![]() Studying Shakespeare is easy with CliffsNotes. Ace your tests, get homework help, and understand Shakespeare's plays and poetry with FREE CliffsNotes summaries, character analyses, glossaries, quotes, essays, filmography, and more. Read Shakespeare's biography; explore themes, symbols, and motifs; and check out our Ask Cliff Q&A. Save time with CliffsNotes.com Shakespeare Central!
Shakespeare Biography: His Life and TimesWilliam Shakespeare (1564-1616) is considered to be the greatest writer in the history of English literature. His genius produced the world's most-often produced and published plays , including Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and more than 32 others.
Featured EssayImagining Love in A Midsummer Night's DreamExciting and new, or even tedious and worn-out, love in all its variations is presented in A Midsummer Night's Dream. But what is love? What causes us to fall in love? How does love relate to the world of law and reason? These questions are broached in all their complexity in Shakespeare's midsummer dream. Love is the primary concern of the play, which begins as Theseus and Hippolyta prepare for their upcoming wedding, but the picture painted of love is not necessarily romantic. Instead, the play shows the arbitrariness of desire, along with its depth, the sighs and tears that often make lovers miserable.
Shakespeare Quotes
Check out the most familiar quotes from Shakespeare's plays.
Shakespeare Glossaries
View a list of glossaries providing definitions for unfamiliar words and phrases in Shakespeare's works.
Films Based on Shakespeare's Works
View a list of the most noteworthy Shakespeare films.
Essays on Shakespeare's Works
Check out a sampling of essays from CliffsNotes.com that illuminate Shakespeare's works.
Cliff is in the know when it comes to Shakespeare! What was the form of English that Shakespeare used? Although Shakespeare's English may sound complicated to the modern reader, it really is just an early form of the English language currently in use today. There are a few differences . . . More
More Ways to Get Up to Speed on the Bard! |
|