Some believe that Prospero's final speeches signify Shakespeare's personal adieu from the stage. Troilus and Cressida Troilus and Cressida is difficult to categorize because it lacks elements vital to both comedies and tragedies. But, for now, it is classified as a comedy. Twelfth Night Shakespeare loved to use the device of mistaken identity, and nowhere does he use this convention more skillfully than in Twelfth Night. Two Gentlemen of Verona The tale of two friends who travel to Milan and learn about the chaotic world of courting.
The Winter's Tale The Winter's Tale is considered a romantic comedy, but tragic elements are woven throughout the play. We have a first-hand account of a production of the play at the Globe in It is one of Shakespeare's final plays. Today's Guess the Play Show the Answer Quote in Context If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die.
His ostentatious musings on the nature of love begin with what has become one of Shakespeare's most famous lines: He is a romantic dreamer, for whom the idea of being in love is most important.
When Valentine gives him the terrible news that Olivia plans to seclude herself for seven years to mourn her deceased brother, Orsino seems unfazed, and hopes Olivia may one day be as bewitched by love the one self king as he. Fittingly, the scene ends with Orsino off to lay in a bed of flowers, where he can be alone with his love-thoughts.
Later in the play it will be up to Viola to teach Orsino the true meaning of love. It is now generally accepted that Fletcher wrote the majority of the play, while Shakespeare wrote most of Act 1 1. With 4, lines and 29, words, Hamlet is the longest Shakespearean play based on the first edition of The Riverside Shakespeare With 1, lines and 14, words, The Comedy of Errors is the shortest Shakespearean play also based on the first edition of The Riverside Shakespeare.
Patrons consistently packed the theatres to see the newest foray into debauchery and murder. Shakespeare appealed to the masses by baking this character's two sons in a meat pie and feeding them to her. The Two Noble Kinsman is also sometimes mentioned along side these other plays as a romantic comedy. According to Shakespearean scholar Tucker Brooke, Falstaff and his cronies accept bribes from two of them, Mouldy and Bullcalf, not to be conscripted.
In the final scene, Falstaff, having learned from Pistol that Hal is now King, travels to London in expectation of great rewards. But Hal rejects him, saying that he has now changed, and can no longer associate with such people. The London lowlifes, expecting a paradise of thieves under Hal's governance, are instead purged and imprisoned by the authorities.
Although Falstaff does not appear on stage in Henry V , his death is the main subject of Act 2, Scene 3, in which Mistress Quickly delivers a memorable eulogy:. He made a finer end, and went away an it had been any christom child. Now I, to comfort him, bid him he should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So he bade me lay more clothes on his feet. I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone. Then I felt to his knees, and so upward and upward, and all was as cold as any stone.
William Shakespeare , also known as the Bard, is responsible for some of the best plays and poetry ever written in the English language. Many people liked and enjoyed his plays, but like all entertainers, Shakespeare had some detractors as well. This is how they were categorized in the First Folio. The Modern Language Review. Othello Othello, a valiant Moorish general in the service of Venice, falls prey to the devious schemes of his false friend, Iago.
Falstaff arrives in Windsor very short on money. To obtain financial advantage, he decides to court two wealthy married women, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. Falstaff decides to send the women identical love letters and asks his servants — Pistol and Nym — to deliver them to the wives. When they refuse, Falstaff sacks them, and, in revenge, the men tell Ford and Page the husbands of Falstaff's intentions.
Page is not concerned, but the jealous Ford persuades the Host of the Garter Inn to introduce him to Falstaff as a 'Master Brook' so that he can find out Falstaff's plans. When the women receive the letters, each goes to tell the other, and they quickly find that the letters are almost identical. The "merry wives" are not interested in the ageing, overweight Falstaff as a suitor; however, for the sake of their own amusement and to gain revenge for his indecent assumptions towards them both, they pretend to respond to his advances.
This all results in great embarrassment for Falstaff. Ford poses as 'Mr. Brook' and says he is in love with Mistress Ford but cannot woo her as she is too virtuous.
He offers to pay Falstaff to court her, saying that once she has lost her honour he will be able to tempt her himself. Falstaff cannot believe his luck, and tells 'Brook' he has already arranged to meet Mistress Ford while her husband is out. Falstaff leaves to keep his appointment and Ford soliloquises that he is right to suspect his wife and that the trusting Page is a fool. When Falstaff arrives to meet Mistress Ford, the merry wives trick him into hiding in a laundry basket "buck basket" full of filthy, smelly clothes awaiting laundering. When the jealous Ford returns to try and catch his wife with the knight, the wives have the basket taken away and the contents including Falstaff dumped into the river.
Although this affects Falstaff's pride, his ego is surprisingly resilient. He is convinced that the wives are just "playing hard to get" with him, so he continues his pursuit of sexual advancement, with its attendant capital and opportunities for blackmail. Again Falstaff goes to meet the women but Mistress Page comes back and warns Mistress Ford of her husband's approach again.
They try to think of ways to hide him other than the laundry basket which he refuses to get into again. They trick him again, this time into disguising himself as Mistress Ford's maid's obese aunt, known as "the fat woman of Brentford". Ford tries once again to catch his wife with the knight but ends up beating the "old woman", whom he despises, and throwing her out of his house.
Black and blue, Falstaff laments his bad luck. Eventually the wives tell their husbands about the series of jokes they have played on Falstaff, and together they devise one last trick which ends up with the Knight being humiliated in front of the whole town. They then dress several of the local children as fairies and get them to pinch and burn Falstaff to punish him. The wives meet Falstaff, and almost immediately the "fairies" attack.
After the chaos, the characters reveal their true identities to Falstaff.
Although he is embarrassed, Falstaff takes the joke surprisingly well, as he sees it was what he deserved. Ford says he must pay back the 20 pounds 'Brook' gave him and takes the Knight's horses as recompense. Eventually they all leave together and Mistress Page even invites Falstaff to come with them: Shakespeare originally named Falstaff " John Oldcastle ".
Lord Cobham , a descendant of the historical John Oldcastle, complained, forcing Shakespeare to change the name. In the published version of Henry IV, Part 1 , Falstaff's name is always unmetrical , suggesting a name change after the original composition; Prince Hal refers to Falstaff as "my old lad of the castle" in the first act of the play; the epilogue to Henry IV, Part 2 , moreover, explicitly disavows any connection between Falstaff and Oldcastle: The historical Oldcastle was a Lollard who was executed for heresy and rebellion, and he was respected by many Protestants as a martyr.
It is not clear, however, if Shakespeare characterised Falstaff as he did for dramatic purposes, or because of a specific desire to satirise Oldcastle or the Cobhams. Cobham was a common butt of veiled satire in Elizabethan popular literature; he figures in Ben Jonson 's Every Man in His Humour and may have been part of the reason The Isle of Dogs was suppressed. Shakespeare's desire to burlesque a hero of early English Protestantism could indicate Catholic sympathies, but Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham was sufficiently sympathetic to Catholicism that in , he was imprisoned as part of the Main Plot to place Arbella Stuart on the English throne, so if Shakespeare wished to use Oldcastle to embarrass the Cobhams, he seems unlikely to have done so on religious grounds.
The first part of Henry IV was probably written and performed in , and the name Oldcastle had almost certainly been allowed by Master of the Revels Edmund Tilney. William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham may have become aware of the offensive representation after a public performance; he may also have learned of it while it was being prepared for a court performance Cobham was at that time Lord Chamberlain. As father-in-law to the newly widowed Robert Cecil , Cobham certainly possessed the influence at court to get his complaint heard quickly. Shakespeare may have included a sly retaliation against the complaint in his play The Merry Wives of Windsor published after the Henry IV series.
In the play, the paranoid, jealous Master Ford uses the alias "Brook" to fool Falstaff, perhaps in reference to William Brooke. At any rate, the name is Falstaff in the Henry IV, Part 1 quarto , of , and the epilogue to the second part, published in , contains this clarification:. One word more, I beseech you: This fortress built by Nature for herself It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. There have been many major motion pictures that have been based directly on Shakespeare's plays: There have also been many films based on Shakespearian plays: Search the Internet and you'll find much more information. Listen to the end of the song.