...characters try to solve the problem and the story ends with all the characters uniting in either a marriage of a party. Although these two genres are seen as being complete opposites of each other, through further analysis one can gather that though they are different certain similarities can also be seen. One aspect of these genres that can be compared and contrasted is the narrative or plot. A comparison can be analyzed in that both begin with a problem. In Oedipus Rex, the play begins with a plague devastating the city of Thebes. In A Midsummer Night's Dream there is also a plague that is upon the land. However, a difference between these two beginnings is that in Oedipus Rex the citizen are effected by it to the point that they look towards Oedipus for a solution to their suffering; while in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the effects of the plague are never shown to the audience and it seems a minor detail. Another difference is the cause of the plague in the two plays. In the tragedy, Oedipus Rex, the hero ends up being the cause because he murdered the king; while in A Midsummer Night's Dream the cause is a fight between Titania and Oberon. Another point that can be compared and contrasted is the search for a solution in the plots. In Hamlet, Hamlet is searching for the truth to discover if his father was really murdered by his uncle and if this is true he must correct the situation by killing his uncle. Also, in Oedipus Rex this plot is seen in that Oedipus is searching for...
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...characters try to solve the problem and the story ends with all the characters uniting in either a marriage of a party. Although these two genres are seen as being complete opposites of each other, through further analysis one can gather that though they are different certain similarities can also be seen. One aspect of these genres that can be compared and contrasted is the narrative or plot. A comparison can be analyzed in that both begin with a problem. In Oedipus Rex, the play begins with a plague devastating the city of Thebes. In A Midsummer Night's Dream there is also a plague that is upon the land. However, a difference between these two beginnings is that in Oedipus Rex the citizen are effected by it to the point that they look towards Oedipus for a solution to their suffering; while in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the effects of the plague are never shown to the audience and it seems a minor detail. Another difference is the cause of the plague in the two plays. In the tragedy, Oedipus Rex, the hero ends up being the cause because he murdered the king; while in A Midsummer Night's Dream the cause is a fight between Titania and Oberon. Another point that can be compared and contrasted is the search for a solution in the plots. In Hamlet, Hamlet is searching for the truth to discover if his father was really murdered by his uncle and if this is true he must correct the situation by killing his uncle. Also, in Oedipus Rex this plot is seen in that Oedipus is searching for...
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...characters try to solve the problem and the story ends with all the characters uniting in either a marriage of a party. Although these two genres are seen as being complete opposites of each other, through further analysis one can gather that though they are different certain similarities can also be seen. One aspect of these genres that can be compared and contrasted is the narrative or plot. A comparison can be analyzed in that both begin with a problem. In Oedipus Rex, the play begins with a plague devastating the city of Thebes. In A Midsummer Night's Dream there is also a plague that is upon the land. However, a difference between these two beginnings is that in Oedipus Rex the citizen are effected by it to the point that they look towards Oedipus for a solution to their suffering; while in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the effects of the plague are never shown to the audience and it seems a minor detail. Another difference is the cause of the plague in the two plays. In the tragedy, Oedipus Rex, the hero ends up being the cause because he murdered the king; while in A Midsummer Night's Dream the cause is a fight between Titania and Oberon. Another point that can be compared and contrasted is the search for a solution in the plots. In Hamlet, Hamlet is searching for the truth to discover if his father was really murdered by his uncle and if this is true he must correct the situation by killing his uncle. Also, in Oedipus Rex this plot...
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...SHAKESPEARE COMPARISON PRESENTATION PLAY SYNOPSIS A Midsummer Night's Dream" deals with the universal theme of love and its complications: lust, disappointment, confusion, marriage. The plot focuses on three parallel stories: * The trials and experiences of two sets of lovers camping in a magical forest * The world of the Fairy King and Queen and their elves * And a group of amateur actors attempting to stage a production of "Pyramus and Thisby" for the wedding of the Duke of Athens. Hermia is in love with Lysander, but her father wants her to marry Demetrius (who is loved by Helena). Hermia has to choose between marrying Demetrius, death or becoming a nun. To escape the arranged marriage, she and Lysander elope into the woods followed by Demetrius and Helena. While there we have the two male characters in love with Hermia, while Helena is trying to win the heart of Demetrius back. With this going on in the ‘main plot’ we are re-introduced to the fairies who try to ‘help’ the situation by using a love potion. The whole thing goes completely wrong which adds to the comedic elements of this play and ends up with Lysander and Demetrius now loving Helena and they find themselves in the same situation that they were already in before. "The course of true love never did run smooth" comments Lysander, uttering one of A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s most important themes. The theme of love’s difficulty, which is explored through the motif of love out of balance. The...
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...A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's more ambitious and fantastical plays. With over-arching plotlines, many interesting characters, magic, and odd creatures, Shakespeare really put a lot of imagination and hard work into ensuring A Midsummer Night's Dream could work as a play. The play has a few different themes going on at once, including but not necessarily limited to the idiocy of humanity and fiction versus reality. Scene III.1 embodies the two themes of the play, while also allowing Shakespeare the avenue to represent the arduous task of play-writing, while mocking those who feel they can make easy money doing something he excels at. The scene is quite important as it begins the introduction of the laborers/actors, who are effectively the idiots of the play, but also the idiots of humanity, who try to essentially fail at presenting a well thought out and...
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...How satisfying is the resolution at the end of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for the audience and to what extent does it restore harmony? Much like the ancient Greek comedies, Shakespeare uses a combination of comic conventions such as stock characters, green worlds and natural fools in order to produce a satisfying play of the 16th century. With audience in mind, Shakespeare utilizes these concepts of comedy in this five act play to ensure the ending would be considered harmonious as a comedy has often been described as 'beginning in turmoil but ending in harmony'. The play begins with the classical typography of a ancient Greek comedy; the promise of a wedding. The "nuptial hour" of Theseus and Hippolyta is used as the time frame for this play. The harmony between this royal couple illustrates to the audience that there is an order to return to which is why by the end of the play the two are wed to signify a restoration of harmony in order to assure the audience that everything of discord has been "amended". Hippolyta, who was "wooed" by a sword, seems quite content to marry the man who had "won" her love by "doing [her] injury" as she consoles Theseus with the notion that the time before their wedding will be "quickly dream[t] away". This insinuates that Hippolyta is in love with Theseus regardless of the language that suggests she was forced into the marriage, which wouldn't allow for a satisfying ending, especially to that of a modern audience. However, it may depend...
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...The passage I chose was from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare. In this passage, Puck and the fairy are having a conversation about what Puck does to people to fool them. After their conversation is over, Titania and Oberon walk in, and they start fighting with each other. They are furious and accuse each other of cheating on one another. After annotating and analyzing this passage in Act 2 Scene 1 I have formed two claims, one being that Puck is a trickster. Another one being that the change in writing style is due to the fact that Oberon and Titania are of a different social and emotional status than the fairy and Puck. The dialogue between the fairy and Puck was written in heroic couplets, meaning the last word of every pair...
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...Choice, Sports, Stem Cell Research, Steroids, Terrorism, Violence, War on Drugs, more... Business - Advertising, Business, Buy Web Sites, Economics, Finance, Management, Marketing, Sell Websites Education - ADHD, Learning, Philosophy of Education, Privatization, Public Schools, School Violence, School Vouchers, Teaching, Technology and Education, Test and Testing, Writing English Composition Essays - Analitical, Autobiographical, Argument, Cause/Effect, Classification, Compare/Contrast, Comparison, Conversation, Creative+Writing, Critical, Deductive, Definition, Descriptive, Description, Dialog, Division, Exploratory, Expository, Informative, Interview, Inquiry, Journalistic, Narration, Observation. Personal Narrative, Place, Profile, Process, Proposal English Literature and Literary Analysis - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A & P, Antigone, Apocalypse Now, Araby, The Awakening, Barn Burning, Beowulf, Beloved, Bible, Birthmark, Blade Runner, The Bluest Eye, Candide, Canterbury Tales, Catcher in the Rye, Cathedral, Chrysanthemums, A Clockwork Orange, The Color Purple, Comparing Literary Works, Crime and Punishment, Death of a Salesman, Death in Venice, Desiree's Baby, A Doll's House, Dr. Faustus, Epic of Gilgamesh, Everyday Use, A Farewell to Arms, Frankenstein, The Grapes of Wrath, Great Gatsby, Great Expectations, Glass Menagerie, Gulliver's Travels, The Handmaid's Tale, Heart of Darkness, The Iliad, Invisible Man, Jane Eyre, The Joy Luck Club, The Lottery, ...
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...laughter and Joy. Lamb, Charles and Mary. Like A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Merchant of Venice, it is built by means of two worlds: the world ruled by Duke Frederick and the world of the Forest of Arden. Lamb, Charles and Mary. The effect is not the "separate but equal" envelope structure of A Midsummer Night Dream, nor the interlocking and necessary alternation of The Merchant of Venice; instead, Frederick's world first seems dominant and then dissolves and disappears into the world of Arden. Lamb, Charles and Mary. Its life seems to be in the play not so much for itself as to help us understand and read its successor. There is a set of contrasts between the two worlds of this play, but the contrasts are describable not in terms of opposition of power, as in A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Merchant of Venice, but in terms of attitudes of the dominant characters, as in Much Ado About Nothing, and in terms of differences in the settings and of changes in behavior for those characters who are part of both worlds. Lamb, Charles and Mary. These contrasts are easy to describe because Shakespeare points the way clearly, making each world an extreme. Our approach will be to examine the qualities of Frederick's world, then to examine the qualities of Arden, and finally out of this contrast to see how the characters behave in each world. Lamb, Charles and Mary. We have seen power presented in A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Merchant of Venice. In the former, Theseus...
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...Can we know when to trust our emotions in the pursuit of knowledge? Consider history and one other area of knowledge. Candidate Name: Nastassja Isabelle Session Number: 002636-063 School Name: Binus International School Simprug Session: May 2013 Word Count: 1598 “The sign of an intelligent people is their ability to control their emotions by the application of reason”, American author, Marya Mannes once said. Emotion is defined as a strong feeling deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others. In the pursuit of knowledge, there are times when emotion could be involved in order to gain a better understanding of a certain aspect. However, relying on emotions too much could also cloud our judgment, for it is a very subjective way of knowing. This essay will discuss how reliable our emotion is in the pursuit of knowledge in two areas of knowledge; history and the arts. To start with, emotion plays a big part in judging historical figures and events that were immortalized through history books. The question is, would it be accurate enough to judge them solely based on our emotions? Take Richard III for example. He is known as an evil deformed hunchback in history. Shakespeare had popularized Richard III’s ‘deformed hunchback’ image by his famous historical tragedy titled “Richard III” where he was portrayed as a king who ruthlessly lies, murders, and manipulates, so many people had viewed Richard III like that. Shakespeare’s “Richard III” was one...
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...to a flaw in their characters, he raises them to heights near perfection, as well as running the risk of creating pathos, not tragedy. They are both sincere, kind, brave, loyal, virtuous, and desperately in love, and their tragedy is greater because of their innocence. The feud between the lovers’ families represents the fate that Romeo and Juliet are powerless to overcome. The lines capture in poetry the youthful and simple passion that characterizes the play. One of the most popular plays of all time, Romeo and Juliet was Shakespeare’s second tragedy (after Titus Andronicus of 1594, a failure). Consequently, the play shows the sometimes artificial lyricism of early comedies such as Love’s Labour’s Lost 1594-1595, . 1598) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (. 1595-1596, . 1600), while its character development predicts the direction of the playwright’s artistic maturity. In Shakespeare’s usual fashion, he based his story on sources that were well known in his day: Masuccio Salernitano’s Novellino (1475), William Painter’s The Palace of Pleasure (1566-1567), and, especially, Arthur Brooke’s poetic The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (1562). Shakespeare reduces the time of the action from the months it takes in Brooke’s work to a few compact days. In addition to following the conventional five-part structure of a tragedy, Shakespeare employs his characteristic alternation, from scene to scene, between taking the action forward and retarding it, often with comic relief, to heighten...
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...The Social Changes in Marriage Western Governors University Social Changes in the Module of Marriage Bob Dylan said it the best, “The times they are a changing”. The purpose of marriage in today’s society is no longer what it was over a century ago. Families in the early 1900s were depicted in movies such as “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” where arranged marriages were the social norm. The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet or Leave It to Beaver were the “families” of the mid-1960s.They were comprised of two parents, two children and a happy stable environment. The Husband’s role was that of the provider, with the Wife’s role being that of a homemaker and nurturing mother. The children were a reflection of their parent’s social reverence to society norms. In the late 1960s – 1970s cultural norms regarding marriage, pre-marital sex/cohabitation and childrearing changed significantly. The family was replaced by divorced parents or blended families, reflected in shows such as “Different Strokes,” “One Day at a Time,” and “Parent Trap” reflected such. Currently, non-traditional families are accompanied by same sex marriage and depicted in sitcoms such as Modern Family, which combines multiple variations of family models in one show. These various family modules are becoming widely accepted in society, along with changes in the social module of marriage, as “traditional family values are being swept away by a wave of tolerance toward lone mothers, gay couples and unmarried...
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...epics o Dante – Middle Ages – wrote brilliantly on circumstances of human existence o Aristotle – the great philosopher ENTER SHAKESPEARE – THE LITERARY GIANT Spelling of Shakespeare: Spelling not yet standardized, thus name spelled in different ways • Shakespeare, Shakspere, Shackspere, Shaxper, Shagspere, Shaxberd, etc. Shakespeare: The most well known playwright of Elizabethan times is Shakespeare. But there were also other writers who in their time were just as, or even more famous than him. WHAT MAKES SHAKESPEARE STAND OUT? – The volume of his works Plays firmly attributed to Shakespeare ■ 14 COMEDIES – funny play – with amusing events – ended in marriage / or happily o Midsummer Night’s Dream, Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Much Ado about Nothing… ■ 10 HISTORIES – Richard III, Richard II, Henry IV… ■ 10 TRAGEDIES – ends in death ← Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Julius Caesar… ■ 4 Romances – ( chivalry and love) Pericles,...
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...Literary Criticism The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Two Gentlemen of Verona is a comedy about the adventures of two bosom buddies, Valentine and Proteus. When Proteus falls in love with his best friend's girlfriend, the guys find themselves torn between the bonds of male friendship and romance. (If you're thinking all this sounds like a modern day "bromantic comedy," you're right. Two Gentlemen of Verona is the great, great grandfather of buddy flicks like the 2009 comedy I Love You Man.) Written as early as 1590-91, Two Gentlemen appears to be William Shakespeare's first play. (As usual, some literary critics are divided over this issue, but we're going with the editors of The Norton Shakespeare and the editors of The Oxford Shakespeare on this one.) As Shakespeare's first theatrical effort, Two Gentlemenhas been referred to as a "limping forerunner" of Shakespeare's later works. Even famous literary scholar Harold Bloom says it's "the weakest of all Shakespeare's comedies." We, on the other hand, prefer to think of Two Gentlemen as Shakespeare's test kitchen, where a budding young playwright begins to work out the recipe for his "comedies" and begins to explore themes and conventions that he'll develop more fully in later works – particularly the themes of male friendship and heterosexual love, which come into conflict in plays like The Merchant of Veniceand also in Shakespeare's collection of Sonnets. Like all test kitchen creations, Two Gentlemen is far from perfect...
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...Bloom’s Classic Critical Views W i l l ia m Sha k e Sp e a r e Bloom's Classic Critical Views alfred, lord Tennyson Benjamin Franklin The Brontës Charles Dickens edgar allan poe Geoffrey Chaucer George eliot George Gordon, lord Byron henry David Thoreau herman melville Jane austen John Donne and the metaphysical poets John milton Jonathan Swift mark Twain mary Shelley Nathaniel hawthorne Oscar Wilde percy Shelley ralph Waldo emerson robert Browning Samuel Taylor Coleridge Stephen Crane Walt Whitman William Blake William Shakespeare William Wordsworth Bloom’s Classic Critical Views W i l l ia m Sha k e Sp e a r e Edited and with an Introduction by Sterling professor of the humanities Yale University harold Bloom Bloom’s Classic Critical Views: William Shakespeare Copyright © 2010 Infobase Publishing Introduction © 2010 by Harold Bloom All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For more information contact: Bloom’s Literary Criticism An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data William Shakespeare / edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom : Neil Heims, volume editor. p. cm. — (Bloom’s classic critical views) Includes bibliographical references...
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