William Shakespeare Short Biography Essay

What Shakespeare does in his comedic play Twelfth Night is that he deconstructs notions of gender and social class; however, he also stresses the futility of going against said social norms especially in Elizabethan society. Throughout the play, clothing is shown as a prime marker for, among other things, identity and social class. Some characters use clothing as a means of climbing up the social ladder; whereas others happen to flip the gender script by using clothing to highlight that gender…

About the author Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639) was an English poet, diplomat and politician. His family was well- to-do and he received a good education. Wotton was appointed ambassador to the court of Venice and later the provost of Eton College. He served as Member of Parliament in 1614 and 1625. He was knighted by James VI. His love for classical architecture developed during his stay in Venice. His book ‘The Elements of Architecture’ sought to familiarize the English man with…

“Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” was said by Lord Acton. The lesson Orwell intends to share with his readers is that power can lead to corruption. He does this by showing Napoleon abusing the trust of his comrades, misguiding the lesser-educated animals, and placing the blame on everyone but himself. Orwell shows power leads to corruption through Napoleon consistently abusing how much faith the animals have in him. This is first seen with the milk incident where the…

“Cinema is simply pieces of film put together in a manner that creates ideas and emotions.” This quote by Alfred Hitchcock is portrayed in Strangers on a Train when Bruno kills Miriam. In Strangers on a Train, Bruno and Guy meet on a train and Bruno believes he made an agreement to swap murders with Guy. The sequence in which Hitchcock uses excellent montage depicts Bruno following Miriam on a boat through the tunnel and to the secluded island where Bruno strangles Miriam. The suspense and…

Revenge tragedy was a popular form of theater among the playwrights and the populace of the Elizabethan and Jacobean period. According to Broude, revenge tragedy is “fundamentally un-Christian, based upon a barbaric ethic derived from Senecan tragedy and the Anglo-Saxon blood feud” (1975: 39). The word revenge in renaissance period had a meaning near to retribution, and revenge plays were concerned mainly with divine retribution (cf. Ibid.: 39). During Jacobean period, some conventions were…

Queen Wealtheow portrays the opposite side of that same coin, as she is anything but animalistic in nature, although she still has very little dialogue in the text. The first time readers actually hear her speak is when she bids Beowulf to “enjoy this drink, most generous lord / raise up your goblet” (1168-9). She functions only as a companion to her husband, King Hrothgar, and to present goblets of mead to important guests. Her distance from the events and main plot lends to her air of royalty…

Graham Baker’s adaptation of Beowulf: the unheroic hero. The epic poem, Beowulf, has been the source of inspiration to an incredible amount of artistic pieces: films, novels, songs, comic books, video games and operas. Due to the nature of the poem, every adaptation that has ever been made is different from the other, but most of them respect the epic hero prototype. Even though Baker fills the gaps of indeterminacy in a weird and twisted way, what the film brings up as interesting is that his…

Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a playwright written between 1599 and 1606, at the time of King James I’s reign. During the time period in which King James I ruled England, the “divine right of Kings” doctrine was in place. This was the belief that the king’s rule was God’s will and that the king was the mortal representation of God on Earth. Additionally, it was during this time where religion drove people’s ethics and moral choices, which is why biblical allusions and parallels are often seen in…

Which One Is Written Better? Shakespeare was brought to all in the 1564, yet so far back but so popular now. Some of the popular Shakespearean plays are the Twelfth Night another one Romeo and Juliet. While doing research on these two wonderful plays it showed there is quite a difference in the plot structure, theme, and symbolism of the plays.Looking at the evidence supporting that Romeo and Juliet is written with a better plot structure, theme, and better symbolism than Twelfth Night. The…

In the short story “The Witness for the Prosecution”, author Agatha Christie enjoys teasing her readers by not revealing the solution until the end. The story is about a man named Leonard Vole that kills a wealthy old lady when he finds out that the will of the old woman was put under his name. Christie shows how she can confuse the readers easily by including red herrings, a type of writing that purposely misleads the reader. At the end, the jury sets Leonard free and Romaine, Leonard’s wife,…