... genre of Elizabethan romance plays. It combines elements of tragedy (Prospero's revenge) with those of romantic comedy (the young lovers Miranda and Ferdinand), and, like one of Shakespeare's problem plays, Measure for Measure, it poses deeper questions that are not completely resolved at the end. The romance genre is distinguished by the inclusion (and synthesis) of these tragic, comic, and problematical ingredients and ... ...

• Word Count: 727
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... more likely to be Hal's play than Falstaff's, the story of the seemingly prodigal prince proving himself a worthy heir, with his relationship with Falstaff as the crucial measure of his growth. What now seems the greatest achievement of the play is precisely its "mingling of kings and clowns" (Sidney, Prose, 114), what A. P. ... development as a future king of England. The play, at least in part, traces the process by which he takes for his own some qualities that each models for him and rejects others. In this sense, the play is a coming-of-age story; and on the battlefield at Shrewsb...

• Word Count: 1901
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... ; there is evidence that this was Shakespeare's intent. Many instances suggest that silence in women is a convention in renaissance theater that was to be understood by audiences as emotionally difficult for the character being portrayed. In Shakespeare's Othello, Iago says, "guiltiness will speak, though tongues were out of use" (Othello V.i.109-10). This statement is used as a condemnation of Bianca ... in the death of Cassio, but the audience recognizes Bianca's silence as grief rather than guilt and furthers the sympathetic nature of her relationship in the play. Isabella, in Measure...

• Word Count: 1648
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... also be favoured by Othello. Iago's overall argument is that Othello is a selfish man who treats Iago as a slave and gives nothing in return for all of Iago's hard work and 'knee crooking'; Iago positions Othello as a man who takes advantage of people. Although Iago initially comes off ... to his attitude to serving his master. Furthermore, he also appears to be - certainly in the eyes of Othello - a highly trustworthy figure. Yet for the audience it becomes evident that his public appearance is not the same as reality. He is a duplicitous character who keeps quiet to avoid unwant...

• Word Count: 1567
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... feeling that he has shown this in his earlier plays. Ribner continually refers to both Antony and Cleopatra's actions throughout the play as both sinful and evil for they were not acting, as he terms it: Morally. "The destructive power of evil and the magnificence of evil are simultaneously displayed." Ribner give the ... to be able to relate almost every "immoral" occurrence in the play back to the ultimate destruction of man and civilization. He declares Plutarch as moral for his views on Antony's actions, as at the beginning he states, he was a once great man yet now consumed by his ow...

• Word Count: 797
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... a walking emblem of chastity'"[1].


The preservation of a woman's virginity is a recurring theme in Shakespeare's plays; in A Midsummer Night's Dream, we see Helena make known her love for Demetrius, which of itself is a measure executed almost exclusively by men. Whilst she is proclaiming her love, albeit in an unfashionable manner, Demetrius' terse response is that she ought take care as to not ... his succumbing to stereotype and displaying her as a desperate weak woman, it can be argued that he has to recognise his audience and present ideas that are not too foreign for them....

• Word Count: 2000
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... clearly at the end of the play when Macduff came back to murder Macbeth. Macbeth would never have guessed that Macduff would come back for revenge for the killing in Macduff's household. This nemesis shows an additional force beyond Macbeth's control. Because of Macbeth's strong beliefs in ambition and ... to make him upright in all his dealings with those about him. But moral goodness in him is undeveloped and indeed still rudimentary, for his voluntary acts are scarcely brought into harmony with ultimate end. As he returns from victorious battle, puffed up with self-love which demand...

• Word Count: 2254
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Undergraduate