Most writers find it extremely difficult to convey the feeling of love via the written word. In fact, many people feel inspired to write by that challenge alone. Love cannot be summed up in a sentence or a paragraph, let alone a song or a poem....

In Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the major external obstacle faced by Hermia and Lysander appears in the form of Hermia’s father, Egeus, who intends for his daughter to marry another man, Demetrius. Throughout the play, Shakespeare...

In the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, there are many interesting characters who often perform heroic or important actions. Instead of focusing on one of these characters as the protagonist, the play revolves around multiple...

The concept of transformation appears in a variety of ways within A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Transformation within plays written by William Shakespeare often takes place as the changing of either a characters outward appearance or a denoted...

Two tablespoons of midsummer’s heat, one cup of magic, a dash of moonshine, and five cups of young love, are the makings of a perfect, steaming plate of chaos. This recipe for disaster is exactly what William Shakespeare depicts in his comedy, A...

As far back as Plato’s theory of imitation it has been asserted that “the poet always copies an earlier act of creation from reality or from other literary representations” (Carter 49). When Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night’s Dream around 1595...

Many critics have agreed that the resolutions to the myriad of conflicts in Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream are all unified in a manner that reinforces the central theme of the play. However, when it comes to what exactly critics...

‘Much Ado About Nothing’ is a captivating Shakespearean play which leaves the audience naturally puzzled over its genre. We keep pondering throughout the scenes whether its plot is a comedy or a tragedy. While the unfolding events underscore...

Much Ado About Nothing, a comedy by William Shakespeare, was first preformed in 1612. The play is set in Messina, Italy that follows the couple Hero and Claudio. Hero is unjustly accused of unchastity that results in her and Claudio’s separation...

In 'Much Ado About Nothing', friendship is personified as the male bond (shared by Claudio, Don Pedro, and Benedick), female friendship (among Hero, Margaret, and Beatrice), and cross-gender friendship (between Benedick and Beatrice). It is...

“Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare brings to life the story of how Count Claudio and fair Hero prepare for their wedding and how Hero’s father, Leonato, and Claudio’s mentor, Don Pedro, choose to pass the time by deceiving Beatrice...

Although considered light and delightful entertainment, Shakespeare's plays of comedy often address serious issues confronting Elizabethan values of propriety and social decorum. Anti-Semitism, death and homosexuality are frequent themes woven in...

At first glance, the reader is not likely to notice the immediate clue which presents itself in the title of William Shakespeare's comedy, Much Ado About Nothing. If one, however, would follow the example of a Shakespearean player in Elizabethan...

At the end of the play, Benedick reflects that "...man is a giddy thing." Referring in your answer to two or three key scenes in the play, explain why events in Messina might lead him to that conclusion.

In a play that so clearly focuses on the...

The world presented in Much Ado About Nothing is populated mostly by noble characters: The Prince of Aragon, Lord Claudio, Lord Benedick, The Governor of Messina and his daughter and niece. These characters embody the courtly ideas of social grace...

Many characters in Shakespeare's plays disguise themselves in one way or another. An important component of many of the his plays is the masked revels. A character adopting a new outward persona is not at all unusual. This use of contrasting the...

Picasso once said, "Art is lies that tell the truth." Art requires the suspension of reality or rather the ability to transcend the expected. In suspending that reality, however, greater truths can be addressed without the restrictions established...

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the prefix "sub-" to be "of something immaterial, a quality, state, etc," listing the root word "plot" as a term often associated with this definition. Therefore, to be a subplot means to be an immaterial...

"Though those that are betrayed Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor Stands in worse case of woe" (Cymbeline, III.iv). Shakespeare's carefully crafted world of deception and trickery within Much Ado About Nothing thrives on deceitful...

Although set in Messina, Italy, the conventions in Much Ado About Nothing are those of Elizabethan England, where marriage was seen as a business transaction and family stability was vital. This idea is explored through the fate of Hero, who has...

Using the Marxist approach to one of Shakespeare’s comedies, Much Ado About Nothing, this essay deals with the unconscious of the text in order to reveal the ideology of the text (as buried in what is not said) so as to discover the hegemony...

Much Ado about Nothing focuses on the emotional development of two relationships that endure various levels of deception. Although both couples marry at the end of the play, the deception that occurs during the play exploits the emotional...

In four of Shakespeare's plays, he introduces a character who is illegitimate. Philip Faulconbridge, Don John, Thersites, and Edmund are all children who were born out of wedlock. Also, all four characters were antagonists, if not the main...

Throughout the span of the comedies, Shakespeare allows his female characters to establish a greater amount of independence and freedom than they would have actually been allowed for the time period. This freedom is not necessarily a feminist...