'Twelfth Night' is an elusive play. It is a combination of both comedy and melancholy but cannot be classed as just one or the other. There are parts such as the letter to Malvolio, which are amusing but then lead to the reader feeling pity for him when he is cruelly treated. Feste is an ...

What does Malvolio contribute to the play?'Twelfth Night' is often described as a good-humoured comedy, which features entertaining and humorous characters, like Malvolio. Throughout most of the play Malvolio is seen as a figure of laughter and his contribution to the play is to add extra comedy. ...

Much Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare's most popular comedies. Set in Messina, Italy, it depicts the life of a young couple about to be married in parallel with another couple more reluctant to marriage at first but who will finally succumb to cupid's arrows. This essay will lean on the Kenn...

There are likely as many similarities between these two plays as there are dramatic differences. And yet, both are extremely well- written, both allow the audience to peek into the living rooms and lives of interesting people, and both also put a microscope on socie...

David Williamson, widely regarded as Australia\'s most successful playwright, has created a very controversial and very \"Australian\" glimpse of his country\'s society during the early 1970s. A key theme in the play is the myth of the typical Aussie mateship, where every \"good mate\" stands by and...

DAVIES A Pinter play frequently starts off with a good deal of humour but moves towards a sombre and disturbing conclusion. The character of Davies follows this pattern. Most of Act One is very funny indeed, entirely because of how Davies is presented; but the end of the play has a tragic dimension ...

JEAN-BAPTISTE POQUELIN MOLIÈRE1622--1673From The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces Vol. 2, 7th edition, ed. Maynard Mack, et. al. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1999) Son of a prosperous Paris merchant, Jean-Baptiste Moliere (originally named Poquelin) devoted his entire adult life to the creation of...

The world was devastated by four years of war in the fall of 1918. Suddenly, a puzzling and fatal plague added to the devastation. The Spanish flu struck people of all ages, and hastily proceeded toward death for its victims. The plague managed to bring home some of the horrors of the war with th...

In the final analysis, the individual can never be free from his/her cultural identity, class, gender, race or ethnic background. Discuss this statement in relation to at least two of these aspects, with detailed reference to at least one text. Henrik Ibsen, a playwright of social reform, wrote G...

In the late-nineteenth-century play, The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde satirizes the society in which he lived, which is now called the Victorian period. This period of the reign of Queen Victoria is characterized by British imperialism and growing power of its empire, extravagance in ev...

"Every new reading of "King Lear" implies a reconsideration of the ways audiences value the play and respond to it." Explore this statement with close reference to the reception/valuing of two productions. King Lear has proved one of the most controversial of all Shakespe...