William Shakespeare Essays

12th Grade

Antony and Cleopatra

Appetite is explored in many different ways in Antony and Cleopatra, with Cleopatra having an appetite for luxury, destruction , creating tragic inevitability, and sex. There is shifting power dynamics as the characters attempt to seize power for...

College

As You Like It

William Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’ deals with falsity on multiple levels, primarily as incurred by love, and inherent within women. As women are false, and love makes one act in a way that is false, love itself is feminized, linked...

As You Like It

Rosalind's literal significance in Shakespeare's "As You Like It" is grounded in her motivation in acting as Ganymede, for it is her sole perspective that elucidates the reader of the biases of society's gender roles. The necessity for Rosalind to...

As You Like It

Pastoralism as a literary device thrives on the juxtaposition of city life and country life. Pastoralists often stress that the burdens of the city can be alleviated and clarified by a trip into the country's therapeutic environment. A sense of...

As You Like It

"Cleanse the foul body of th'infected world / If they will patiently receive my medicine" (Shakespeare 304). William Shakespeare addresses an ailment known as melancholy through the character Jaques in As You Like It. In this quote, Jaques blames...

As You Like It

According to Patrick Swinden in An Introduction to Shakespeare's Comedies, a comedy does not demand the 'the degree of concentration and belief' required by tragedy. As a result, an audience of a play 'is amusedly aware that it's all a play, a...

College

As You Like It

Throughout the span of the comedies, Shakespeare allows his female characters to establish a greater amount of independence and freedom than they would have actually been allowed for the time period. This freedom is not necessarily a feminist...