William Shakespeare's King Lear: Film production by Richard Eyre or Michael Elliott? King Lear today rivals Hamlet as the most frequently performed William Shakespeare play. King Lear is a timeless tale of human greed, lust for power and lost loyalties. Directors" Richard Eyre and Michael Elliott have produced two distinctively different film adaptations of Shakespeare's play King Lear. ... This links the concept in Shakespeare's play that this marks the conclusion of all the turmoil and anarchy created by the division of Lear's kingdom. ...

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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Hamlet's soliloquy shows how disgusted Hamlet is with Gertrude, Claudius and the world which is shown in the line "How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, seem to me all the uses of this world"(I,II,133-134). ... In the soliloquy hamlet refers to his world as useless or disgraceful His speech is full of words that suggest rot and corruption which is shown with words like "gross" (I,II, 138) and he also refers to his world as an "unweeded garden" all this shows how unstable hamlets state of mind is since he can't seem to think of anything good about the world he lives in which is cau...

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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

One major subject that is addressed is Hamlet's infatuation with death and the physical decomposition of the body, manifested primarily in his discovery of Yorick's skull, a jester of the late King Hamlet. Upon finding the skull, Hamlet is horrified and realizes that all men will eventually end up the same way, even the great ones, and he envisions the physical features of the face such as lips and skin that have decomposed. ... Hamlet comes to terms with the fact that no matter whom the person is, commoner or king, everyone ends up the same way, a heap of dust. ...

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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Many of the characters in Hamlet have blatant views of revenge that are evidently expressed throughout the play are all lean towards the justification of revenge in an obligation of righteousness. King Hamlet's ghost says to his son, "if thou didst ever thy dear father love" then he needed to "revenge his foul and most unnatural murder." ... In the to be or not to be soliloquy during the first scene of Act III, Hamlet quotes, "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all/ And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied over with the pale cast of thought" While being exiled to England, h...

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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

This is evident in Act 1, in which Hamlet's love and passion for his father naturally positions him to be inferior to King Hamlet's apparition. Consequently, these powerful sentiments compel Hamlet to soliloquise that he will "wipe away all trivial fond records...thy commandment all alone shall live...... Act 1, Scene 2 delves further into the complex characterization of Hamlet and the moral dilemma he is governed by, the death of the King and marriage of Gertrude and Claudius. ... His acceptance of death, "The readiness is all" is the climatic point as he is no longer...

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• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Bernardo notes that the ghost is "In the same figure, like the king that's dead" and then questions himself "Looks it not like the king". ... Marcellus then questions "Is it not like the king", Horatio then tells the others "Such very armour he had on/ When he the ambitious Norway combated;/ So frown"d he once, when, in an angry parle,/ He smote the sledded Polack on the ice" Horatio also informs the others "In what particular thought to work I know not;/ But, in the gross and scope of my opinion/ This bodes some strange eruption to our state. Then Marcellus asks why the state has been re...

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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Hamlet tries to live up to two different ideals; one that calls for immediate action against the king (revenge) and the other necessitated by living in a structured society. ... He is unable to successfully accomplish what either ideal calls for because he is unwilling to entirely forsake the other, and he "lives in death" "(handout), attempting remain in limbo, waiting for fate to step in and end it all. "[Hamlet's] acts are a commentary on his negative consciousness" "(handout), bred by his contempt for the living in his new-found living death, loathing the life that introduces the...

• Word Count: 1273
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• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

"Hamlet" begins much the same as any other previous revenge play, with the visits from the ghost of King Hamlet and his requests of Hamlet to avenge his death. King Hamlet tells his son he has been murdered by his brother Claudius, "cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled, no reckoning made, but sent to my account with all my imperfections on my head" and is now condemned to purgatory. However instead of taking immediate, violent action as would have been expected by the audience, Hamlet spends the bulk of the play pondering whether or not to take action at a...

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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Shakespeare also uses the supernatural – a sign of ill-fate during the time of Elizabethan era - in the King's ghost to accentuate the disastrous circumstance of Denmark and the "strange eruption to our state" highlighting a break in the chain of being within the court of Denmark in which Claudius himself recognizes and describes Denmark as "the corrupted current of this world.... In Act I, the immoral nature of King Claudius' marriage is shown Hamlets reaction of repulsion "a most wicked speed! ... " Over time Hamlet becomes increasingly mad as he goes...

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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

All of these aspects nevertheless intertwine to produce Hamlet. ... With Ophelia he changes from the lover to the cruel abuser, "Get thee to a nunnery" With Gertrude he is the loving son, "I shall in all my best obey you, madam." and with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern he is the joker. ... The final line, "The play's the thing wherein I"ll catch the conscience of the king." ... His role playing is genuinely part of his true nature and is a major aspect to his complexity because to fully describe and understand him, all the characters within him must be acknowledged. ... For Hamlet this i...

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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Hamlet's fourth soliloquy takes place while he believes the King is praying and therefore involves much religious controversy. ... When Hamlet is essentially listing all the times that he should kill Claudius to ensure Hell to be his final destination, it is clear evidence of the corruption of Claudius. ...

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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Why He Stages the Play Hamlet's decision to stage a play in order to "catch the conscience of the King" results from his obsession with gathering information about whether or not Claudius' committed the crime. ... If he disproves to himself that Claudius killed the king, then Hamlet will be instantly relieved of his obsession to kill Claudius, along with the intense psychological stress it induces within him. ... After all, if the love between them were weakened, the impact of that kind of love rejection followed by her support of Claudius would be lessened. ... After all, in ki...

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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In terms of love, it is arguable that all three texts; "Hamlet," "Sons and Lovers," and "A Streetcar Named Desire," present it as a destructive and negative force. ... Shakespeare's 17th Century revenge tragedy differs greatly to the other texts, mainly because it is set within the court so all relationships are portrayed to have political influences. ... Nonetheless, whether Gertrude lacks the Familial love Hamlet craves, or was too self involved to give it; it has a negative effect on Hamlet as it causes his passionate hatred for the new King. ...

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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

All of this chronology does not portray a mature man of recognize literary talents to this point despite his superior education and cultural exposures. ... The "Who Was Shakespeare" document characterizes a youth from an illiterate family, son of an illiterate provincial butcher which the standard against which all playwrights are now judged. ... It was not until seven years after his death in 1616 that a huge memorial volume of the First Folio appeared, produced by several of Shakespeare's theatrical associates of all his plays. ... With all these factors weighed, I conclude that in...

• Word Count: 1431
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate