Shakespeare's Comedy vs. Tragedy Certain parallels can be drawn between William Shakespeare's plays, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Romeo and Juliet. These parallels concern themes and prototypical Shakespearian character types. Both plays have a distinct pair of lovers, Hermia and Lysander, ...

Few plays written touch us as Romeo and Juliet do. It has touched our very souls, and has even worked itself into everyday conversation. No one can necessarily point out the reason for this, but everyone will agree that it is one of the defining \"tragedies\" of all time. On the contrary, Rome...

The first Theatre to be built in London was The Great Theatre – built in 1576 by James Burbage, in Shoreditch, north of the city walls in London (north of London Wall which bounded the city proper); on the edge of Finsbury Fields, just past Bishopsgate Street. The building was a vast, polygon...

Friend or Fairy?A Midsummer Night's Dream is the best of Shakespeare's early comedies. It is an unrealistic fantasy concerning lovers, fairies and royalty. Its action centers around four lovers' plights brought about by the fantasy world in which they enter. All through this play, there is a supe...

Jealousy and Mistaken Identity in Shakespeare William Shakespeare's life is somewhat of a mystery to scholars due to the fact that most information that is known is very scattered and sparse. No one knows the exact date of Shakespeare's birth, but his baptism occurred on Wednesday, April 26, 1564....

Max Reinhardt can be described as one of the greatest theatrical directors in history. A great innovator and a master of spectacle, he staged gigantic productions full of pageantry and color. Reinhardt became one of the first theatrical directors to achieve widespread recognition as a major creativ...

As the play opens, the reader is told the setting and basis of the play and this is that the Duke, Theseus, is going to marry the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta, in five days time. Also Shakespeare also tells of most the characters in the play to set up who will be in the play. In the beginning o...

In \"A Midsummer Night\'s Dream,\" Theseus, the duke of Athens, is about to marry Hippolyta, a lady warrior who he conquered. Egeus brings his daughter Hermia to court. She and Lysander want to get married, but Egeus wants her to marry Demetrius, who also wants her. Under Athenian law, Hermia must e...

Vision, Night and Day A Midsummer Night's Dream begins in the city that was, to the Renaissance imagination, the center of ancient Greek civilization. (Romanticized) Athens stands as a testament to what human beings know and are able to know. But throughout this play, Shakespeare delights in decente...