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Shakespeare
William Shakespeare, the famous playwright and the great poet was born in 1564 at Stratford-on-Avon in England. Though he never attended college he had a sound basic education. He went to London in his early twenties and during the next ten years he wrote some of the classical masterpieces like Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Othello and Hamlet. Shakespeare wrote a variety of plays from tragedy to comedy. 'The Merchant of Venice', 'The taming the Shrew' and 'The Tempest' are some of this well-known comedies while Macbeth, Othello, Julius Caesar are some of his best tragedies. By the time he was thirty-four he was regarded as one of England's leading playwrights. Shakespeare wrote thirty-eight plays and more than 150 sonnets. He died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two. [Michael Hart, 215].
Shakespeare was gifted with the ability to create beautiful phrases that are without parallel and they continue to be the most quoted. Very often we...
There is also a kind of philosophical touch in his plays. He is considered a literary genius, one whose accomplishments are yet to be matched in the annals of literature. Let us compare 'Othello' and 'Macbeth' two of his finest plays and see what they have in common and how they reflect the prevailing social climate.
Both Othello and Macbeth are classical tragedies of Shakespeare. Othello is considered as Shakespeare's revolutionary work with the underlying tone of racism imbued in it. The tragic end to the play is a symbolic defeat of the revolutionary bid to overcome racism, which was so rampant in the Elizabethan age. [Acadia University] It is pretty much evident from the play that Elizabethan society did not approve of inter-racial marriages. Othello who was praised for his valor is accused once he marries Desdemona. We find racial epithets throughout the novel…
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
(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
While Shakespeare attracted his fair share of criticism during his day, it is also clear that many of his contemporaries as well as the general public viewed Shakespeare's work in a positive light. For example, Callaghan (2004) points out that, "While we do not know how much Shakespeare was paid for the plays he furnished his company, it is clear that the greatest part of the handsome fortune Shakespeare had
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
Thus, Shakespeare's poems have shown that they deal with timeless topics, topics that have proved their worth over time, such as love, passion, and writing. Throughout time, however, Shakespeare's reputation of a writer did, indeed, change. While he was known as a businessman and patron of the arts during his life, it is suspected that he was not celebrated for his masterful writing until after his death ("Shakespeare Biography"). Today,
And while it may seem silly upon first reading or seeing the play, it is clear that a Midsummer Night's Dream also has quite serious ideas. Scholars have noted that the play includes a cultural critique of the Elizabethan era in which it is set (Lamb 93-124). Other critics have noted that the play may contain quite subversive ideas regarding the fluid nature of sexual identity (Green 369-370). Whatever