting. The play raises many issues mainly one being "war," which is addressed in the whole first act. The five patrol members have no awareness of battle and are unable to come to terms with their situation. However, until the Japanese prisoner came, none of the inexperienced soldiers have been faced with the
Outline how Shakespeare uses the structure and conventions of pastoral in 'As You Like It' and highlight one or more possible interpretive emphases which you think arise from this.
* Outline how Shakespeare uses the structure and conventions of pastoral in 'As You Like It' and highlight one or more possible interpretive emphases which you think arise from this. You should support your reading of the play through close reference to the text, and the inclusion of appropriate background reading. 'As You Like It' finds its origins in the pastoral tradition of the renaissance in which the rustic field and forest provides a sanctuary from urban or courtly issues. The play itself takes place in a forest where the characters are hiding from treachery at court or injustice in the family. This pastoral tradition began with theocrites in ancient Greece, whose writings explored the sorrows of love and daily injustices in a rural setting. Virgil expanded the tradition, emphasising the distinction between urban and rural lifestyles even more. The Pastoral traditions, in spite of taking many literary forms, conformed to a traditional set of rules. A typical story would involve exiles from the court or city going into the countryside and living there either with or as shepherds. While in the rural area, they would hold singing contests and philosophically discuss the various merits of both forms of life. Eventually the exiles would return to the city having resolved their particular problems. The pastoral works within Shakespeare's 'As You Like It' have most
Arthur Miller.
ARTHUR MILLER A leading American playwright, Arthur Miller, b. New York City, Oct. 17,1915, has enriched the Broadway stage for several decades. Although Miller's dramas take place in familial settings, he has made a reputation for dealing with contemporary political and moral issues. Miller began writing plays while a student at the University of Michigan, where several of his dramatic efforts were rewarded with prizes. In 1937, during his senior year, one of his early plays was presented in Detroit by the Federal Theatre Project. In 1944 his The Man Who Had All the Luck won a prize offered by New York City's Theatre Guild. With his first successes--All My Sons (1947; film, 1948), winner of the Drama Critics Circle Award, and Death of a Salesman (1949; film, 1952), winner of both the Drama Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize--Miller condemned the American ideal of prosperity on the grounds that few can pursue it without making dangerous moral compromises. Death of a Salesman, with its expressionistic overtones, remains Miller's most widely admired work. The keen social conscience evident in these plays has continued to manifest itself in Miller's writing. In the Tony Award-winning The Crucible (1953), for instance, he wrote of the witch-hunts in colonial Salem, Mass., and implied a parallel with the congressional investigations into subversion then in progress. The