Christopher Marlowe 's Speech : Friendship, Politics, Power And Homosexuality

William Shakespeare is the world’s pre-eminent dramatist whose plays range from tragedies to tragic comedies, etc. His general style of writing is often comparable to several of his contemporaries, like Romeo and Juliet is based on Arthur Brooke’s narrative poem, “The tragical history of Romeo and Juliet”. But Shakespeare’s works express a different range of human experience where his characters command the sympathy of audiences and also are complex as well as human in nature. Shakespeare makes the protagonist’s character development central to the plot.

The differences in styles of language truly brings alive the plays' various characters, from the lowliest drawer to the noblest knight. The playwright's audience would have been composed of a similarly diverse spectrum of society, from the groundlings at the foot of the stage, to the members of the court in attendance, and these disparate members of the audience might very well have come away from the plays with different interpretations of

The focus of this paper will be to compare and contrast the works of two playwrights. The works that will be considered are Molière’s The Would-Be Gentleman and Beaumarchais’s The Marriage of Figaro. Both considered comedies, Moliere’s is a short play that tells the tale of Monsieur Jourdain, a tradesman who desires to become a gentleman. Beaumarchais’s play, second in the Figaro trilogy, follows the series of event prior to Figaro’s wedding. Figaro and his companions scheme to ensure that his marriage occurs smoothly. Furthermore, the plays are dated 100 years apart from each other, and they deal with the representation of social hierarchy, social mobility, and gender roles in various ways. With that in mind, they become good sources to compare and contrast the changes in society that occurred within those 100 years. This paper will compare both plays to examine how Molière further endorses the social values and ideas of his time, while Beaumarchais’s presents a shift in attitude towards those values and challenges them.

John Donne’s The Bait seems to be a response to Marlowe’s poem but not in the same style that Sir Walter Raleigh’s poem is a response to Marlowe’s. Donne’s poem seems to be almost a warning to the man in Marlowe’s poem who is trying to win over a young lady with his love.

Hamlet, of Shakespeare's famed tragedy, and Marlowe of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, are similarly situated characters. Despite superficially different settings and plots, there is a remarkably similar thematic element shared between both works. Prince Hamlet and Marlowe are brought to the very brink of insanity by their immersion in worlds gone mad, yet still succeed. At their roots, the similarities of the environments they are immersed in are remarkable. Whether their environment is a “too too sullied” (1057) Royal Danish court, or the dark madness of a murderous Congolese jungle, the relationship between a sane man’s mind, and

In Chaucer’s “Franklin Tale” the plot revolves around a married couple: the knight, Arviragus, his young wife, Dorigen, and a young squire, Aurelius who importunes and attempts to Dorigen. The characters can be said to oscillate between desire and their ego honor which affects what they say and do. Lacan’s definition of desire tells us that we desire for recognition from this “Other.” Our desire is to become what the other person lacks. Duby’s model of courtly love is a concept that focuses on chivalry, nobility and women being at the center. In this paper, I will examine what the story reveals about the relation each character has to his or her desire, how they act in accordance to their desire and the role magic or illusion plays in the plot and how it affect characters’ relation to desire.

William Shakespeare wrote over 400 plays during his life during the Elizabethan era, of which one of his more famous plays is Romeo and Juliet. People from all classes went to watch his plays at the Globe theatre where seating was available to suit the various classes. His plays examined several issues that occurred to Elizabethan society, at a time when loyalty, religion and family were paramount. This essay will be looking at the theme of commitment and how it was portrayed.

In 'Twelfth Night’, gender and sexuality in many ways add to the play’s themes of madness. 'Twelfth Night ' is a reflection of renaissance thought and culture, the renaissance was a transitional period from the medieval to the radical Elizabethan era. The culture of the time was a contradictory one, as from one aspect it was influenced by the patriarchal medieval time, where women were under the rule of men and seen as needing the protection of men, however, from another perspective, the culture was a changing one as women were starting to receive education and many humanists believed that women should be given more rights. The play reflects these attitudes and often challenges the social hierarchy and establishes ideas on gender roles, sexuality and cross-dressing. These factors indeed undermine the expectations of male and female behaviour, and in turn further the play 's theme of madness which has a comedic effect on the audience due to the shock humour it provides.

In the opening scenes, Shakespeare displays to his audience the affluent society of Illyria, where aristocracy is its major component, festivity is the social norm, and leisure is the way of life. Orsino and Olivia, elegant and wealthy members of the nobility, are at the center of people’s discussion—they seek love; Sir Toby and Sir Andrew, the rich knights ranked high in the social hierarchy, “care not for good life” (II.iii.34)—they seek pleasure. However, the Illyrian society of aristocratic customs and sense of licence is established upon the laborious work of those who are excluded from the indulgence in festivity, and whose financial ability and social status do not afford this social liberation.

The influence of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Othello derived from the Elizabeth era during which the father held the highest position within patriarch of the family (Chamberlain, 2011). The father as head of household was supported by religious beliefs and political statue. It was the father’s responsibility to provide,

Events on which this play is based took place in the beginning of the seventeenth century. It was the epoch when because of the inquisition,

The theme of ambition plays an important role in both Dr. Faustus and Twelfth Night. Faustus, a man ambitious enough to risk everything to gain infinite knowledge and power, allows his ambition to be the downfall of him. Malvolio, likewise, allows his ambition to guide his judgment rather than remain true to what he knows. During the times of Marlowe and Shakespeare, it was frowned upon to be ambitious. Due to this, Marlowe and Shakespeare both show ambition to be a terrible quality in people, exemplified through their character’s downfalls. Marlowe uses the genre of his play to illustrate how serious it can be to have ambition. Shakespeare uses his comedic genre to add dark humor to his play due to having ambition. This paper will analyze the works of Marlowe and Shakespeare, Dr. Faustus and Twelfth Night, using the genre of the plays to illustrate the dark path ambition can lead a person.

Hence, we can assume that foreign affairs and popular contemporary theories in the seventeenth century inspired Shakespeare to explore the notion that civilisation was superior to nature, and possibly contend this in his play. In fact, our very understanding of the play, and in particular its characters, relies upon the awareness of popular European attitudes from the seventeenth century. Shakespeare named and described his cast most particularly, as if to ensure that his audience would instantly recognise the

During the Renaissance era, Christopher Marlowe impacted and inspired many of his fellow playwrights during his short life. With the success of his plays and poems, some including Tamburlaine the Great and Hero and Leander, came the praise for Marlowe’s contemporaries. According to Peter Farey, there were notably few contemporary dramatists whom had anything negative to say about Marlowe, although he received much criticism regarding his personal life. His relatively clean reputation diminished after his first arrest in 1593 and rumors of suspected corruption. It is believed by a copious amount of scholars that Marlowe was a considerably controversial individual in the eyes of spectators during the 16th century. After all, many harbored a

This paper critically analyses the theme of social mobility through marriage in Shakespeare’s play ‘Twelfth Night’. In addition, the paper highlights how different characters in the play got into higher social classes or desired to be in higher social classes through marriage. This paper holds that in a highly stratified society such as that presented in the Shakespeare’s play; marriage plays a significant role in in social class mobility. As opposed to some traditional society where marriage was only permitted along an individual’s class, Shakespeare presents a literally liberal society with marriage and other relationships permitted along all the classes within the society. In fact, marriage is more of a person choice, contrary to the perception in the tradition society.