William Shakespeare Essays

College

The Tempest

Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Shakespeare’s The Tempest present similar definitions of “power” through the differing circumstances of their protagonists. Power, in these plays, can be thought of as “control of the unknown.” If one character has...

College

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Many of Shakespeare’s plays contain the structural and symbolic elements of mythology. The inheritance of mythological conventions, which shall be explored in this essay, create an effect that is ritualistic and leads to Nietzsche’s observation of...

12th Grade

The Tempest

Published in 1818, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein remains a revolutionary literary achievement whose iconic monster continues to captive modern readers. William Shakespeare, hundreds of years prior to Shelley, also cast a monster at the center of his...

College

The Tempest

Musical symbolism pervades the works of renaissance and medieval literature―used as a tool by authors to emphasize persona, atmosphere, tone, or simply to drive the plot forward. Instruments, singing, and moreover music in general are abundant...

College

The Tempest

William Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest, depicts characters of different beliefs and values. Apart from their mental differences, some are also set apart by certain physical features that cohere with the plot and extract different themes. One such...

College

The Tempest

The most compelling characters in modern literature and plays are the ones whose motivations tend to be complex, thus demand a deeper analysis of which part of their conscious their decisions arise from – the impulsive Id, the balancing Ego, or...

12th Grade

The Tempest

Both William Shakespeare and Eamon Flack cleverly invite us to experience and explore discovery through their texts, the tempest and ghosts, respectively. It appears common in both texts that a discovery of family betrayal prompts both Prospero in...

Titus Andronicus

I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble -Augustus Caesar (63 BC - 14 AD)

In his essay, Titus Andronicus and the Mythos of Shakespeare's Rome, Robert Miola uncovers and explores the myths Shakespeare uses as bedrock for the...

Hamlet

Charles Forker argues that Marcus Andronicus, upon discovering the maimed, raped and mutilated Lavinia, "erects a barrier of fanciful language between himself and the object of his contemplation." It is an interesting question: does Marcus create...

Titus Andronicus

"The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil"

-Cicero-

There are villainous characters throughout the history of literature that capture our utmost fears of hatred, vengeance, and psychotic behavior. The complexity of the...

Othello

Often instead of the gallant, chivalrous hero, it is the deceptive, wicked villain that leaves a lasting imprint on the audience. The subversive and incorrigibly horrendous actions of the villains in Shakespeare’s Othello and Titus Andronicus,...