Dowden remarked that "The women in Shakespeare have almost always the advantage of his men. They are in the highest degree direct in
feeling and efficient in action."
John Ruskin, the great Victorian critic, has observed that Shakespeare has no heroes, but only heroines.
Hamlet and Macbeth are two plays in which
ghosts play significant roles.
In the play Macbeth, Shakespeare uses the witches
effectively.
In certain plays of Shakespeare, a figure explains the background or fills in the details of plot or
bridges the passage of time. Such a figure is referred to as 'chorus'. Shakespeare has employed chorus in Henry IV part
II, Henry V, Romeo & Juliet and The Winter's Tale.
The difference between a fool and a clown in Shakespeare is that a fool is a specialist who
is witty in conversation. He not only entertains, but also gives insight into deep meanings. On the other hand, a clown is more of an
entertainer who indulges in practical jokes and horseplay. Fool in King Lear and Touchstone in As You Like It are
examples of fool and clown respectively.
Montague and Capulet in Romeo and Juliet
are the heads of the two households both alike in dignity in Fair Verona.
Venus and Adonis is written in the six line stanza known as
sesta-rima. Rape of Lucrece is written in the seven line stanza known as rhyme-royal.
Timon of Athens in the play Timon of Athens is called a Misanthrope.
Shakespeare's first published work is Venus and
Adonis which was published by Richard Field in 1593.
Shakespeare's plays were published in four folios as follows - first folio in 1623, second
folio in 1632, third folio in 1663 and the fourth folio in 1685.
Nicholas Rowe, the dramatist and poet laureate, was the first editor of Shakespeare's plays
who attempted a systematic division of Acts and Scenes (1709).
Valentine and Proteus are the two gentlemen of Verona in the play Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Pericles was the play that happened to be omitted in the first folio published by Heminage and Condel.
Devenant's Macbeth, Dryden's The Tempest, Colly Cibber's Richard III and Nahum
Tate's King Lear are the four distorted versions of Shakespeare's plays presented in the English Theatres.
Dr. Samuel Johnson and Alexander Pope are the two outstanding Eighteenth century editors of
Shakespeare. Dr. Johnson, in his Preface to Shakespeare, defends the dramatist in mingling tragedy and comedy and his
neglect of three unities. Pope contends that Shakespeare's faults were largely due to the bad taste of his audience and that the
editors of the first folio introduced many blunders and illiteracies for which the dramatist could not have been responsible.
S T Coleridge calls Iago an unmotivated villain.
Bernard Shaw is the modern poet dramatist who claimed
superiority over Shakespeare.
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© 2005 Atanu Bhattacharya
www.coursesuseek.com