SHAKESPEARE

UNIT I

Shakespeare Theatre; Theatre Conventions; Sources; Problems of categorization; Trends

in Shakespeare Studies up to the 19th Century; Sonnet and court politics; famous actors;
theatre criticism; Shakespeare into film & play production.

UNIT II
Sonnets – 12, 65, 86,130,
Comedy plays -Much Ado About Nothing

UNIT III
Tragedy – Othello

UNIT IV
History Henry IV Part I

UNIT V
Shakespeare Criticism – Modern approaches - mythical, archetypal, feminist, post-
colonial, New historicist; A.C. Bradley (extract)
Granville Baker – From Prefaces to Shakespeare
Stephen Greenblatt– Invisible Bullets: Renaissance Authority and its Subversion, Henry
IV & Henry V, in Shakespearean Negotiations. New York: Oxford University Press,
1988.

Text Books (Latest Editions)

1. Stephen Greenblatt, ed., 1997, The Norton Shakespeare, (Romances& Poems, Tragedies,
Comedies), W.W. Norton & Co., London.
References Books (Latest editions, and the style as given below must be strictly adhered to)
1. Harrison, 1951, G.B. Shakespeare’s Tragedies, Routledge, London.
2. Knight G.W., 1957, The Wheel of Fire: Essays in Interpretation of Shakespeare’s
Sombre Tragedies, New York.
3. Knight G.W., 1947, The Crown of Life: Essays in Interpretation of Shakespeare’s
Final Plays, Oxford.
4. John f. Andrews, ed., 1985, William Shakespeare: His World, His Work, His
Influence, Charles Scribner’s Sons.
5. Jonathan Dollimore, ed., 1984, The Radical Tragedy, The Harvester Press,
Cambridge.
Web sources
1. http://www.shakespeare.bham.ac.uk/resources
2. https://www.folger.edu/shakespeares-theater
3. https://www.britannica.com/art/sonnet
4. https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/othello/genre/
5. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/british_english_monarchs/henry-iv
 UNIT I
SHAKESPEAREAN THEATRE

Shakespeare's plays were mostly meant to be performed, not recorded. They were written
for the stage, not for bookshops. The Greek tragedians wrote plays that could be performed in
huge open-air stages. Moliere wrote plays for the small, closed "tennis-court" theatres of France
in the 1600s, and Ibsen wrote plays for the modern "picture-frame" stage. Shakespeare wrote
plays for the theatres in Elizabethan times. These theatres were very different from the ones
where his plays are performed now in important ways. There are many things about his plays
that can only be understood by studying them. He knew everything about his show, including its
flaws and strengths.

There was no set stage before Elizabeth's time. There were theatre groups that moved
around. They moved their simple, rough stage from one place to another. The stage was basically
an open tent with two doors on either side. One door led to the stage, and the other led to the
audience. Between them was a small door. It was what the inner part needed to do.

Britain had four types of stages when Shakespeare got there. They were
a) Public Theatres
b) Private Theatres,
c) The Halls of Royal Palaces and
d) The Inns of Court.

There were three Public theatres. They were.

The curtain,
The Theatre and
The Newington Butts.

The Rose theatre was added in 1587.

The stages had a raised platform in the middle and were either round or oval. They were
open on top. The performances took place during the day. All of these theatres put on
Shakespeare's plays. Some of his shows were put on in Royal Palaces. It was built in 1599, the
Globe stage. Shakespeare took part in it. Back in the Elizabethan era, this was the most common
type of theatre.

It was built in a circle. The inside garden had a window to the sky. There were three
levels of balconies around it, all with views of the main stage in the middle. There was a circle of
space around the stage. It was known as the "pit." In the pit, there were no seats. The poor
audience members, who were called "groundlings," had to stand or sit on the floor the whole
time. The three rooms were set up with seats stacked on top of each other. People who were
more stylish and well-behaved were sitting there. A thatched roof covered the balcony at the very
top. The ticket changed for the pits and the balconies.

"Apron stage" was the correct name for the stage itself. There was a rectangular platform
that was extended. Three groups of groundlings stood around it. It had a wooden roof and
hangings on top of it. There were no shades on the sides or in front. The floor had a secret trap
door in it. It was used for ghosts and witches to go up or down. There were two doors at the back
of the stage, one on each side. Through them, the figures showed up or went away. There was a
small space between the doors that was hidden by a thin curtain. It's a kind of inside stage. Some
of the places it stood for were Desdemona's bedroom, Prospero's cell, King Lear's cave, Juliet's
grave, and so on. The upper stage was on top of the break. In formal language, it is called "the
heavens." It was used as Juliet's porch in her bedroom. The hollow below is hidden or shown by
a curtain that is hung from the balcony.

There were no sets or scenery. The stage had things on it, but no set. Some of the things
that were on the stage were a human head, a grave, a lion, a fake moon, a bush, or a flower plant.
The clothes worn by Elizabethans were fancy, expensive, and very expensive. The clothes people
wore showed their rank and job. The boys played the parts of the female figures. They came out
on stage dressed as women in tacky clothes. For the most part, Shakespeare's female leads in
comedies were dressed as guys. Shakespeare avoided romantic scenes that were too close or too
emotional. They didn't know about the drop curtain. So, when each scene was over, the players
had to leave the stage either on their own or by being carried off. This left the stage empty. Most
of the time, the stage is cleaned up after each scene. Two lines that rhymed at the end of a
Shakespearean scene were another way to show that it was over. The poet made up for the lack
of scenery effects with beautiful descriptions and vivid poem effects. Shakespeare's great poems
told great stories about landscapes, castles, and other places, which made up for the lack of
scenery. There were many trumpets, coronets, and wooden flutes in the music. Runes were all
over the stage. On one rare occasion, it got matted. There was a sign up with the name of the
place where the event happened. The star got down on his knees on the stage at the end of each
show and said a prayer for the Queen.

THEATRE CONVENTIONS

Shakespearean drama is the name for the plays that were put on in England when Queen
Elizabeth I was in charge. Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker, John Webster, Thomas
Kyd, and other smart college students were the most famous playwrights of the time. Dramatic
conventions are the exact moves and methods that an actor, writer, or director has used to
achieve a certain dramatic style or effect. A dramatic convention is a set of rules that everyone in
the crowd and on stage knows. Conventions like these are a quick and easy way to show what an
action or figure is like. There are different types of dramatic conventions, such as practice,
technical, and theatrical. Hot seating, roles on the wall, and still pictures are all common ways to
practice. Lighting, dialogue, monologues, sets, costumes, and entries and exits are some
examples of technical conventions. It is common in theatre to use flashbacks and forwards,
storytelling, soliloquies, split focus, and spoken thought.

Elizabethan theatre used a lot of different acting and staging styles. Some of these were
the soliloquy, the aside, masque, eavesdropping, dialogues, symbols, disguises and mistaken
identities, holy oaths and vows, and play within a play. Costumes that are very detailed and little
setting are typical of stage craft. As a result, the Elizabethan or Shakespearean stage followed
many rules of theatre and technology to make the plays better.

SHAKESPEARE’S SOURCES

Introduction:
Shakespeare borrowed a lot from other writers' work and used old stories and historical
facts in his own. There are not many original ideas in any of Shakespeare's plays. Shakespeare
didn't come up with the stories of most of his plays. The Tempest and Love's Labour's Lost are
two exceptions. A lot of his ideas came from old stories by Italian authors, some of which were
well-known and some of which were not. Langbaine was the first person to write about how
Shakespeare used sources in his 1691 book, Account of the English Dramatic writers.

There are three main types of plays that he has written:

 Histories and comedies
 Tragedies
 And late romances

Histories and Comedies:

He got the ideas for most of his plays about the Romans and Greeks from Plutarch's
Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. "From the English Translation of 1579 by
Thomas North" It is clear that Shakespeare based his plays on North's translations of Plutarch's
lives for Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Timon of Athens. Raphael
Holinshed's Chronicles (1587) gave him ideas for the plots of English history plays. The book
has accounts of England, Scotland, and Ireland from the beginning of recorded history to the
middle of the 16th century. The accounts were where Shakespeare got many of his ideas for
tragedies.

Shakespeare got ideas for his plays from a lot of Italian writers. He took a lot from the
Decameron, a collection of stories written in the 1100s by Giovanni Boccacio. All's well that
ends well, Cymbeline, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona were all based on the Decameron. He
also used everyday stories from Roman authors like Ovid, Seneca, and Plautus, as well as from
Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower, two of the best English writers of the middle Ages. Like in
"As You Like It" and "The Winter's Tale," he also used prose fiction written by people around
him at the time. The play A Midsummer Night's Dream is not based on a real book. It does,
however, take ideas from British legends, Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales," and Ovid's
"Metamorphoses."

Tragedies:
For the plays about English history, he used Edward Hall's and Holinshed's diaries. King
Lear and Macbeth are two plays that deal with long-ago history that seems like a myth.
Holinshed's diaries were the source for Shakespeare's plays set in Britain and Hamlet, which was
based on the “Danish prince Amleth”.
 Bible Stories: Shakespeare did not get ideas for his plays from religion stories. But many
of the references and hints in his writings are to the Bible. It's most possible that Shakespeare
learned about the Bible from The Book of Common Prayer, The Geneva Bible, and The Bishop's
Bible.

PROBLEMS IN CATEGORIZATION

Shakespeare, on the other hand, wrote a lot of different kinds of plays in a lot of different
styles. He was a master of many genres and could write everything from bloody tragedies to
comedies that would make you laugh out loud to heady romances to historical epics and more.
There are a lot of different types of theatre and movies, like action, drama, comedy, horror,
romance, film, and family. But Shakespeare didn't put his plays into categories; editors did that
after they were released, a long time after the fact. At first, Shakespeare's plays were put into
three main types or styles: comedies, tragedies, and histories.

There is something wonderful about Shakespeare's plays: none of them are stuck in one
form. There are times of loss, fear, truth, and sadness in Shakespeare's plays, while there are
often very human times of mishap and humour in his tragedies. Different types of stories have
different ways of finishing, but all of them are about choices, the results of those choices, love,
hate, fear, and more.

Comedies:
Many of Shakespeare's plays are very funny. They often have love stories, identity theft,
magic, love potions, big adventures, shipwrecks, long-lost twins, clowns, and other funny things
happen. In his comedies, Shakespeare often has his characters go to new lands and explore
faraway and strange places, away from the structure of city or court life. This gives the actors a
lot of room to play, get lost, and learn about themselves. There are, however, some very serious
stories that are called comedies. All of them have happy endings with some kind of conclusion.
This means that none of the characters die. There are usually two or three weddings at the end of
plays.

Plays include: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, The Comedy of Errors,
Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice and The
Tempest.
Tragedies:
In most of Shakespeare's plays, the main character or characters are either put under
pressure by family or society that they can't handle, or they cause their own downfall because of
flaws in themselves. In other words, they have a fatal flaw or weakness that brings them down or
kills them, like pride, jealousy, or desire.

In tragedies, there is often a lot going on. There may be love, war, family arguments,
historical figures, kings and queens, power fights, losing faith in society, and a lot more. Stories
that are tragedies don't end well, and a lot of people die. His tragedies break the rules of what a
tragedy should be like by having clowns, fools, and funny parts. It's interesting that, overall,
Shakespeare's dramas are often his most well-known and admired plays.

Histories:
He wrote a lot of plays based on real people, mostly English kings and queens. He liked
to change events and characters to make a good story, though, so he didn't always stick to the
facts. Some people didn't like that he did this, even though it was meant to be dramatic. On the
other hand, people still today. For example, people still argue about Shakespeare's portrayal of
King Richard III as a bad guy. They think that the play was so powerful that it changed the
King's image and legacy to something much worse than it really was. Shakespeare also wrote
plays about real people from Rome and Egypt, like Antony, Cleopatra, and Julius Caesar. These
plays are called tragedies, though.

Plays include: Henry V, Richard III, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, Richard II, and Henry VI Parts 1 -
3.

Problem Plays:
The "Problem Play" is a fourth type of play that some experts also use to describe
Shakespeare's works. This label has been debated for a long time, and experts still can't agree on
which plays belong in this genre. Usually, the word "Problem Play" means that some of
Shakespeare's plays are hard to put into a certain category. This phrase can also be used to talk
about plays where the actors have different opinions on controversial or social issues. Frederick
Samuel Boas was the first reviewer to use this idea to put Shakespeare's plays into groups.
Plays include: The Winter's Tale, Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure and The Merchant
of Venice

TRENDS IN SHAKESPEARE STUDIES UP TO 19TH CENTURY

Introduction:
What William Shakespeare wrote (1564–1616): A lot of people think that Shakespeare
was one of the best writers ever. People often think of him as the best writer out there. Since he
died 400 years ago, studying Shakespeare's plays and poetry has become a full-fledged industry.
There are academics, scholars, general readers, people who speak English as their first language,
people who came from former colonies, and people who speak little or no English who study
Shakespeare's work.

Among his Contemporaries: Shakespearean Studies in 16th Century

William Shakespeare was only seen as one of many skilled playwrights and poets in his
own time. A lot of people in his time said that Shakespeare was rude, snobbish, and overdone.
Frances Beaumont and William Shakespeare both died in the spring of 1616, not long after each
other. Beaumont was the first playwright to be buried in Westminster Abbey, next to the tombs
of Geoffrey Chaucer and Edmund Spenser, which is a national shrine. Shakespeare was buried in
Stratford-upon-Avon, the small town where he was born and raised. These two very different
grave sites are a reminder that he was just one of many theatre stars in his time, even though he
was very well-liked.

Some lists of the best writers of the time, like those made by Charles I, included him, but
not as highly as Sidney or Spencer. Shakespeare's works were printed many times more than his
plays. However, Shakespeare wrote his plays to be performed by his own company. Since there
was no law that said other companies couldn't use the plays, Shakespeare's company took steps
to stop them from being printed.

Ben Jonson released his own works in folio the same year that Beaumont and
Shakespeare did. After seven years, in 1623, plays by Shakespeare's fellow players John
Hemings and Henry Condell were the next playwrights to be honoured with a folio collection.
This folio was used in another version within 9 years, which shows that, for a playwright, he was
held in very high regard.
In 1623, Jonson wrote a beautiful poem to go with the Folio version of Shakespeare's plays:

Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show

To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!

Jonson also told his readers that the plays had made a big impression on Queen Elizabeth
I and King James I when they saw them at court:

Sweet Swan of Avon, what a sight it were

To see thee in our waters yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
That so did take Eliza and our James!

The intros to the second folio by Ben Jonson and John Milton were the first to hint that
Shakespeare was the best author of his time. Ben Jonson wrote "Timber" or "Discoveries" in
1630. In it, he praised how quickly and easily Shakespeare wrote his plays and how honest and
kind he was to other people.

17th Century:
The Puritans were in charge during the Interregnum (1642–1660), and they banned all
types of public theatre. Actors were not allowed to use the stage, clothes, or scenery, but they
were still able to perform 'drolls', which are short parts of longer plays that usually end with a jig.
Shakespeare's work was stolen for these scenes, along with the work of many other writers.
Bottom from A Midsummer Night's Dream and the gravedigger's scenes were two of the most
popular ones.

Restoration:
When the stages reopened in 1660, the Duke's Company and the King's Company, two
new London theatre companies, put on shows using the rights to old plays. Some of the most
valuable works were by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and the Beaumont and Fletcher team. They
stayed popular even after Restoration playwriting became famous. Christopher Wren built the
fancy playhouses in London during the Restoration period. Music, dancing, thunder, lightning,
wave machines, and fireworks were used in Shakespeare's plays. The words were "made better"
for the stage. It looks like Beaumont and Fletcher's plays were more popular than Shakespeare's
based on the incomplete Restoration stage records. Beaumont and Fletcher lost their roles on the
London stage in the early 1700s, but Shakespeare took them over and never gave them back.

In literary commentary, Shakespeare has been in a class by himself since 1600.

Shakespeare did not follow the strict French neoclassical "rules" for play or the three core
elements of time, place, and action. But he was still great, and people praised him. In his
important work Essay of Dramatic Poesie (1668), Dryden, for example, said that Ben Jonson is
not even close to "the incomparable Shakespeare," who he called "the follower of nature, the
untaught genius, and the great realist of human character."

18th Century:
Performance play scripts became more and more different from the originals, while
reading texts quickly moved in the opposite direction, with the rise of textual criticism and a
focus on staying true to Shakespeare's original words. Most of the texts we read and play today
were written in the 18th century.

In the 1800s, Joseph Addison said, "Among the English, Shakespeare has incomparably
excelled all others." Alexander Pope agreed, saying, "Every single character in Shakespeare is as
much an Individual as those in Life itself." And Samuel Johnson laughed off Voltaire and
Rhymer's neoclassical criticism of Shakespeare, calling them "the petty cavils of petty minds."
So, we can see that great writers liked Shakespeare. Before the Romantic period, other great
writers had already said nice things about Shakespeare.

The only parts of Shakespeare's plays that people consistently didn't like and picked out
for criticism in the 18th century were the sexual allusions and puns (called "clenches"). Some
editors, like Alexander Pope, tried to hide or get rid of the puns and double entendres, but they
were quickly undone, and by the middle of the century, the jokes and sexual humor were back
for good.

19th Century:
Many Romantic reviewers, like Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Hazlitt, thought
that admiring Shakespeare was too much and called it "bardolatry." It started to seem
disrespectful to compare him to other Renaissance writers, even if the goal was to find him
better. Shakespeare was meant to be studied without any critical thinking. Instead, his fans
should address or apostrophize him, almost as if they were praying to him, as in Thomas De
Quincey's famous essay "On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth" (1823): "O, mighty artist!
Thy works are not just great works of art like other people's; they are also like natural events in
nature, like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers, frost and snow, rain and dew,
hailstorms and thunder, which we should study with all of our minds..."During the Romantic era,
what happened on the stage wasn't seen as important because the Romantics, who wrote their
own tragic plays, thought Shakespeare was better suited for reading than performing. As Charles
Lamb saw it, any kind of stage performance took away from the real qualities of the book.

Shakespeare was a big part of British national pride in the 1800s, when the British
Empire was at its strongest. Based on Thomas Carlyle's 1841 work On Heroes, Hero-Worship,
and the Heroic in History, Shakespeare was one of the greatest poet-heroes in history. He saw
Shakespeare as a "rallying sign" for British cultural pride all over the world, even in the lost
American colonies: "…Yes, this Shakespeare is ours; we made him, we speak and think by him,
we are of the same blood and kind with him" (17). During the 1800s, Shakespeare became a way
for the motherland and all of her colonies to share a shared history.

SONNET AND COURT POLITICS

Shakespearean Sonnets:
Henry Howard came up with the English form of the sonnet, but Shakespeare was the
real master. Shakespeare popularised this style and wrote 154 sonnets during his lifetime. Many
of them came out in 1609. 126 of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets are written for "Mr. W.H." The
subject of these poems is a mysterious "dark lady," who is the subject of the other 28 sonnets in
this collection. At first look, it seems like the sonnets are about the speaker's love for the Fair
Youth. The speaker, on the other hand, often uses the sonnets to talk about bigger ideas and
topics. This is why each sonnet is both a love song and a thought-provoking look at life. The
sonnets are about things like love, betrayal, beauty, death, and the passing of time.

The Fair Youth:

One of Shakespeare's sonnets is dedicated to "Mr. W.H." No one is sure who Mr. W.H. is
who is called "the only father of Shakespeare's Sonnets." A lot of people have offered their ideas
about who he is. Earl of Pembroke William Herbert is thought to be the most likely person to be
Mr. W.H. and the "young man." He was the person who signed the First Folio. A lot of people
think that Henry Wriothesley (the Earl of Southampton), with his letters switched around, could
be the person who did it. Portsmouth was also known for how good he looked.

“The Dark Lady”:

Shakespeare's sonnets (sonnets 127–152) talk about a woman called "The Dark Lady."
The name comes from the fact that the poems make it clear that she has dark, "dun"-colored skin
and black, curly hair. Because of a lack of historical information, the question of who the Dark
Lady is has not been answered and is considered debatable. Some scholars think that she may
have come from the Mediterranean, while others think that the Dark Lady may have been an
African woman.

Court Politics:
"A friend in the Court is worth more than a penny in the bank." Justice Shallow says this
because he knows that Falstaff will be able to have a lot of power and make a lot of money if he
keeps Prince Hal's support. The second part of Henry the Fourth King James I and Queen
Elizabeth I did not go to the play. They instead asked Shakespeare and his company to come play
at their palaces. We know that Elizabeth often went to see Shakespeare's shows. The Merry
Wives of Windsor and Love's Labor's Lost were both written with title pages that said they had
been played for the queen, so Elizabeth definitely saw them. When James I moved to London, he
became the owner of Shakespeare's company and changed its name to the King's Men. The
King's Men were paid ten pounds for each speech they gave at court. They were also given extra
money to buy red robes for royal servants, which they wore in the parade at James's coronation.
James liked the theatre, and Shakespeare's company put on shows for him more often than for
Elizabeth. About ten times a year, the King's Men played at James's court. It is written that
James's court saw Othello, Henry V, Love's Labor's Lost, Measure for Measure, The Merry
Wives of Windsor, and The Merchant of Venice twice.

People who were present at the royal court were the most important noblemen and
women in the country. A lot of these aristocrats had a lot of schooling. Elizabeth I could speak
many languages and write her own poems. James I, on the other hand, wrote heavy books about
politics and religion. Shakespeare may have written Macbeth, his play about Scotland, just to
make James like him. The play's clever use of witches spoke directly to the king's interest in the
supernatural, and Banquo's moral improvement also praised James, who was also Banquo's
grandson.

Shakespeare cared a lot about politics, which is clear from the topics he chose for his
plays. Ten of his plays about history are mostly about politics. King Lear, Hamlet, and Macbeth
are more of Shakespeare's plays that look at the nature of royalty and issues like legitimate
succession and the dangers of usurpation and tyranny. Shakespeare was interested in modern
republics and how their political ideas are different from those of monarchies. Othello, which
takes place in part in Venice, shows this.

At first glance, Shakespeare's plays look like they are about everyday life rather than
politics. But some of Shakespeare's plays are also about politics. Both "The Merchant of Venice"
and "Measure for Measure" are serious political plays about issues like the conflict between
religion and politics. They also go so far from being comedic to tragic that Shakespeare had to
use all of his dramatic skills to end them on a happy note.

Conclusion:
In recent years, scholars have come to see Shakespeare as a real political thinker in his
own right, maybe even a major political philosopher, on par with Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli,
Hobbes, Nietzsche, and other great thinkers who have thought about politics and the human
condition. The way is one of the most amazing things about Shakespeare's plays. At first glance,
focusing on Shakespeare and politics might seem like a narrow way to understand how great he
was, but in the end, this approach takes us to a deep exploration of all of his interests and
accomplishments.

SHAKESPEAREAN AUDIENCE

To get into the heart of Shakespeare's dramatic art, it's important to know what kind of
people he wrote his plays for. The people who went to Elizabethan plays were very different
from one another. They can be put into two groups: the "vulgar" and the "refined." This class
included sailors, troops, thieves, pickpockets, cheats, and immoral men and women. They were
all rude and didn't care about culture. There were educated men and women in the refined class,
as well as responsible businessmen and public officials, critics and scholars, and members of
royal families. Shakespeare had to make his plays fit the wants of both groups.

Most of the people who went to public theatres were from the vulgar class. A lot of the
time, they stood in the pit around the stage. They were the ones who made the most noise. The
players were scared of them. People selling snacks and drinks moved among them, giving them
apples, nuts, and sausages. They drank and ate, smoked tobacco, and fought. When they ran out
of funny things to say, they threw food scraps and even stones at the players. There were times
when the shows had to be stopped and the stage had to be closed. People burned juniper berries
to clear the air when the bad smells got too strong to stand.

People from the upper class sat in chairs close to the stage. They sat on the stage
sometimes. There were special boxes for important people in government and the public eye.
Most of the time, women wore cloth masks over their faces. The first row was mostly made up of
very stylish women. Ladies with a lot of respect don't go to public theatres. There were private
theatres. They met the needs of those kinds of people. In general, Elizabethan audiences loved
loud scenes of killings, bloodshed, revenge, oppression, and horrible crimes. They went to
melodramatic shows. Most people in Elizabethan times didn't find it disgusting that Macbeth
wasn't grateful, that Macbeth's mother was weak, that Othello was suspicious, that Regan and
Goneril were cruel, or that there were so many scenes of murder, bloodshed, and war. Marlowe's
"Tamburlaine," which is just a long series of cruel killings and fights, was very popular with
them. Theatres were not only places to have fun and be entertained, but also places where people
got together to hang out. A newspaper, magazine, or journal could be found in the theatres.

FAMOUS ACTORS OF SHAKESPEAREAN STAGE

Actors:
At the time of Shakespeare, only boys and men could work as actors. Other parts of
Europe had women actors, but England did not let them in public stages until 1660. In
Elizabethan plays, boys would play the female roles. A lot of artists got their start when they
were young boys. They could become an apprentice in a company and learn from one of the
more experienced players there. Actors had to be able to sing, dance, and fight with swords, and
they had to be able to remember their lines well.

After Shakespeare joined the Lord Chamberlain's Men, he only wrote for that group. This
gave him a chance to write for certain stars whose acting skills he knew from personal
experience. Richard Burbage was the best actor in the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the most
famous actor of his time. He played the lead parts in Shakespeare's tragedies. When Burbage
died in 1619, a poem was written in his honour. It seems that during Shakespeare's lifetime,
people thought of Burbage, not the writer, when they thought of Hamlet, Lear, or Othello. In
addition to being very charismatic on stage, Burbage had a great memory. In thirteen of the roles
Shakespeare wrote for him, there are more than 800 lines of dialogue. Burbage was also famous
for her stage fights, which is one reason why most of the roles she played, like Romeo, Hamlet,
Richard III, and Macbeth, deal with duels.

Burbage was the company's main tragic character, and Will Kemp was the main comedic
character. Kemp was a partner in the Lord Chamberlain's Men for a short time, and he also had a
successful career as a comedian on his own. In Much Ado About Nothing, Kemp played
Dogberry. In Romeo and Juliet, he played Peter. He almost likely also played other silly parts,
like Bottom in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Costard in "Love's Labor's Lost." People
knew him for writing and performing jigs, which were made-up comedies with slapstick dancing
and satirical stories. Kemp was good at improvising, so he might have gone off script sometimes.
Shakespeare may have been alluding to Kemp's antics in a sneaky way when he had Hamlet
teach a group of actors how to perform a play he had written. "Let those who play your clowns
speak no more than is set down for them," he warns (III.ii). Kemp left Shakespeare's company in
1599, which is likely the same year that Shakespeare wrote that advice. Robert Armin took his
place. He was a smart comedian, singer, and writer. Shakespeare made the funny parts for Armin
smarter, longer, and with more songs, like Feste in Twelfth Night.

Back in Shakespeare's time, women were not allowed to act on stage, so only men and
boys did. Companies like the Lord Chamberlain's Men used boys to play female roles because
they didn't have enough women players. They took these boys in as apprentices and taught them
how to act. A lot of Shakespeare's hardest parts were written for boys, like Cleopatra in Antony
and Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. I dress up as young guys to play some of
Shakespeare's female characters, like Rosalind in "As You Like It" and Viola in "Twelfth Night."
For this, the boy actors had to play women who were trying to be men, which is tough for any
actor. The Puritans were very religious people who were angry that boy players were dressing up
as women. They were even angrier when these "women" dressed up as men.

The King's Men kept putting on Shakespeare's plays after he died in 1616. The number of
performances was high until 1642, when the Puritans shut down all public theatres. The death of
King Charles I in 1649 marked the start of the Interregnum, a time when a republican
government ran England. The theatres were closed until 1660, when King Charles II took the
throne and made the government official again. Charles only let two groups act at the start of the
Restoration period: the King's Company, led by Thomas Killigrew, and the Duke's Company, led
by Sir William Davenant. These two companies were given equal rights to perform
Shakespeare's plays. This licencing system lasted for almost two hundred years, until 1843. Over
the course of these two hundred years, many theatre conventions have changed. As tastes
changed, these two stage companies made changes to Shakespeare's work to fit what the
audiences wanted. An especially well-known case is King Lear. The Irish poet Nahum Tate
rewrote the play in 1681 so that it had a happy ending instead of a sad one. This new version of
the play was more famous than the old one until the middle of the 1800s.

THEATRE CRITICISM

In His own times (Elizabethan Age):

William Shakespeare was only seen as one of many skilled playwrights and poets in his
own time. A lot of people in his time said that Shakespeare was rude, snobbish, and overdone.
Ben Jonson, who was one of Shakespeare's other great theatre friends, had a lot to say about him.
In 1619, he told William Drummond of Hawthorn Den that Shakespeare "wanted art." It's hard to
judge Shakespeare's image during and right after his death. Before the 1570s, England didn't
have much modern literature. It wasn't until the rule of Charles I that critics started writing in
great detail about modern authors. We can guess what his reputation is like based on bits and
pieces of information. He was on some lists of the best writers of the time. But he didn't seem to
be as important as the aristocratic Philip Sidney, who became a cult figure after dying young in
war, or Edmund Spenser.
 Shakespeare's works were printed many times more often than his plays. However,
Shakespeare wrote his plays to be performed by his own company. Since there was no law that
said other companies couldn't use the plays, Shakespeare's company took steps to stop them from
being printed. Many of his plays were stolen, which shows how popular he was in the book
market. His company was also well-liked by the court, and in 1603 James I made it the "King's
Men," showing how popular he was with the upper classes.

In the same year that Beaumont and Shakespeare died, Ben Jonson printed his own plays
in folio, which is a fancy book format, which was the first step towards making modern plays
canonical. After seven years, in 1623, plays by Shakespeare's fellow actors John Heminges and
Henry Condell were the next playwrights to be awarded with a folio collection. This folio was
used in another version within 9 years, which shows that, for a playwright, he was held in very
high regard.

When Jonson had to write the great poem that went with the Folio version of
Shakespeare's plays in 1623, he stepped up to the challenge with powerful words of praise:
Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!

The plays had a big effect on Queen Elizabeth I and King James I, who saw them at
court: "Sweet Swan of Avon, what a sight it were to see thee in our waters yet appear, and make
those flights upon the banks of the Thames that so did take Eliza and our James!" The intros to
the second folio by Ben Jonson and John Milton were the first to hint that Shakespeare was the
best author of his time. In his 1630 work "Timber" or "Discoveries," Ben Jonson praised
Shakespeare for how quickly and easily he wrote his plays and how honest and kind he was to:
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
That so did take Eliza and our James!

Puritan Age or Interregnum:

The Puritans were in charge during the Interregnum (1642–1660), and they banned all
types of public theatre. Actors were not allowed to use the stage, costumes, or scenery, but they
were still able to make a living by putting on 'drools', which were short parts of longer plays that
usually finished with a jig. Shakespeare's work was stolen for these scenes, along with the work
of many other writers. Most of the time, scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream (Bottom) and
Hamlet (The Gravedigger) were used.

Restoration Age:
Christopher Wren built the fancy playhouses in London during the Restoration period.
Music, dancing, thunder, lightning, wave machines, and fireworks were used in Shakespeare's
plays. The texts were changed and made better for the show. King Lear (1681), by the Irish
author Nahum Tate, with its happy ending, was performed on stage until 1838. William
Davenant turned The Tempest into an opera with lots of special effects. As the head of the
Duke's Company, Davenant was required by law to update and change Shakespeare's plays
before putting them on stage.

Based on the incomplete Restoration stage records, it seems that Beaumont and Fletcher's
huge success took over Shakespeare. Beaumont and Fletcher lost their lead roles on the London
stage in the early 1700s, but Shakespeare took them over and never gave them back. If you look
at literary criticism instead of stage history, there was no delay or temporary preference for other
playwrights. Shakespeare had a unique situation at least after the Restoration in 1660.

18th Century:
Shakespeare ruled the London stage in the 18th century. Some famous people who liked
Shakespeare included Joseph Addison, Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, and Voltaire and
Rhymer. Alexander Pope said that "every single character in Shakespeare is as much an
Individual as those in Life itself," and Samuel Johnson called Voltaire and Rhymer's neoclassical
criticism of Shakespeare "the petty cavils of petty minds." It has been thought for a long time
that the Romantics were the first people to really enjoy Shakespeare and think he was better than
Ben Jonson. However, writers in the 18th century praised Shakespeare as well. Many of the post-
Romantic ideas that people have about Shakespeare were voiced in the 18th century and even
earlier: he was called a genius who didn't need to learn, deeply original, and good at making
characters that were "real" and unique.

"O, great poet!" it says in "Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth" (1823). Thy works are not
just great works of art like other people's; they are also like natural events in nature, like the sun
and the sea, the stars and the flowers, frost and snow, rain and dew, hailstorms and thunder,
which we should study with all of our minds..."Romantics thought that Shakespeare was much
better read aloud than put on stage. As Charles Lamb saw it, any kind of stage performance took
away from the real qualities of the book. People said this was a timeless truth, and it was also a
natural result of how popular theatrics and spectacle were on stage in the early 1800s.
Shakespeare was a big part of British national pride in the 1800s, when the British Empire was at
its strongest and Britain had the most power in the world.

20th Century:
Throughout the 20th century, Shakespeare was still seen as the best English author of all
time. Most schools in the West required students to read at least two of Shakespeare's plays, and
it was normal for both amateur and professional actors to put on Shakespeare's plays. In the 20th
century, Shakespeare had a great reputation, which made it possible for staging of his plays to
stay true to the text while using a huge range of settings, stage directions, and costumes. In the
US, places like the Folger Shakespeare Library worked to make sure that Shakespearean works
were always and seriously studied. In the UK, the Royal Shakespeare Company worked to make
sure that at least two plays were put on every year.

SHAKESPEARE INTO FILM AND PLAY PRODUCTIONS

Introduction:
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, William Shakespeare was
becoming an academic institution—a subject for serious scientific study. At the same time,
people outside of universities started looking for new ways to show his great plays on film.

Film adaptations:
Shakespeare's plays have been turned into films since the beginning of films. A silent
movie version of "Romeo and Juliet" was the first adaptation of a Shakespeare play in 1908.
Since then, many more have been made, ranging from the classic Laurence Olivier version of
Hamlet to the more modern "10 Things I Hate About You," which is based on "The Taming of
the Shrew.

"Some adaptations stick close to the book, but others get more creative and change the
scene, the characters, or even the story itself. Shakespeare's plays have been turned into a huge
number of films, from big-budget Hollywood films to small-budget independent films. His
works are still influencing directors today, which shows how timeless they are.

Manga Series:
"Manga Shakespeare," a manga series that turns some of Shakespeare's plays into
Japanese picture books, is one of the best-reviewed adaptations. The series has many books, such
as "Hamlet," "Romeo and Juliet," and "Macbeth." The updated artwork and current settings in
these adaptations don't change the essence or spirit of the original plays. For many readers, the
series makes Shakespeare's work easier to understand without having to wade through the often
hard-to-understand and old words.

Kill Shakespeare:
The comic book series "Kill Shakespeare," by Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery, is
also an interesting version. In a different way than most adaptations of Shakespeare's work, this
show brings together many of his characters in a different world. This gives the writers more
freedom to be creative and try out new plots and ways for characters to connect that weren't
possible in the original plays. By taking different methods, each series gives readers a unique
way to experience the Bard's timeless stories and characters.

International Adaptations:
People from all over the world have changed and loved Shakespeare's works. His plays
have been changed to fit the culture and society of the time, from the early days of the Globe
Theatre in London to current versions of his plays in places like India, Japan, and South Africa.

Shakespeare into Play Production:

A lot of different graphic versions of Shakespeare's plays came out in the 20th century.
Barry Vincent Jackson's production of Cymbeline at the Birmingham Rep in 1923 was a first
because it brought modern clothes back into Shakespearean plays. At the time, it wasn't the first
society to make modern clothes.

Shakespeare into Play Production:

A lot of different graphic versions of Shakespeare's plays came out in the 20th century.
Barry Vincent Jackson's production of Cymbeline at the Birmingham Rep in 1923 was a first
because it brought modern clothes back into Shakespearean plays. Since there were a few small
modern-dress plays before World War I, this wasn't the first one, but Cymbeline was the first one
to make the method very clear.

The Federal Theatre Project hired Orson Welles in 1936 to direct a groundbreaking
production of Macbeth in Harlem with an all-African American cast. In the 20th century, other
important productions of Shakespeare's plays were set in different times and places. For
example, H.K. Ayliff's Macbeth was set on the battlefields of World War I, Welles' Julius Caesar
was based on the Nazi rallies at Nuremberg, and Thacker's Coriolanus was dressed in the style of
the French Revolution. At the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in 1978, a deconstructive version of
"The Taming of the Shrew" was put on.

21st Century:
In the twenty-first century, the Royal Shakespeare Company in the UK has put on two
big Shakespeare events. The first was the RSC festival's Complete Works, which ran from 2006
to 2007. It put on performances of all of Shakespeare's plays and works. The second is the 2012
World Shakespeare Festival, which is part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad and has
almost 70 shows with thousands of actors from all over the world.

The Impact of Adaptations on Shakespeare’s Legacy:

Shakespeare's influence lives on thanks in large part to the many adaptations of his
works. These changes have made it possible for his stories and personalities to reach a lot more
people than they would have otherwise. People of all ages and walks of life can enjoy the stories
because of this, and the works are still important today.
 UNIT II
SONNETS – 12

Summary:
A lot of pictures and figures of speech are used in William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 12" to
show how time will hurt the Fair Youth. It takes dead trees, flowers, old men, and the setting sun
for the speaker to get his point across to the Fair Youth. He wants to help the young man
understand how awful it is to get old and die. For his own good and for the good of everyone
else. Having a child is the only way he can be sure that he will always be young.

Detailed Analysis:
Lines 1-4
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silvered o’er with white;

The speaker of "Sonnet 12" starts the first quatrain with the first of a number of
metaphors that compare the Fair Youth's beauty to something natural, beautiful, but short-lived.
In this sentence, the speaker thinks about how day turns into night, black hair turns grey, and
flowers die. He thinks of the violet as "past prime," which is a good use of rhyme, and sees the
Fair Youth's skin getting wrinkled, his body giving out, and everyone forgetting about him.
Once-brave days are now "hideous," and the "sable" black curls are now silver and white. These
things are not better in any way.

Lines 5-8
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard;

The next four lines of "Sonnet 12" continue this set of images used to talk about the Fair
Youth in the future. In his prime, the trees are "bare of leaves," which makes him think of them.
The speaker also thinks of the cows below, who are now out in the heat because that shade is
gone.

Just like crops are tied up and taken to the barn in sheaves, summer will lose its beauty
and value. This quatrain ends with a picture of an old man being carried to his grave. The guy
was "born on a bier." You shouldn't expect any of these pictures to make you feel good. The
speaker wants to shock the Fair Youth into giving his future some thought.

Lines 9-14
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow,
And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defense
Save breed to brave him when he takes thee hence.

In the last and third quatrain of "Sonnet 12," the speaker finally talks to the young people
directly. When he sees all of the things in the last eight words, he starts to doubt the youth's
beauty. He knows it's not going to last. He will also have to deal with the things that are "a waste
of time." All sweet and beautiful things lose themselves over time, which is a shame. They forget
about "themselves." Other things grow because of them. The couplet at the end of the song gets
to the main point of the speaker, which is that young people can only fight time by having kids.
The only way to become eternal and beat time is to keep living through someone else.

SONNETS – 65

Summary:
Other than the first line, which is "thee" or "you," this poem is not directed to anyone in
particular. Instead, the lines in "Sonnet 65" are indirectly about the Fair Youth and how time will
change him. The speaker tries hard to think of someone or something that has stood the test of
time, but he can't. Living in the poet's works is the only way for the young person to stay alive.
Detailed Analysis:
Lines 1-4
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o’ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

Starting with the first four lines of "Sonnet 65," the speaker goes back to the subject he
was interested in in the first two sonnets. In both of those songs and this one, Shakespeare writes
about time, getting old, and beauty. All of these are talked about, along with the Fair Youth and
how the speaker's love for him will change over time.

The first and second lines show that he knows everything is up to time. This includes
words like "brass," "stone," "earth," and "sea," which means "endless." There's nothing strong
enough to stand up to "sad mortality." Time is being fought against by a few very strong forces.
What chance does "beauty" have against such power? He says that beauty is "not stronger than a
flower."

Lines 5-8
O how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?

In the second quatrain, he asks a rhetorical question, which is another method that is used
a lot in Shakespeare's sonnets. He is interested in how the youth's beauty, which he calls
"summer's honey breath," will hold up against the "wrackful siege of batt'ring days." The "gates
of steel" and the "rocks" are not strong enough to stand the test of time, so it doesn't look like the
youth will win.

Lines 9-14
O fearful meditation! Where, alack,
Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
 Or who his spoil or beauty can forbid?
O none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

The speaker talks about this option in the third and last quatrain of "Sonnet 65." Like he
said in the other sonnets, it scares him to think about what time will do to his beloved.
Somewhere, he hides the beauty of youth so that time can't get to it. It is something that time
made, but time is going to destroy it, just like everything else it made. In this quatrain, he thinks
about who can protect against getting old and losing their beauty and asks a number of other
questions. The answers to these questions are in the last two lines, which is another thing that all
of Shakespeare's works have in common. It's in the couplet that he solves a problem. It's clear
that no one will be able to beat time after the turn. There is really only one possibility: the
speaker writes about the youth in a way that keeps their beauty.

SONNETS – 86

Summary:
The poem makes a lot of assumptions about the speaker's silence. He thinks about why he
can't write right now and whether it's because of the other poet's beautiful verse. After the "turn"
in the last two lines, the speaker decides that this is not the case after thinking about it for a
while. Instead, it is the Fair Youth's respect for the poet that has drowned out the speaker's verse.

Detailed Analysis:
Lines 1-4
Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
Bound for the prize of all too precious you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?

The speaker of "Sonnet 86" starts with a rhetorical question in the first four lines. At this
time, he is worried about what "his great verse" will do. This "he" is not the speaker, but a
different author. The speaker is upset because someone wrote something "proud" and amazing
about the Fair Youth. He thinks that maybe his new verse is what's wrong with his work. It could
have "ripened" his ideas and provided a "tomb" for his words before they came into the world.
Lines 5-8
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid, my verse astonishèd.

The person speaking says that the other author was "taught to write" by some "spirits."
He wrote something so impressive that the speaker was "struck...dead" with help from these
unknown ghosts. This strange question is about the speaker's inability to write. He keeps putting
himself up against this other person and worries that his writing will never be as good as theirs.

Lines 9-14
He, nor that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors of my silence cannot boast.
I was not sick of any fear from thence;
But when your countenance filled up his line,
Then lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine.

In the second part of the song, the speaker says that everything he just thought about is
not true. If he has been quiet, it's not because of the other artist and his "familiar ghost" that helps
him. They have not won because he is "silent." They can't say that they "boasted" that they shut
down Shakespeare's speech. Because he was worried about the other writer and what he would
write, the speaker didn't stop writing. Instead, the last two lines show that the young man's praise
for the other writer was what kept him from speaking. He doesn't have anything else to say now
that he knows the youth feel this way. The work he did was "weakened."

SONNETS – 130

Summary:
For some reason, the poet takes too long to describe his lover in very detailed terms. The
lines he uses to describe her could very well show how much he loves the mistress and how she
looks. It's true that her eyes and lips are not at all like the sun. Also, her skin is dull and her hair
is straight like lines. When writers compare their lovers to nature, on the other hand, they aren't
really describing them as they are; instead, they're making them sound perfect. This suggests that
the poet can't love their lover as much as he loves his mistress.

Detailed Analysis:
Lines 1–4
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

The poet starts "Sonnet 130" by saying something mean about the eyes of his beloved.
They're not like the sun. In Elizabethan times, it was common for people to make these kinds of
comparisons. However, the author keeps making fun of his beloved's looks by cutting off any
attempts to compare her to natural things. Her skin is not white like snow. The word for her
breasts is "dun," which means gray-brown. People say that her hair looks like black lines.

Lines 5–8
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

The person the speaker loves does not have a nice flush to her face. He says bad things
about the way she smells and the way she talks. The point of Elizabethan love poems was to
raise the level of love to a level that was almost impossible to reach and to make a normal
woman read in a way that made her seem like a goddess. Instead of making her feel better, the
artist brings her down even more.

Lines 9–12
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
 And as he writes more, he says that he loves hearing her voice when she talks. Yet, he
knows that music calms him down more than her words. He still loves her voice the way it is. He
has never seen a goddess leave, but his mistress walks on the ground. It is well known that many
Elizabethan poets would compare their lovers to things that humans couldn't do, like leaving the
world of humans to join the pantheon of the gods. That line, in particular, seems to be making
fun of the practice itself.

Lines 13–14
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

The author says he loves her not because she is a goddess or an unattainable beauty, but
because she is his and real. Not because he can compare her to pretty things, but because she is
beautiful in and of herself. Several scholars have tried to make the case that "Sonnet 130" is
primarily a love poem.

Some people say that Elizabethan love poems often praised people for qualities that they either
couldn't have had or wouldn't have been able to have. This, on the other hand, is complimenting
the mistress by listing all of her qualities. Coming to this conclusion is pretty far-fetched, and it's
not how most people understand "Sonnet 130."

COMEDY PLAYS – MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

Outline:
Count He loves Hero, the daughter of his friend. Hero's cousins Benedict, who is always
single, and Beatrice, who is always single, think the other loves them when they don't. Claudio is
tricked into calling Hero immoral before they get married as part of a bad plan. After she faints
and is thought to be dead, an accident leads to the finding of her innocence. Claudio is shocked
to see Hero because he thought she was dead. Beatrice loves Benedict for standing up for her
cousin's respect.

Act I
Messina is where Much Ado About Nothing starts. Leonato lives there with his daughter
Hero, her niece Lady Beatrice, and their friend. Leonato finds out that his friend Duke Don
Pedro is back from war and wants to meet up with his fellow soldiers. He quickly falls in love
with Hero. Benedick comes and likes to argue with Beatrice. He is single and has sworn off love
and marriage.

Act II
Leonato throws a masked ball to mark the end of the war. Claudio and Hero get together
at the ball. Don John, Don Pedro's brother, is angry and cruel and wants to ruin the happy. Don
John and the men Borachio and Conrad want to show Claudio Hero that Hero cheated on him.

Act III
That night, Hero's maid Margaret talks to Borachio from the window of Hero's bedroom.
Claudio and the Duke are watching, and they think Hero is the girl in the window. Hero,
Claudius, and Don Pedro all disagree, but they all agree that Benedick and Beatrice are great
friends. They want Benedick to hear them talking about how much Beatrice loves him and how
she loves him. Benedick and Beatrice understand they love each other after hearing each other
talk.

Act IV
Claudio is still sure Hero cheated at Hero's wedding. He tells everyone about her, and she
looks like she's dead from shock. Leonato, Beatrice, and Benedick help the priest make Hero
look like she is dead until her name is cleared. The village sheriff, Dogberry, is in charge of the
watchmen, and they hear Borachio and Conrad bragging about how they tricked Claudio and
Don Pedro. The couple has been arrested.

Act V
Some problems happen when Leonato and Don Pedro try to get Dogberry's bad news.
Claudio takes Leonato's "niece" as a punishment for killing Hero. Hero is the "niece," which is
helpful. At the happy end of the play, the loves meet again and Benedick and Beatrice announce
that they are getting married. Don John is caught while trying to get away, and he is sent to trial
as the play ends with a happy dance.

Analysis:
The fun in Much Ado About Nothing is better than a comedy of mistakes. The main
characters in the play lie to both stop and start a relationship, which causes tension. The play
makes the point that truth and reality don't matter when you're in love. From the beginning of the
story, the characters' lies drive the plot until the very end, when lies meant to bring lovers
together fail and lies meant to tear them apart succeed. Early on, the plot's dynamics become
clear. At a masked ball, Shakespeare shows two possible relationships as a sign of the lies that
are to come. The first pair, Claudio and Hero, fall in love quickly and get engaged. The second
pair, Benedick and Beatrice, only talk in a smart, and maybe mean, way. They don't like each
other, but deep down they're attracted to each other, which is a common theme in Jane Austen's
books and in famous films and TV shows. Infidelity splits the first pair and brings the second
pair together.

Don John, the spoiled and angry bad guy in the play, wants to ruin everyone's happiness
in the first scene because he wants his half-brother Don Pedro to be successful and happy. He
tricks Claudio, the main character of the play and his brother's friend, into breaking up with
Hero. It's easy to lie. Borachio and Conrad try to convince Claudio that Hero's somewhat
raunchy waiting maid, Margret, is cheating on him while she talks to her boyfriend, Borachio,
from a window, which makes them look like they are in a scene from Romeo and Juliet. The
story is driven by Claudio's struggle to get over his wrong idea about Hero, even though the
relationship is getting worse.

Hero, Claudio, and Don Pedro work together to make Benedick and Beatrice think they
see their love during the rising action, which Don John doesn't see. Both of them are tricked into
listening to fake "private" talks. They say they love each other when they realise it. The two are
linked by lies. Hero and Claudio's wedding at the end of the play completes Don John's lie. Hero
is shocked and unconscious when Claudio openly accuses her of cheating on him, which hurts
her reputation. The story ends when supporting characters figure out that Don John was lying.

In a strange way, these attempts to get back together need more lies. The priest and
Leonato, Hero's father and governor of Messina, tell Beatrice and Benedick to tell everyone that
Hero is dead. Hero's image needs to be fixed, so the plan is to lie to everyone about her until her
innocence is proven. The village watchmen find out about Hero by accident when they hear
Borachio and Conrad bragging about how well they lied. When the bad guys are caught trying to
leave, all of the play's problems are solved. Finally, the unifying lie is shown. Claudio still thinks
Hero has died, so he asks Leonato for forgiveness and is told to marry his "niece," Hymen,
whose name means "virgin" or "good woman." Claudio finds out that Hymen is Hero because he
agreed to do so. Their main lies bring them together.

In a typical romantic comedy ending, the unhappy lovers get back together and get
married. In classical Greek comedy, marriage makes life better, and lies that are meant to
separate loves don't work. Finally, the order comes back. She is the niece of Leonato, the rich
governor of Messina. Hero, Leonato's daughter, is one of her best friends, but they are very
different. Hero is kind, quiet, respected, and polite, while Beatrice is angry, cruel, smart, and
sharp. Benedick and Beatrice are a prince and soldier from Padua. They are in a "merry war."
The play makes it sound like she loved Benedick but fell for his tricks. When they meet, they
now try to come up with more clever insults than the other person.

Even though she seems tough, Beatrice is actually very weak. Hero tells Beatrice that he
loves her, and she learns about love's weaknesses and sensitivity. Beatrice is one of
Shakespeare's strong female figures. She won't get married because she hasn't found the right
equal partner yet, and she doesn't want to give up her freedom for a guy who will control her.
Hero is put down and charged of breaking her promise of chastity, so Beatrice gets angry at
Claudio for being mean to her cousin. Because Hero abused her, Beatrice fights against the
unfair treatment of women in the Renaissance. I wish I were a guy for him! For my sake, a man
would be my friend!

She yells very loudly. "I will die a woman with grief because I can't be a man with wish"
(IV.i.312–318).After coming back from war, Benedick, the stubborn lord, decides he will never
get married again. He and Beatrice are always trying to outsmart, insult, and trick each other, but
his smart friends can tell that he's feeling something deeper. Hearing Claudio and Don Pedro talk
about how much Beatrice wants him, Benedick decides to be "horribly in love with her,"
continuing the competition by showing more love and affection than she does (II.iii.207).
Benedick is one of the showiest characters in the play; he's always putting on a show for other
people. He likes using funny exaggerations to talk about how he feels. When Beatrice walks into
the costume ball, he shows how over the top he is being. Benedick lies about how badly Beatrice
has treated him and asks his friends to send him to the ends of the world rather than letting him
spend any more time with his enemy: "Will your grace command me any service to the end of
the world?" I can do any job you can think of in the Antipodes. You will be brought a toothpick
from the farthest reaches of Asia. Do you send pigmies as an ambassador instead of meeting with
this harpy for three words?

It's hard to tell if Benedick has always loved Beatrice or if he just falls in love with her
during the play because he's so focused on acting for other people. He used to say no to getting
married, but when he falls in love with Beatrice, he changes his mind. To keep his friends from
noticing this change, he shaves his beard and tells Beatrice he loves her. This might make them
laugh. When Benedick challenges Claudio, his best friend, to a fight over Claudio's claim that
Hero is immoral, it's clear that he has changed his mind. Benedick now has a full hug on
Beatrice.

Don Pedro is harder to find than the other main characters in Much Ado About Nothing.
The most honourable person in the play, and even though Benedick and Claudio are just as smart
as him, they must always obey him because their jobs depend on it. Don Pedro is aware of his
power, but it's not clear if he abuses it. Don Pedro, not his evil brother Don John, uses his power
for good most of the time. Like his half-brother, Don Pedro easily controls other people. He
woos Hero while hidden instead of letting Claudio tell Hero he loves her. Don Pedro only wants
what's best for his friend, so everything works out. But we don't understand why Don Pedro
needs to lie so badly to Hero about Claudio's desire to be sexual. It seems clear that Don Pedro
has the royal power to do whatever he wants. Even though he is dishonest, Don Pedro works to
make people happy. To bring the rivals together, he suggests making Beatrice and Benedick
think they love each other. He plans and leads the plot of this wit and manners comedy.

Don John has his own set of morals. He makes it clear throughout the play that he is
working against Claudio out of pure evil. He is the most honest figure, even though he lies to
make things worse. We might like him if he didn't do such bad things. There are many bad guys
in Shakespeare's plays, but Don John's coldness and cunning always amaze me. His brother Don
Pedro, who is also very smart, works with his friends to bring Benedick and Beatrice together,
while Don John gives orders based on what will benefit him. Despite the pleasure he gets from
lying, his life is mostly lonely without the company of his peers.

Don John's stubbornness is shown by his bold plan to stage Hero's event. Don John only
hates Claudio because he is famous, which he thinks is especially bad because he is an outsider
and always feels angry. Not only does he want to make Claudio's life worse for fun, he acts like
he cares about him and even calls him a close friend.

Even though he seems mean, bored, and angry about Claudio's success, his plan seems to
be driven by the fact that he is a jerk. Don John, who isn't really Don Pedro's brother, doesn't get
the same benefits. In contrast to many of Shakespeare's planning idiots, Don John doesn't show
sadness over his situation. Instead, he complains about his bad habits. At the beginning of the
play, Don Pedro had just beaten him in battle. In Act 1, Scene 3, he says that it "fits [his] blood
to be distain'd," which means that he is not legitimate and is bad. His low standing doesn't
explain why he acts so mean, but it does show how he thinks and feels. Finally, Don John's
actions don't seem important at the end of the play. His absence while the happy couple’s party
and Benedick's order for them to "think not on him till tomorrow" show how unimportant he is
and how little he cares about them.

One of the three brave men who doesn't have a wife is Don Pedro. This is the last scene.
Benedick makes a joke that the sad prince needs to "get thee a wife" to be happy (V.iv.117).
Why does Don Pedro feel sad at the end of a funny movie? During the costume ball, he proposes
marriage to Beatrice, but she laughs it off. This could hurt him, or he could love her. The text
doesn't say anything about his sadness or his fixation on lying. The fact that he isn't sure of
himself makes him one of the most interesting characters in the play.

A lot of Shakespeare's romantics are naïve and full of hope, and Claudio is no different.
This causes trouble, problems, and disaster. He quickly falls in love with Hero, which makes
Don John's plans possible. Claudio's readiness to think the worst and stir up trouble makes these
plans even more powerful. When Don John uses Borachio and Margaret to make up Hero's
affair, Claudio stops the wedding in a shameful way and leaves Hero at the altar. Like his first
thought that Don Pedro was flirting with her, his promise to sully her name is based on what
other people think, showing that Claudio is easily hurt and can't think for himself. Because he
doesn't think Don John is telling the truth, Claudio is either easy to convince or has high ideals,
or both. He falls in and out of love with Hero all the time. He picks a scorched-earth method that
hurts him instead of thinking critically.
 Leonato tells Claudio to marry his sister as "punishment" for Hero's supposed death, but
Claudio agrees, even though he is sad. It's possible that Claudio's readiness to marry a stranger at
Leonato's urging is an attempt to make up for his past sins, but it also shows that he is easily
swayed and lacks morals. That Hero drives the story often makes her character's freedom less
clear. This is clear from both the plan to get Beatrice and Benedick to admit their love and Don
John's plan. She falls deeply and quickly in love, just like Claudio. They are both innocent and
honest, which is different from Beatrice and Benedick, who are more wary and critical. Hero
sometimes shows her independence by having a talk with Ursula and Margaret that Beatrice can
hear, but Hero's character is still what drives the story.

Hero is often used as a toy or prop by other people. She is often used by the other
characters for their own gain or to speak for her. Hero's cousin and best friend, Beatrice, tells
Claudio how she feels when she can't. This makes Hero an uninvolved spectator in her own love
story. Hero's virginity is called into question by Don John, but the other characters don't really
ask her about it. Instead, Claudio makes demands on her to make her feel bad and make her
accept a sin he already knows she has committed. For some reason, she passes out, leaving the
other characters to blame and fight. Leonato even says he'd rather she die than be shamed, which
suggests that she's only useful to him when she can get married.

The fact that other characters treat her like a prop shows what her part is in the play. Hero
comes back even in the end because of other characters' plans. Hero doesn't have much to do
with her coming back from the "afterlife," but Beatrice and the friar help her. Her reputation is
saved by her "death," which means that her very existence rests on society's approval, and she
can't come back into the play until her pedestal is safe.
 UNIT III
OTHELLO

Act I
Before Othello, Roderigo chased after Desdemona, a noblewoman from Venice. One
night, his soldier friend Iago tells him that Desdemona has married his Moorish General Othello
in secret. Iago is mad at Othello for not making him lieutenant. Iago was made an ensign because
Othello chose Michael Cassio. Iago tells Roderigo to go after Desdemona. He believes that
Senator Brabantio, Desdemona's father, will dislike Othello as his son-in-law. They wake
Brabantio up late at night to tell him about Desdemona. Brabantio tells the soldiers in a rage to
arrest Othello. Officers show up to call Brabantio to a crucial Senate meeting. The Senate
worries that Turkey might send an invasion ship to Cyprus. In a rage, Brabantio goes to the
council.

Brabantio speaks up in the meeting because he wants to get back at Othello. Othello is
already there because he was put in charge of the army that is fighting the Turks. Desdemona fell
in love with Othello's war stories; good speaking is the most important quality in a friend. After
this, Desdemona is asked to explain her marriage and the story. Desdemona protects herself, and
her father kicks her out of the family. She then joins Othello's campaign. Lieutenant Cassio and
Iago's wife Emilia will go with her.

Act II
The ruler of Cyprus, Montano, and his men meet Cassio, Iago, Desdemona, and Emilia as
they get off the boat. When Othello gets there, he hears that storms have smashed the Turkish
ships into many pieces. There will be a party tonight. He doesn't think he can win Desdemona
over, but Iago gives him hope. It is true that Desdemona is falling in love with Cassio, so he tells
Roderigo to challenge Cassio to a fight that night. Iago riles up Cassio at night while he's drunk,
and Roderigo does the same. Governor Montano is killed while trying to keep Cassio in jail.
Othello is very angry and thinks Cassio started the fight, which means he lost his job as an
officer.
Act III
The next day, Iago got Cassio to call Desdemona and ask for help getting his place back.
Cassio asks, and Desdemona agrees without thinking. It makes Othello jealous that Iago thinks
Desdemona loves Cassio too much. Iago's plans are not a mystery to Othello as he watches his
wife. When Desdemona loses his first gift, a towel, Othello gets very angry. Handkerchiefs with
strawberry designs are very important to Othello. She still had the handkerchief with her. He told
Emilia, his wife, to take it. The towel was hidden for Cassio by Iago. Because he is jealous,
Othello thinks Desdemona is cheating on him when she asks him to rethink firing Cassio.

Act IV
Iago makes people jealous. He tells Othello to listen in on Cassio and Bianca's
conversation and get the wrong idea from it. After telling Bianca where he got his stitched
handkerchief, Cassio lets her copy it. Because of his stress over what he hears, Othello has a
seizure fit. He tells Iago to kill Cassio after he gets better. Desdemona doesn't understand why
Othello's feelings about her have changed. Othello hits her in front of Lodovico, a Venetian
diplomat who is related to her. She sings and talks with Emilia before bed to help her feel better
about losing her husband's trust.

Act V
There is a chance that Iago is not Roderigo's friend. He agrees with Iago that he should
attack Cassio again that night to get Desdemona's attention. During the fight, Iago hurts Cassio
without being seen. He comes back as himself to blame Roderigo for hurting Cassio and have
him put to death.

Othello kills his sleeping wife in her bedroom because he thinks she is cheating on him.
He suffocates her with a pillow while she says she is not guilty. After Emilia warns the family,
Iago and others show up. Handkerchief proof helps Othello's case. Emilia finds out what
happened and tells on Iago's plans to hurt Othello. Iago kills his wife with a knife after she
accuses him. Iago is caught and put on trial after Othello hurts him (but he lives). As his trial is
about to start, Othello kills himself with a secret weapon. At the end of the play, Cassio is made
Governor of Cyprus.
A Tragedy:
The play by Shakespeare Othello is admired and put on stage. A passionate statement of
love that falls apart at the seams. Othello is a grandiose epic warrior with a unique voice,
interesting characters, and exciting experiences. To win the moral success over his enemies in a
tragedy, the hero has to fight fate and die in a good way.

Aristotle says that after seeing the hero fall, the viewer needs "catharsis." Creating
empathy and fear in the crowd should help them feel better. According to framework, Aristotle
stresses the unity of action in both tragedy and play. Later, experts came to the conclusion that
Unity of Time and Unity of Place also help make the structure of a play make sense. In this
sense, Shakespeare's plays are easier to adapt. Logic says that Unity of Time and Place is hard to
understand and doesn't fit with the drama's friendly tone. Sticking to them too closely could
make the structure stiff and fake, which would stop the story from flowing.

The story of Othello, the Moor of Venice starts in Venice and goes to Cyprus. The play
takes place at an unknown time, from Othello's marriage to Desdemona to Iago's evil plan to
Othello's death out of guilt. It's not enough for this plot to take place in one day, or 24 hours in
Unity of Time. The story is mostly about Othello and what happens to him. Other characters and
events only show up when they are important.

According to what Aristotle said about a sad hero, Othello is one. A tragic hero must be
good and important, have his luck turn bad because of a tragic flaw or mistake in judgement, and
die so that the audience feels both pity and horror. He is a captain in the Venetian army, and the
fact that he trusts his ensign Iago and is friends with him shows how noble he is.Envy of
passionate lovers is what makes him so dangerous. Because he was so trusting, he killed his wife
and then killed himself. He can't see through Iago's trick because he is so trusting. Iago tricks
Othello, but Othello doesn't know it until the very end. Iago's plan to make Othello look bad is
hilariously derailed by the play's growing tragedy. Poetic justice comes when Emilia tells Iago
how cruel he is. When Othello finds out that Desdemona was pure and that he killed her, he feels
bad and changes his mind. Due to his deep repentance and suicide, he is a sad hero.
 The deaths of Desdemona, Brobantio's runaway daughter, and Othello have no cosmic
effects. Everyday life goes on outside. This makes the sad story of two harmless people in a cruel
world even worse.

Analysis:
In Othello, there is a good military leader who wins a lot of battles but hurts his closest
relationship and himself by doing wrong and being left out of society. The play starts with a
long, complicated military romance in the Mediterranean. Othello ends the play by killing
himself in the small bedroom where he had strangled his innocent wife. As the play goes on, the
play moves from big exteriors that back Othello's bravery to small interiors that make him feel
squished. The shrinking plot of the play shows how jealousy makes it hard for people to think
clearly and act logically. It also contrasts Othello's confidence and skill in battle with his
weakness and easy influence at home.

By making Cassio an officer, Othello puts the main character and his enemy in direct
conflict before the play even starts. Iago doesn't like that he has to work as a "ancient," which is
the lowest rank of commissioned soldier. While Iago is unhappy with Othello's choice, he is even
more upset that Cassio got the job, even though he thinks Cassio is not as qualified. After that, he
says, "Because I'm afraid of Cassio with my nigh that too." Besides that, he thinks Othello slept
with his wife. (ii.) Iago feels even worse because Othello and Cassio may be sleeping with his
wife and someone else got the raise instead of him. We feel sorry for Iago because we haven't
seen Othello yet. He has good reasons to be upset.

When the audience sees Othello and knows Iago's plan will fail, the play gets more
intense. The audience is swayed by Othello and Desdemona's declarations of love and by
Desdemona's willingness to be turned down by her father to be with him. To show the difference
between telling the truth and lying, the play compares Othello, Desdemona, and Cassio's good
qualities to Iago's lies. Through asides, Iago tells everyone in the play about his plans, which
makes the audience an unwitting partner. It's clear that Iago can control Cassio, get him drunk,
make him fight Roderigo, and get Othello to fire him while acting like he loves him. In
comparison to Iago, who is sneaky and cynical, the other characters in the play fail because they
are honest and trusting and can't see through Iago's lies.
 At the end of Act III, Scene III, Othello kneels next to Iago and swears to get revenge on
his sex slaves. In contrast to many Shakespearean plays where the main character meets the
villain at the end, Othello makes Iago his lieutenant to show that he trusts him. The audience
wonders when, if ever, Othello will find out the truth about Iago, who he thinks is his friend but
isn't because he is too sure of himself and can't see what his real goals are. As Othello grows
angrier and won't listen to Desdemona's claims that she is innocent, he turns into a second bad
guy who works with Iago. Othello can see that Desdemona is guilty from then on by the things
she does.

In the last two acts of the play, Iago's betrayal seems inevitable. Othello goes from being
sure that Desdemona will never betray him to needing proof before he can kill her. Iago tells
Othello to strangle Desdemona in the bed where she is said to have been cheating on him.
Othello says, "Good, good, the justice of it pleases!" (IV.i). “Oh Iago, the pity!” says Othello,
who loves his wife but thinks that the good things about her make him even more angry about
Iago's charges. (IV.i)

Because they are jealous, Othello and Iago plan to kill Cassio and Desdemona. At least
one of his dear, "honest" friends, Iago, is lying to him. After killing Desdemona, Othello sees he
was wrong about her. He kills himself when he realises what he did was wrong because he
doesn't want to live in a world where honesty and respect aren't valued.

When feminists study literature, they try to figure out how works of literature help to
create gender roles. In the time of Shakespeare, for example, power and privilege were largely
held by the father, or patriarch, of the family. This is what historians call a patriarchal society.
The father was in charge of the wives. For Shakespeare's Christian audience, this family system
was mostly based on the Bible. It came after Saint Paul told the wives, "Wives, submit
yourselves to your husbands as to the Lord." The husband is in charge of the wife, just like
Christ is in charge of the church. In turn, this patriarchal family system became the model for
how governments are set up. It was thought that the king, like the father in a family, was the
most powerful person in the land.

Shakespeare's Othello bravely goes against race and gender norms. At first glance, the
heroine seems to be one of those rare characters in a tragedy who is both strong and good. She
sneaks out of her father's house to marry Othello and then goes to the Venetian senate chamber
to prove her love and ask to go with her husband on his war mission. These are both very brave
things for her to do at first. It doesn't scare her to speak in public or say what she thinks. But
many books from the early modern period told women to be quiet and follow the rules. There are
many bad things that can be taken from Desdemona's brave actions if you are trying to find fault
with her. Iago, Othello's lieutenant, is just this kind of reader; he's like a living dictionary of bad
ideas. He thinks that his own wife is cheating on him, even though there is no proof of that in the
play. When Desdemona married Iago, she disobeyed her father, so Iago tells Othello that she will
lie to him too. Because she married a guy from another country, Iago thinks she has bad sexual
tastes and too much desire to be sexual. In the same way, he tells Othello not to trust
Desdemona's view. Iago tells Othello that Desdemona's support for Cassio is a sign that she
loves him.

Why does Othello believe what Iago says about his wife? Part of the reason is that Iago
talks about "women" as if everyone knows what he's saying is true. Iago reads Desdemona's
bravery, clear vision, and skill with words through an anti-feminist lens and sees them as signs of
whoredom. The part that Bianca plays in the play shows how deeply Iago's dream affects
Othello. One of the three women in the play, Bianca, is not married. She is a single woman in
Cyprus who has grown very close to Cassio. Even though Cassio and Iago make fun of her and
treat her like a prostitute, the text doesn't say that Bianca is seeing more than one man at the
same time. She will always be loyal to Cassio. Bianca runs out to help him when he gets hurt in
the last act. In doing so, she leaves herself open to the charge that she wants to kill someone. But,
despite her strange traits, in the play's gender economy, Bianca is a symbol for the irreligious
woman who is not married. One of the most important symbolic scenes in the play is when
Othello thinks his wife is Bianca.

This mistake between wife and whore is made worse by Iago's skillful use of the
handkerchief that Othello gave to Desdemona, which may be the most important symbolic object
in the play. The path of this handkerchief is very important to understanding what the play is
about. Desdemona briefly ignores the lost handkerchief until Emilia finds it and gives it to Iago,
who then drops it in Cassio's room. After that, Cassio gets it and gives it to Bianca. When
Othello sees Bianca carrying the towel, his jealousy grows even stronger.
 Feminists have looked into the many meanings of this object. Giving it to Desdemona as
a gift can represent the bond between them. She is blamed for breaking the bond by him.
However, it was his lack of trust in her that broke up their relationship. While the handkerchief is
important as a symbol of an abstract tie, it is also important as a real thing. For example, this is
the kind of home item that a good wife was supposed to be in charge of. When Othello says that
Desdemona lost the handkerchief, he is really saying that she stopped being a good mother and
turned into a better whore in terms of money and sex.

As the tragedy goes on, the play creates a sharp contrast between Othello's cruelty and
irrationality and Desdemona's purity and devotion to duty. Race and gender are horribly at odds
with each other. From a female point of view, even Desdemona's victory is very troubling. In the
second part of the play, Desdemona doesn't seem to have the courage and strength she had
before. She puts up with Othello's anger, even when he spits on her in public. Desdemona seems
to say that she doesn't mind that Othello is mean to her. Later, after Othello has killed
Desdemona, she briefly comes to life and says she is not guilty of any crime. She also takes
blame for killing herself. Emilia asks Desdemona who killed her, and she says, "Nobody, I
myself." Goodbye.

Lisa Gardine has said that in Renaissance tragedy, "good" women are often shown as
victims who suffer for a long time. This view of what it means to be a woman has been around
for a long time. In the first few acts of the play, Desdemona isn't such a martyr, but by the end,
she's more like the traditional good wife: pure, quiet, and obedient. The scene where Desdemona
gets ready for bed and sings the song about the woman whose lover left her is a great example of
how pure she is.

Desdemona asks Emilia at one point in the scene if she would ever sleep with a man who
isn't her husband. Emilia then says that women have wants and needs just like men do, and that if
men treat women badly, women will learn from men how to be happy without being married.
This makes Desdemona and her maid stand out from each other. While Desdemona is definitely
the play's main character, some feminists have favoured Emilia's realistic realism over
Desdemona's idealised virtue. There is no doubt that the two women in this scene are very
different from each other, which makes it possible for the audience to compare their good
qualities and how they treat men. Emilia refuses to obey her husband when he tells her to be
quiet because she knows that he is to blame for Othello's anger. She instead tells everyone about
his sins and then dies at his hand. In the end, her friendship and love for Desdemona are stronger
than her love for her husband.

In the end, the play convincingly shows how good Desdemona is and how brave Emilia
is. On the other hand, this is done to contrast how Othello slowly turns into a normal jealous,
irrational, and murderous Moor. In the last few acts of the play, Othello hits his wife in public,
chokes Desdemona in her bed, and then kills himself. This is something that Christians don't do
because they think it shows that they don't trust God to take care of them. These acts show the
opposite of the calm and sure general who, in the first scene of the play, stood up to a group of
armed men with confidence. When sad heroes die, they all fall apart in some way before their
death, which lets them become somewhat great again.

The terrifying thing about Othello's breakdown is that it fits with insulting ideas about the
Moor as wild and vicious because he lacks reason, can't control his passions, and can be jealous.
As a result, Othello's breakdown seems to be caused by the fact that he is a "barbarian," or a
"thinly civilised" black Moor whose destructive and primitive urges are set free by Iago's
cunning tricks. Othello himself seems to blame his sins on the fact that he is "other."

For women today, it's important to know how the "fair" Desdemona is built in relation to
the "black" Othello. They want to look at how the play's ideas about race and gender work
together to destroy both the Moorish general and his wife from Venice. Desdemona's unfair pain
shows how easy it was for a woman in the Middle Ages to lose the title of "goodwife" and be
called a whore. In Othello, this death of Desdemona happens at the same time that the play
focuses more and more on how cruel Othello is. A lot of the time, Othello supports the idea of a
white woman who is a victim of black men. In the end, this means that the play gives feminists
and postcolonial thinkers a lot to think about.

Characters:
OTHELLO
From the start of the play, Othello stays away from most of the things that happen that
affect him. In the first scene, Roderigo and Iago use "he" or "him" in different ways. Once
they're under Brabanzio's window, they call people racist names to find them. “The Moor”
(I.i.57), “the thick-lips” (I.i.66), “an old black ram” (I.i.88), and “a Barbary horse” (I.i.113) are
some of these pets. Even though Othello shows up in the second scene, his name isn't said until
Act I, Scene III (I.iii.48). Later, Othello's ship will be the last of three to arrive at Cyprus in Act
II, Scene I. He will stay away from Cassio and Iago as they supposedly argue with Desdemona in
Act IV, Scene I, and he will think Cassio is dead during the fight in Act V even though he wasn't
there. Iago may find it easy to take advantage of Othello because he is an outsider.

Even though Othello is from a different culture and ethnic group than the people of
Venice, his military and leadership skills are very important to the state, and he is a big part of
Venetian public life. Cassio says that the senate "sent about three several quests" to find Othello,
which means that the duke and the senators want him. In his last speech, Othello tells the people
of Venice of his "service" to their country (V.ii.348). The government of Venice trusts him so
much that they gave him full power over Cyprus's military and government.

Othello's friends and neighbours, Desdemona and Brabanzio, are interested in him
because he is so different from them. Othello tells the duke that he is involved with Brabanzio.
"[Desdemona's] father loved me, loved having me over, and still asked me about my life every
year" (I.iii.127–129). -His friends are also amazed by Othello's speeches. In reaction to Othello's
speech about how his adventures won Desdemona's heart, the duke says, "I think this tale would
win my daughter too" (I.iii.170).Othello may act like a stranger because he likes the way he
looks different or because he is embarrassed and defensive about being Venetian. Even though
he is very well-spoken in Act I, Scene III, he says, "Rude am I in my speech, and little blessed
with the soft phrase of peace" (I.iii.81–82). Even though Othello never talks back, Iago's plans
make him tense, and his speech quality goes down. At the end of the play, Othello gets back in
charge and uses his great speech to charm both onstage and offstage crowds. A lot of people
would be deeply moved by his speech about death. The conflict between Othello's being a victim
of a foreign culture and torturing himself makes him sad instead of Iago's silly puppet.

IAGO
Iago is Shakespeare's most vile foe, and his confused goals make him interesting. In the
first scene (I.i. 7–32), he says that Othello didn't choose him for captain. People all over the
world think that 'twixt my sheets,' He has done my job (I.iii.369–370), which is the last line of
Act I, Scene iii. That's what Iago says at the end of Act II, Scene I: "Wife for Wife." He wants
Desdemona to get back at Othello. These ideas don't explain why Iago hates Othello so much,
and the fact that he doesn't have the motivation—or the ability or refusal—to say what he feels
makes his actions even worse. No matter what makes him angry, he will get back at Othello,
Desdemona, Cassio, Roderigo, and Emilia. He enjoys causing pain and destruction.

Iago is very funny, especially when he talks to Roderigo, who is very ignorant, because it
shows how good he is at manipulating people. As he enjoys his skill, he almost winks at the
crowd. As happy viewers, we pull for Iago when he's with Roderigo, but the way they talk shows
that he's scared, which comes out in the last scene when he kills his wife. Emilia may have been
killed by Iago because he hates women so much. Some people think that Iago's hatred of Othello
is caused by his homosexual feelings for the general. He tells Othello over and over that he loves
him and seems to enjoy stopping him from getting married.

Iago is strong and interesting because he knows how to play on other people's emotions.
Iago can use Emilia's handkerchief to avoid answering her questions, tell Othello about it and be
sure that he won't suspect him, and say to the audience, "And what's he then that says I play the
villain?" and be sure that they will laugh like crazy. Iago, who is known for lying, gets everyone
in the play to trust him, which ends with Othello's death.

Some reviewers think Desdemona is less believable and more flat than she really is.
Desdemona's first words, "My noble father, I do perceive here a divided duty" (I.iii.179–180),
and her angry response to Othello's slap (“I have not deserved this” [IV.i.236]), go against the
idea that she is weak and submissive. Critics who say Desdemona's weird, sexual, and newlywed
jokes with Iago in Act II, Scene I are either made up or offensive don't take into account the fact
that she is young, sexual, and just married. The same mocking humour is used when she tries to
get Othello to forgive Cassio in Act III, Scene III, Lines 61–84.Desdemona is obedient,
especially when she says she killed her husband. In response to Emilia's question, "Who did
this?" Desdemona finally says, "Nobody, just me." Goodbye, my gentle boss. Say goodbye
(V.ii.133–134). Thus, in the play, Desdemona is both a kind and devoted wife and a strong and
independent woman. This might be done on purpose to show how Desdemona feels after
defending her marriage to her father in Act I, Scene iii and then defending her loyalty to her
husband almost right away. At the beginning of the play, she is completely on her own, but by
the middle, she has to fight to convince Othello that she is not. The fact that she was killed by a
pillow on a bed covered in her wedding sheets shows how suffocated she was by faithfulness
standards. Since her first words, Desdemona has seemed like she could meet or beat such goals.
Desdemona's strong speech is cut off by Othello.

Desdemona knows she is going to die, which is sad. Emelia is asked by her, not Othello,
to put her wedding clothes on the bed and bury her in them if she dies before Othello does. When
Desdemona wakes up, she sees Othello standing over her with murder in his eyes. She sings a
song that her mother's maid taught her: “She was in love; and he proved mad; and did forsake
her.” Willow sang. She died while singing it. I will remember the song from tonight (IV.iii.27–
30). Like everyone else, Desdemona sees her husband's anger go crazy. Desdemona forgives her
husband, even though she is still "guiltless" (V.ii.133). The audience might be able to forget
Othello because she did.

Emilia seems to be Iago's pawn at first. Iago plans that "my wife must move for Cassio to
her mistress" (2.3.) so that it looks like Cassio and Desdemona are acting badly. Then Emilia sets
up a meeting between them and tells her boss to speak up for Cassio. Emelia grabs Desdemona's
handkerchief when she drops it and says, "my wayward husband hath a hundred times wooed me
to steal it" (3.3). She has a feeling about what Iago might do with it, but she accepts his choice
not to tell her. These acts show that Emilia is either passive or involved in Iago's plans. He
insults her a lot, like when he says, "It is common... to have a foolish wife" (3.3), which makes it
sound like he doesn't think she's smart.

But as the story goes on, Emilia becomes more self-aware and sharp-eyed about how
husbands take advantage of women. In Act 3.4, Desdemona says, "They devour us hungry, and
when they are full, they belch us." In Act 4.3, she tells her mistress, "I do think it is their
husbands' faults / If spouses do fall." Emilia tells Othello, "If you think other, remove your
thought" (4.2), which means he should stop questioning his wife's goodness. When Emilia finds
out that Othello killed Desdemona, she yells, "You lie to her, and you are a devil" (5.2). Emilia
stands up to a man who has just shown he can kill and may kill her to hide his crime. She says,
"I'll make thee known/ Though I lost twenty lives" (5.2.).When Emilia finds out that her husband
killed Desdemona, she says, "Your reports have set the murder on" (5.2.184). Emelia says, "I
will speak as liberal as the north" (5.2), even though Iago tells her to be quiet and threatens her.
Iago kills her with a knife because she spoke out. Emelia is killed by her husband for wanting to
know the truth, just like Desdemona. Desdemona is killed by Iago's bad behaviour, but Emilia
dies to make up for her part. Emilia helped Iago persuade Othello that Desdemona was guilty.
She can't bring her back to life, but she can say that what Iago said was true. Emilia believes that
her last brave act will make up for her quiet and obedience: "So come my soul to bliss, as I speak
true" (5.2.). However, her death also shows that the women in the play have no hope of a happy
ending.

The story moves forward because Cassio ends up being Iago's pawn. Cassio's thoughts,
feelings, and goals are rarely shared, but Iago's plan works because of how he acts and thinks.
Iago says, "He hath a person and a smooth dispose / To be suspected, framed to make women
false" (1.3.) as he plans his lie. Cassio is good-looking, charming, and interesting. If Cassio
wasn't an attractive partner, Desdemona might not have an affair with him, which would make
Iago's plan harder to carry out. Cassio and Desdemona are in trouble because he likes women.
People often think that his politeness and kindness are signs that he is flirting. Iago plans to say,
"Ay, smile upon her!" as he sees Cassio stroke Desdemona's hand. I will give you in your own
relationship (2.1).Even though Iago tries to get Cassio to say bad things about Desdemona, he
stays polite: "An inviting eye—and yet methinks right modest" (2.3). Cassio is scared when
people make fun of how drunk he is and say, "Oh, I've lost my reputation!" (2.3). Cassio might
be friendly and naive because he is from Florence and hasn't been in many fights compared to
other male characters. Like Desdemona, Cassio is good and hopes that other people will see it. In
contrast to Desdemona, Cassio grows. By the end of the play, he knows that Iago killed
Desdemona and helps Othello see that he was wrong. Cassio is told to punish Iago after
Ludovico says, "Cassio rules in Cyprus" (5.2.). The sudden betrayals and violence shown by
other characters may have made Cassio more careful but also a better boss.

RODERIGO
Not sensible Iago plans to kill Othello with Roderigo. The play makes Roderigo's
weakness stand out. Iago easily gets him angry by telling him that Desdemona will marry
Othello, who is a Moor and doesn't fit in with Venetian society. If the fact that both of them hate
Othello makes Roderigo trust him, then he is shallow and stupid. Roderigo is also racist and
xenophobic because he believes it is wrong for Othello, a Moor, to marry Desdemona. Once
Roderigo is under Iago's control, he does what he says, even if it means leaving the stage.
Roderigo agrees to kill Cassio as part of Iago's complicated plan to keep Desdemona and Othello
in Cyprus, even though he doesn't really care about do it. He is dangerously childish and self-
centered if he would kill someone with such carelessness.

Roderigo was turned down by Desdemona, just like Othello. Roderigo is crazy about
Desdemona, even though she and Brabantio have turned him down, and he doesn't care what she
wants. Othello wooed Desdemona with his bravery, while Roderigo wooed her with money and
diamonds. Roderigo, on the other hand, wants Cassio to upset the military camp in Cyprus
because he wants Desdemona, which would put the camp's security at risk. Roderigo's moral and
mental weakness makes Othello's strength stand out even more. Like Roderigo, Othello is
influenced by Iago and gets angry because he is jealous. Roderigo should feel bad about this. If
Iago can trick Othello, it's easy to see how he quickly worked for Roderigo.
 UNIT IV
HENRY IV

Act I
Once Shakespeare's Richard II was over, Henry Bolingbroke became King Henry IV.
During his rise, he was partly blamed for the murder of his cousin Richard II in jail. As a way to
make up for the death of Richard, Henry IV leads a mission to Jerusalem. Disloyalty and social
unrest make it hard for him to leave. His cousin Edmund Mortimer has been taken by Owen
Glyndwr, a rebel from Wales. In the north, there is a fight between the Earl of Douglas and
Harry Hotspur, who is the son of a former backer of Henry and loves war. King Henry feels bad
that his oldest son, Henry (Hal), hangs out with vagabonds and bad guys in London pubs all the
time. The King asks Hotspur to help him fight the Welsh. Hotspur, on the other hand, thinks that
the King has not thanked his family enough for helping him in the past.

Act II
At the Boar's Head Tavern, Prince Hal laughs with his old, poor friend Sir John Falstaff.
There are many things Falstaff does to try to pay for his drinking. He plans to rob a group of
travellers. Falstaff robs with Bardolph and Nym as friends. Hal and Poins attack Falstaff and
steal the gold while they are hidden. When they get back to the bar, they tell Falstaff that they
cheated him out of money. During the Civil War, Hal goes back to court. Hal and Falstaff act out
King Henry's upcoming talk with Hal, who is acting badly. Falstaff is scared when Hal criticises
his troublesome friends. Hal fights for Falstaff and gives back the money that was stolen.

Act III
Hotspur and his father join the King's enemies, which makes the civil wars worse.
Everyone is angry about King Henry's rise. At Shrewsbury, Hotspur meets up with his father's
army. Hal makes peace with his father, and the King gives him charge of the army that goes to
meet Hotspur. On the way, Hal meets Falstaff and some rough guys. Instead of better men,
Falstaff hired these troops by taking bribes.

Act IV
The King says he will forgive Hotspur and set him free if he stops fighting for the throne.
Heath Spur and the rebellious Worcester are out of reach for the northern troops. The Archbishop
of York, who is his friend, tells Hotspur not to fight. Worcester, who is friends with Hotspur,
hears that the King has given him freedom, and the fight of Shrewsbury starts.

Act V
Falstaff is afraid of dying in war and wonders if it's worth risking your life for honour.
Hal bravely protects his dad from Douglas, who is also a troublemaker. He takes out Hotspur.
Falstaff said he beat Hotspur after pretending to be dead to avoid getting hurt. After the King's
troops win, Worcester is put to death. Hal sets Douglas free, and Henry IV splits up his army to
fight the revolt.

Analysis:
Part 1 of Henry IV tells a story and looks at a society at the same time. The plot of the
story seems to be moving in a clear direction towards a clear end. A group of rebels comes up
against King Henry, but his army beats them in one fight at Shrewsbury. The main fight in this
battle is between Hotspur, the rebel leader, and Prince Hal, the king's son. Prince Hal comes out
of the Eastcheap taverns, where he has been wasting time, to show how valuable he is by killing
Hotspur. At the end, many themes come together, but keeping promises is the most important
one. Sir Walter Blunt tells the king that the rebels have a "strong and grave head." Hey.Hey.If
every word is kept, what will happen? But promises aren't kept: some rebel leaders don't show
up, and the rebel party doesn't have nearly as many people as it says it does. In contrast, Hal said,
"the Prince of Wales. Hey.Hey.“Who never promises but means to pay” (5.4.42–43), he tells his
father that he will kill Hotspur to clear his name, which he does. From this point of view, Henry
IV, Part 1 sounds like a well-organized play, with a clear plot that builds up to a well-thought-out
ending.

The result is not quite the same. There is also Falstaff, the funny figure who takes over
the tavern scenes, who makes things very hard. At first glance, Falstaff seems to fit into the neat
story pattern I've been describing. He is the living embodiment of what Hal rejects when he
leaves the pubs to prove himself in war. There is a telling stage picture at Shrewsbury where Hal
stands over the bodies of Hotspur and Falstaff, pays each a careful respect, and then leaves them
lying there. He then goes off to start his new life, having killed his biggest enemy and seen the
last of Eastcheap. Then Falstaff appears out of nowhere; he wasn't dead at all. People usually
laugh out loud at this point. It's based on the tradition of comic resurrections in mummers' plays,
which was a rough type of popular drama in England long before Shakespeare. It also shows that
Falstaff and what he stands for can't be thrown away so easily. When it came out in quarto form
in 1598, the play was just called "The History of Henry IV." It didn't say that it was the first part
of a two-part play. But along with advertising the battle of Shrewsbury, the title page also
advertised "the humorous conceits of Sir John Falstaff." It is Falstaff and his world, which share
equal time with the public action for most of Part 1 that explode in a dramatic version of urban
sprawl in Henry IV, Part 2.

There is also a local effect to some of the political scenes that makes them seem less neat:
they twist and turn. The first scene seems to be meant to make people lean forward and try to
follow. Henry uses a lot of complicated language to say that the fighting in England is over and
that a mission to the Holy Land has begun. From this, we learn that the crusade has not yet
happened and will never happen, and that civil war is still going on, which Henry must have
known while he was giving his speech. That is why Mortimer is fighting Glendower for the king
and Hotspur is fighting Douglas. But Hotspur is beginning to turn against the king. Soon, all of
these people who used to be enemies will join together to form a single rebel front, which will
soon fall apart. Act 1, Scene 3 shows that Hotspur won't give the king his inmates. And
Northumberland says the prisoners "were." Hey. Hey. There was no way they could have been
denied with such force as was given to your Majesty (26–27), which meant they were refused.
Hotspur says, "My liege, I did deny no prisoners" (30), and then he starts a vivid and funny set
piece about the rogue who was the king's messenger. As the speech goes off on a long tangent,
we start to think there might be a plot, and Hotspur's vague end that he "answered neglecting I
know not what— / He should, or he should not" (53–54) backs this up. Last but not least,
Worcester tells Hotspur to set his prisoners free. Things are getting more dangerous because the
king isn't thanking the Percys for their help, they fear and distrust him, and they've decided to
back Mortimer's claim to the crown. Also, we are reminded that the pattern of kings vs. rebels is
not as easy as it seems: not long ago, Henry was a rebel who took the crown from Richard II.

The play is full of stories that can't be trusted, like Hotspur's account of the fop, the king's
prediction of the crusade, and the Percys' claim that they were innocent fools who helped Henry
get rid of Richard. Falstaff's story about the rogues in Buckram fits in with these stories, even
though it is so obviously and hilariously false that it has a strange kind of honesty to it. He
almost begs to be questioned by including inconsistencies in his story. For example, after
describing what his attackers were wearing, he says, "It was so dark, Hal, that you could not see
your hand" (2.4.232–33). Hal tells Falstaff the truth, and Falstaff tells him a new, even bigger lie:
"I knew you as well as he that made you" (2.4.278–79). Part of what makes Falstaff and Hal's
arguments funny is that Hal tries to stop Falstaff from making up stories by sticking to the facts.
There are other arguments like this in the play as well. For example, Hotspur is creative in a way
that Falstaff is not, but he lacks control. Worcester says, "He sees a world of figures here, but not
the shape of what he should attend" (1.3.214–15). In his fight with Glendower, on the other hand,
Hotspur stops the Welshman's flow by fighting his claim of supernatural powers with stubborn
literalness. When the rebels start cutting up the map, the roles are switched: Hotspur says that the
river Trent is going in the wrong direction for his reasons and wants to change it, while
Glendower points to the map and tries to remind him of simple English geography: "Not wind?"
It has to happen, it will happen. “You see it does” (3.1.110).

The tavern play shows the conflict between a long story and a short statement of the
facts. Falstaff and Hal, with Falstaff taking the lead, make up their own version of Hal's talk with
his father, which will be played very seriously two scenes later. Part of the fun is making fun of
old-fashioned theatre. For example, when Falstaff says, "Weep not, sweet queen, for trickling
tears are vain" (2.4.404), the audience will immediately recognise the kind of bad writing they've
heard from playwrights from the past who let the iambic pentameter line Shakespeare used so
freely trap them. But Falstaff's play and Hal's play also disagree with each other. In Falstaff's, the
fat knight is praised for being good, and when he plays the king or Hal, Falstaff imagines a future
where Hal sends everyone else away so that they can have the whole world to themselves. Hal,
on the other hand, uses the chance to practise the deadly attack he will launch at Falstaff at the
end of Part 2. When Falstaff begs him not to be sent away, Hal replies with a simple but chilling
"I do, I will" (2.4.499).

A lot of us might have thought that the Battle of Shrewsbury would show us who people
really are, no matter how they've acted. But in some ways, it's like the tavern show. There is a lot
of imitation and fraud in it. He acts like the king, just like Hal and Falstaff. This is what Sir
Walter Blunt does. He gets killed for it, though. When Douglas meets the real Henry and says, "I
fear thou art another counterfeit" (5.4.35), he means that he thinks the king is pretending to be
the king, which is true since he has a really weak claim to the crown. Falstaff quickly pretends to
be a dead body, which fools Hal and the audience. When he stabs Hotspur and then claims credit
for his death, he is doing the same thing he did in the tavern play: he is playing Hal. If we
remember from Part 2, even when a character's real nature seems to show up in the heat of battle,
it may not be what it seems to be. Hal seems to have left the Eastcheap world at Shrewsbury, but
he is back in it in Part 2. In the battle, Prince John proves himself to be a brave fighter, and in
Part 2, he tricks a group of rebels into giving up. Henry IV, Part 1 not only has some unreliable
stories in it, but its own story is also faulty at times.

But even though the fight creates false images, it also forces us to face death, the last and
most stubborn truth. Falstaff is a realist when it comes to honour. Honour is useless if it can't
heal wounds or make the dead feel better about being dead. He uses the body of Sir Walter Blunt
to show how his point of view works in real life: "There's honour for you" (5.3.35). Though
Hotspur doesn't feel any honour as he dies, he agrees with Falstaff that death has robbed him of
everything and taken away the meaning of life, not just his own. In one of the play's most
moving scenes, he dies while talking about how his own language has failed: "the earthy and
cold hand of death / Lies on my tongue" (5.4.86–87), and Hal has to finish his last line for him.

For Hal, on the other hand, Hotspur's death is the final, clear proof that he has become the
brave prince—but the play turns again. There is a question about who killed Hotspur, which goes
against what the crowd saw. Of course, Falstaff is the one who brings it up. Though we might
have thought that a fight with Hotspur would be the last thing on Falstaff's mind before the war,
he and Hal argue about who will do this. While Falstaff is making his ridiculous claim, Hal tries
to stick to the facts, just like he did with the rogues in buckram: "Why, Percy I killed myself and
saw thee dead." Falstaff responds, "Didst thou? “Lord, Lord, this world is full of lies” (5.4.148–
49). Not only does Hal let Falstaff lie, he even offers to help him explain it: “For my part, if a lie
may do thee grace, / I’ll gild it with the happiest terms I have” (5.4.161–62). How amazing is
that?

What does this play mean? Now we need to go back to Hal's speech at the end of the first
tavern scene. In it, he explains his plan to use his time in Eastcheap to give the false idea that he
is not important so that his arrival as the real prince will be even more dramatic. We need to keep
in mind that Shakespeare is writing from and about a very different political situation than ours
because of how much it looks like how images are used in modern politics, which is controlled
by the media. By today's standards, the media were very technologically backward, and they
covered modern politics at their own risk. The crown of England was not an office that was
elected by the people. Hal thinks that he is performing for someone, but who and why? In other
plays, like Richard II, Julius Caesar, and Coriolanus, government figures try to connect with
regular people. The subject of this play is a bit narrower. The rebel Vernon is the best example of
Hal's audience because he is surprised and impressed by Hal's visit to Shrewsbury. This is
exactly the kind of reaction Hal predicted in his speech. Vernon is a member of the class that
rules. As shown in the play, people in that class know, watch, and judge each other. This is the
group Hal needs to control. The "wild prince" image fools Hotspur into thinking less of his rival,
which ends fatally. Vernon is won over before the fight of Shrewsbury even happens, and King
Henry, who is the most important person in this audience, is won over by Hal's promise to kill
Hotspur.

In other words, Hal has already won the audience over before the fight even starts, and no
one sees him kill Hotspur. That is, no one but the people in the theatre. We'll talk about a small
but important difference between Shakespeare's theatre and ours now. Shakespeare's players
were not stuck in a picture-frame stage; they were surrounded by the people who came to see
them. When they played in open theatres during the day, they were in the same light as the
audience. The darkened auditorium was an invention of the 1800s that made the split possible. In
Shakespeare's theatre, this means that characters—not just actors—could be aware of the
audience and talk directly to them, which is a normal part of the theatre language. In today's
theatre, this is called "breaking the fourth wall," and it's seen as an experiment and a challenge to
the fantasy. In Shakespeare's theatre, there was no way to break the fourth wall or question the
fiction. Falstaff's line "Judge, my masters" (2.4.454) could mean that he wants a decision from
both the audience and the characters on stage when Hal and Falstaff take turns playing the king.
When Falstaff stabs the dead Hotspur and says, "Nothing controverts me but eyes, and nobody
sees me" (5.4.129), the audience is more aware that there are probably two or three thousand
people who can tell him the truth right away. Hal is not talking to himself or an empty place in
his soliloquy if we think about it this way. He is just telling the audience what he is going to do.
His audience onstage is happy that he showed up at Shrewsbury, but an audience in a theatre
wants action, and it's for our own good that he kills Hotspur. He knows that the audience knows
the truth, so he can let Falstaff claim win, even though he clearly feels like he has nothing to
lose. Of course, they know that this "truth" is also a lie, since Falstaff is actually just one actor
pretending to kill another.

Falstaff might be able to claim glory that he is not actually entitled to for better reasons.
As I said, the play looks at a culture as well as telling a story. In a very narrow sense, Falstaff is a
supporting figure in the story. In terms of theatre, he controls half the action. Hal thinks that if
Falstaff's belt broke, "how would thy guts fall about thy knees" (3.3.161–62), which is what he
stands for in a structured play. Eastcheap is Falstaff's natural setting. It is a world that hasn't been
affected by the big events that are pulling apart England's ruling class. If there is one thing that
Eastcheap is known for, it's breaking the rules and turning things upside down. For example,
Falstaff's comedy is full of religious parodies, and Bardolph's nose makes people joke about
hellfire. There is a lot of crime, fake kings are crowned with cushions, and the royal image of the
sun (which Hal swears to copy in his speech) changes class and gender, becoming "a fair hot
wench in flame-colored taffeta" (1.2.10–11). But Eastcheap isn't just a place to make fun of the
real world; that would make it dependent on it. It's also a world in its own right, with its own life.
It is okay for Eastcheap to claim victory when Falstaff takes the dead Hotspur away.

Through Eastcheap, we can sometimes see how England as a whole is going about its
business. The Carriers in 2.1 who are upset about the inn, the stables, and the fleas are just
normal guys doing their job. Today, those jobs would be filled by long-distance truck drivers.
The most interesting thing about their scene is how little they have to do with politics. There is a
whole life going on out there that the great folks have no idea about.

We can't say that Eastcheap is the edge and the court is the middle. The court seems
small when we're in Eastcheap and big when we're in Westcheap. We see Eastcheap as a real,
vivid place, but the king cuts it short with four words: "barren pleasures, rude society" (3.2.16).
The play doesn't try to make class differences work together; instead, it shows how different
lives are. When war is shown, this is more clear than anywhere else. Hotspur talks about his
enemies, whose beautiful armour Vernon just talked about:

In their dress, they look like sacrifices.

And to the maid with fire-eyed eyes of smokey war
 We will give them everything hot and dirty. (4.1.119–21)

They were dirty, miserable, and half-dead—"A crazy fellow met me on the way and told
me I had unloaded all the gibbets and pressed the dead bodies" (4.2.36–38). They show the other
side of war. They're not brave sacrifices; they're just "food for powder, food for powder." They'll
fill a hole just as well as they do better” (4.2.66–68).

On the other hand, simple contrasts like court vs. Eastcheap or Hotspur vs. Falstaff won't
help us see the whole show. Wales, as we see it in 3.1, is a third place. It is strange and magical,
an artistic and magical haven on the edges of the real world that is England. It's true that a lot of
this effect comes from Glendower's bragging, which is part of his attempt to beat Hotspur, and
Hotspur cleverly takes that advantage away. The music does play, though, when Glendower asks
for it, saying, "those musicians that shall play to you / Hang in the air a thousand leagues from
hence" (3.1.231–32), and Hotspur says, "Now I perceive the devil understands Welsh" (238).
The music is more interesting because it's the only music in the play that isn't military. The fact
that there are two women onstage for this scene is the only time in this mostly male play. This is
just as dramatic and more important in the long run. We can get a glimpse of another area of
action—the rebels' home life and the role of women in it—with some restrictions that I will talk
about soon.

Hal and Hotspur are not the same in many ways. One big difference is that Hotspur has a
life. The bar and the court are the prince's only homes. His "homecoming" with his father in 3.2,
which is the only private scene he has with his dad, is mostly about how people in the political
world see him. Henry has a private moment of emotion and feels bad about it. He complains that
his eye "now does that I would not have it do, / Make blind itself with foolish tenderness"
(3.2.92–93). We think Hal had a mother, but we never hear about her. In the first court scene,
Westmoreland talks about the Welshwomen who torture the bodies of dead English troops. This
is the first time women are mentioned in the play.

Such a horrible, shameful change

Hey. Hey.Hey.as it might not be
Without a lot of shame being told or talked about. (1.1.44–46)
 As part of propaganda against the rebels and the Welsh, the women are seen as scary,
evil, and doing something without a name, like the witches in Macbeth. (When we see a
Welshwoman onstage, Lady Mortimer, the effect is very different, and Falstaff is the only
character who is shown touching a dead body.) The only woman in Eastcheap is the hostess, and
she is first introduced as the punchline of corny jokes about Hal calling her to account; Falstaff
says, "Thou hast paid all there" (1.2.55–56). The lady, who is trying to run a business, needs
more useful payment, but Falstaff puts her off by making jokes about how bad she is. Falstaff
jokes about the hostess, saying, "she's neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have
her." The hostess falls right into the trap, saying, "Thou or any man knows where to have me,
thou knave, thou," and Hal's apparent defence of her—"Thou sayst true, hostess, and he slanders
thee most grossly" (3.3.135–41)—makes things worse.

Another part of Hotspur's fighting style is his dislike of women. Northumberland calls
Hotspur's emotion "this woman's mood" (1.3.245), and Hotspur's usual language seems to be
meant to defend himself against this insult to his manliness. He doesn't like the fop's "holiday
and lady terms" (1.3.47) and says this about the letter writer who won't join the rebellion: "I
could brain him with his lady's fan" (2.3.23–24). He also tries hard to control Lady Percy: "when
I am on horseback I will swear/I love thee infinitely" (2.3.107–8). In the Glendower scene, he
makes fun of her sexuality in public, just like Falstaff does with the hostess: "Come, Kate, thou
art perfect in lying down" (3.1.234); he also invites her to their last sexual encounter, saying, "An
the indentures be drawn, I'll away within these two hours, so come in when you will" (3.1.269–
71). While he is ready to make love, he needs to check his schedule first. Lady Percy, on the
other hand, fights back much better than the hostess does, giving the situation her own unique
view. She is aware of how Hotspur's public life is making him feel by keeping him up at night
and giving him bad dreams. She talks to him with a tenderness that we don't often hear from the
guys in the play. She's not emotional, though. When Hotspur puts off her demand that she know
his secrets, she calls him a "mad-headed ape" and a "paraquito" (2.3.82, 90). She says, "I'll break
thy little finger, Harry, / An if thou wilt not tell me all things true" (2.3.92–93), knowing that he
knows about "bloody noses and cracked crowns" (2.3.98). He finally says, "Will this satisfy you,
Kate? I'll let you follow me a day behind."The fact that she said, "It must of force," shows that
she has to give in, even if she doesn't like it. Her made-up name, Kate, makes me think of the
fiery lead character in "The Taming of the Shrew," but this Kate doesn't want to be tamed. Her
refusal to give in at least makes it possible to see her relationship with Hotspur as the kind of fun
relationship that lives on insulting each other in a funny way. Some people will think that
reading is too positive, but the point is that the way the play shows this marriage leaves room for
many views by both readers and actors. It gives the play a sense of spontaneity that stands in
stark contrast to Hal's strict control over his own career.

It might look like Lady Mortimer is just a victim of the male world at first. It's against the
law for her to marry a guy whose language she doesn't understand. Her Welsh speech is a flood
of beautiful-sounding words that neither her husband nor most of the audience can understand.
Her father translates it, so he controls what it means. He expresses a wide range of power and
feeling through words in English, and she does the same through music and that language we
don't understand. She says that her singing will "crown the god of sleep on your eyelids and
charm your blood with pleasing heaviness" (3.1.223–24). With a hint of magic, she gives
Hotspur the rest that Lady Percy wishes he could have. Glendower says, "I am afraid my
daughter will go crazy, so much she cares for her Mortimer" (3.1.149–50), which shows that she
is also under a spell. Lady Mortimer is one of the most interesting characters in the play. She is
passionate, emotional, eloquent but hard to understand, and she can charm her husband but can't
talk to him.

There would still be politics without the women, but there would be no play. They
support a better life that can't be summed up in a story or an ideology, just like Eastcheap did.
The rebels only see England as a map, with its lords, commoners, women, troops, carriers,
thieves, and men with red noses. It's like seeing computer images of war or poverty instead of the
real things that happen. If Hal worries about Francis's lack of language skills, we can see that Hal
made the effect happen by playing a trick where Francis's attempts to speak for himself are
constantly cut off. This is not what the play does. You can hear a lot of different voices, and it
fills in the details of everyday life in England in a way that makes us think of novels. In the pub,
Falstaff asks for "a play extempore" (2.4.291–92), which means a play with no script so the
players can make up their own lines. Henry IV, Part 1 has one of the most carefully planned plots
Shakespeare ever wrote, but it sounds like a play that was made up on the spot.
 UNIT V
SHAKESPEARE CRITICISM – MODERN APPROACHES

MYTHICAL APPROACH

A mythical approach usually finds mythological elements in a work of literature, whether

it's the creation of a new myth or the use of a traditional mythological figure, story, or place, or
even just allusions. These mythological elements are then used to help interpret the work.

Mythical Approach in Shakespeare:

Shakespeare's works talk about a lot of Greek mythological characters, but Theseus and
Hippolyta stand out because they are fully developed characters in not one but two of the plays.
Their upcoming wedding is a big part of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Emilia, Hippolyta's
sister, is one of the main characters in The Two Noble Kinsmen.

Mid-Summer Night’s Dream:

Theseus:
They were raised by their mother away from their home in Athens. Theseus was the son
of King Aegeus. To get back to Athens, where he was born, he took a risky and hard path,
beating six opponents along the way and starting his career as a Greek hero. When he got there,
he made Medea, Aegeus's wife at the time, angry, and she tried to poison him. Aegeus recognised
Theseus and stopped Madea's plan, which brought the father and son back together. They didn't
change their sails from black to white for some reason. Aegeus threw himself into the sea, which
is now called the Aegean Sea, when he saw the black flags and thought that his son was dead.

He was brave in war, but as a romantic, he quickly moved from woman to woman.
According to Shakespeare, he even had time to sleep with the queen of the fairies:

OBERON: How canst thou thus for shame, Titania, Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus? …
-A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 2.1.76

Hippolyta:
Many stories have been told about Hippolyta, but the main part of all of them is her part
in the 12 Labours of Hercules. The ninth job for Hercules was to get Hippolyta's war belt, which
is also called a girdle. He did this. Different versions of the classical story say that Hippolyta
gave it to him willingly, but they disagree on whether she lived or died accidentally in a fight that
Hera started himself.

THESEUS: Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword And won thy love doing thee injuries,
But I will wed thee in another key, With pomp, with triumph, and with reveling.
-A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1.1.17

There was a time when Hippolyta met Theseus. He was with Hercules during his ninth
labour. Did Hercules take her away for Theseus? Did Theseus woo her or take her away before?
Theseus may not have married Hippolyta, but he did marry Antiope, her sister. Any of these
could be true, depending on the source you look at. All of these stories agree on a few things:
Theseus married an Amazon and may have kidnapped a powerful Amazon. This caused a war
between the Amazons and the Athenians; Theseus had a son named Hippolytus, who could have
been named after his mother or aunt; and the Amazons were a powerful group. This last point
was one that Shakespeare pushed home over and over again. For example, in Henry VI, Part 1,
Henry VI, Part 3, King John, and Timon of Athens, the Amazons are described as fierce women.

Conclusion:
Shakespeare has used myths in a lot of his other plays, like Hamlet, Macbeth, Troilus and
Cressida, and many more. Shakespeare's main goal in using mythical figures was to show
something about a real person.

POST-COLONIAL APPROACH

An Introduction: What is post-colonial theory?

A literary theory or way of thinking about literature that looks at works written in
countries that used to be colonies of other countries is called postcolonial theory. It could also be
about writing written by people from countries that colonised other countries and about those
colonies or their people. The theory is based on the ideas of being different and fighting against
it.
Post-colonial Approach and Shakespeare:
The post-colonial approach to Shakespearean plays has to do with social norms and the
more recent history of how Shakespearean theatre has been used in movements for
decolonization. The Tempest does a great job of showing this theme of colonialism.

Post-Colonial Approach to The Tempest:

Shakespeare did not back or oppose colonisation. Instead, he showed both sides of the
effects of colonisation. At that time, writers generally wrote about civilization from a Western
point of view. Indigenous people were not present in the worlds they created in colonial
literature. They made the colonisers look strong, smart, well-educated, and daring.

 Shakespeare's play "The Tempest" doesn't talk about America or colonisation in a clear
way. But Prospero stands for a cruel coloniser, and Miranda for the way Anglo
Americans tried to stifle native culture.
 Shakespeare was moved by journey stories written at the time, and he talks about how
new world ideas changed things. There are no clear references to the New World in "The
Tempest," but it is seen as a story about it. We read in "The Tempest" that the island is
"subtle, tender, and delicate." It looks like Shakespeare was very moved by the news of
the finding of the New World.
 It was possible to rule a land and build a civilization.
 Two main people play a big role in colonisation: those who colonise and those who are
colonised.
 Caliban stands for the colonised people, while Prospero stands for the colonisers.
 To understand colonial points of view in "The Tempest," it is very important to look at
these two figures. As Prospero takes over the island and its people, he represents the
Western coloniser. Like other colonisers, he thinks of the native people as cruel,
primitive, and animal-like.
 He thinks of Ariel as an indigenous person who is cooperative and respectful. Caliban, on
the other hand, stands for an indigenous person who is rebellious, difficult, and unwilling
to work with others.
 Prospero thinks of himself as smarter, more informed, and better than other people. With
his magical skills, he makes them give up and become his slaves. Colonisers helped the
 people who lived in the nations they took over by using guns and other science tools, like
magic.
 Caliban and Ariel respond in different ways and get different outcomes. Both serve
Prospero, but in the end, Prospero gives Ariel his freedom as a prize for his loyalty and
hard work.
 Caliban stands for defiance and fighting back. He is an original person who doesn't
believe in God and is treated like a slave. Prospero calls him a "hag-seed," which means a
cruel and rude person.
 Caliban has to do everything he says, but he treats him like a mean boss. He brings him
back to severely beat him if he doesn't do what he says.
 Caliban has to do what Prospero says because of his magical skills. But he stands up to
Prospero like a brave rebel because he thinks he has been unfair to him.
 People generally think that the island is in the Mediterranean or the Caribbean.
 Shakespeare shows colonial language from the 1600s through the eyes of Prospero,
Trinculo and Miranda.
 The colonisers thought the Indians were not only rude, but also dangerous and violent.
Shakespeare's "Tempest," on the other hand, shows how Caliban becomes more human,
showing that he is a "noble savage."
 Caliban can pick up new languages and knows how to appreciate music and beauty.
 He writes in rhythmic verse with iambic pentameter like noble people. These traits make
people feel sorry for and equal to local people who have been colonised.
 The audience feels sorry for Caliban because Prospero treated him unfairly and made him
look bad.

Conclusion:
"The Tempest" not only shows the conflict between those who colonise and those who
are colonised, but it also asks the ideas that underlie colonisation. Prospero's attitude towards
colonisation is shown by how he took Sycorax's land and treated the locals. Caliban's protest
against Prospero shows how he fights against foreign power. This means that Tempest can be
studied from a post-colonial point of view.
 ARCHETYPAL APPROACH

A literary theory called archetypal criticism tries to find and explain universal patterns
and themes in writing that are deeply rooted in the human mind. It comes from the thought that
archetypes are repeated images, symbols, and themes that are shared by all nations and
throughout history. These archetypes are thought to represent the collective unconscious of all
people. Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist, made the idea more well-known. He
thought that the mind is naturally drawn to certain universal symbols and subjects.

Literary Criticism and Archetypal Criticism:

Archetypal criticism tries to find these symbols and themes that are present in all works
of writing and look at how they show how people are. One way to do this is to look at the
characters, plots, settings, and symbols in a work of writing and find where they come from in
the collective unconscious. For better knowledge of literature, it gives us a way to look deeper
into the bigger, more universal ideas that lie beneath the surface of a piece of writing. An
American named Northrop Frye wrote about literature and is best known for his work on the idea
of archetypal criticism.

The Merchant of Venice and Archetypal Criticism:

This play, "The Merchant of Venice," was written by William Shakespeare in the late
1600s. Its complicated characters, dramatic plot, and thought-provoking ideas have kept readers
interested for hundreds of years. If you want to see how powerful archetypal criticism can be,
just look at The Merchant of Venice. It has well-developed characters, explores timeless themes,
and uses symbols and motifs that tap into the collective mind. We can learn more about the
play's universal meaning and the psychological and emotional truths it shows about the human
situation by looking at it through this critical lens.

Archetypal Characters:
One of the most interesting and well-known characters in The Merchant of Venice is the
moneylender. The moneylender, played by Shylock, is the stereotypical greedy, cruel usurer who
loves money and will do anything to get it.
Archetypal Themes:
Styles
 Love is shown in many different ways in William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of
Venice. Love is a key and recurring theme in the play. Bassanio and Portia's love for each
other, Antonio and Bassanio's friendship, and Shylock and Jessica's complicated
relationship are all examples of love.
 There is a famous love story between Bassanio and Portia that is at the heart of the play.

They are shown to have a relationship that goes beyond social and cultural barriers. Their
journey together shows how strong and persistent love can be in the face of hardship. This type
of romantic love has been a theme in writing for hundreds of years.

Another important theme in the play is the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio.
They have a strong bond that can't be broken because they believe each other, respect each other,
and have had similar experiences. Because they are friends, Antonio and Bassanio show what a
true friend is like and how important it is to have someone you can depend on and trust.

The play also looks at the idea of getting even, with Shylock as an example. Shylock's
demand for a pound of flesh as payment for the loan he gave Antonio is a way for him to get
back at the Christians who hurt him. What this desire for revenge shows is how dangerous hate is
and how destructive it is to want payback. Another important theme that comes up over and over
in The Merchant of Venice is the stranger.

 Shylock and Jessica are both representations of the outsider archetype, which is the
feeling of being left out of normal society.
 Jessica, Shylock's daughter, is also shown as an outsider in the play. She is portrayed as a
young woman who feels trapped and suffocated in her father's harsh home and is eager to
run away and make her own way in the world. Jessica's path to leave her father's home
and become a Christian represents the archetype of the outsider. Her experiences
illustrate how everyone feels like an outsider and wants to feel like they belong and are
accepted.
Conclusion:
Finally, the archetypal criticism of The Merchant of Venice is a useful way to look into
the play's deeper meanings and consequences. It's easier to get a better sense of the play and
what it means to everyone if you look at its iconic characters, themes, symbols, situations, and
structures. The play's themes of love, justice, mercy, and the dangers of greed and revenge are
still important and make you think. Archetypal review of the play is a good way to get to the
play's deeper meanings and implications.

FEMINIST APPROACH

Feminist literary criticism criticizes language that is slanted towards men and does
"resistant" readings of books or events. It starts with the idea that society is dominated by men
and then looks at how literary works and other forms of expression mirror, support, or question
these power structures.

Feminist Criticism and Shakespeare:

Approaches to Shakespeare criticism that are feminist or focus on gender studies made
big steps forward after 1980. In Shakespeare's plays, there are lots of strong, independent women
who make their own space and show what it means to be independent. Cleopatra, Lady Macbeth,
Cordelia, Viola, Rosalind, Desdemona, and Portia are just a few of the characters in
Shakespeare's plays who make their voices heard in very different ways.

Woman in Shakespeare’s Play:

Shakespeare has an interesting way of writing about women. Some of his female
characters are rebels, while others are mild-mannered Good Girls who try to please others. Their
families, especially their dads, think they are great kids who will always follow the rules and
make their families look good. They make themselves look nice and agreeable, and they go with
the partner their dads pick out. Like other women of that time, she seems to be Shakespeare's
ideal female character.

The Character of Ophelia: Hamlet

Young women in his tragedies, like Ophelia in Hamlet, are left alone, abused, and die.
Specifically, it seems like all of the female characters have the same sad ending: they die too
soon and for no reason. Ophelia seems to be the perfect example of a daughter in Elizabethan
times. In Hamlet, women are shown to be less important than men in Elizabethan England,
where their lives are strictly controlled by their dads or husbands. There are limits on their rights.
Ophelia and Queen Gertrude, two women in Hamlet, don't have much or any power. Ophelia is
the female character in Hamlet. She is Polonius's daughter, Laertes' sister, and sometimes
Hamlet's lover. Ophelia is a nice, pure woman who does what Polonius and Laertes say. She is a
young, smart, and loving woman whose life takes a dramatic turn. Death and crazy

Katherine Minola of Taming of the Shrew:

She is Katherine Minola, the "shrew" from "The Taming of the Shrew." Katherine is
physically attractive, but men don't want her because she is smart, funny, and won't give in and
become their property. Her sister Bianca, on the other hand, is quiet, respectful, and pretty, so
many men want her. Their father won't let Bianca get married until Katherine is married, so the
men come up with a plan to "tame the shrew" and court the beautiful Bianca.

Katherine's "happy ending" is that her lover Petruchio makes her submissive again, which
is how a woman should be. The fire inside Katherine has been put out.

Conclusion:
Women rarely get what they deserve, even when they do what they should. Also,
women's deaths are often described as a result of mistakes made by male characters. So,
Shakespeare shows women in ways that were acceptable in the Elizabethan era.

NEW HISTORICIST APPROACH

Introduction:
During his lifetime and soon after, Shakespeare was famous and got a lot of attention
from critics. In 1598, the English author Francis Meres said that he was the best writer of
comedy and tragedy in England. Ben Jonson, who lived during Shakespeare's time and was also
a literary critic, said that Shakespeare was the best at writing comedy, even in the Classical
world, and that he was just as good at writing tragedy. However, Jonson also said that
Shakespeare didn't know how to use Classical languages very well and didn't follow Classical
rules. Jonson thought that Shakespeare wrote too glibly, and he blamed Shakespeare for not
knowing enough about the Classical languages and not following the rules of those languages.
Jonson thought that Shakespeare mixed too many things in his writing, like kings and clowns,
high verse and bad language, and regular people and gods.

New Interpretive Approaches:

In the 20th and 21st centuries, there has been an amazing growth of new schools of
critical thought in Shakespeare criticism.

New Historicists approach to Shakespearean Criticism:

New Historicism is a literary theory that says we should look at and understand writing in
light of both the author's and the critic's past. New Historicism is a way of thinking about
literature that is based on the work of Stephen Greenblatt and the philosophy of Michel Foucault.
It recognises that both the author's time and place and the critic's environment, beliefs, and biases
affect how they discuss a work of literature. New Historicism shows how literature criticism is
always changing. It is an idea that is supported by New Historicism that as times change, so will
our view of great literature.

GRANVILLE BARKER'S "PREFACE TO SHAKESPEARE"

"Preface to Shakespeare" by Granville-Barker is a classic work that is praised for its deep
study of Shakespeare's plays and how they are performed. It looks into how complicated
Shakespeare's language, characters, and ideas are, showing how they are still relevant today.
Granville-Barker's commentary is useful for both students and theatre professionals because it
gives new insights into Shakespeare's lasting genius.

"Preface to Shakespeare" by Granville-Barker is not only a serious study of the Bard's

work, but also a passionate celebration of his genius. He looks at every detail of Shakespeare's
work with great care, from how he created complex characters to how deeply he explored human
nature. In the introduction, Granville-Barker encourages readers to become fully immersed in
Shakespeare's world, where love, power, and fate are central themes that have lasted for
hundreds of years. He shows that Shakespeare's plays are still powerful, as they continue to
captivate audiences and influence artists of all generations.

"Preface to Shakespeare" by Granville-Barker is an in-depth look at all of William

Shakespeare's works, discussing both their literary importance and their possibilities for use in
theatre. With great care, Granville-Barker looks at Shakespeare's language, characters, and
themes, showing how they all work together to create timeless stories that speak to people of all
ages and countries.

He talks about how complicated Shakespeare's verse is, focusing on the rhythmic
rhythms and new ways of using language that make the plays so popular over time. Granville-
Barker also talks about how deep and complicated Shakespeare's characters are, pointing out
how realistic their minds are and how unclear their morals are. He talks about how Shakespeare
was able to show the whole range of human emotions, from the peaks of love to the depths of
sadness.

Also, Granville-Barker looks at how many themes are in Shakespeare's works and finds
common ones like love, power, and fate. It's his opinion that these themes make the plays more
accessible to everyone and help people connect with them on a deep level.

In his introduction, Granville-Barker argues for a careful and subtle way of staging
Shakespeare's plays, one that respects the text while also leaving room for creative interpretation.
He stresses how important it is to understand the political and cultural setting in which the plays
were written while also seeing how timeless they are.

In conclusion, Granville-Barker's "Preface to Shakespeare" is a thoughtful and passionate

tribute to William Shakespeare's lasting talent. It gives useful information about the complexities
of Shakespeare's works and shows how they have had a huge effect on writing, theatre, and
people in general.

STEPHEN GREENBLATT “SHAKESPEAREAN NEGOTIATIONS”

(INVISIBLE BULLETINS)

The 1988 book Shakespearean Negotiations by Stephen Greenblatt is a modern classic in

the field of Shakespeare study. It is still a big deal in literary criticism that Greenblatt's work was
the first to fully use a New Historicist method to study Shakespeare.

Greenblatt's 1980 book Renaissance Self-Fashioning was the start of New Historicism.
His 1988 book Shakespearean Negotiations was a more complete development of the idea. New
Historicism is a way of looking at things that gives literary and non-literary works the same
amount of attention, connects them, and says that they should keep teaching each other.
 This method is used by Greenblatt in a collection of articles called Shakespearean
Negotiations. There is a new way to look at Renaissance culture and politics, and Greenblatt
shows how important problems like exorcism, martial law, and colonial politics affect
Shakespeare's tragedies, histories, romances, and comedies. Shakespearean Negotiations has
important information about Henry IV and Henry V, Twelfth Night, King Lear, and The Tempest.
It also has interesting discussions about early modern culture, like cross-dressing, exorcism,
colonial propaganda, and martial law codes.

The first part of the book is called "The Circulation of Social Energy." It talks about how
everything that society makes "are the products of collective negotiation and exchange." This
idea is put into practice in Chapter 2 of Greenblatt's book. "Invisible Bullets" shows how Thomas
Harriott's "A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1588)" and
Shakespeare's "History Plays" are connected discursively. He says that Renaissance writing is
one of the best ways to show how powerful and authoritative the Elizabethans were.
Machiavelli's main idea is that power "originates in force and fraud," which can be seen in both
Harriot's account of the colony and Shakespeare's history plays. This idea is put into practice in
this work: "Invisible Bullets" sets up the connection between Thomas Harriott's "A Brief and
True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1588)" and Shakespeare's "History Plays." He
says that Renaissance writing is one of the best ways to show how powerful and authoritative the
Elizabethans were. Machiavelli's main idea that power "originates in force and fraud" (65) is
reflected in both Harriot's account of the colony and Shakespeare's history plays. Greenblatt
connects this social and political practice to Shakespeare's plays and says that similar methods of
creating fear in order to gain power and control are used in The Tempest. But the play also seems
to raise some uncomfortable questions about how to create absolute power and authority. For
example, the storm at the beginning of The Tempest shows a force that can't be controlled by
humans, and Prospero finally admits that he needs other people. Greenblatt shows in
Shakespearean Negotiations how the New Historicist method creates a reading of Elizabethan
theatre that reflects and works through the tensions of the time.

Stephen Greenblatt's "Invisible Bullets: Renaissance Authority and its Subversion" is one
of the most important books in the field of literature studies, especially in the context of the New
Historicism movement. Greenblatt looks at the complicated connection between writing and
power in the Renaissance in this essay.

The main idea of "Invisible Bullets" is that subversion, which is the act of questioning
established norms, beliefs, and power structures, can be subtle and indirect. Greenblatt looks at
how Renaissance writers wove a complicated dance between subversion and control in their
writing.

The article talks about the political and cultural background of the Renaissance, a time
when power changed hands a lot, society was thrown into chaos, and new types of authority
came into being. Greenblatt says that writers of this time used vague and metaphorical language
to include subversive ideas in their works, even though they seemed to be following the popular
ideas at the time.

One of the main ideas in "Invisible Bullets" is that authority, which is portrayed by the
ruling class or major cultural organisations, is not a single force but a place where power is
shared and fought over. Greenblatt says that writers used a variety of techniques to subtly
question or weaken power while making it look like they were following social norms.

The article looks closely at some Renaissance works of literature to see how the authors
managed the tricky line between subversion and containment. Greenblatt challenges the idea that
literature from this time was only a tool of the ruling class by showing how texts that seemed to
follow the rules could actually hide radical messages or ideas.

"Invisible Bullets" also presents the idea of "social energy," which is the power for
subversion and resistance that readers can find in literary works. To Greenblatt's point of view,
readers actively understand and negotiate the subversive elements in literature, adding to the
ongoing conversation between resistance and authority.

The essay takes a nuanced look at how complicated the connection was between writing
and power in the Renaissance. "Invisible Bullets" by Greenblatt has had a long effect on literary
studies by making researchers think about the subtle ways that writers interact with and
challenge the authority of their time.
 In the article, Greenblatt talks about the processes of subversion and containment, as the
title suggests. If the powerful group can create rebellion and use it to its own advantage, that's
what Louis Montrose means when he talks about power. The point is true for almost all of
Shakespeare's plays, even though the piece is mostly about Henry IV and Henry V. Greenblatt
explains this apparent contradiction in Shakespeare by looking at some ideological strategies that
make up a discourse of power. These strategies were found by Machiavelli and can be seen at
work in Thomas Harriot's Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia.

An Elizabethan spy on Christopher Marlowe told the police that "Moses was but a
juggler, and that one Heriots, being Sir Walter Raleigh's man, can do more than he." This is how
Stephen Greenblatt starts his famous essay "Invisible Bullets." As Greenblatt continues his work,
he talks about Thomas Harriot, who he calls "the author of the first original book about the first
English colony in America," and says that he has had a dangerous reputation for atheism his
whole life. Greenblatt says something interesting at the same time: "the historical evidence is
unreliable; even when there isn't substantial social pressure, people lie quite readily about their
most intimate beliefs." In the piece, treason and atheism are grouped together for the time period
given, and it is said that "atheism is one of the characteristic marks of otherness." Greenblatt
connects Christopher Marlowe's comment and William Shakespeare's Henry plays to Thomas
Harriot's "A Brief and True Report of the New Land of Virginia." He says that these works "can
be seen to confirm the Machiavellian hypothesis of the origin of princely power in force and
fraud even as they draw their audience irresistibly towards the celebration of that power." In his
work, Thomas Harriot talks about how he was able to get the Indians to become Christians.

Harriot's comments on Christianity in his own work and Machiavelli's ideas about
religion and power form the basis of the essay. “The Discourses treat religion as if its primary
function were not salvation but the achievement of civic discipline, and hence as if its primary
justification were not truth but expediency,” says Machiavelli. The Renaissance thinkers also had
"monstrous opinions" like Raleigh's School of Atheism's claim that "both Moses and Our
Saviour, the Old and the New Testament, are jested at" and Marlowe's statement that "things
thought to be done by divine power might have just as well been done by observation of men."
He was "sent by Raleigh to keep a record of the colony...Harriot took care to learn the North
Carolina Algonkian dialect." Harriot is shown to be both a spy and a missionary, and the process
of proselytising is shown. For those natives, civilization would not have been possible without
Christianity. In his writings, Harriot says, "Most of the things they saw with us, as mathematical
instruments, sea compasses, the virtue of the loadstone in drawing iron, a perspective glass that
showed many strange sights, burning glasses, wildfire works, guns, books, writing and reading,
spring clocks that seem to go on their own, and many other things that we had, were so strange to
them, and so far beyond their abilities to comprehend the reason, and means how they should be
made and done, that they thought they were rather the works of gods than humans, or at least that
the gods had given them to us and taught them to us (Harriot 375–6).

Greenblatt thinks that Harriot's most important fact is "the testing upon the bodies and
minds of non-Europeans or, more generally, the non-civilized of a hypothesis about the origin
and nature of European culture and belief."

Also, it says that "the Indians must be convinced that the Christian God is all-powerful
and dedicated to the survival of his chosen people." It looks like Harriot is not telling the truth
when he says that "he will wither the corn and destroy the lives of savages who displease him by
disobeying or plotting against the English." They seem to be there to take over using Christianity
as a way to do it. "The invisible bullets" are their lies, which they tell with books, other things
they have, and even the solar eclipse. Greenblatt says that Thomas Harriot lies and abuses his
power to do his job. Greenblatt says that Harriot "is in a position to disclose the power of human
achievements—reading, writing, gunpowder, and the like—to appear to the ignorant as divine
and hence to promote belief and compel obedience." It looks like subversion is both made and
contained: "Harriot confirms...subversive hypothesis in his culture about the origin and function
of religion by forcing his religion...on others." Greenblatt gives examples by talking about how
powerful and dominant Elizabethan England was, how it controlled the country, and how God
controlled everything. He then talks about "a second mode of subversion and its containment":
"the recording of alien voices...of alien interpretations." In this case, "the threatened extinction of
the tribe" leads to this. Greenblatt reads again from Harriot's work and quotes: "There was no
town where we were carefully targeted, but within a few days of our leaving, the people began to
die very quickly, and many of them died in a very short space of time...The disease was so
strange that they didn't know what it was or how to cure it."
 Greenblatt comes to the conclusion that Harriot believes in "the idea that God is
protecting his chosen people by killing off untrustworthy Indians" and that "English power in the
first Virginia colony depends upon the registration and even the production of such materials."
John Brannigan says this about it: "Power can only define itself in relation to subversion, to what
is alien or other; and at the heart of power is therefore the production and subsequent
containment of subversion." But Greenblatt sees the report as a story of a "test" of Machiavellian
ideas that the queen's power and God's power depend on tricks and purposeful mistakes of things
that happen. He breaks this test down into three steps: testing, recording, and describing. In his
works, Shakespeare wrote about the effects of English culture and the Queen, as well as the
kingdom's plans and its power. He also wrote about the Queen's enemies and friends. Greenblatt
says that his plays are "about the making and keeping of subversion and disorder in check." It's
hard to trust the authority in the play 1 Henry IV. Hal, who will become Henry V, is the oldest
son of Henry IV and a friend of Sir John Falstaff, a fat, old knight who is always drunk.
Greenblatt calls Hal "a juggler" because he is "a conniving hypocrite" and the power he serves
and comes to embody is "glorified usurpation and theft." However, Hal's prince and power are
praised. At the end of Part 1 Henry IV's first bar scene, Hal says, "By how much better than my
word I am, by that much shall I bring down men's hopes." In that case, to lie is to trick and betray
men, "as in the act of explaining that we have examined in Harriot." So, Greenblatt shows how
Hal and tap dancer Francis talk; Hal's stuttering while talking, like using the word "Anon,"
shows how little he knows about language. Greenblatt thinks that these kinds of scenes are like
the recording part of Harriot's work, which is "a mode that culminates for Harriot a glossary, the
beginnings of an Algorkian-English dictionary" that is "designed to facilitate further acts of
recording and hence to consolidate English power in Virginia." Hal's glossary of tavern slang
shows this idea: "I am so good proficient in one quarter of an hour that I can drink with any
tinker in his own language during my life." People think that the Elizabethan and Jacobean
theatre was a social event, which means that Shakespeare's theatre shows how people behaved
and thought about each other. Greenblatt figures out that Prince Hal gets his power from betrayal
and violence. He does this by reading Shakespeare's 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry V, and Henry V again.
He says that Hal's father Bolingbroke stole Richard II's throne, and Hal then betrayed his friends
Bardolph, Pistol, and his best friend Falstaff. There are "political interests" at play in these plays,
and the voices of the repressed and subversive are heard in the tapper Francis, Falstaff and
Bardolph, and the "diverse peoples represented in the play by Welshman Fluellen, the Irishman
Macmorris, and the Scotsman Jamy." Greenblatt also says that "Hal tame the last wild areas in
the British Isles." Greenblatt gives examples of recording and explaining in the article, but he
doesn't give any examples of testing. It looks at a complicated new world like Harriot does in the
first part of Henry IV. In the second part, "we are like the Indians" who have to "pay homage to a
system of beliefs," and in the last play, Henry V, "we have all along been both coloniser and
colonised, king and subject." As we already said, new historicists care about the pushed to the
edges groups.

Greenblatt talks about the connection between power and performance for the
Elizabethan audience. He says that Queen Eliabeth was "a ruler without a standing army, without
a highly developed bureaucracy, and without an extensive police force, a ruler whose power is
constituted in theatrical celebrations of royal glory and theatrical violence visited upon enemies
of that glory." Like in a theatre, the audience had to be deeply engaged by this visible presence
while also being kept at a distance.