Twelfth Night

Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night, or What You Will is a comedy written around 1601. According to The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Night for his “all-male company” (Shakespeare 1187). In which during Shakespeare’s time plays were performed by men acting both the female and male roles. The subtitle What You Will “underscores the celebratory spirit associated with Twelfth Night, the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6)” (Shakespeare 1187). Twelfth Night is…

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night has been interpreted in many ways since its original production in the Renaissance era. It has been adapted into books, movies, and abridged videos but this is comparing and contrasting the theme of being betrayed through love’s development in both a movie and play adaptation. Both the Twelfth Night play adaptation and the Twelfth Night movie adaptation deal with the theme of being betrayed through love but they do so in such different ways. In the original Twelfth…

Hermia’s father, Egeus, threatened to kill Hermia if she didn’t marry Demetrius. When this happened, Lysander came up with a plan to sneak away with Hermia. Lysander secretly said, “If thou lovest me then, steal forth thy father’s house tomorrow night. And in the wood . . . there will I stay for thee” (Shakespeare 1.1.163-168). Lysander said this to Hermia because she was crying about what her father said, and he wanted to make her feel better. He suggested that they go to his aunt’s house,…

The romantic comedy, Much Ado About Nothing a play by William Shakespeare, showcases how deception can be viewed in more than one manner. These deceptions rely on the sender, and their tricks and lies can come with good intentions. This play celestially reveals how characters are deceived and how the tricks uncover their emotions, and why they behave in a certain manner. The use of lies and deception in Much Ado About Nothing highlights the idea that tricks and plans are not just for villains…

Would you rather be single or be with the wrong person? In the novel The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, the Swedish singer Christine Daae is torn in a weird love triangle between two men: the handsome, rich, yet controlling and jealous Raoul, the Viscount of Chagny and the mysterious, talented, yet ugly and violent Erik, the Opera Ghost. Raoul was Christine’s childhood sweetheart and he wants to win her back. Erik is a masked man that slowly falls in love with Christine, while he hides…

William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” is a well-known comedy, a tale of lovers, haters and everything in between. The play focuses on two lovers who are captivated by each other’s looks the two care for little more in each other. On the other hand, another two lovers, Beatrice and Benedick, challenge each other’s quick wit and on the surface, seem to be a pain or burden to one another, yet they always find themselves talking or thinking about the other. Throwing insults, or witty humor…

What distinguishes Shakespeare from other playwrights of his time is his versatility. A Midsummer Night’s dream is Shakespeare’s first comedy, and overall play, that dwells into the realm of fantasy. As plots intertwine, so do different types of humor that are related through a wide array of comedic devices. The bard is in complete control of these devices and uses them to their fullest potential. The Athenian lovers’ plot is the "quintessential comedy of love" (Croce, 386) and subsequently, the…

“A tragedy is a tragedy, and at the bottom, all tragedies are stupid. Give me a choice and I'll take A Midsummer Night's Dream over Hamlet every time. Any fool with steady hands and a working set of lungs can build up a house of cards and then blow it down, but it takes a genius to make people laugh.” In comedy, the only characteristic shared between comedies is their want to make people laugh, and it can be difficult to pull off such a seemingly simple task. As defined by the New Oxford…

A Midsummer’s Nightmare Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream suggests that its relationships are happy ones, but this suggestion is complicated. In fact, the interplay between each of the couples indicates a nefarious quality present in all these relationships. This sinister quality can become even undeniably present in productions of this play. Brown writes that while scholars cannot consider any performance to be an authoritative adaptation, every performance brings interpretative…

the fact that from the beginning of time, light and darkness has been accepted as an archetype which established two opposing sides, classic examples being good versus bad, or hope versus despair. This archetype is further present in the play Twelfth Night, in which William Shakespeare utilizes light and darkness in order to identify a conflict between order and chaos surrounding a situation the character Malvolio finds himself in, and further elaborate on the meaning of the work as a whole.…