William Shakespeare Essays

Shakespeare uses blood imagery to dramatically exaggerate guilt within the play. Firstly, Lady Macbeth’s enormous sense of guilt provokes her to smell blood on her hands. While sleep walking, Lady Macbeth says, “Here’s the smell of blood still: all the perfumes / Of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! ” (V. i. 48-49). […]

From the initial study of the first two acts, it is evident to see that Shakespeare is presenting his audience with a variety of personalities, many of which we, as an audience are actively encouraged to dislike. A Major theme within “King Lear” is the force of Good opposing Evil, so therefore it makes sense […]

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, […]

William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is the tragic tale of a warrior, Macbeth, corrupted by power and greed. This tragedy could be explained two very different ways. One explanation is that Macbeth is lead down a wicked road by fate. On the other hand, perhaps there is no such force as fate, which therefore indicates that Macbeth […]

Before we analyse the role of witches in Macbeth we must look at them from a historical perspective as people’s attitudes to witches in Jacobean times were very different to what they are now, in the 21st century. During the times of Shakespeare people were petrified of witches and their society was very paranoid, witches […]

Shakespeare’s Macbeth relates the story of a noble thane caught as a potential “victim of circumstance” in a relentless struggle with his vaulting ambition. External factors, namely the three witches and Lady Macbeth pose as reasons accounting for the downfall of the great and loyal thane of Cawdor.The longest scene in the play takes the […]

Franco Zeffirelli was born in 1923. He was Educated at the Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence, and Florence University (architecture). It was during his time at the university where he found about his love for the world of opera and theater. Zeffirelli’s name is still most closely associated with his next film, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ […]

Around 1595, William Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, a great tragedy that was widely performed in theatres across the world for centuries. However, the last century has seen a steep decline in the popularity of theatre due to advances in technology that led to the success of cinema. With cinema came endless possibilities – no […]

William Shakespeare was at the peak of his career during the reign of Elizabeth I, at the time England was at the climax of its power, having a large empire strong trade, a great naval fleet and many explorers who were forever discovering new lands. It was a time of travel and discovery, as well […]

In Elizabethan society it seems that although gender roles were expected to be fixed and distinct, sexuality was far more fluid than the strict categories which we impose on it now. It was commonly known for men to have male ‘bed-fellows’ and, with Queen Elizabeth’s liking of the Petrarchan form of address, it was not […]

The Winter’s Tale belongs to a small group of plays which have been labelled ‘the problem plays’ as they do not fit comfortably into the classifications of either Comedy, History or Tragedy. Therefore it joins Pericles, Cymbeline, and The Tempest in the list of the genre-defying later plays that are usually referred to as “romances […]

In my essay I will comment on the different interpretations of Shakespeare’s King Henry V, Act 1, Scene 2 by Olivier and Branagh. The two film directors, Olivier and Branagh, create very different moods and atmospheres. Both directors also use different techniques of film language to get a particular image across to the audience. The […]

Benjamin Johnson, more known as Ben Johnson, was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare and was one of the most learned men in Elizabethan times. He was born in London in 1572 and lost his father just a month before his birth. He was no stranger to […]

His plays are now performed all over the world in hundred of languages, and he is known as one of the greatest writers of all time. The reason his work is so popular is, Shakespeare wrote about human nature and how people behave. Although his words can be hard to understand, his ideas are as […]

There is a traditional Elizabethan form in William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 125. It is comprised of 14 lines and there are two parts to this sonnet. The first section, consisting of lines one through 12, only includes alternate rhymes. The rhyme pattern for this section follows ababcdcdefefgg. Introducing and explaining the main theme of Sonnet 125, […]

During Elizabethan times, the theatre attracted a wide range of individuals, from petty thieves to Her Majesty herself. This cultural event was popular amongst people from different social backgrounds. However, one can only imagine the raucous atmosphere created by unquiet spectators throwing spoiled fruits at actors on stage. Visiting the theatre during earlier times was […]

Before watching any of the above versions I read the brief script for the first scene. From this piece of the script I would expect each of our extracts to fulfill the wishes of Shakespeare: set in ‘an open place’ and with ‘thunder and lightning.’ Yet these are the only stage directions so the production […]

In my opinion, Roman Polanski’s version of Macbeth was disappointing due to the exclusion of original lines and depictions of killings that were contrary to Shakespeare’s intended vision. Conversely, the Royal Shakespeare Company produced a much better rendition by adhering strictly to the script. Polanski chose to emphasize sensationalism in his film, rather than exploring […]

Baz Luhrmann’s distinguished ability to produce outstanding films is attributed to his characteristic employment of uninterrupted camera motion, which involves employing close-up shots, zooming, and capturing slow-motion images. Baz Luhrmann, as a director, has evolved his own distinctive style by ingeniously merging emotion and poetry through his camera work and editing techniques. His increased confidence […]

An earlier introductory note to some basic principles of literary interpretation (“On Scholarship and Literary Interpretation”), stressed that literary interpretation or literary criticism is, in many ways, an anarchic conversational activity with the practical purpose of enriching our shared understanding of a particular text. The value of any particular interpretative observations, or of a methodology […]

In Elizabethan times people paid great homage to the queen Elizabeth 1. During the 16th century there was great tension between parliament and the monarchy, and Elizabeth upset many Catholics, although she did restore peace in the country later on. Popular amusements included music and dancing. The most favoured instruments were the bagpipes, the fiddle, […]

Conventionally, feminism has little correlation with Shakespearean comedies; however, Claire McEachern attempts to address this topic with some degree of success in her article published in the Shakespeare Quarterly entitled “Fathering Herself: A Source Study of Shakespeare’s Feminism”.The author herself reveals the adversity face by feminists up against Shakespeare’s male-dominated world by admitting, “Certainly, in […]