Two similarly flawed notions of love are presented in Shakespeare’s plays Titus Andronicus (TA) and The Winter’s Tale (TWT). Both are rooted in differing degrees of misogyny, yet diverge significantly in their overarching objective. The model of...

One dominant idea that is recurrent throughout Titus Andronicusis the symbolism of the ‘body of Rome’, which acts as a metaphorical parallel to the events of the text. This motif follows the changing statuses of the characters and power structures...

Few of the episodes in Ovid’s Metamorphoses have resonated so powerfully with audiences as Book VI’s story “Tereus, Procne, and Philomela” has been able to. From the time of Metamorphoses’ publication until the present day, the agonizing myth has...

Within the span of British literature, it should come as no surprise that the themes and motifs which appear in written works evolve in nature. Times, cultures, and peoples change, so it is only natural that the things they write down change as...

The women of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and Love’s Labour’s Lost play very different parts in their respective stories. The women in the two plays have differing roles, responsibilities, opportunities. The women in Titus Andronicus are rarely...

While certain of William Shakespeare’s plays have so ingrained themselves into popular culture as to be ubiquitous, others are rarely performed or read and are, in fact, largely ignored. Shakespeare’s Othello, one of the former, and Titus...

Many scholars and critics alike view Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, believed by many to be his first tragedy, as an emulation of the bloody, gory revenge plays that were prominent and popularized during the sixteenth century. The play’s plot is...

Shakespeare's first tragedy, Titus Andronicus, sets the foundation for most of his future works. According to the scholar Danielle A. St. Hilaire, throughout the whole play, Shakespeare uses quotes from Greek and Latin works of literature both to...

T.S. Eliot once said that Titus Andronicus "is one of the stupidest and most uninspired plays ever written, a play in which it is incredible that Shakespeare had any hand at all." This was an amusing choice of words on Eliot’s part, as one of the...

A common trope found in most Shakespeare plays is that of using a character from a racial or ethnic minority as a villainous scapegoat. In his time, Shakespeare’s audiences would have been primarily white Christians, and thus any character in his...

Through in-depth studying and interpretation of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, the two voices of Lavinia and Tamora are not only visibly present to the audience, but completely different of how women’s voice were portrayed during that time in...

Explore the relationship between fathers and sons, or fathers and daughters, in two of the plays we have studied. Freud hypothesized that, “The earliest affection of the girl-child is lavished on the father”[1] Shakespeare seems to explore the...

To what extent do literary texts silence the voices of women? Discuss with reference to William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus (1589-94) and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847).

Through questioning the extent to which literary texts silence female...

Power struggles are a defining feature in many of William Shakespeare’s stories. Titus Andronicus, Richard III, and Julius Caesar are three prominent examples of such stories, each depicting a powerful protagonist and their conflicts with others...

William Shakespeare is not well-known for presenting perfectly typical, well-functioning, Leave It to Beaver-esque families, which made his work much more appealing to audiences who were enthralled by unpredictable drama. His representations of...

In his tragedy Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare successfully engages his audience in a variety of emotions. Although these emotions are often negative, they still provide a cathartic release for the reader. Catharsis is defined as “a sudden emotional...

Why, she is a pearl

Whose price hath launched above a thousand ships

And turned crowned kings to merchants. (2.2.81-3)

The world of ShakespeareÃÂÂs Troilus and Cressida does not distinguish decidedly between the Greeks and the Trojans. Though the...

Throughout the extensive criticism written on Shakespeare plays, the definition of these problematic plays has been a constant topic for debate. Kiernan Ryan suggests critics focus either on these plays all having in inherently ‘political...

Echoing Homer’s Illiad, Shakespeare cites in the prologue to Troilus and Cressida that the Trojan war erupted because of the kidnap of Helen: ‘Menelaus’ queen,/With wanton Paris sleeps – and that’s the quarrel’ [prologue, 9-10]. We therefore...

In William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Shakespeare closely transcends the idea of an appetite for love from Of Apolonius and Silla by Barnabb Rich. The appetite for love is demonstrated through many characters throughout Twelfth Night and is one...

In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, the Feste's role might originally appear to be as a minor character, but in actuality his role is of principal significance. Because the action of the play occurs during the revelry of the holiday season, the clown...

Feste, the fool character in Twelfth Night, in many ways represents a playwright figure, and embodies the reach and tools of the theater. He criticizes, manipulates and entertains the other characters while causing them to reflect on their life...

Theatre began as a presentation of stories and ideas, mostly revolving around festival times in the calendar of the church year. This concept was carried on in Shakespeare's times and is exemplified in his plays Twelfth Night, or What You Will and...

In the study of three of Shakespeare's plays, Twelfth Night, or What You Will, The Tragedy of Richard II, and Henry IV, Part 1, one of the themes that is presented is the contrast of "appearance vs. reality." Sometimes the confusion is comedic,...