In Shakespeare’s comedy The Taming of the Shrew, a number of individuals assume different identities through an array of varying illusions. Deception is a prominent thematic concern within the play, as a multitude of characters adopt disguises,...

The Taming of the Shrew gives the reflection of marriage in Shakespearean society. Ideas of patriarchy, female domestication and submission, economic interest, and the employment of noise and love all unite in the plot of the play according to the...

William Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew is set in Padua, where Katherine, the stubborn “shrew” the title refers to, is pursued by a bachelor named Petruchio who is in search of a wealthy wife. Katherine is known as the most ill-tempered...

In many of Shakespeare’s comedies, we see people from all social ranks being portrayed – from the highest of nobles, to the lowest of servants. In cases of male friendship, there is a common pattern to see friendship develop through master-servant...

The wealthy Baptista Minola of Padua, Italy is one of the most prideful characters in William Shakespeare’s comedy The Taming of Shrew. Baptista’s pride stems from his large estate and untaken daughters who will inherit his capital, assets of...

Within The Comedy of Errors by the venerable William Shakespeare, there comes a hectic bit in the first scene of the fifth act whereupon a lowly messenger brings disturbing news to Adriana: “Mistress, upon my life I tell you true / I have not...

Shakespeare’s ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ is a comedy focusing on the taming of the aggressive and verbose Katherine by Petruchio, and through this taming process, as well other elements of the play, the theme of love resonates. We see romantic...

Hunting birds like hawks are not meant to be tamed. They are just starved enough to make them listen and come back to their master for food. Women during the time of Shakespeare had to be silent, obedient, and pleasant to their husband- it was...

This scene occurs directly before the marriage Katherina and Petruchio in act three, it marks the climax of the play. No exact setting is given, that is down to the interpretation of the director. It takes place in Pachua but whether outside the...

Lucrece's tragic downfall in Shakespeare's "Rape of Lucrece" can be largely blamed on male competition. Her hapless story begins with a contest to determine which man possesses the chastest wife, "among which Collatus extolled the incomparable...

It is clear that William Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece examines the psychological effects of rape. However, what is less clear is the effects of power that this poem portrays and how it interacts with sexual violence. Power plays a crucial...

Shakespeare and Sex How do Venus and Adonis and Rape of Lucrece together serve as an interrogation of sexuality? What’s the message? The only works Shakespeare personally published, Venus and Adonis and Rape of Lucrece, were written and published...

In Shakespeare’s Love’s Labor’s Lost and Comedy of Errors, confusion is central to the plot, as well as perceived and subsequent enlightenment. In Love’s Labor’s Lost, confusion and enlightenment are played out through the lenses of education, and...

We live in a violent world. One only needs to watch the nightly news to find this to be the truth. Theft. Murder. Rape. Fires. Car crashes. Natural disasters. All of these forces bring violence into our lives, and it should come as no surprise...

The women of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and Love’s Labour’s Lost play very different parts in their respective stories. The women in the two plays have differing roles, responsibilities, opportunities. The women in Titus Andronicus are rarely...

Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona is, if not a love story, then a story about love as represented through various characters, primarily Proteus, Valentine, and Julia. The reader sees their attitudes towards love change throughout the plot,...

In Shakespeare’s Love’s Labor’s Lost and Comedy of Errors, confusion is central to the plot, as well as perceived and subsequent enlightenment. In Love’s Labor’s Lost, confusion and enlightenment are played out through the lenses of education, and...

One of Shakespeare's earliest plays (its first recorded performance in December 1594), The Comedy of Errors has frequently been dismissed as pure farce, unrepresentative of the playwright's later efforts. While Errors may very well contain...

William Shakespeare includes a Duke to represent the utmost authority figure in many of his plays. In The Comedy of Errors and The Merchant of Venice, both Dukes hold complete control—or, at least, what they perceive to be complete control—over...

The Comedy of Errors, written by William Shakespeare, is mirrored to a major extent by Plautus’s play The Brothers Manaechmus, both of which deal with the issue of separated twins who find themselves in the same town and are mistaken for each...

The Comedy of Errors, written by William Shakespeare and first performed by 1594, largely deals with the concept of identity, from the farcical mistaken identities of twins Antipholus and Dromio, to the roles of the women around them. In an...

The mistaken identities of twins Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse, and their slaves Dromio of Ephesus and Dromio of Syracuse, facilitate the comedy upon which Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors pivots. A common feature of...

Shakespearian comedies often address the widely-accepted notion in Elizabethan England that suggested that order and balance should prevail both in the world and in performed representations of the world, even if the form of the plays often...

Within The Comedy of Errors by the venerable William Shakespeare, there comes a hectic bit in the first scene of the fifth act whereupon a lowly messenger brings disturbing news to Adriana: “Mistress, upon my life I tell you true / I have not...