Shakespeare's Plays: Henry the IV Part I, Hamlet, a Midsummer Night's Dream
Henry the IV, Part I

Act 1, Scene 1, Lines 78-90.

KING HENRY IV: Yea, there thou makest me sad and makest me sin In envy that my Lord Northumberland Should be the father to so blest a son, A son who is the theme of honour's tongue; Amongst a grove, the very straightest plant; Who is sweet Fortune's minion and her pride: Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him, See riot and dishonour stain the brow Of my young Harry. O that it could be proved That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged In cradle-clothes our children where they lay, And call'd mine Percy, his Plantagenet! Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.

This scene sets delineates the conflict between father and son. The King has found Henry to be enough of a disappointment that he wishes his…...

Shakespeare's Richard II
One of the most interesting dynamics explored within illiam Shakespeare's drama Richard II is the dichotomy inherent in the way that kingship structures subjectivity. The play, set within medieval Europe, takes place during the time when the king was largely seen as a divine agent of God himself. Therefore, among his subjects, the king was viewed in much the same way that God was, while his subjects were viewed in much the same way that common people are viewed in respect to a divinity as omniscient and omnipotent of God. The dichotomy existent in this relationship is that the subjects are essentially powerless, while the king is all-powerful. Yet this particular play is an anomaly in this conventional medieval view of the nature of kingship and subjectivity because Richard II's actions are anything but akin to God's. He is selfish, impecunious, and at times immoral -- which leads…...

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Works Cited

King James VI and I. The Trew Law of Free Monarchies

Shakespeare, William. Richard II. www.shakespeare-literature.com. 1595. Web. http://www.shakespeare-literature.com/Richard_II/index.html

Also, in his play, the Enchanted Island, Dryden expands on the prologue from Troilus and Cressida. However, this time Shakespeare is a king whose poetic monologue unveils contemporary anxieties about royal succession (Dobson 74). In this sense, Shakespeare is depicted in this particular play as an old Hamlet (Ibid.), a royal ghost, and a direct reference to contemporary royal turmoil.
This was only the first of Shakespeare's many posthumous appearances on stage as a dramatic character. Shakespeare's metamorphosis into a character in one of his plays represents an endeavor with double meaning. On the one hand, Shakespeare's appearance is synonymous to authority as his direct involvement in his own writings brings a sense of realism and authenticity. On the other hand, by creating a dramatic character out of the writer, he also becomes involved in the process of reviving his works. However, there is more to this transformation. Shakespeare's authority…...

Shakespeare's Sonnet 130
Analysis of Shakespeare's "Sonnet 130"

William Shakespeare was a renowned poet and playwright who wrote 38 plays and more than 154 sonnets. Among these sonnets is Sonnet 130 (My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun) in which he describes the features in his mistress that he admires. This sonnet is interesting due to the nature of the comparisons. While many would use metaphors to boast that their beloved's features are far more beautiful than anything known to man, Shakespeare contends that his beloved's features are nothing like the beautiful things that are found in nature. Through his use of imagery, Shakespeare is able to detail the things that he admires in nature despite the fact that his mistress does not embody any of those qualities.

The sonnet begins with the line "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" (Shakespeare, n.d., line 1) which out of context could insinuate…...

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References

Poetic devices...and examples. (n.d.). NewsHour Extra Poetry. PBS. Accessed 28 April 2012,

from  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june00/poetryboxdevicesexamples.html 

Shakespeare, W. (n.d.). Sonnet 130. Poets.org. Accessed 28 April 2012, from  http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15557

Shakespeare's Richard II
Careful analysis of John Locke's Two Treatises of Government reveals the author's fairly rigid attitude towards the constitution, right and responsibilities of a political state. hen applying Locke's well defined principles to Henry Bolingbroke's overthrow of Richard II for rights to the throne of England in the late 14th century in Shakespeare's Richard II, several parallel situations are found which Locke primarily refers to in a hypothetical sense. hen examining Shakespeare's work from an erudite perspective, one may perceive that in many ways, Bolingbroke and Richard II's struggle for power -- along with the surrounding circumstances of the political state and the lot of its commoners -- actually mirror several circumstances which Locke portrays in his book. By interpreting the events in Shakespeare's drama through the mandates outlined in Two Treatises of Government, it becomes apparent that Locke would have willingly sanctioned Bolingbroke's usurpation of the throne as…...

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Works Cited

Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. Cambridge: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1960. Print.

Shakespeare, William. Richard II. New York: Washington Square Press, 1996. Print.

Namely, it demands us to consider the anomaly potential in Shakespeare's socioeconomic modesty as it compared to his great vocabulary wealth. And in doing so, it draws us into a keener awareness of the courtly life about which Shakespeare wrote with such remarkable acuity and into a similar appreciation for the colorful, frequently playful, representation of commoners in his plays. The intermingling of such figures denotes something of Shakespeare's own journey, and warms us to the ideas that perhaps it was this commoner who would ultimately leave the modern world with one of the widest windows available into Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Thus, even if there is both cause to suggest that we don't have sufficient evidence to be assured of his authorship and cause to suggest that we have shreds of evidence connecting this authorship to figures such as Marlowe, Bacon or de Vere, the cause of evidence…...

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Works Cited:

Prescott, M. (2004). Shakespeare vs. Shakespeare: Introduction to the Authorship Controversy. Michael Prescott Homepage. Online at http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/ShakespeareVsShakespeare.htm

Ross, T. & Kathman, D. (2009). Shakespeare's Authorship. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Online at  http://www.shakespeare.org.uk/content/view/15/15/ 

Shakespeare Authorship Coalition (SAC). (2007). Declaration of Reasonable Doubt about the Identity of William Shakespeare. The Shakespeare Authorship Coalition. Online at  http://www.doubtaboutwill.org/declaration 

Shakespeare Authorship Trust (SAT). (2008). The Group Theory. The Shakespearean Authorship Trust. Online at  http://www.shakespeareanauthorshiptrust.org.uk/pages/candidates/collab.htm

(Shakespeare 1994)
The play stands out from many aspects. However, there are some elements which make it one of the most important of Shakespeare's works and one of the most acclaimed. The tragedy comes from the eventual incompatibility between true love and the code of honor. Convinced by Iago's evil plan that his wife was unfaithful, Othello the Moor of Venice becomes blind to any explication and swears revenge. In the end, every one of the characters finally pays for his deed, although Desdemona appears to be the one pure presence of the play that is sacrificed in the midst of revenge. The story of the Othello is relevant because it showed a deep psychological and analytical approach on the character, a characteristic which is present in the drama of Hamlet. Moreover, Shakespeare builds his characters as mere peons in Iago's hands who, through thorough manipulation managed to influence them…...

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Bibliography

Berstein, Serge, and Pierre Milza. Histoire de l' Europe. Paris: Hatier, 1994

Mabillard, Amanda. Othello Analysis. Shakespeare Online. 2000. http://www.shakespeare-online.com/othello.html

Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. London: Penguin, 1994.

Shakespeare, William, Othello. Penguin: London, 1994.

The Epilogue, focus of much allegorizing, alludes to the parallel between Prospero's abandonment of his art, and the actor's abandonment of his role when he steps forward to ask for applause"(F. Kermode, 49)

Prospero does not give away his ability to use magic, only because he has found redemption and he has put things right. It is a symbolic gesture, an attempt to make the reader and the individual member of the public a magician in his turn, a magician of his own mind, first of all.

The theatre has always had a more emphasized social value than any other type of literary fiction, primarily because of its ability to be acted out in front of people, as if it were happening for real. The impact is so strong, that it allows people to release their emotional tension and to make merry together with the characters of the play. It is a…...

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Works Cited

Charlton, H.B.: 'Shakespearian Comedy': Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1967 www.absoluteshakespeare.com

Kermode, Frank: 'Shakespeare: The Final Plays': Longmans, Green & Co, 1965

Shakespeare, William: 'The Tempest'. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Retrieved: May 1, 2007.  http://shakespeare.mit.edu/tempest/index.html 

Shakespeare, William: 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Retrieved: May 1, 2007.  http://shakespeare.mit.edu/midsummer

Reflecting the greater audience sympathy stirred in Five Kings and its cinematic incarnation Chimes at Midnight, the Welles saga ends with Hal pardoning Falstaff for disturbing his coronation, thus showing a more loving tribute to Falstaff than utterly rejecting him, as in the original Shakespeare.
Falstaff's potentially seditious views of honor and the importance of the individual's life over sacrificing it for the collective are thus validated very clearly in Welles' work. In Shakespeare these perspectives are raised, but however attractive Falstaff may seem as a character, they cannot be endorsed by the playwright because to do so would invalidate the entire English system of government. Falstaff's humor and pacifist values, even his value of self-preservation resonate more with contemporary American views of iconoclasm and individualism. Thus by making Falstaff the centerpiece of Five Kings, Welles was also making an implicit claim for the need for a uniquely American form…...

Imbalance, even in love, can produce negative and unwanted effects that affect more than two people.
The tempest is another Shakespearean play that is set both in the real and fantastic world. The two real are interwoven and deliberately confusing. The action of the play is swinging back and forth in time. Prospero, the Duke of Milan, is recounting for his daughter Miranda the events that led to their living on an island. The description is like he plunges deep, in a level of suppressed memories: Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it / That this lives in thy mind? hat see'st thou else / in the dark backward and abysm of time? / if thou rememb'rest aught ere thou camest here, / How thou camest here thou mayst (Shakespeare, 1136).

Prospero, who has suffered the injustice of his brother trying to usurp him and take his place on…...

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Works Cited

Shakespeare William, the Works of William Shakespeare Gathered into One Volume. Oxford University Press, 1938.

However, disorientation can be either debilitating or empowering. In the case of Shakespeare -- and arguably all enaissance people of greatness -- the new concepts and materials were liberating, at least, and in fact enabled them to create works of lasting value. The world is familiar with Shakespeare: who can name one playwright from the Middle Ages? "Anonymous" was responsible for the Everyman plays, plays that say little to modern people. The interplay between the civilized and the savage, possible for Shakespeare but not for the dramatists before him, may have been disorienting and may have presaged the seemingly eternal questions of 'us' and 'other' we still grapple with, but without doubt, that interplay made for lasting drama with eternal meaning.

eferences

Cefalu, Paul A. (2000) ethinking the discourse of colonialism in economic terms: Shakespeare's "The Tempest," Captain John Smith's Virginia Narratives, and the English esponse to Vagrancy. Shakespeare Studies, January 1.…...

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References

Cefalu, Paul A. (2000) Rethinking the discourse of colonialism in economic terms: Shakespeare's "The Tempest," Captain John Smith's Virginia Narratives, and the English Response to Vagrancy. Shakespeare Studies, January 1. Retrieved January 13, 2005 from www.highbeam.com.

Gable, Harvey L. (1998) "Wieland," "Othello," "Genesis," and the floating city: the sources of Charles Brockden Brown's "Wieland." (William Shakespeare, Charles Bockden Brown) Papers on Language & Literature, June 22. Retrieved January 13, 2005 from www.highbeam.com.

Platt, Peter G. (2001) "The Meruailouse Site": Shakespeare, Venice, and paradoxical stages.

Renaissance Quarterly, March 22. Retrieved January 13, 2005 from www.highbeam.com.

Shakespeare's Play "All's ell that ends well" -- a Critique
Conflict between generations is a theme prevalent in many of Shakespeare's tragedies, histories, and comedies. Romeo and Juliet struggle against their parents' feud and values. Hamlet battles within himself to deal with the ethics of his father's order for revenge. Hal and his biological father, Henry IV, work out an uneasy coexistence, while the Prince simultaneously resolves his relationship with his spiritual father, Falstaff. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, the mainspring of the plot is the willingness of Lysander and Hermia to go against the wishes of Egeus. In such works audience sympathy is usually with the younger generation, which often embodies a tolerance and understanding unrestricted by narrow beliefs and codes of behavior.

In All's ell That Ends ell, however, wisdom lies with the older characters, who frequently harken back to past years as a better, happier time. All's ell presents…...

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Works Cited

James, I. The Politics of Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1983, 231-39.

James Hillman, William Shakespeare: The Problem Plays ( New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993), 145-46.

Margot Heinemann, "How Brecht Read Shakespeare," in Political Shakespeare (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UP, 1985), 206.

Palmer, D.J., Shakespeare's Lexer Comedies, Harmondsworth. Penguin, 1971.

Shakespeare's Foreshadowing In Tragedy And Comedy
Shakespeare is popularly known as "The ard" for good reason: he excels at his literary craft, applying all the techniques and tools of drama at his disposal with a certain regularity. One of these important tools necessary for any truly coherent play is foreshadowing, or the appearance of elements early in the play that subtly predict the future direction of the plot, action, or symbolism. In all of his plays, Shakespeare uses foreshadowing extensively, both in the dialogue and in the situations he creates. This is as true of his comedies as of his tragedies and histories. y looking at any group of his works, one can find many examples of foreshadowing. For example, in the trio of King Lear, Hamlet, and Much Ado About Nothing, we can see that quite nearly the entire play is prefigured in the themes and dialogues of the first…...

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Bibliography

Fletcher, Anthony. Gender, Sex and Subordination in England 1500-1800. New Haven:

Yale UP, 1995.

Friedlander, Ed. "Enjoying King Lear"  http://www.pathguy.com/kinglear.htm 

Lockett, J. Lear's lapse: foreshadowing in King Lear. http://www.io.com/~jlockett/Grist/English/lear.html

Shakespeare and omantic Love
Clearly one of the most influential writers in the English language that has survived and prospered in contemporary times is William Shakespeare. Despite some of the controversy of whether he actual wrote what is attributed to him, or the other theories of the origination of his writing, no one can deny that he holds a place in literature that few, if any, have attained. The classic stories and phrases of Shakespeare permeate contemporary society -- young love epitomized by omeo and Juliet, treachery and false betrayal in Othello, and even the way the universe and nature conspire against the human condition in The Tempest. To begin to understand Shakespeare, though, it is first necessary to have a basic understanding of his time period -- Elizabethan England (roughly 1558-1603). Also called the "Golden Age" in English history, this time period was the height of the English enaissance and…...

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REFERENCES

1. Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds

2. My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun

3. O Mistress Mine

4. Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?

Shakespeare
Iago's Character in Othello

This paper analyzes Iago's speech to Roderigo in "Othello," by illiam Shakespeare. Specifically, it discusses what the speech reveals about Iago's character.

Does the play ultimately seem to suggest that Iago is right? Iago is a tortured character who displays many different and unhealthy psychological traits. He ruins the lives of those around him, and the play clearly shows he is a jealous, unhappy, and scheming man who cannot be happy, so he decides no one else can be happy, either. He is central to the play because he causes so much death and unhappiness. It is clear his garden needs to be tended for a long, long time to make it healthy.

Iago's Character in Othello

Iago could be one of Shakespeare's most evil and frightening villains. He has no remorse, and is totally consumed with his own hatred of Othello. It colors everything he does in the play,…...

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Works Cited

Shakespeare, William, and A.H. Bullen. The Works of William Shakespeare Gathered into One Volume. New York: Oxford University Press, 1938.

One of the cornerstones of the idea of liberty and freedom, especially when viewed from a religious perspective like Thomas Merton’s, is the idea of free will.  Whether human beings truly have free will is a surprisingly divisive philosophical question that, by design, must consider questions like natural versus nurture, motivation, the influence of society on people, and even the nature of good and evil (O’Connor).  However, the idea of free will is central to Christianity and also to Merton’s explorations of liberty and freedom in a Christian context.

Using the concept of free will to explore the....

Full confession.  We find Romeo and Juliet to be one of Shakespeare’s least appealing plays, and one of the reasons is because, while the theme of truth (and the related theme of lies) plays a significant role in the play, there is also the questions of whether the characters are even old enough to possess the self-awareness that is required for lying about feelings. 

When Romeo professes his love for Juliet, she wonders if his words are true.  Her worries are based in the fact that, even at her young age, Juliet seems to know that sometimes boys....

Shakespeare may be the most popular broad topic for essays in English classes.  He wrote some of the most well-known works in the English language and, while he is known for his plays, he is also known for poetry.  English essays may focus on his works, but it is also possible to write compelling essays about Shakespeare’s life, including the enduring popular topic of whether Shakespeare was the true author of the works credited to him. 

Here are some essay title suggestions:   

1. Bringing Home the Bacon: Questions About the Authorship of Shakespeare’s Plays
2. The Real Tragedy of....

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare is, like many of his comedies, a surprisingly complex play.  Dealing with the topics of love and people not being what they seem to be on the surface, the play challenges people to look deeper. In fact, while many of Shakespeare’s tragedies really focus on the negative things that people do in the name of love, his comedies tend to take a more lighthearted approach to the topic.  Twelfth Night is an exception, as it definitely looks at how love can drive people to some really undesirable behaviors.

There are a....