The Dream Of The Rood Interpretation

Throughout history, Shakespeare’s works have been able to captivate and enchant audiences of all backgrounds. His words have an undeniable ability to sway a crowd’s emotions and truly affect them. His plays are timeless pieces of art considered the foundations of English literature. Shakespeare’s most dramatic and infamous tragedy, Hamlet, has earned its place as a cornerstone. In the play, Shakespeare poetically writes speeches that reveal the true colours of the characters, whether good or devious. The main antagonist, Claudius, exposes his treachery to the audience, through his speech to his wife Gertrude. Those living during Shakespeare’s times, the Elizabethans, were the first to witness Claudius’ deception and were able to fully appreciate the play. Claudius’ conversation with Gertrude in Act 4, Scene 5 of Hamlet effectively targets the Elizabethan audience through the clever use of literary tools and the connections to aspects of Elizabethan society.

“Beware of your stereotypes and prejudices, they can trap you in a box and make you miss what life has to offer you”─Med Yones. One has to see past the stereotypes in life, just as one should do for A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare. This literature masterpiece entails a quarrel of a pair of lovers caught entangled in a treacherous web of tainted love and magic. This comedy, viewed through the archetypal literary criticism lens─which focuses on the stereotypical aspects─, makes the audience wonder and push beyond the boundaries of the stereotypes with the tale. Combined with its other elements, A Midsummer Night's Dream is more entertaining and meaningful when viewed through the archetypal literary criticism lens; such as in Act 1: scene 1; Act 3: scene 2; and Act 5: scene 1 in both the printed text and the 1999 film versions.

This essay will discuss several literary criticisms of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. After skimming through several articles, I ended up with four peer-reviewed journal articles, each a different critical perspectives of the play: feminist, psychoanalytical/freudian, moral, and new historicism. My previous studies of Hamlet, as well as my rereading of the play this semester, has collectively given me a general knowledge of the text. My familiarity of the play made it easier for me to decipher the academic journals and see the connections each critic made with the play.

In Antony and Cleopatra, West and East collide, but it does not in spite of Caesar’s conquest over the land of Egypt, defeat it. Cleopatra’s suicide implies that a touch of the East’s character, the freedoms and fervour that are not signified in the play’s notion of the West, cannot be listed by Caesar’s victory. The play proposes that the East will survive on as a perceptible and invincible counterpart to the West, bound as inseparably and everlastingly as Antony and Cleopatra are in their mausoleum. As the play develops, Antony continues to occupy contradictory characteristics that play out the struggle between motive and feeling.

In the end, both extracts show that toxic relationship of Antony and Cleopatra was the downfall of their political careers and ultimately cost them both their lives. By studying these historical texts, we see an example of how our own opinions and ideas play a part in how the reputations of

Throughout William Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, the titular characters are not often painted in the best of lights. Quite often seen as selfish, overbearing, lazy, arrogant or obsessive, one nevertheless feels drawn to them on the stage and much of that is to do with the grandeur of their language where grandeur in this sense meaning eloquent and poetic language that utilises an abundance of metaphors and hyperboles This essay will be examining the difference in speech between the principal characters characters (that being Antony, Cleopatra, and Caesar) and how that affects the audience’s view of them, how the grandeur of the language of the principal characters changes over the course of the play and if grandeur of language does indeed make up for a lack of other types of greatness.

In William Shakespeare’s play Anthony and Cleopatra, Anthony is from the west while Cleopatra is from the east, resulting in a complex and unusual relationship. The principles of east and west are deeply woven into the play. The west, represented by Rome, values the traditional and those who are “brave” and “noble” (Shakespeare 1994: 297). The east, on the other hand, is exotic, having “strange serpents” (Shakespeare 1994: 213), and sexualized, with a queen who can control men’s hearts “by th’strings” (Shakespeare 1994: 246). Introduced by eastern attributes, this sexual theme is pursued throughout the play. For instance, the “sword” (Shakespeare 1994: 199) is commonly used to represent a phallus. I will examine these sexual themes

Betrayal, honor, power dynamics and the struggle between reason and emotion are a few of the themes prevalent in the Shakespearean play and can be witnessed mirrored in celebrity culture today. Many of threat character is Antony and Cleopatra Rae descendants of three royal, wealthy and famous. The respect and admiration they receive by their followers can easily be equated to the many of celebrities idolized today. This essay will further elaborate on ways in which the characters in the play relate to the celebrities and celebrity culture.

Within this essay, I will analyze the symbolism of the tree in the poem The Dream of the Rood in the first 24 lines, excerpted above. The tree in this section represents the way the story of Christ is portrayed to pagan communities. This portrayal differs from the story told in the Bible in that it depicts Christ as a distinguished and opulent figure, not a humble figure as the Bible knows him to be; this is in order to appeal to a pagan audience. In keeping with biblical teaching, however, the tree also represents the blessings to come to followers of Christ in heaven.

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is one of his most beloved plays. There are several notable themes that construct the play that makes twelfth night a great play. Many elements within the play take on what it was like during Shakespeare’s time, while others talk about political commentary. The play talks about the main character Viola and her disguise as a man, while looking for her brother Sebastian. Her disguise creates a lot of misperception; many would say Twelfth Night shines light on sexuality; however it is the reader’s exploration into Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, in which they will explore the many possible truths and understanding of the play. Exploring the themes of gender identity, love, madness and death, readers will have a better understanding the play an how each of the themes connect.

From the beginning of the scene to the moment when the spirit appears, Hamlet dominates the stage both theatrically and sexually. The Queen speaks no more than twelve lines while the

"My dream was grey and foggy. It started off at the beach with my 2 year old son and boyfriend. The beach was in a glass box. My son then had an identical twin and they were getting washed away by the water. I yelled for my boyfriend to help me but he refused to help. I finally was able to save my son and the twin from the waves. I Then take my son and walk out of the glass box. I no longer have my son and there is a black spiral staircase. I was walking down it with blackness around me. Then a little doll in a white nightgown was below me on the steps. I felt so afraid that I jumped over the railing and into The darkness."

In William Shakespeare’s drama Julius Caesar, Shakespeare’s numerous characters include just two women; Calpurnia and Portia; the wives of Julius Caesar and Marcus Brutus respectively. Though the parts are small, they each make important contributions to the play as a whole. Both women in Julius Caesar exist only in the context of their relationships with men. It is evident then, that both make a major contribution to the development of the characters Caesar and Brutus, their husbands, with whom both are respectively depicted.

In the article, “The Interpretation of dreams, and of jokes” by Mathew Hugh Erdelyi, it discusses many points in the relations of cognitive ability on how dreams are interpreted in our waking lives. There is many debated theories among psychologist as to the many problematic restricting research and lack of research on how to study and evaluate a conclusive answer, whether or not dreams are actively continuously impacting our awake state. To briefly conclude what the article talks about, is that there is newly found information despite that dream research have been neglected for several decades because of the widely held view that dreams are random mental events(Solms, 1991, 2003). Neuropsychologist Mark Solms showed from his analysis of REM-dreaming

We can say that Shakespeare has treated this play with sentiments of Erotic and Marvelous. It proves that we can analyze any play or creation ofany country. We may not specify any sentiment as significant in dialogue or description in any literary creation, but they may be charming by the beauty of their style. Thus we can conclude drama is a combination of