Intro Shakespeare and Browning both present the theme of desire through their central characters. Lady Macbeth (and Macbeth) is motivated by the desire for ambition and authority in ‘Macbeth’ whilst in the Browning monologues; the monologists are driven by the desire of power and control in ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and revenge in ‘The laboratory’. All of which seem to have fatal conclusions as a result of […]

In at least four plays of the Shakespeare Canon, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, Richard II, and Romeo and Juliet, the function of class structure and economics governs the conduct of the characters and provides a central conflict that moves each story towards it’s climax. Shakespeare wrote these plays with the social class system in mind. Audiences from all economic levels of […]

In the play King Lear by William Shakespeare, the good children are disowned by their fathers, but they do not stop loving their fathers and they eventually come back to rescue them from their misery. Shakespeare uses characterization of Cornelia and Edgar to show how true children will always love their parents even if they are sinned against. Cornelia is disowned by her father while […]

England’s greatest poet and playwright was born in Stratford, the son of a tradesman and Alderman of Stratford, John Shakespeare in 1564. William, the eldest son, and third child of eight, was baptized on the 26th April 1564. He received his early education at Stratford Grammar School, but little is known of his life up to his eighteenth year. His Grammar School curriculum would have […]

Vikas Sharma Honors English Final Exam Essay 5-24-10 Stoppard vs. Shakespeare There are many ways love is presented thematically in A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare and Shakespeare in Love by Tom Stoppard. In a Midsummer Night’s Dream, love is off and on going between most of the characters which shows that love was difficult and not too strong between the characters, while in […]

Although we have many records of his life as a citizen of Stratford, including marriage and birth certificates, little is known about William Shakespeare”s early life and formal education. Due to his success, many would assume that Shakespeare was born and raised in a wealthy noble family but he was actually raised in what would have been considered a middle class family in their time. […]

One of the most successful and well known plays William Shakespeare wrote was Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy play; two young people fall in the love but their families have a bitter grudge with one another, “and the continuance of their parents’ rage which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,” (prologue lines 10-11). This quote explains to us how the […]

Compare and Contrast Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare In this essay I am going to highlight the comparisons and contrasts between William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 130 and also give my opinions. A similarity between the two poems is that they are both about a man’s love for a woman. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more […]

Sometimes the best plan is to do things by the book. With over 100 million Harry Potter readers desperate to rush down cinema aisles to see their hero on the big screen for the first time, you can’t blame Chris Columbus for sticking close to J. K. Rowling’s novel. It’s one thing to let your imagination loose with the words on the page; it’s another […]

Power has significantly marked the society where we are in current development. Power is one of the best ways to control a society, yet it impacts the society in a negative way when it comes to distributing rights and opportunities. That is, since it involves the worst issues within the government known as corruption. In William Shakespeare’s play, Richard III, and Aristophanes’ play, Lysistrata, both […]