During the final scene of Hamlet, the titular prince makes use of his dying breaths to command two things of Horatio. First, he commands Horatio to affirm that Fortinbras “has his dying voice” (5.2.393) thus giving him legitimacy to take the throne of Denmark. Second, he orders Horatio to tell Fortinbras the story of Hamlet’s actions that have led up to this point in the play. Horatio obliges...
Compared to a number of Shakespeare’s other tragedies, Coriolanus does not frequently enter into the popular consciousness. While T.S. Eliot may have called it Shakespeare’s “[m]ost assured artistic success,” the play has not historically been viewed as one of Shakespeare’s great tragedies. Despite this, the play has long been the subject of critical scrutiny over its deeply political narrative...
While teaching Troilus and Cressida this semester, one of the assignments that my students were tasked with was to write an essay on the ways in which the play made visible or commented upon an issue that was facing 16th century England. Students were given a brief lesson on the political and social troubles of early modern England, then they were told to construct an argument which would...
“Living when he did, Shakespeare could no more be democratic or anti-democratic then he could be a motorist.” -Thomas Marc Parrott, Twenty-Three Plays and Sonnets On October 8th, Stephen Greenblatt wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times which sought to argue that through a detailed close reading of Shakespeare’s Richard III, we could better understand the state of the 2016...