Melancholy in Hamlet Essay

The King of Trials: Historical Trials in Richard II William Shakespeare's Richard II acts as an amalgamation of three forms of trial: trial by ordeal, trial by combat, and trial by jury. Presenting the trial by ordeal in the spirit of its original Latin iudicium Dei, meaning "the truth of God", King Richard II offers himself an extension of God-ruling through divine right-therefore, creating a variant of an ordeal in his banishment of Henry Bolingbroke (Bartlett 5). Further, Richard II…

A sonnet is a poem usually consisting of fourteen lines linked by a regular rhythm and one of two mayor rhyme schemes - that of either an Italian or Shakespearean sonnet (Prescott, 2010). Such forms will be analyzed in the works of two of the greatest poets of all time – John Donne and William Shakespeare. They are worthy canonical figures that are still acknowledged and studied today, were influenced by cultural and historical features of the era in which they wrote and included aesthetics…

Love is often seen as the cause to many positive things, but when it is misunderstood, it can become a destructive force. In Toni Morrison’s novel, Song of Solomon, the love between characters is the powerful source of many of the deaths in the story. The book follows the maturation of a boy nicknamed Milkman Dead who is born from a loveless marriage into “a really strange bunch” (76). He is surrounded by many people driven by this powerful feeling: a friend who kills in the name of love, Hagar…

The many women in The Iliad have had a profound effect on the story as a whole, and to this day, researchers still study the role they played in Homer’s great works. Palladas’ view towards the women in the Homeric plays, specifically The Iliad is greatly misconstrued and incorrect. Palladas’ view of women being the sole cause of the terror and destruction in the poem is not quite accurate. The extent to which his claim of women being dangerous and the cause of all the problems in the poem is…

"The Divine Comedy, considered by most to be the greatest Italian piece of literature ever written," (Soft Schools). The Inferno is one- third of the Divine Comedy, which was constructed after Dante Alegheri was exiled from Florence. This was the first piece of literature to be written in the common tongue. Lower class civilians were able to read his work, making it a very powerful poem. Many people praised Dante Alegheri and agreed with his opinions and examination of the government. Throughout…

The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare is a classic representation of a Shakespearean masterpiece. An Aristotelian tragic hero is someone of noble status who has a tragic flaw and his (or her) personality suffers a fall from grace due to that tragic flaw, only to redeem a small measure of that lost nobility through self-awareness. In this drama Macbeth is given the main role. He is a noble war hero who experiences a tragic flaw. Macbeth undoubtedly fits the definition of a tragic hero…

This has been displayed in many plays such as King Lear, Hamlet and Macbeth. The superstition in this play has been used to depict a sense of mystery and menace that hung over Julius Caesar, to the point of success where audiences in which audiences were left in shock to see Caesar ignoring these superstitions…

Did you know that having a bad connection with your daughter as a father can lead to her making bad decisions in choosing boyfriends? Romeo and Juliet is a play by William Shakespeare. It's about the son and daughter of two feuding families who fell in love. They try to live married secretly, but when Romeo gets exiled from Verona, Juliet threatens to kill herself unless Friar Lawrence helps her. A plan is made to fake her death, but Romeo thinks she's dead and drinks poison and dies When Juliet…

Henrik Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright in the latter half of the 19th century. He was considered ‘the father of modern drama’ as he used the newly emergent realist form of the time. The realist form is a conscientious way of ‘reflecting’ real life by rejecting ‘idealization, escapism, and other extravagant qualities of romance’ and recognising ‘the problems of life’ (Baldick, 2008). This is done by implementing aspects of real life on the stage through various techniques, focusing on the…

In the story, “The Lay of the Werewolf”, a faithful husband gets dishonored by his wife after the wife finds out that the husband is half werewolf. The story takes place in Ancient Greek, during the Medieval Times, where the Greeks wrote that people could be transformed into werewolves. The story really gives off a good example on how the people that you think you can trust with your life, especially in this case, can turn on you for the money, fame, power, etc. The three themes that are shown…