The Faustian Bargain was a letter written by Gregory A Petsko to George M. Philip, President of the State University of New York at Albany. The letter was in response to the University eliminating the departments of French, Italian, Classics, Russian and Theater Arts department. President Philip claims that he would not have had to pass this decision if not for the legislature that passes a bill that would have allowed the university to set its own tuition rates. Gregory tries to defend the Arts and explain its importance to the president of SUNY Albany. He gives various examples on why it is important to have those departments in a university.
Mercutio, the Forgotten Impact Romeo and Juliet , written by William Shakespeare, is one of the most beloved and influential plays in the history of humanity. It is a magnificent love story where audiences get to witness the drama and events that lead to the death of the two star-crossed lovers. Many wonderful characters in Romeo and Juliet are loved, but no character had such a vibrant personality and is able to steal the spotlight the way Mercutio does. He speaks in many scenes where he uses his humorous phrases to amaze and make his audiences laugh like when Mercutio convinces Romeo to dance, which in turn allows Romeo to fall in love with Juliet and Mercutio's Queen Mab speech which uses sexual humor for comedic effect. However, even though
In William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, fate and human error, which Friar Laurence’s actions represent, are in complete control of the tragic relationship between Romeo and Juliet. Friar Laurence is the holiest, most logical and trusted character in the play and lays the entire
Before the play is over good people of pious nature and responsible temper are condemning other good people to the gallows.” Analyzing the book from different perspectives can offer new thoughts on the story. The time period during which the book takes place was a society mainly dominated by men. Men had all the power while
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is a play with many things that contradict each other, weaving comedy and tragedy together to create a heart-stopping play. In addition, the dynamics between the characters Mercutio and Romeo are especially important in the play. Mercutio is a complex character with many different sides to him. His silliness gave the play the light-heartedness it needed. But his death was even more so impactful due to the emotional tie that had formed between the character and the audience.
While Faustus' practice of black magic and his pact with Mephastophilis condemns him to damnation, until almost the last lines of the play Faustus is conscious of the possibility of salvation if he repents. He is reminded throughout the play that if he truly repents, God will forgive him. It is for this reason that every time Faustus called out to God Mephastophilis is alarmed, because he knows that Faustus could be saved if he only repents and asks for forgiveness. The true conflict of the play is a battle between good and evil, and the prize is Faustus' soul. Faustus himself is represented through the Good and Evil Angles, they represent the two sides of Faustus’s character that are constantly fighting over which way he will turn.
Shakespeare Selected Plays Imtiaz Jbareen 204495170 A Close Reading of Macbeth Shakespeare’s brilliance lies within subtle details. Therefore, a close reading of his plays, including Macbeth, presents an insight into the structure of the play. Once this is accomplished, one reaches an understanding of the play and characters through their speeches. This paper discusses Act 2 Scene 1, Macbeth’s soliloquy.
In act two, scene two of the play The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, written by William Shakespeare, the two main characters are in love, and Shakespeare is trying to convey that to the audience. Romeo, one of the two main characters, is hiding in the garden of his enemy, watching his love, Juliet, stargazing from her window. Once she starts speaking, he is mystified by her beauty, and she’s analyzing the possible pros and cons of their relationship. Romeo is driven purely by pathos (feelings and emotions), while Juliet is very analytical, most of her actions being lead by both ethos and logos (ethics and logic, respectively). In this scene, we have Romeo gazing at Juliet, who is leaning out of her window to look at the sky and think.
Juliet’s soliloquy is significant in this scene because that is where, Shakespeare breaks the tradition for soliloquies, which are usually speeches where a character shares their inner thoughts only with the audience. However, Romeo overhears Juliet's soliloquy, making an invasion, on one hand, but it also serves as a reminder of their intimacy, because Juliet both allows and cherishes Romeo's interruption, reminding the audience how honest and open the two are with each other, and how if they can trust anyone, then it would be each other. That holds the audience’s attention because their love is not traditional, where they would take a while to get used to each other, but instead they truly listen and understand each
The following passage is significant to the play ‘Othello’ in retrospect to the plot progression, as it reiterates themes and introduces important facets to the plot development. Through Iago’s cunning manipulation and Shakespeare’s crafting of language, this passage is constructed as a pivotal point of the play, marking the transition of Othello’s personality and revealing his deepest insecurities that eventually lead to his downfall and tragic ending. Iago wields a lot of power over all the characters throughout the play, but in this passage in particular he is presented at his most powerful. The passage is riddled with subtle suggestions and insinuations by Iago to raise Othello’s suspicions of his wife’s fidelity, opening with the admonition to “beware, my lord, of jealousy!
During the Elizabethan Era, drama began to flourish in Western Europe. Plays have become more violent and dramatic as well as new ways of driving a performance. William Shakespeare’s Othello involves a man named Iago who wants to get revenge on Othello who is known as ‘the Moor of Venice’. Iago is able to get Othello to fully trust him and manipulates Othello to believe in false claims which eventually brings both of them to their downfall.
Deception is an action driven with the motive to employ one purpose which can be to mislead another individual in order to gain knowledge, to get revenge, or to reveal a plan unknown to the public eye and keeping it that way for the dutiful well-being of the Kingdom of Denmark. In the tragedy Hamlet by William Shakespeare, deception develops into the character trait that initiates the actions, heartbreak, and revenge driving this play. This attribute held by Hamlet is the leading cause of this same flaw development in Ophelia, King Claudius, and many others in an attempt to reinforce the theme. This theme is one of heroism, but the deceptive notion each action reveals challenges the perception the reader has on each of the main characters. In order to be able to fully analyze the part Hamlet’s deception plays in driving the plot and storyline of this tragedy, one must understand that a foil character juxtaposes each character to illuminate their shortcomings.
‘Julius Caesar’ and ‘Henry V’ are plays whose themes are reflective of their respective contextual climates. They were both written in the time of renaissance theatre under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, who was an avid supporter of Shakespeare’s work. The plays were written consecutively, and they both present historical figures that were greatly idolised in the period in which they were composed. Both history plays convey how, on political scenery, deceit is omnipresent. In Julius Caesar, it is used to bring down the monarchial rule and to ultimately implant a new democratic government, while in Henry V, the King makes use of multiple facets of his personality among which is deceitful behavior in order to conquer France and win over
Parallels between Aristotle’s Poetics and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman Aristotle wrote Poetics in 335BC and in that discourse he defined the elements of a tragedy and compared it to other plays like an Epic. Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, which was written over two thousand years after Aristotle’s Poetics, can easily be considered a modern Aristotelian tragedy. Thereby, a study of Death of a Salesman can help us to understand Aristotle’s Poetics. First off, Aristotle defines a tragedy as “an imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in appropriate and pleasurable language;… in a dramatic rather than narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish a
Helena, one of the main characters of this Shakespearean comedy, expresses her thoughts on love through a soliloquy. This soliloquy is written in verse and in “iambic pentameter” - five unaccented syllables, each followed by an accented one - as the rest of the play is, but with the characteristic that it rhymes. The soliloquy is composed of “heroic couplets” - rhyming verse in iambic pentameter- in opposition to “blank verse” - unrhymed iambic pentameter- which is the predominant type of verse in the play. Helena’s soliloquy, formed, as mentioned before, by heroic couplets, follows the rhyme scheme AABBCC as can be seen in this extract: “Things base and vile, folding no quantity, (A) Love can transpose to form and dignity: (A) Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; (B) And therefore is wing 'd Cupid painted blind: (B)
