William Shakespeare

All’s Well That Ends Well William Shakespeare
Context
Likely the most influential writer in all of English literature and certainly the most
important playwright of the English Renaissance, William Shakespeare was born in
1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England. The son of a
successful middle-class glove-maker, Shakespeare attended grammar school, but his
formal education proceeded no further. In 1582, he married an older woman, Anne
Hathaway, and had three children with her. Around 1590 he left his family behind
and traveled to London to work as an actor and playwright. Public and critical
success quickly followed, and Shakespeare eventually became the most popular
playwright in England and part owner of the Globe Theater. His career bridged the
reigns of Elizabeth I (ruled 1558-1603) and James I (ruled 1603-1625); he was a
favorite of both monarchs. Indeed, James granted Shakespeare's company the
greatest possible compliment by endowing them with the status of king's players.
Wealthy and renowned, Shakespeare retired to Stratford, and died in 1616 at the
age of fifty-two. At the time of Shakespeare's death, such luminaries as Ben Jonson
hailed him as the apogee of Renaissance theatre.
Shakespeare's works were collected and printed in various editions in the century
following his death, and by the early eighteenth century his reputation as the
greatest poet ever to write in English was well established. The unprecedented
admiration garnered by his works led to a fierce curiosity about Shakespeare's life;
but the paucity of surviving biographical information has left many details of
Shakespeare's personal history shrouded in mystery. Some people have concluded
from this fact that Shakespeare's plays in reality were written by someone else--
Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford are the two most popular candidates--but the
evidence for this claim is overwhelmingly circumstantial, and the theory is not taken
seriously by many scholars.
In the absence of definitive proof to the contrary, Shakespeare must be viewed as

the author of the 37 plays and 154 sonnets that bear his name. The legacy of this
body of work is immense. A number of Shakespeare's plays seem to have
transcended even the category of brilliance, becoming so influential as to affect
profoundly the course of Western literature and culture ever after.
The date of composition for All's Well That Ends Well is uncertain. Our earliest copy
of the play appears in the Folio of 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death, so
other clues must be sought in order to date the work. The most common datin places
it between 1601 and 1606, grouping it with Troilus and Cressida and Measure for
Measure in what are typically referred to as Shakespeare's problem comedies. All
three share a dark, bitter wit and an unpleasant view of human relation s that
contrasts sharply with earlier, sunnier comedies like Twelfth Night and As You Like It.
The darker sensibility is embodied, this theory argues, in the coarse pragmatism
surrounding sexual intercourse in All's Well and the obvi ous difficulties of rejoicing
about a "happy ending" that unites such an ill-suited couple as Helena and Bertram.
An alternative dating, held by a minority of critics, places the play's writing in 1598
or earlier, and associates it with a "lost play" called Love's Labour Won, which is
listed in a 1598 catalogue of Shakespeare's plays but has never been seen or
mentioned elsewhere. All's Well, it is argued, matches the title of this work
admirably--Helena "labours" to gain her love, and wins. Supporters of this dating
claim that All's Well is likely an edited or reworked version that Shakespeare
published at a later date.
In either case, the source for the story is more obvious--it is derived, more or less
directly, from the ninth story of the third day of Boccaccio's Decameron, a classic of
early Renaissance literature written between 1348 and 1358. The work, and the
story in question, were translated into English in the mid-16th century by William
Painter as The Palace of Pleasure, and it was this version that Shakespeare probably
drew upon. Typically, Shakespeare altered and reshaped the original text to create a
richer story, adding characters like Lafew, the Countess, and Parolles while keeping
essential elements like the bed-trick and the war in Florence in place.
The critical reception of All's Well has always been mixed, with both critics and
audiences often sharing the displeasure with Helena's choice of Bertram. Its
reputation has revived significantly in recent years, but it remains an unpopular and
little-performed play.
Summary
Helena, the orphan daughter of a famous physician, is the ward of the Countess of
Rousillon, and hopelessly in love with her son, Count Bertram, who has been sent to
the court of the King of France. Despite her beauty and worth, Helena has no hope of
attracting Bertram, since she is of low birth and he is a nobleman. However, when
word comes that the King is ill, she goes to Paris and, using her father's arts, cures
the illness. In return, she is given the hand of any man in the realm; she chooses
Bertram. Her new husband is appalled at the match, however, and shortly after their
marriage flees France, accompanied only by a scoundrel named Parolles, to fight in
the army of the Duke of Florence.
Helena is sent home to the Countess, and receives a letter from Bertram informing
her that he will never be her true spouse unless she can get his family ring from his
finger, and become pregnant with his child--neither of which, he declares, will ever
come to pass. The Countess, who loves Helena and approves of the match, tries to
comfort her, but the distraught young woman departs Rousillon, planning to make a
religious pilgrimage.
Meanwhile, in Florence, Bertram has become a general in the Duke's army. Helena
comes to the city, and discovers that her husband is trying to seduce the virginal
daughter of a kindly Widow. With the connivance of the daughter, named Diana, she
contrives to trick Bertram: he gives Diana his ring as a token of his love, and when
he comes to her room at night, Helena is in the bed, and they make love without him
realizing that it is her. At the same time, two lords in the army expose Parolles as a
coward and a villain, and he falls out of Bertram's favor. Meanwhile, false
messengers have come to the camp bearing word that Helena is dead, and with the
war drawing to a close, Bertram decides to return to France. Unknown to him,
Helena follows, accompanied by Diana and the Widow.
In Rousillon, everyone is mourning Helena as dead. The King is visiting, and

consents to Bertram marrying the daughter of an old, faithful lord, named Lafew.
However, he notices a ring on Bertram's finger that formerly belonged to Helena--it
was a gift from the King after she saved his life. (Helena gave the ring to Diana in
Florence, and she in turn gave it to her would-be lover.) Bertram is at a loss to
explain where it came from, but just then Diana and her mother appear to explain
matters--followed by Helena, who informs her husband that both his conditions have
been fulfilled. Chastened, Bertram consents to be a good husband to her, and there
is general rejoicing.
Characters
Helena - The play's heroine. The orphan daughter of a great doctor, se is the ward
of the Countess of Rousillon, and hopelessly in love with the Countess' son, Bertram.
Her good qualities are attested to by nearly every character in the play, and events
prove her a resourceful and determined woman, who is not easily discouraged by
setbacks.
Bertram - The Count of Rousillon since the death of his father, and the Countess'
only son. A handsome, well-liked young man, he proves to be an excellent soldier,
but a cad in his relationship with Helena, who he unwillingly marries and quickly
abandons.
Countess - The mother of Bertram, the mistress of Rousillon, and Helena's

guardian, she is a wise, discerning old woman who perceives Helena's worth and
rejoices when she marries Bertram. When Bertram treats Helena badly, the Countess
is quick to condemn his behavior.
King of France - Bertram's liege lord. He is deathly ill when the play begins, and is
miraculously cured by Helena, who uses one of her father's medicines. Like the
Countess, he loves Helena, and is appalled by Bertram's behavior.
Lafew - An old French nobleman, who offers advice to the King and is friendly with
the Countess. He is wise and discerning, perceiving both Helena's worth and Parolles'
worthlessness.
Parolles - A companion of Bertram, he is a coward, a liar and a braggart, who

pretends to be a great soldier when he is nothing of the sort. He is eventually
exposed and disgraced.
First Lord - A genial French nobleman named Dumaine, he serves in the Florentine
army and becomes friends with Bertram. Aware of Parolles' character, he and his
brother, the Second Lord plot to expose him for what he is.
Second Lord - The First Lord Dumaine's brother, similar in character and also a
friend to Bertram.
Diana - A young virgin in Florence, who Bertram attempts to seduce. She assists
Helena in tricking him into sleeping with his lawful wife.
Widow - Diana's mother.
Mariana - A woman of Florence.
Duke of Florence - The ruler of Florence, many French lords (including Bertram,
Parolles, and Dumaine) volunteer to fight for him.
Clown - An old servant of the Countess, who serves as a messenger and enjoys
coarse, sexual humor.
Steward - Another servant of the Countess.
Hamlet William Shakespeare
Context
The most influential writer in all of English literature, William Shakespeare was born
in 1564 to a successful middle-class glove-maker in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.
Shakespeare attended grammar school, but his formal education proceeded no
further. In 1582 he married an older woman, Anne Hathaway, and had three children
with her. Around 1590 he left his family behind and traveled to London to work as an
actor and playwright. Public and critical success quickly followed, and Shakespeare
eventually became the most popular playwright in England and part-owner of the
Globe Theater. His career bridged the reigns of Elizabeth I (ruled 1558–1603) and
James I (ruled 1603–1625), and he was a favorite of both monarchs. Indeed, James
granted Shakespeare’s company the greatest possible compliment by bestowing
upon its members the title of King’s Men. Wealthy and renowned, Shakespeare
retired to Stratford and died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two. At the time of
Shakespeare’s death, literary luminaries such as Ben Jonson hailed his works as
timeless.
Shakespeare’s works were collected and printed in various editions in the century
admiration garnered by his works led to a fierce curiosity about Shakespeare’s life,
but the dearth of biographical information has left many details of Shakespeare’s
personal history shrouded in mystery. Some people have concluded from this fact
that Shakespeare’s plays were really written by someone else—Francis Bacon and
the Earl of Oxford are the two most popular candidates—but the support for this
claim is overwhelmingly circumstantial, and the theory is not taken seriously by
many scholars.
In the absence of credible evidence to the contrary, Shakespeare must be viewed as

the author of the thirty-seven plays and 154 sonnets that bear his name. The legacy
of this body of work is immense. A number of Shakespeare’s plays seem to have
transcended even the category of brilliance, becoming so influential as to profoundly
affect the course of Western literature and culture ever after.
Written during the first part of the seventeenth century (probably in 1600 or 1601),
Hamlet was probably first performed in July 1602. It was first published in printed
form in 1603 and appeared in an enlarged edition in 1604. As was common practice
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Shakespeare borrowed for his plays
ideas and stories from earlier literary works. He could have taken the story of Hamlet
from several possible sources, including a twelfth-century Latin history of Denmark
compiled by Saxo Grammaticus and a prose work by the French writer François de
Belleforest, entitled Histoires Tragiques.
The raw material that Shakespeare appropriated in writing Hamlet is the story of a
Danish prince whose uncle murders the prince’s father, marries his mother, and
claims the throne. The prince pretends to be feeble-minded to throw his uncle off
guard, then manages to kill his uncle in revenge. Shakespeare changed the emphasis
of this story entirely, making his Hamlet a philosophically-minded prince who delays
taking action because his knowledge of his uncle’s crime is so uncertain.
Shakespeare went far beyond making uncertainty a personal quirk of Hamlet’s,
introducing a number of important ambiguities into the play that even the audience
cannot resolve with certainty. For instance, whether Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude,
shares in Claudius’s guilt; whether Hamlet continues to love Ophelia even as he
spurns her, in Act III; whether Ophelia’s death is suicide or accident; whether the
ghost offers reliable knowledge, or seeks to deceive and tempt Hamlet; and, perhaps
most importantly, whether Hamlet would be morally justified in taking revenge on
his uncle. Shakespeare makes it clear that the stakes riding on some of these
questions are enormous—the actions of these characters bring disaster upon an
entire kingdom. At the play’s end it is not even clear whether justice has been
achieved.
By modifying his source materials in this way, Shakespeare was able to take an
unremarkable revenge story and make it resonate with the most fundamental
themes and problems of the Renaissance. The Renaissance is a vast cultural
phenomenon that began in fifteenth-century Italy with the recovery of classical
Greek and Latin texts that had been lost to the Middle Ages. The scholars who
enthusiastically rediscovered these classical texts were motivated by an educational
and political ideal called (in Latin) humanitas—the idea that all of the capabilities and
virtues peculiar to human beings should be studied and developed to their furthest
extent. Renaissance humanism, as this movement is now called, generated a new
interest in human experience, and also an enormous optimism about the potential
scope of human understanding. Hamlet’s famous speech in Act II, “What a piece of
work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how
express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god—
the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!” (II.ii.293–297) is directly based
upon one of the major texts of the Italian humanists, Pico della Mirandola’s Oration
on the Dignity of Man. For the humanists, the purpose of cultivating reason was to
lead to a better understanding of how to act, and their fondest hope was that the
coordination of action and understanding would lead to great benefits for society as a
whole.
As the Renaissance spread to other countries in the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries, however, a more skeptical strain of humanism developed, stressing the
limitations of human understanding. For example, the sixteenth-century French
humanist, Michel de Montaigne, was no less interested in studying human
experiences than the earlier humanists were, but he maintained that the world of
experience was a world of appearances, and that human beings could never hope to
see past those appearances into the “realities” that lie behind them. This is the world
in which Shakespeare places his characters. Hamlet is faced with the difficult task of
correcting an injustice that he can never have sufficient knowledge of—a dilemma
that is by no means unique, or even uncommon. And while Hamlet is fond of pointing
out questions that cannot be answered because they concern supernatural and
metaphysical matters, the play as a whole chiefly demonstrates the difficulty of
knowing the truth about other people—their guilt or innocence, their motivations,
their feelings, their relative states of sanity or insanity. The world of other people is a
world of appearances, and Hamlet is, fundamentally, a play about the difficulty of
living in that world.
Summary
On a dark winter night, a ghost walks the ramparts of Elsinore Castle in Denmark.
Discovered first by a pair of watchmen, then by the scholar Horatio, the ghost
resembles the recently deceased King Hamlet, whose brother Claudius has inherited
the throne and married the king’s widow, Queen Gertrude. When Horatio and the
watchmen bring Prince Hamlet, the son of Gertrude and the dead king, to see the
ghost, it speaks to him, declaring ominously that it is indeed his father’s spirit, and
that he was murdered by none other than Claudius. Ordering Hamlet to seek
revenge on the man who usurped his throne and married his wife, the ghost
disappears with the dawn.
Prince Hamlet devotes himself to avenging his father’s death, but, because he is
contemplative and thoughtful by nature, he delays, entering into a deep melancholy
and even apparent madness. Claudius and Gertrude worry about the prince’s erratic
behavior and attempt to discover its cause. They employ a pair of Hamlet’s friends,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to watch him. When Polonius, the pompous Lord
Chamberlain, suggests that Hamlet may be mad with love for his daughter, Ophelia,
Claudius agrees to spy on Hamlet in conversation with the girl. But though Hamlet
certainly seems mad, he does not seem to love Ophelia: he orders her to enter a
nunnery and declares that he wishes to ban marriages.
A group of traveling actors comes to Elsinore, and Hamlet seizes upon an idea to test
his uncle’s guilt. He will have the players perform a scene closely resembling the
sequence by which Hamlet imagines his uncle to have murdered his father, so that if
Claudius is guilty, he will surely react. When the moment of the murder arrives in the
theater, Claudius leaps up and leaves the room. Hamlet and Horatio agree that this
proves his guilt. Hamlet goes to kill Claudius but finds him praying. Since he believes
that killing Claudius while in prayer would send Claudius’s soul to heaven, Hamlet
considers that it would be an inadequate revenge and decides to wait. Claudius, now
frightened of Hamlet’s madness and fearing for his own safety, orders that Hamlet
be sent to England at once.
Hamlet goes to confront his mother, in whose bedchamber Polonius has hidden
behind a tapestry. Hearing a noise from behind the tapestry, Hamlet believes the
king is hiding there. He draws his sword and stabs through the fabric, killing
Polonius. For this crime, he is immediately dispatched to England with Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern. However, Claudius’s plan for Hamlet includes more than
banishment, as he has given Rosencrantz and Guildenstern sealed orders for the
King of England demanding that Hamlet be put to death.
In the aftermath of her father’s death, Ophelia goes mad with grief and drowns in
the river. Polonius’s son, Laertes, who has been staying in France, returns to
Denmark in a rage. Claudius convinces him that Hamlet is to blame for his father’s
and sister’s deaths. When Horatio and the king receive letters from Hamlet indicating
that the prince has returned to Denmark after pirates attacked his ship en route to
England, Claudius concocts a plan to use Laertes’ desire for revenge to secure
Hamlet’s death. Laertes will fence with Hamlet in innocent sport, but Claudius will
poison Laertes’ blade so that if he draws blood, Hamlet will die. As a backup plan,
the king decides to poison a goblet, which he will give Hamlet to drink should Hamlet
score the first or second hits of the match. Hamlet returns to the vicinity of Elsinore
just as Ophelia’s funeral is taking place. Stricken with grief, he attacks Laertes and
declares that he had in fact always loved Ophelia. Back at the castle, he tells Horatio
that he believes one must be prepared to die, since death can come at any moment.
A foolish courtier named Osric arrives on Claudius’s orders to arrange the fencing
match between Hamlet and Laertes.
The sword-fighting begins. Hamlet scores the first hit, but declines to drink from the
king’s proffered goblet. Instead, Gertrude takes a drink from it and is swiftly killed by
the poison. Laertes succeeds in wounding Hamlet, though Hamlet does not die of the
poison immediately. First, Laertes is cut by his own sword’s blade, and, after
revealing to Hamlet that Claudius is responsible for the queen’s death, he dies from
the blade’s poison. Hamlet then stabs Claudius through with the poisoned sword and
forces him to drink down the rest of the poisoned wine. Claudius dies, and Hamlet
dies immediately after achieving his revenge.
At this moment, a Norwegian prince named Fortinbras, who has led an army to
Denmark and attacked Poland earlier in the play, enters with ambassadors from
England, who report that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Fortinbras is
stunned by the gruesome sight of the entire royal family lying sprawled on the floor
dead. He moves to take power of the kingdom. Horatio, fulfilling Hamlet’s last
request, tells him Hamlet’s tragic story. Fortinbras orders that Hamlet be carried
away in a manner befitting a fallen soldier.
Character List
Hamlet - The Prince of Denmark, the title character, and the protagonist. About
thirty years old at the start of the play, Hamlet is the son of Queen Gertrude and the
late King Hamlet, and the nephew of the present king, Claudius. Hamlet is
melancholy, bitter, and cynical, full of hatred for his uncle’s scheming and disgust for
his mother’s sexuality. A reflective and thoughtful young man who has studied at the
University of Wittenberg, Hamlet is often indecisive and hesitant, but at other times
prone to rash and impulsive acts.
Claudius - The King of Denmark, Hamlet’s uncle, and the play’s antagonist. The
villain of the play, Claudius is a calculating, ambitious politician, driven by his sexual
appetites and his lust for power, but he occasionally shows signs of guilt and human
feeling—his love for Gertrude, for instance, seems sincere.
Gertrude - The Queen of Denmark, Hamlet’s mother, recently married to Claudius.

Gertrude loves Hamlet deeply, but she is a shallow, weak woman who seeks
affection and status more urgently than moral rectitude or truth.
Polonius - The Lord Chamberlain of Claudius’s court, a pompous, conniving old man.
Polonius is the father of Laertes and Ophelia.
Horatio - Hamlet’s close friend, who studied with the prince at the university in
Wittenberg. Horatio is loyal and helpful to Hamlet throughout the play. After
Hamlet’s death, Horatio remains alive to tell Hamlet’s story.
Ophelia - Polonius’s daughter, a beautiful young woman with whom Hamlet has
been in love. Ophelia is a sweet and innocent young girl, who obeys her father and
her brother, Laertes. Dependent on men to tell her how to behave, she gives in to
Polonius’s schemes to spy on Hamlet. Even in her lapse into madness and death, she
remains maidenly, singing songs about flowers and finally drowning in the river amid
the flower garlands she had gathered.
Laertes - Polonius’s son and Ophelia’s brother, a young man who spends much of
the play in France. Passionate and quick to action, Laertes is clearly a foil for the
reflective Hamlet.
Fortinbras - The young Prince of Norway, whose father the king (also named
Fortinbras) was killed by Hamlet’s father (also named Hamlet). Now Fortinbras
wishes to attack Denmark to avenge his father’s honor, making him another foil for
Prince Hamlet.
The Ghost - The specter of Hamlet’s recently deceased father. The ghost, who
claims to have been murdered by Claudius, calls upon Hamlet to avenge him.
However, it is not entirely certain whether the ghost is what it appears to be, or
whether it is something else. Hamlet speculates that the ghost might be a devil sent
to deceive him and tempt him into murder, and the question of what the ghost is or
where it comes from is never definitively resolved.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern - Two slightly bumbling courtiers, former friends of

Hamlet from Wittenberg, who are summoned by Claudius and Gertrude to discover
the cause of Hamlet’s strange behavior.
Osric - The foolish courtier who summons Hamlet to his duel with Laertes.
Voltimand and Cornelius - Courtiers whom Claudius sends to Norway to persuade

the king to prevent Fortinbras from attacking.
Marcellus and Bernardo - The officers who first see the ghost walking the ramparts
of Elsinore and who summon Horatio to witness it. Marcellus is present when Hamlet
first encounters the ghost.
Francisco - A soldier and guardsman at Elsinore.
Reynaldo - Polonius’s servant, who is sent to France by Polonius to check up on and

spy on Laertes.
Comedy of Errors William Shakespeare
Context
Hathaway, and had three children with her. Around 1590 he left his family behind
success quickly followed, and Shakespeare eventually became the most popular
reigns of Elizabeth I (ruled 1558-1603) and James I (ruled 1603-1625); he was a
favorite of both monarchs. Indeed, James granted Shakespeare's company the
greatest possible compliment by endowing them with the status of king's players.
Wealthy and renowned, Shakespeare retired to Stratford, and died in 1616 at the
age of fifty-two. At the time of Shakespeare's death, such luminaries as Ben Jonson
hailed him as the apogee of Renaissance theatre.
Shakespeare's works were collected and printed in various editions in the century
admiration garnered by his works led to a fierce curiosity about Shakespeare's life;
but the paucity of surviving biographical information has left many details of
Shakespeare's personal history shrouded in mystery. Some people have concluded
from this fact that Shakespeare's plays in reality were written by someone else--
Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford are the two most popular candidates--but the
evidence for this claim is overwhelmingly circumstantial, and the theory is not taken
seriously by many scholars.

the author of the 37 plays and 154 sonnets that bear his name. The legacy of this
body of work is immense. A number of Shakespeare's plays seem to have
The Comedy of Errors is generally assumed to be one of Shakespeare's early plays,

(perhaps even his very first) and its emphasis on slapstick over verbal humor (in
contrast with later comedies) has led many critics to term it an "apprentice comedy."
The exact date of composition is unknown: It was first performed on December 28,
1594, at the Gray's Inn Christmas Revels, to an audience that would have been
largely composed of lawyers and law students. Attempts have been made to date it
by references to historical events mentioned in the text (notably in Act III Scene ii,
when Dromio describes the fearsome Nell/Luce with references to European politics
and geography), but the references are so vague that any exact dating amounts to
guesswork.
As with many of his plays, Shakespeare drew on classical sources for the plot of The
Comedy of Errors. The bare bones of the story are drawn from the Roman comedy
Menaechmi, written by the ancient dramatist Plautus (c.254- 184 B.C.); Shakespeare
might have read the play either in the original Latin or in an English translation that
was published in 1594 but may have circulated in manuscript form before that year.
In any case, the English playwright made a number of changes to the original story,
including the addition of a second set of identical twins (the Dromios), the expansion
of Adriana's character and the creation of her sister, Luciana, and, finally, the
creation of the back-story involving Egeon and Emilia. The play also draws on a
number of other sources-- the lock-out scene, where Antipholus of Ephesus is locked
out of his home for dinner, resembles a scene in another Plautine work, Amphitruo,
in which a master is kept out of his own house while the God Jupiter impersonates
him. The general tone of Comedy is drawn from Italian comedy of the period, the
shrewish wife is a characteristic figure in English comedy, and a number of the ideas
about marriage are drawn from early humanists like Erasmus of Rotterdam. The play
has always been very popular with audiences, if somewhat less so with critics, and in
this century, the plot was borrowed by Rodgers and Hart for their musical, The Boys
from Syracuse.
Summary
Egeon, a merchant of Syracuse, is condemned to death in Ephesus for violating the

ban against travel between the two rival cities. As he is led to his execution, he tells
the Ephesian Duke, Solinus, that he has come to Syracuse in search of his wife and
one of his twin sons, who were separated from him 25 years ago in a shipwreck. The
other twin, who grew up with Egeon, is also traveling the world in search of the
missing half of their family. (The twins, we learn, are identical, and each has an
identical twin slave named Dromio.) The Duke is so moved by this story that he
grants Egeon a day to raise the thousand-mark ransom that would be necessary to
save his life.
Meanwhile, unknown to Egeon, his son Antipholus of Syracuse (and Antipholus' slave
Dromio) is also visiting Ephesus--where Antipholus' missing twin, known as
Antipholus of Ephesus, is a prosperous citizen of the city. Adriana, Antipholus of
Ephesus' wife, mistakes Antipholus of Syracuse for her husband and drags him home
for dinner, leaving Dromio of Syracuse to stand guard at the door and admit no one.
Shortly thereafter, Antipholus of Ephesus (with his slave Dromio of Ephesus) returns
home and is refused entry to his own house. Meanwhile, Antipholus of Syracuse has
fallen in love with Luciana, Adriana's sister, who is appalled at the behavior of the
man she thinks is her brother-in-law.
The confusion increases when a gold chain ordered by the Ephesian Antipholus is
given to Antipholus of Syracuse. Antipholus of Ephesus refuses to pay for the chain
(unsurprisingly, since he never received it) and is arrested for debt. His wife, seeing
his strange behavior, decides he has gone mad and orders him bound and held in a
cellar room. Meanwhile, Antipholus of Syracuse and his slave decide to flee the city,
which they believe to be enchanted, as soon as possible--only to be menaced by
Adriana and the debt officer. They seek refuge in a nearby abbey.
Adriana now begs the Duke to intervene and remove her "husband" from the abbey
into her custody. Her real husband, meanwhile, has broken loose and now comes to
the Duke and levels charges against his wife. The situation is finally resolved by the
Abbess, Emilia, who brings out the set of twins and reveals herself to be Egeon's
long-lost wife. Antipholus of Ephesus reconciles with Adriana; Egeon is pardoned by
the Duke and reunited with his spouse; Antipholus of Syracuse resumes his romantic
pursuit of Luciana, and all ends happily with the two Dromios embracing.
Characters
Antipholus of Syracuse - The twin brother of Antipholus of Ephesus and the son of
Egeon; he has been traveling the world with his slave, Dromio of Syracuse, trying to
find his long-lost brother and mother.
Antipholus of Ephesus - The twin brother of Antipholus of Syracuse and the son of
Egeon; he is a well-respected merchant in Ephesus and Adriana's husband.
Dromio of Syracuse - The bumbling, comical slave of Antipholus of Syracuse. He is

the twin brother of Dromio of Ephesus.
Dromio of Ephesus - The bumbling, comical slave of Antipholus of Ephesus. He is

the Syracusan Dromio's twin brother.
Adriana - The wife of Antipholus of Ephesus, she is a fierce, jealous woman.
Luciana - Adriana's unmarried sister and the object of Antipholus of Syracuse's

affections.
Solinus - The Duke of Ephesus; a just but merciful ruler.
Egeon - A Syracusan merchant, husband of the Abbess (Emilia), and the father of
the two Antipholi. He is, like his Syracusan son, in search of the missing half of his
family; he has been sentenced to death as the play begins.
Abbess - Emilia, the long-lost wife of Egeon and the mother of the two Antipholi.
Balthasar - A merchant in Syracuse.
Angelo - A goldsmith in Syracuse and a friend to Antipholus of Ephesus.
Merchant - An Ephesian friend of Antipholus of Syracuse.
Second Merchant - A tradesman to whom Angelo is in debt.
Doctor Pinch - A schoolteacher, conjurer, and would-be exorcist.
Luce - Also called Nell. Antipholus of Ephesus' prodigiously fat maid and Dromio of
Ephesus' wife.
Courtesan - An expensive prostitute and friend of Antipholus of Ephesus.
Antony and Cleopatra William Shakespeare
Context
in 1564 to a successful middle-class glove maker in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.
actor and playwright. Public and critical acclaim quickly followed, and Shakespeare
timeless.
and from Shakespeare’s modest education that Shakespeare’s plays were actually
written by someone else—Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford are the two most
popular -candidates—but the support for this claim is overwhelmingly circumstantial,
and the theory is not taken seriously by many scholars.

Scholars believe that Shakespeare wrote Antony and Cleopatra in 1606, immediately
after Macbeth, and it is one of the last great tragedies that Shakespeare produced.
The most geographically sweeping of Shakespeare’s plays, Antony and Cleopatra’s
setting is the entire Roman Empire, its backdrop the well-documented history of
Octavius Caesar, Marc Antony, and Cleopatra. Shakespeare’s primary source for
Antony and Cleopatra was the Life of Marcus Antonius contained in Plutarch’s Lives of
the Noble Grecians and Romans, which was translated into English by Sir Thomas
North in 1579. North’s language was so rich that Shakespeare incorporated large,
relatively unchanged excerpts of it into his text. The plot of the play also remains
close to North’s history, although characters like Enobarbus and Cleopatra’s
attendants are largely Shakespearean creations.
The action of the story takes place roughly two years after the events of
Shakespeare’s earlier play about the Roman Empire, Julius Caesar. At the beginning
of that tragedy, Caesar has triumphed over his rival Pompey the Great, the father of
young Pompey in Antony and Cleopatra, and aspires to kingship. Caesar is then
assassinated by Cassius and Brutus, who hope to preserve the Roman Republic.
Instead, Cassius and Brutus are defeated by Mark Antony and Octavius Caesar,
Julius’s nephew, who then join Marcus Aemilius Lepidus to create a three-man
government, or triumvirate, over the empire.
Historically, the action of Antony and Cleopatra takes place over a ten-year span,
whereas in the play the story is compressed to fit the needs of the stage. Antony is
clearly much older than he was in Julius Caesar, and his political instincts seem to be
waning. Octavius Caesar was only a minor character in the earlier play, but here he
comes into his own as the man who will rise to become the first Roman emperor.
Most of the political battles and machinations depicted are historically accurate, as is
the romance of the title characters.
Summary
Mark Antony, one of the three rulers of the Roman Empire, spends his time in Egypt,
living a life of decadence and conducting an affair with the country’s beautiful queen,
Cleopatra. When a message arrives informing him that his wife, Fulvia, is dead and
that Pompey is raising an army to rebel against the triumvirate, Antony decides to
return to Rome. In Antony’s absence, Octavius Caesar and Lepidus, his fellow
triumvirs, worry about Pompey’s increasing strength. Caesar condemns Antony for
neglecting his duties as a statesman and military officer in order to live a decadent
life by Cleopatra’s side.
The news of his wife’s death and imminent battle pricks Antony’s sense of duty, and
he feels compelled to return to Rome. Upon his arrival, he and Caesar quarrel, while
Lepidus ineffectually tries to make peace. Realizing that an alliance is necessary to
defeat Pompey, Antony and Caesar agree that Antony will marry Caesar’s sister,
Octavia, who will solidify their loyalty to one another. Enobarbus, Antony’s closest
friend, predicts to Caesar’s men that, despite the marriage, Antony will surely return
to Cleopatra.
In Egypt, Cleopatra learns of Antony’s marriage and flies into a jealous rage.
However, when a messenger delivers word that Octavia is plain and unimpressive,
Cleopatra becomes confident that she will win Antony back. The triumvirs meet
Pompey and settle their differences without going to battle. Pompey agrees to keep
peace in exchange for rule over Sicily and Sardinia. That evening, the four men drink
to celebrate their truce. One of Pompey’s soldiers discloses to him a plan to
assassinate the triumvirs, thereby delivering world power into Pompey’s hands, but
Pompey dismisses the scheme as an affront to his honor. Meanwhile, one of Antony’s
-generals wins a victory over the kingdom of Parthia.
Antony and Octavia depart for Athens. Once they are gone, Caesar breaks his truce,
wages war against Pompey, and defeats him. After using Lepidus’s army to secure a
victory, he accuses Lepidus of treason, imprisons him, and confiscates his land and
possessions. This news angers Antony, as do the rumors that Caesar has been
speaking out against him in public. Octavia pleads with Antony to maintain a
peaceful relationship with her brother. Should Antony and Caesar fight, she says, her
affections would be painfully divided. Antony dispatches her to Rome on a peace
mission, and quickly returns to Egypt and Cleopatra. There, he raises a large army to
fight Caesar, and Caesar, incensed over Antony’s treatment of his sister, responds in
kind. Caesar commands his army and navy to Egypt. Ignoring all advice to the
contrary, Antony elects to fight him at sea, allowing Cleopatra to command a ship
despite Enobarbus’s strong objections. Antony’s forces lose the battle when
Cleopatra’s ship flees and Antony’s follows, leaving the rest of the fleet vulnerable.
Antony despairs, condemning Cleopatra for leading him into infamy but quickly
forgiving her. He and Cleopatra send requests to their conqueror: Antony asks to be
allowed to live in Egypt, while Cleopatra asks that her kingdom be passed down to
her rightful heirs. Caesar dismisses Antony’s request, but he promises Cleopatra a
fair hearing if she betrays her lover. Cleopatra seems to be giving thought to
Caesar’s message when Antony barges in, curses her for her treachery, and orders
the innocent messenger whipped. When, moments later, Antony forgives Cleopatra,
Enobarbus decides that his master is finished and defects to Caesar’s camp.
Antony meets Caesar’s troops in battle and scores an unexpected victory. When he
learns of Enobarbus’s desertion, Antony laments his own bad fortune, which he
believes has corrupted an honorable man. He sends his friend’s possessions to
Caesar’s camp and returns to Cleopatra to celebrate his victory. Enobarbus, undone
by shame at his own disloyalty, bows under the weight of his guilt and dies. Another
day brings another battle, and once again Antony meets Caesar at sea. As before,
the Egyptian fleet proves treacherous; it abandons the fight and leaves Antony to
suffer defeat. Convinced that his lover has betrayed him, Antony vows to kill
Cleopatra. In order to protect herself, she quarters herself in her monument and
sends word that she has committed suicide. Antony, racked with grief, determines to
join his queen in the afterlife. He commands one of his attendants to fulfill his
promise of unquestioned service and kill him. The attendant kills himself instead.
Antony then falls on his own sword, but the wound is not immediately fatal. He is
carried to Cleopatra’s monument, where the lovers are reunited briefly before
Antony’s death. Caesar takes the queen prisoner, planning to display her in Rome as
a testament to the might of his empire, but she learns of his plan and kills herself
with the help of several poisonous snakes. Caesar has her buried beside Antony.
Character List
Antony - A once fierce and feared soldier who rules the Roman Empire along with
Octavius Caesar and Lepidus. When the play opens, Antony has neglected his duties
as a ruler in order to live in Egypt, where he carries on a highly visible love affair
with Cleopatra. His loyalty is divided between the Western and Eastern worlds; he is
torn between the sense of duty and the desire to seek pleasure, between reason and
passion. While he feels the need to reaffirm the honor that has made him a
celebrated Roman hero, he is also madly in love with Cleopatra.
Cleopatra - The queen of Egypt and Antony’s lover. A highly attractive woman who
once seduced Julius Caesar, Cleopatra delights in the thought that she has caught
Antony like a fish. In matters of love, as in all things, Cleopatra favors high drama:
her emotions are as volatile as they are theatrical, and, regardless of whether her
audience is her handmaid or the emperor of Rome, she always offers a top-notch
performance. Although she tends to make a spectacle of her emotions, one cannot
doubt the genuine nature of her love for Antony. Shakespeare makes clear that the
queen does love the general, even if her loyalty is sometimes misplaced.
Octavius Caesar - The nephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar. Octavius rules the
Roman Empire with Antony and Lepidus. Relations between Caesar and Antony are
strained throughout the play, for the young triumvir believes that Antony squanders
his time and neglects his duties while in Egypt. Ambitious and extremely pragmatic,
Octavius lacks Antony’s military might as a general, but his careful and stoic
reasoning enables him to avoid Antony’s tendency toward heroic or romantic folly.
Destined to be the first Roman emperor (later renamed Caesar Augustus), he
symbolizes “Western” values in the play, which stand opposed to the exotic lures of
Cleopatra’s “East.”
Enobarbus - Antony’s most loyal supporter. Worldly and cynical, Enobarbus is

friendly with the subordinates of both Pompey and Caesar, yet stays faithful to his
master even after Antony makes grave political and military missteps. He abandons
Antony only when the general appears to be completely finished.
Marcus Aemilius Lepidus - The third member of the triumvirate and the weakest,
both politically and personally. Lepidus’s rather desperate attempts to keep the
peace between Caesar and Antony fail when Caesar imprisons him after the defeat of
Pompey.
Pompey - The son of a great general who was one of Julius Caesar’s partners in
power. Pompey is young and popular with the Roman people, and he possesses
enough military might to stand as a legitimate threat to the triumvirs. He fancies
himself honorable for refusing to allow one of his men to kill the unsuspecting
Caesar, Antony, and Lepidus when they are his guests.
Octavia - Octavius Caesar’s sister. Octavia marries Antony in order to cement an

alliance between the two triumvirs. She is a victim of Antony’s deception, and her
meekness, purity, and submission make her the paradigm of Roman womanhood,
and Cleopatra’s polar opposite.
Charmian and Iras - Cleopatra’s faithful attendants.

The Soothsayer - An Egyptian fortune-teller who follows Antony to Rome and
predicts that his fortune will always pale in comparison to Caesar’s.
Dolabella - One of Octavius Caesar’s men. Dolabella is assigned to guard the captive
Cleopatra.
Agrippa - One of Octavius Caesar’s officers. Agrippa leads the retreat from Antony’s
unexpectedly powerful forces.
Camidius - A general in Antony’s army. After the battle in which Antony follows
Cleopatra’s lead and flees, Camidius surrenders and defects to Caesar’s side.
Ventidius - A Roman soldier under Antony’s command. Ventidius leads the legions to
victory against the kingdom of Parthia. Although a competent fighter, he cautiously
decides not to push his troops further into battle, for fear that winning too much
glory would sour his relationship with Antony.
Scarus - A brave young soldier serving under Antony. Scarus garners fantastic
wounds in the battle against Caesar’s army, and begs for the opportunity to win
more.
Proculeius - One of Caesar’s soldiers, who proves untrustworthy.
Diomedes - Cleopatra’s servant. She employs Diomedes to bring to Antony the

message that she has not committed suicide but is still alive.
Eros - An attendant serving Antony. Eros’s love for his master compels him to refuse
Antony’s order that Eros kill him.
Menas - An ambitious young soldier under Pompey. During the dinner party that
Pompey hosts for the triumvirate, Menas asks for permission to kill Caesar, Antony,
and Lepidus, which would result in the control of the world falling into his master’s
hands.
Seleucus - Cleopatra’s treasurer, who betrays his master.
Clown - An Egyptian who brings a basket of figs containing poisonous snakes to

Cleopatra.
Decretas - One of Antony’s soldiers.
Julius Caesar William Shakespeare
Context
Hathaway, and had three children with her. Around 1590, he left his family behind
acclaim quickly followed, and Shakespeare eventually became the most popular
reigns of Elizabeth I (ruled 1558–1603) and James I (ruled 1603–1625); he was a
favorite of both monarchs. Indeed, King James paid Shakespeare’s theater company
the greatest possible compliment by endowing its members with the status of king’s
players. Wealthy and renowned, Shakespeare retired to Stratford, and died in 1616
at the age of fifty-two. At the time of Shakespeare’s death, such luminaries as Ben
Jonson hailed him as the apogee of Renaissance theater.
personal history shrouded in mystery. Some scholars have concluded from this lack
and from Shakespeare’s modest education that his plays were actually written by
someone else—Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford are the two most popular
candidates. The evidence for this claim, however, is overwhelmingly circumstantial,
and few take the theory very seriously.

Julius Caesar takes place in ancient Rome in 44 b.c., when Rome was the center of
an empire stretching from Britain to North Africa and from Persia to Spain. Yet even
as the empire grew stronger, so, too, did the force of the dangers threatening its
existence: Rome suffered from constant infighting between ambitious military
leaders and the far weaker senators to whom they supposedly owed allegiance. The
empire also suffered from a sharp division between citizens, who were represented in
the senate, and the increasingly underrepresented plebeian masses. A succession of
men aspired to become the absolute ruler of Rome, but only Julius Caesar seemed
likely to achieve this status. Those citizens who favored more democratic rule feared
that Caesar’s power would lead to the enslavement of Roman citizens by one of their
own. Therefore, a group of conspirators came together and assassinated Caesar. The
assassination, however, failed to put an end to the power struggles dividing the
empire, and civil war erupted shortly thereafter. The plot of Shakespeare’s play
includes the events leading up to the assassination of Caesar as well as much of the
subsequent war, in which the deaths of the leading conspirators constituted a sort of
revenge for the assassination.
Shakespeare’s contemporaries, well versed in ancient Greek and Roman history,

would very likely have detected parallels between Julius Caesar’s portrayal of the
shift from republican to imperial Rome and the Elizabethan era’s trend toward
consolidated monarchal power. In 1599, when the play was first performed, Queen
Elizabeth I had sat on the throne for nearly forty years, enlarging her power at the
expense of the aristocracy and the House of Commons. As she was then sixty-six
years old, her reign seemed likely to end soon, yet she lacked any heirs (as did
Julius Caesar). Many feared that her death would plunge England into the kind of
chaos that had plagued England during the fifteenth-century Wars of the Roses. In
an age when censorship would have limited direct commentary on these worries,
Shakespeare could nevertheless use the story of Caesar to comment on the political
situation of his day.
As his chief source in writing Julius Caesar, Shakespeare probably used Thomas
North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, written in the
first century a.d. Plutarch, who believed that history was propelled by the
achievements of great men, saw the role of the biographer as inseparable from the
role of the historian. Shakespeare followed Plutarch’s lead by emphasizing how the
actions of the leaders of Roman society, rather than class conflicts or larger political
movements, determined history. However, while Shakespeare does focus on these
key political figures, he does not ignore that their power rests, to some degree, on
the fickle favor of the populace.
Contemporary accounts tell us that Julius Caesar, Shakespeare’s shortest play, was
first performed in 1599. It was probably the first play performed in the Globe
Theater, the playhouse that was erected around that time in order to accommodate
Shakespeare’s increasingly successful theater company. However, the first
authoritative text of the play did not appear until the 1623 First Folio edition. The
elaborate stage directions suggest that this text was derived from the company’s
promptbook rather than Shakespeare’s manuscript.
Summary
Two tribunes, Flavius and Murellus, find scores of Roman citizens wandering the
streets, neglecting their work in order to watch Julius Caesar’s triumphal parade:
Caesar has defeated the Roman general Pompey, his archrival, in battle. The
tribunes scold the citizens for abandoning their duties and remove decorations from
Caesar’s statues. Caesar enters with his entourage, including the military and
political figures Brutus, Cassius, and Antony. A Soothsayer calls out to Caesar to
“beware the Ides of March,” but Caesar ignores him and proceeds with his victory
celebration (I.ii.19, I.ii.25).
Cassius and Brutus, both longtime intimates of Caesar and each other, converse.
Cassius tells Brutus that he has seemed distant lately; Brutus replies that he has
been at war with himself. Cassius states that he wishes Brutus could see himself as
others see him, for then Brutus would realize how honored and respected he is.
Brutus says that he fears that the people want Caesar to become king, which would
overturn the republic. Cassius concurs that Caesar is treated like a god though he is
merely a man, no better than Brutus or Cassius. Cassius recalls incidents of Caesar’s
physical weakness and marvels that this fallible man has become so powerful. He
blames his and Brutus’s lack of will for allowing Caesar’s rise to power: surely the
rise of such a man cannot be the work of fate. Brutus considers Cassius’s words as
Caesar returns. Upon seeing Cassius, Caesar tells Antony that he deeply distrusts
Cassius.
Caesar departs, and another politician, Casca, tells Brutus and Cassius that, during
the celebration, Antony offered the crown to Caesar three times and the people
cheered, but Caesar refused it each time. He reports that Caesar then fell to the
ground and had some kind of seizure before the crowd; his demonstration of
weakness, however, did not alter the plebeians’ devotion to him. Brutus goes home
to consider Cassius’s words regarding Caesar’s poor qualifications to rule, while
Cassius hatches a plot to draw Brutus into a conspiracy against Caesar.
That night, Rome is plagued with violent weather and a variety of bad omens and
portents. Brutus finds letters in his house apparently written by Roman citizens
worried that Caesar has become too powerful. The letters have in fact been forged
and planted by Cassius, who knows that if Brutus believes it is the people’s will, he
will support a plot to remove Caesar from power. A committed supporter of the
republic, Brutus fears the possibility of a dictator-led empire, worrying that the
populace would lose its voice. Cassius arrives at Brutus’s home with his conspirators,
and Brutus, who has already been won over by the letters, takes control of the
meeting. The men agree to lure Caesar from his house and kill him. Cassius wants to
kill Antony too, for Antony will surely try to hinder their plans, but Brutus disagrees,
believing that too many deaths will render their plot too bloody and dishonor them.
Having agreed to spare Antony, the conspirators depart. Portia, Brutus’s wife,
observes that Brutus appears preoccupied. She pleads with him to confide in her, but
he rebuffs her.
Caesar prepares to go to the Senate. His wife, Calpurnia, begs him not to go,
describing recent nightmares she has had in which a statue of Caesar streamed with
blood and smiling men bathed their hands in the blood. Caesar refuses to yield to
fear and insists on going about his daily business. Finally, Calpurnia convinces him to
stay home—if not out of caution, then as a favor to her. But Decius, one of the
conspirators, then arrives and convinces Caesar that Calpurnia has misinterpreted
her dreams and the recent omens. Caesar departs for the Senate in the company of
the conspirators.
As Caesar proceeds through the streets toward the Senate, the Soothsayer again
tries but fails to get his attention. The citizen Artemidorus hands him a letter warning
him about the conspirators, but Caesar refuses to read it, saying that his closest
personal concerns are his last priority. At the Senate, the conspirators speak to
Caesar, bowing at his feet and encircling him. One by one, they stab him to death.
When Caesar sees his dear friend Brutus among his murderers, he gives up his
struggle and dies.
The murderers bathe their hands and swords in Caesar’s blood, thus bringing
Calpurnia’s premonition to fruition. Antony, having been led away on a false pretext,
returns and pledges allegiance to Brutus but weeps over Caesar’s body. He shakes
hands with the conspirators, thus marking them all as guilty while appearing to make
a gesture of conciliation. When Antony asks why they killed Caesar, Brutus replies
that he will explain their purpose in a funeral oration. Antony asks to be allowed to
speak over the body as well; Brutus grants his permission, though Cassius remains
suspicious of Antony. The conspirators depart, and Antony, alone now, swears that
Caesar’s death shall be avenged.
Brutus and Cassius go to the Forum to speak to the public. Cassius exits to address
another part of the crowd. Brutus declares to the masses that though he loved
Caesar, he loves Rome more, and Caesar’s ambition posed a danger to Roman
liberty. The speech placates the crowd. Antony appears with Caesar’s body, and
Brutus departs after turning the pulpit over to Antony. Repeatedly referring to Brutus
as “an honorable man,” Antony’s speech becomes increasingly sarcastic; questioning
the claims that Brutus made in his speech that Caesar acted only out of ambition,
Antony points out that Caesar brought much wealth and glory to Rome, and three
times turned down offers of the crown. Antony then produces Caesar’s will but
announces that he will not read it for it would upset the people inordinately. The
crowd nevertheless begs him to read the will, so he descends from the pulpit to
stand next to Caesar’s body. He describes Caesar’s horrible death and shows
Caesar’s wounded body to the crowd. He then reads Caesar’s will, which bequeaths a
sum of money to every citizen and orders that his private gardens be made public.
The crowd becomes enraged that this generous man lies dead; calling Brutus and
Cassius traitors, the masses set off to drive them from the city.
Meanwhile, Caesar’s adopted son and appointed successor, Octavius, arrives in Rome
and forms a three-person coalition with Antony and Lepidus. They prepare to fight
Cassius and Brutus, who have been driven into exile and are raising armies outside
the city. At the conspirators’ camp, Brutus and Cassius have a heated argument
regarding matters of money and honor, but they ultimately reconcile. Brutus reveals
that he is sick with grief, for in his absence Portia has killed herself. The two continue
to prepare for battle with Antony and Octavius. That night, the Ghost of Caesar
appears to Brutus, announcing that Brutus will meet him again on the battlefield.
Octavius and Antony march their army toward Brutus and Cassius. Antony tells
Octavius where to attack, but Octavius says that he will make his own orders; he is
already asserting his authority as the heir of Caesar and the next ruler of Rome. The
opposing generals meet on the battlefield and exchange insults before beginning
combat.
Cassius witnesses his own men fleeing and hears that Brutus’s men are not
performing effectively. Cassius sends one of his men, Pindarus, to see how matters
are progressing. From afar, Pindarus sees one of their leaders, Cassius’s best friend,
Titinius, being surrounded by cheering troops and concludes that he has been
captured. Cassius despairs and orders Pindarus to kill him with his own sword. He
dies proclaiming that Caesar is avenged. Titinius himself then arrives—the men
encircling him were actually his comrades, cheering a victory he had earned. Titinius
sees Cassius’s corpse and, mourning the death of his friend, kills himself.
Brutus learns of the deaths of Cassius and Titinius with a heavy heart, and prepares
to take on the Romans again. When his army loses, doom appears imminent. Brutus
asks one of his men to hold his sword while he impales himself on it. Finally, Caesar
can rest satisfied, he says as he dies. Octavius and Antony arrive. Antony speaks
over Brutus’s body, calling him the noblest Roman of all. While the other
conspirators acted out of envy and ambition, he observes, Brutus genuinely believed
that he acted for the benefit of Rome. Octavius orders that Brutus be buried in the
most honorable way. The men then depart to celebrate their victory.
Character List
Brutus - A supporter of the republic who believes strongly in a government guided

by the votes of senators. While Brutus loves Caesar as a friend, he opposes the
ascension of any single man to the position of dictator, and he fears that Caesar
aspires to such power. Brutus’s inflexible sense of honor makes it easy for Caesar’s
enemies to manipulate him into believing that Caesar must die in order to preserve
the republic. While the other conspirators act out of envy and rivalry, only Brutus
truly believes that Caesar’s death will benefit Rome. Unlike Caesar, Brutus is able to
separate completely his public life from his private life; by giving priority to matters
of state, he epitomizes Roman virtue. Torn between his loyalty to Caesar and his
allegiance to the state, Brutus becomes the tragic hero of the play.
Julius Caesar - A great Roman general and senator, recently returned to Rome in
triumph after a successful military campaign. While his good friend Brutus worries
that Caesar may aspire to dictatorship over the Roman republic, Caesar seems to
show no such inclination, declining the crown several times. Yet while Caesar may
not be unduly power-hungry, he does possess his share of flaws. He is unable to
separate his public life from his private life, and, seduced by the populace’s
increasing idealization and idolization of his image, he ignores ill omens and threats
against his life, believing himself as eternal as the North Star.
Antony - A friend of Caesar. Antony claims allegiance to Brutus and the conspirators
after Caesar’s death in order to save his own life. Later, however, when speaking a
funeral oration over Caesar’s body, he spectacularly persuades the audience to
withdraw its support of Brutus and instead condemn him as a traitor. With tears on
his cheeks and Caesar’s will in his hand, Antony engages masterful rhetoric to stir
the crowd to revolt against the conspirators. Antony’s desire to exclude Lepidus from
the power that Antony and Octavius intend to share hints at his own ambitious
nature.
Cassius - A talented general and longtime acquaintance of Caesar. Cassius dislikes

the fact that Caesar has become godlike in the eyes of the Romans. He slyly leads
Brutus to believe that Caesar has become too powerful and must die, finally
converting Brutus to his cause by sending him forged letters claiming that the
Roman people support the death of Caesar. Impulsive and unscrupulous, Cassius
harbors no illusions about the way the political world works. A shrewd opportunist,
he proves successful but lacks integrity.
Octavius - Caesar’s adopted son and appointed successor. Octavius, who had been
traveling abroad, returns after Caesar’s death; he then joins with Antony and sets off
to fight Cassius and Brutus. Antony tries to control Octavius’s movements, but
Octavius follows his adopted father’s example and emerges as the authoritative
figure, paving the way for his eventual seizure of the reins of Roman government.
Casca - A public figure opposed to Caesar’s rise to power. Casca relates to Cassius
and Brutus how Antony offered the crown to Caesar three times and how each time
Caesar declined it. He believes, however, that Caesar is the consummate actor,
lulling the populace into believing that he has no personal ambition.
Calpurnia - Caesar’s wife. Calpurnia invests great authority in omens and portents.
She warns Caesar against going to the Senate on the Ides of March, since she has
had terrible nightmares and heard reports of many bad omens. Nevertheless,
Caesar’s ambition ultimately causes him to disregard her advice.
Portia - Brutus’s wife; the daughter of a noble Roman who took sides against
Caesar. Portia, accustomed to being Brutus’s confidante, is upset to find him so
reluctant to speak his mind when she finds him troubled. Brutus later hears that
Portia has killed herself out of grief that Antony and Octavius have become so
powerful.
Flavius - A tribune (an official elected by the people to protect their rights). Flavius
condemns the plebeians for their fickleness in cheering Caesar, when once they
cheered for Caesar’s enemy Pompey. Flavius is punished along with Murellus for
removing the decorations from Caesar’s statues during Caesar’s triumphal parade.
Cicero - A Roman senator renowned for his oratorical skill. Cicero speaks at Caesar’s
triumphal parade. He later dies at the order of Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus.
Lepidus - The third member of Antony and Octavius’s coalition. Though Antony has
a low opinion of Lepidus, Octavius trusts his loyalty.
Murellus - Like Flavius, a tribune who condemns the plebeians for their fickleness in
cheering Caesar, when once they cheered for Caesar’s enemy Pompey. Murellus and
Flavius are punished for removing the decorations from Caesar’s statues during
Caesar’s triumphal parade.
Decius - A member of the conspiracy. Decius convinces Caesar that Calpurnia

misinterpreted her dire nightmares and that, in fact, no danger awaits him at the
Senate. Decius leads Caesar right into the hands of the conspirators.
Merchant of Venice William Shakespeare
Context
in 1564 to a successful middle-class glover in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.
timeless.
following his death, and by the early eighteenth century, his reputation as the
popular -candidates—but the support for this claim is overwhelmingly circumstantial,

The Merchant of Venice was probably written in either 1596 or 1597, after
Shakespeare had written such plays as Romeo and Juliet and Richard III, but before
he penned the great tragedies of his later years. Its basic plot outline, with the
characters of the merchant, the poor suitor, the fair lady, and the villainous Jew, is
found in a number of contemporary Italian story collections, and Shakespeare
borrowed several details, such the choice of caskets that Portia inflicts on all her
suitors, from preexisting sources. The Merchant of Venice’s Italian setting and
marriage plot are typical of Shakespeare’s earlier comedies, but the characters of
Portia, Shakespeare’s first great heroine, and the unforgettable villain Shylock
elevate this play to a new level.
Shylock’s cries for a pound of flesh have made him one of literature’s most
memorable villains, but many readers and playgoers have found him a compelling
and sympathetic figure. The question of whether or not Shakespeare endorses the
anti-Semitism of the Christian characters in the play has been much debated. Jews in
Shakespeare’s England were a marginalized group, and Shakespeare’s
contemporaries would have been very familiar with portrayals of Jews as villains and
objects of mockery. For example, Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta, a bloody
farce about a murderous Jewish villain, was a great popular success and would have
been fresh in Shakespeare’s mind as he set about creating his own Jewish character.
Shakespeare certainly draws on this anti-Semitic tradition in portraying Shylock,
exploiting Jewish stereotypes for comic effect. But Shylock is a more complex
character than the Jew in Marlowe’s play, and Shakespeare makes him seem more
human by showing that his hatred is born of the mistreatment he has suffered in a
Christian society. Shakespeare’s character includes an element of pathos as well as
comedy, meaning that he elicits from readers and audiences pity and compassion,
rather than simply scorn and derision.
Summary
Antonio, a Venetian merchant, complains to his friends of a melancholy that he

cannot explain. His friend Bassanio is desperately in need of money to court Portia, a
wealthy heiress who lives in the city of Belmont. Bassanio asks Antonio for a loan in
order to travel in style to Portia’s estate. Antonio agrees, but is unable to make the
loan himself because his own money is all invested in a number of trade ships that
are still at sea. Antonio suggests that Bassanio secure the loan from one of the city’s
moneylenders and name Antonio as the loan’s guarantor. In Belmont, Portia
expresses sadness over the terms of her father’s will, which stipulates that she must
marry the man who correctly chooses one of three caskets. None of Portia’s current
suitors are to her liking, and she and her lady-in-waiting, Nerissa, fondly remember
a visit paid some time before by Bassanio.
In Venice, Antonio and Bassanio approach Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, for a

loan. Shylock nurses a long-standing grudge against Antonio, who has made a habit
of berating Shylock and other Jews for their usury, the practice of loaning money at
exorbitant rates of interest, and who undermines their business by offering interest-
free loans. Although Antonio refuses to apologize for his behavior, Shylock acts
agreeably and offers to lend Bassanio three thousand ducats with no interest.
Shylock adds, however, that should the loan go unpaid, Shylock will be entitled to a
pound of Antonio’s own flesh. Despite Bassanio’s warnings, Antonio agrees. In
Shylock’s own household, his servant Lancelot decides to leave Shylock’s service to
work for Bassanio, and Shylock’s daughter Jessica schemes to elope with Antonio’s
friend Lorenzo. That night, the streets of Venice fill up with revelers, and Jessica
escapes with Lorenzo by dressing as his page. After a night of celebration, Bassanio
and his friend Graziano leave for Belmont, where Bassanio intends to win Portia’s
hand.
In Belmont, Portia welcomes the prince of Morocco, who has come in an attempt to
choose the right casket to marry her. The prince studies the inscriptions on the three
caskets and chooses the gold one, which proves to be an incorrect choice. In Venice,
Shylock is furious to find that his daughter has run away, but rejoices in the fact that
Antonio’s ships are rumored to have been wrecked and that he will soon be able to
claim his debt. In Belmont, the prince of Aragon also visits Portia. He, too, studies
the caskets carefully, but he picks the silver one, which is also incorrect. Bassanio
arrives at Portia’s estate, and they declare their love for one another. Despite
Portia’s request that he wait before choosing, Bassanio immediately picks the correct
casket, which is made of lead. He and Portia rejoice, and Graziano confesses that he
has fallen in love with Nerissa. The couples decide on a double wedding. Portia gives
Bassanio a ring as a token of love, and makes him swear that under no
circumstances will he part with it. They are joined, unexpectedly, by Lorenzo and
Jessica. The celebration, however, is cut short by the news that Antonio has indeed
lost his ships, and that he has forfeited his bond to Shylock. Bassanio and Graziano
immediately travel to Venice to try and save Antonio’s life. After they leave, Portia
tells Nerissa that they will go to Venice disguised as men.
Shylock ignores the many pleas to spare Antonio’s life, and a trial is called to decide
the matter. The duke of Venice, who presides over the trial, announces that he has
sent for a legal expert, who turns out to be Portia disguised as a young man of law.
Portia asks Shylock to show mercy, but he remains inflexible and insists the pound of
flesh is rightfully his. Bassanio offers Shylock twice the money due him, but Shylock
insists on collecting the bond as it is written. Portia examines the contract and,
finding it legally binding, declares that Shylock is entitled to the merchant’s flesh.
Shylock ecstatically praises her wisdom, but as he is on the verge of collecting his
due, Portia reminds him that he must do so without causing Antonio to bleed, as the
contract does not entitle him to any blood. Trapped by this logic, Shylock hastily
agrees to take Bassanio’s money instead, but Portia insists that Shylock take his
bond as written, or nothing at all. Portia informs Shylock that he is guilty of
conspiring against the life of a Venetian citizen, which means he must turn over half
of his property to the state and the other half to Antonio. The duke spares Shylock’s
life and takes a fine instead of Shylock’s property. Antonio also forgoes his half of
Shylock’s wealth on two conditions: first, Shylock must convert to Christianity, and
second, he must will the entirety of his estate to Lorenzo and Jessica upon his death.
Shylock agrees and takes his leave.
Bassanio, who does not see through Portia’s disguise, showers the young law clerk
with thanks, and is eventually pressured into giving Portia the ring with which he
promised never to part. Graziano gives Nerissa, who is disguised as Portia’s clerk, his
ring. The two women return to Belmont, where they find Lorenzo and Jessica
declaring their love to each other under the moonlight. When Bassanio and Graziano
arrive the next day, their wives accuse them of faithlessly giving their rings to other
women. Before the deception goes too far, however, Portia reveals that she was, in
fact, the law clerk, and both she and Nerissa reconcile with their husbands. Lorenzo
and Jessica are pleased to learn of their inheritance from Shylock, and the joyful
news arrives that Antonio’s ships have in fact made it back safely. The group
celebrates its good fortune.
Character List
Shylock - A Jewish moneylender in Venice. Angered by his mistreatment at the

hands of Venice’s Christians, particularly Antonio, Shylock schemes to eke out his
revenge by ruthlessly demanding as payment a pound of Antonio’s flesh. Although
seen by the rest of the play’s characters as an inhuman monster, Shylock at times
diverges from stereotype and reveals himself to be quite human. These
contradictions, and his eloquent expressions of hatred, have earned Shylock a place
as one of Shakespeare’s most memorable characters.
Portia - A wealthy heiress from Belmont. Portia’s beauty is matched only by her
intelligence. Bound by a clause in her father’s will that forces her to marry whichever
suitor chooses correctly among three caskets, Portia is nonetheless able to marry her
true love, Bassanio. Far and away the most clever of the play’s characters, it is
Portia, in the disguise of a young law clerk, who saves Antonio from Shylock’s knife.
Antonio - The merchant whose love for his friend Bassanio prompts him to sign
Shylock’s contract and almost lose his life. Antonio is something of a mercurial
figure, often inexplicably melancholy and, as Shylock points out, possessed of an
incorrigible dislike of Jews. Nonetheless, Antonio is beloved of his friends and proves
merciful to Shylock, albeit with conditions.
Bassanio - A gentleman of Venice, and a kinsman and dear friend to Antonio.

Bassanio’s love for the wealthy Portia leads him to borrow money from Shylock with
Antonio as his guarantor. An ineffectual businessman, Bassanio proves himself a
worthy suitor, correctly identifying the casket that contains Portia’s portrait.
Graziano - A friend of Bassanio’s who accompanies him to Belmont. A coarse and

garrulous young man, Graziano is Shylock’s most vocal and insulting critic during the
trial. While Bassanio courts Portia, Graziano falls in love with and eventually weds
Portia’s lady-in-waiting, Nerissa.
Jessica - Although she is Shylock’s daughter, Jessica hates life in her father’s house,
and elopes with the young Christian gentleman, Lorenzo. The fate of her soul is often
in doubt: the play’s characters wonder if her marriage can overcome the fact that
she was born a Jew, and we wonder if her sale of a ring given to her father by her
mother is excessively callous.
Lorenzo - A friend of Bassanio and Antonio, Lorenzo is in love with Shylock’s

daughter, Jessica. He schemes to help Jessica escape from her father’s house, and
he eventually elopes with her to Belmont.
Nerissa - Portia’s lady-in-waiting and confidante. She marries Graziano and escorts
Portia on Portia’s trip to Venice by disguising herself as her law clerk.
Lancelot Gobbo - Bassanio’s servant. A comical, clownish figure who is especially

adept at making puns, Lancelot leaves Shylock’s service in order to work for
Bassanio.
The prince of Morocco - A Moorish prince who seeks Portia’s hand in marriage. The
prince of Morocco asks Portia to ignore his dark countenance and seeks to win her by
picking one of the three caskets. Certain that the caskets reflect Portia’s beauty and
stature, the prince of Morocco picks the gold chest, which proves to be incorrect.
The prince of Aragon - An arrogant Spanish nobleman who also attempts to win
Portia’s hand by picking a casket. Like the prince of Morocco, however, the prince of
Aragon chooses unwisely. He picks the silver casket, which gives him a message
calling him an idiot instead of Portia’s hand.
Salerio - A Venetian gentleman, and friend to Antonio, Bassanio, and Lorenzo.

Salerio escorts the newlyweds Jessica and Lorenzo to Belmont, and returns with
Bassanio and Graziano for Antonio’s trial. He is often almost indistinguishable from
his companion Solanio.
Solanio - A Venetian gentleman, and frequent counterpart to Salerio.
The duke of Venice - The ruler of Venice, who presides over Antonio’s trial. Although
a powerful man, the duke’s state is built on respect for the law, and he is unable to
help Antonio.
Old Gobbo - Lancelot’s father, also a servant in Venice.
Tubal - A Jew in Venice, and one of Shylock’s friends.
Doctor Bellario - A wealthy Paduan lawyer and Portia’s cousin. Doctor Bellario never
appears in the play, but he gives Portia’s servant the letters of introduction needed
for her to make her appearance in court.
Balthasar - Portia’s servant, whom she dispatches to get the appropriate materials
from Doctor Bellario.
You Like It William Shakespeare
Context
in 1564 to a -successful middle-class glover in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.
with her. Around 1590, he left his family behind and traveled to London to work as
an actor and playwright. Public and critical acclaim quickly followed, and
Shakespeare eventually became the most popular playwright in England and part-
owner of the Globe Theater. His career bridged the reigns of Elizabeth I (ruled 1558–
1603) and James I (ruled 1603–1625), and he was a favorite of both monarchs.
Indeed, James granted Shakespeare’s company the greatest possible compliment by
bestowing upon its members the title of King’s Men. Wealthy and renowned,
Shakespeare retired to Stratford and died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two. At the time
of Shakespeare’s death, literary luminaries such as Ben Jonson hailed his works as
timeless.
Shakespeare’s works were collected and printed in various -editions in the century
following his death, and by the early eighteenth century, his reputation as the
popular candidates—but the support for this claim is overwhelmingly circumstantial,
As You Like It was most likely written around 1598–1600, during the last years of
Elizabeth’s reign. The play belongs to the literary tradition known as pastoral: which
has its roots in the literature of ancient Greece, came into its own in Roman antiquity
with Virgil’s Eclogues, and continued as a vital literary mode through Shakespeare’s
time and long after. Typically, a pastoral story involves exiles from urban or court life
who flee to the refuge of the countryside, where they often disguise themselves as
shepherds in order to converse with other shepherds on a range of established
topics, from the relative merits of life at court versus life in the country to the
relationship between nature and art. The most fundamental concern of the pastoral
mode is comparing the worth of the natural world, represented by relatively
untouched countryside, to the world built by humans, which contains the joys of art
and the city as well as the injustices of rigid social hierarchies. Pastoral literature,
then, has great potential to serve as a forum for social criticism and can even inspire
social reform.
In general, Shakespeare’s As You Like It develops many of the traditional features

and concerns of the pastoral genre. This comedy examines the cruelties and
corruption of court life and gleefully pokes holes in one of humankind’s greatest
artifices: the conventions of romantic love. The play’s investment in pastoral
traditions leads to an indulgence in rather simple rivalries: court versus country,
realism versus romance, reason versus mindlessness, nature versus fortune, young
versus old, and those who are born into nobility versus those who acquire their social
standing. But rather than settle these scores by coming down on one side or the
other, As You Like It offers up a world of myriad choices and endless possibilities. In
the world of this play, no one thing need cancel out another. In this way, the play
manages to offer both social critique and social affirmation. It is a play that at all
times stresses the complexity of things, the simultaneous pleasures and pains of
being human.
Summary
Sir Rowland de Bois has recently died, and, according to the custom of
primogeniture, the vast majority of his estate has passed into the possession of his
eldest son, Oliver. Although Sir Rowland has instructed Oliver to take good care of
his brother, Orlando, Oliver refuses to do so. Out of pure spite, he denies Orlando
the education, training, and property befitting a gentleman. Charles, a wrestler from
the court of Duke Frederick, arrives to warn Oliver of a rumor that Orlando will
challenge Charles to a fight on the following day. Fearing censure if he should beat a
nobleman, Charles begs Oliver to intervene, but Oliver convinces the wrestler that
Orlando is a dishonorable sportsman who will take whatever dastardly means
necessary to win. Charles vows to pummel Orlando, which delights Oliver.
Duke Senior has been usurped of his throne by his brother, Duke Frederick, and has
fled to the Forest of Ardenne, where he lives like Robin Hood with a band of loyal
followers. Duke Frederick allows Senior’s daughter, Rosalind, to remain at court
because of her inseparable friendship with his own daughter, Celia. The day arrives
when Orlando is scheduled to fight Charles, and the women witness Orlando’s defeat
of the court wrestler. Orlando and Rosalind instantly fall in love with one another,
though Rosalind keeps this fact a secret from everyone but Celia. Orlando returns
home from the wrestling match, only to have his faithful servant Adam warn him
about Oliver’s plot against Orlando’s life. Orlando decides to leave for the safety of
Ardenne. Without warning, Duke Frederick has a change of heart regarding Rosalind
and banishes her from court. She, too, decides to flee to the Forest of Ardenne and
leaves with Celia, who cannot bear to be without Rosalind, and Touchstone, the court
jester. To ensure the safety of their journey, Rosalind assumes the dress of a young
man and takes the name Ganymede, while Celia dresses as a common shepherdess
and calls herself Aliena.
Duke Frederick is furious at his daughter’s disappearance. When he learns that the
flight of his daughter and niece coincides with the disappearance of Orlando, the
duke orders Oliver to lead the manhunt, threatening to confiscate Oliver’s lands and
property should he fail. Frederick also decides it is time to destroy his brother once
and for all and begins to raise an army.
Duke Senior lives in the Forest of Ardenne with a band of lords who have gone into
voluntary exile. He praises the simple life among the trees, happy to be absent from
the machinations of court life. Orlando, exhausted by travel and desperate to find
food for his starving companion, Adam, barges in on the duke’s camp and rudely
demands that they not eat until he is given food. Duke Senior calms Orlando and,
when he learns that the young man is the son of his dear former friend, accepts him
into his company. Meanwhile, Rosalind and Celia, disguised as Ganymede and Aliena,
arrive in the forest and meet a lovesick young shepherd named Silvius who pines
away for the disdainful Phoebe. The two women purchase a modest cottage, and
soon enough Rosalind runs into the equally lovesick Orlando. Taking her to be a
young man, Orlando confides in Rosalind that his affections are overpowering him.
Rosalind, as Ganymede, claims to be an expert in exorcising such emotions and
promises to cure Orlando of lovesickness if he agrees to pretend that Ganymede is
Rosalind and promises to come woo her every day. Orlando agrees, and the love
lessons begin.
Meanwhile, Phoebe becomes increasingly cruel in her rejection of Silvius. When

Rosalind intervenes, disguised as Ganymede, Phoebe falls hopelessly in love with
Ganymede. One day, Orlando fails to show up for his tutorial with Ganymede.
Rosalind, reacting to her infatuation with Orlando, is distraught until Oliver appears.
Oliver describes how Orlando stumbled upon him in the forest and saved him from
being devoured by a hungry lioness. Oliver and Celia, still disguised as the
shepherdess Aliena, fall instantly in love and agree to marry. As time passes, Phoebe
becomes increasingly insistent in her pursuit of Ganymede, and Orlando grows tired
of pretending that a boy is his dear Rosalind. Rosalind decides to end the charade.
She promises that Ganymede will wed Phoebe, if Ganymede will ever marry a
woman, and she makes everyone pledge to meet the next day at the wedding. They
all agree.
The day of the wedding arrives, and Rosalind gathers the various couples: Phoebe
and Silvius; Celia and Oliver; Touchstone and Audrey, a goatherd he intends to
marry; and Orlando. The group congregates before Duke Senior and his men.
Rosalind, still disguised as Ganymede, reminds the lovers of their various vows, then
secures a promise from Phoebe that if for some reason she refuses to marry
Ganymede she will marry Silvius, and a promise from the duke that he would allow
his daughter to marry Orlando if she were available. Rosalind leaves with the
disguised Celia, and the two soon return as themselves, accompanied by Hymen, the
god of marriage. Hymen officiates at the ceremony and marries Rosalind and
Orlando, Celia and Oliver, Phoebe and Silvius, and Audrey and Touchstone. The
festive wedding celebration is interrupted by even more festive news: while marching
with his army to attack Duke Senior, Duke Frederick came upon a holy man who
convinced him to put aside his worldly concerns and assume a monastic life.
-Frederick changes his ways and returns the throne to Duke Senior. The guests
continue dancing, happy in the knowledge that they will soon return to the royal
court.
Character List
Rosalind - The daughter of Duke Senior. Rosalind, considered one of Shakespeare’s

most delightful heroines, is independent minded, strong-willed, good-hearted, and
terribly clever. Rather than slink off into defeated exile, Rosalind resourcefully uses
her trip to the Forest of Ardenne as an opportunity to take control of her own
destiny. When she disguises herself as Ganymede—a handsome young man—and
offers herself as a tutor in the ways of love to her beloved Orlando, Rosalind’s talents
and charms are on full display. Only Rosalind, for instance, is both aware of the
foolishness of romantic love and delighted to be in love. She teaches those around
her to think, feel, and love better than they have previously, and she ensures that
the courtiers returning from Ardenne are far gentler than those who fled to it.
Orlando - The youngest son of Sir Rowland de Bois and younger brother of Oliver.
Orlando is an attractive young man who, under his brother’s neglectful care, has
languished without a gentleman’s education or training. Regardless, he considers
himself to have great potential, and his victorious battle with Charles proves him
right. Orlando cares for the aging Adam in the Forest of Ardenne and later risks his
life to save Oliver from a hungry lioness, proving himself a proper gentleman. He is a
fitting hero for the play and, though he proves no match for her wit or poetry, the
most obvious romantic match for Rosalind.
Duke Senior - The father of Rosalind and the rightful ruler of the dukedom in which
the play is set. Having been banished by his usurping brother, Frederick, Duke
Senior now lives in exile in the Forest of Ardenne with a number of loyal men,
including Lord Amiens and Jaques. We have the sense that Senior did not put up
much of a fight to keep his dukedom, for he seems to make the most of whatever
life gives him. Content in the forest, where he claims to learn as much from stones
and brooks as he would in a church or library, Duke Senior proves himself to be a
kind and fair-minded ruler.
Jaques - A faithful lord who accompanies Duke Senior into exile in the Forest of
Ardenne. Jaques is an example of a stock figure in Elizabethan comedy, the man
possessed of a hopelessly melancholy disposition. Much like a referee in a football
game, he stands on the sidelines, watching and judging the actions of the other
characters without ever fully participating. Given his inability to participate in life, it
is fitting that Jaques alone refuses to follow Duke Senior and the other courtiers back
to court, and instead resolves to assume a solitary and contemplative life in a
monastery.
Celia - The daughter of Duke Frederick and Rosalind’s dearest friend. Celia’s
devotion to Rosalind is unmatched, as evidenced by her decision to follow her cousin
into exile. To make the trip, Celia assumes the disguise of a simple shepherdess and
calls herself Aliena. As elucidated by her extreme love of Rosalind and her immediate
devotion to Oliver, whom she marries at the end of the play, Celia possesses a loving
heart, but is prone to deep, almost excessive emotions.
Duke Frederick - The brother of Duke Senior and usurper of his throne. Duke
Frederick’s cruel nature and volatile temper are displayed when he banishes his
niece, Rosalind, from court without reason. That Celia, his own daughter, cannot
mitigate his unfounded anger demonstrates the intensity of the duke’s hatefulness.
Frederick mounts an army against his exiled brother but aborts his vengeful mission
after he meets an old religious man on the road to the Forest of Ardenne. He
immediately changes his ways, dedicating himself to a monastic life and returning
the crown to his brother, thus testifying to the ease and elegance with which humans
can sometimes change for the better.
Touchstone - A clown in Duke Frederick’s court who accompanies Rosalind and Celia
in their flight to Ardenne. Although Touchstone’s job, as fool, is to criticize the
behavior and point out the folly of those around him, Touchstone fails to do so with
even a fraction of Rosalind’s grace. Next to his mistress, the clown seems hopelessly
vulgar and narrow-minded. Almost every line he speaks echoes with bawdy
innuendo.
Oliver - The oldest son of Sir Rowland de Bois and sole inheritor of the de Bois
estate. Oliver is a loveless young man who begrudges his brother, Orlando, a
gentleman’s education. He admits to hating Orlando without cause or reason and
goes to great lengths to ensure his brother’s downfall. When Duke Frederick employs
Oliver to find his missing brother, Oliver finds himself living in despair in the Forest
of Ardenne, where Orlando saves his life. This display of undeserved generosity
prompts Oliver to change himself into a better, more loving person. His
transformation is evidenced by his love for the disguised Celia, whom he takes to be
a simple shepherdess.
Silvius - A young, suffering shepherd, who is desperately in love with the disdainful
Phoebe. Conforming to the model of Petrarchan love, Silvius prostrates himself
before a woman who refuses to return his affections. In the end, however, he wins
the object of his desire.
Phoebe - A young shepherdess, who disdains the affections of Silvius. She falls in
love with Ganymede, who is really Rosalind in disguise, but Rosalind tricks Phoebe
into marrying Silvius.
Lord Amiens - A faithful lord who accompanies Duke Senior into exile in the Forest
of Ardenne. Lord Amiens is rather jolly and loves to sing.
Charles - A professional wrestler in Duke Frederick’s court. Charles demonstrates

both his caring nature and his political savvy when he asks Oliver to intercede in his
upcoming fight with Orlando: he does not want to injure the young man and thereby
lose favor among the nobles who support him. Charles’s concern for Orlando proves
unwarranted when Orlando beats him senseless.
Adam - The elderly former servant of Sir Rowland de Bois. Having witnessed
Orlando’s hardships, Adam offers not only to accompany his young master into exile
but to fund their journey with the whole of his modest life’s savings. He is a model of
loyalty and devoted service.
Sir Rowland de Bois - The father of Oliver and Orlando, friend of Duke Senior, and
enemy of Duke Frederick. Upon Sir Rowland’s death, the vast majority of his estate
was handed over to Oliver according to the custom of primogeniture.
Corin - A shepherd. Corin attempts to counsel his friend Silvius in the ways of love,
but Silvius refuses to listen.
Audrey - A simpleminded goatherd who agrees to marry Touchstone.
William - A young country boy who is in love with Audrey.
Macbeth William Shakespeare
Context
timeless.

Shakespeare’s shortest and bloodiest tragedy, Macbeth tells the story of a brave
Scottish general (Macbeth) who receives a prophecy from a trio of sinister witches
that one day he will become king of Scotland. Consumed with ambitious thoughts
and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and seizes the
throne for himself. He begins his reign wracked with guilt and fear and soon becomes
a tyrannical ruler, as he is forced to commit more and more murders to protect
himself from enmity and suspicion. The bloodbath swiftly propels Macbeth and Lady
Macbeth to arrogance, madness, and death.
Macbeth was most likely written in 1606, early in the reign of James I, who had been
James VI of Scotland before he succeeded to the English throne in 1603. James was
a patron of Shakespeare’s acting company, and of all the plays Shakespeare wrote
under James’s reign, Macbeth most clearly reflects the playwright’s close relationship
with the sovereign. In focusing on Macbeth, a figure from Scottish history,
Shakespeare paid homage to his king’s Scottish lineage. Additionally, the witches’
prophecy that Banquo will found a line of kings is a clear nod to James’s family’s
claim to have descended from the historical Banquo. In a larger sense, the theme of
bad versus good kingship, embodied by Macbeth and Duncan, respectively, would
have resonated at the royal court, where James was busy developing his English
version of the theory of divine right.
Macbeth is not Shakespeare’s most complex play, but it is certainly one of his most
powerful and emotionally intense. Whereas Shakespeare’s other major tragedies,
such as Hamlet and Othello, fastidiously explore the intellectual predicaments faced
by their subjects and the fine nuances of their subjects’ characters, Macbeth tumbles
madly from its opening to its conclusion. It is a sharp, jagged sketch of theme and
character; as such, it has shocked and fascinated audiences for nearly four hundred
years.
Summary
The play begins with the brief appearance of a trio of witches and then moves to a
military camp, where the Scottish King Duncan hears the news that his generals,
Macbeth and Banquo, have defeated two separate invading armies—one from
Ireland, led by the rebel Macdonald, and one from Norway. Following their pitched
battle with these enemy forces, Macbeth and Banquo encounter the witches as they
cross a moor. The witches prophesy that Macbeth will be made thane (a rank of
Scottish nobility) of Cawdor and eventually king of Scotland. They also prophesy that
Macbeth’s companion, Banquo, will beget a line of Scottish kings, although Banquo
will never be king himself. The witches vanish, and Macbeth and Banquo treat their
prophecies skeptically until some of King Duncan’s men come to thank the two
generals for their victories in battle and to tell Macbeth that he has indeed been
named thane of Cawdor. The previous thane betrayed Scotland by fighting for the
Norwegians and Duncan has condemned him to death. Macbeth is intrigued by the
possibility that the remainder of the witches’ prophecy—that he will be crowned king
—might be true, but he is uncertain what to expect. He visits with King Duncan, and
they plan to dine together at Inverness, Macbeth’s castle, that night. Macbeth writes
ahead to his wife, Lady Macbeth, telling her all that has happened.
Lady Macbeth suffers none of her husband’s uncertainty. She desires the kingship for
him and wants him to murder Duncan in order to obtain it. When Macbeth arrives at
Inverness, she overrides all of her husband’s objections and persuades him to kill the
king that very night. He and Lady Macbeth plan to get Duncan’s two chamberlains
drunk so they will black out; the next morning they will blame the murder on the
chamberlains, who will be defenseless, as they will remember nothing. While Duncan
is asleep, Macbeth stabs him, despite his doubts and a number of supernatural
portents, including a vision of a bloody dagger. When Duncan’s death is discovered
the next morning, Macbeth kills the chamberlains—ostensibly out of rage at their
crime—and easily assumes the kingship. Duncan’s sons Malcolm and Donalbain flee
to England and Ireland, respectively, fearing that whoever killed Duncan desires their
demise as well.
Fearful of the witches’ prophecy that Banquo’s heirs will seize the throne, Macbeth
hires a group of murderers to kill Banquo and his son Fleance. They ambush Banquo
on his way to a royal feast, but they fail to kill Fleance, who escapes into the night.
Macbeth becomes furious: as long as Fleance is alive, he fears that his power
remains insecure. At the feast that night, Banquo’s ghost visits Macbeth. When he
sees the ghost, Macbeth raves fearfully, startling his guests, who include most of the
great Scottish nobility. Lady Macbeth tries to neutralize the damage, but Macbeth’s
kingship incites increasing resistance from his nobles and subjects. Frightened,
Macbeth goes to visit the witches in their cavern. There, they show him a sequence
of demons and spirits who present him with further prophecies: he must beware of
Macduff, a Scottish nobleman who opposed Macbeth’s accession to the throne; he is
incapable of being harmed by any man born of woman; and he will be safe until
Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane Castle. Macbeth is relieved and feels secure,
because he knows that all men are born of women and that forests cannot move.
When he learns that Macduff has fled to England to join Malcolm, Macbeth orders
that Macduff’s castle be seized and, most cruelly, that Lady Macduff and her children
be murdered.
When news of his family’s execution reaches Macduff in England, he is stricken with
grief and vows revenge. Prince Malcolm, Duncan’s son, has succeeded in raising an
army in England, and Macduff joins him as he rides to Scotland to challenge
Macbeth’s forces. The invasion has the support of the Scottish nobles, who are
appalled and frightened by Macbeth’s tyrannical and murderous behavior. Lady
Macbeth, meanwhile, becomes plagued with fits of sleepwalking in which she
bemoans what she believes to be bloodstains on her hands. Before Macbeth’s
opponents arrive, Macbeth receives news that she has killed herself, causing him to
sink into a deep and pessimistic despair. Nevertheless, he awaits the English and
fortifies Dunsinane, to which he seems to have withdrawn in order to defend himself,
certain that the witches’ prophecies guarantee his invincibility. He is struck numb
with fear, however, when he learns that the English army is advancing on Dunsinane
shielded with boughs cut from Birnam Wood. Birnam Wood is indeed coming to
Dunsinane, fulfilling half of the witches’ prophecy.
In the battle, Macbeth hews violently, but the English forces gradually overwhelm his
army and castle. On the battlefield, Macbeth encounters the vengeful Macduff, who
declares that he was not “of woman born” but was instead “untimely ripped” from his
mother’s womb (what we now call birth by cesarean section). Though he realizes
that he is doomed, Macbeth continues to fight until Macduff kills and beheads him.
Malcolm, now the king of Scotland, declares his benevolent intentions for the country
and invites all to see him crowned at Scone.
Character List
Macbeth - Macbeth is a Scottish general and the thane of Glamis who is led to
wicked thoughts by the prophecies of the three witches, especially after their
prophecy that he will be made thane of Cawdor comes true. Macbeth is a brave
soldier and a powerful man, but he is not a virtuous one. He is easily tempted into
murder to fulfill his ambitions to the throne, and once he commits his first crime and
is crowned king of Scotland, he embarks on further atrocities with increasing ease.
Ultimately, Macbeth proves himself better suited to the battlefield than to political
intrigue, because he lacks the skills necessary to rule without being a tyrant. His
response to every problem is violence and murder. Unlike Shakespeare’s great
villains, such as Iago in Othello and Richard III in Richard III, Macbeth is never
comfortable in his role as a criminal. He is unable to bear the psychological
consequences of his atrocities.
Lady Macbeth - Macbeth’s wife, a deeply ambitious woman who lusts for power and
position. Early in the play she seems to be the stronger and more ruthless of the
two, as she urges her husband to kill Duncan and seize the crown. After the
bloodshed begins, however, Lady Macbeth falls victim to guilt and madness to an
even greater degree than her husband. Her conscience affects her to such an extent
that she eventually commits suicide. Interestingly, she and Macbeth are presented
as being deeply in love, and many of Lady Macbeth’s speeches imply that her
influence over her husband is primarily sexual. Their joint alienation from the world,
occasioned by their partnership in crime, seems to strengthen the attachment that
they feel to each another.
The Three Witches - Three “black and midnight hags” who plot mischief against
Macbeth using charms, spells, and prophecies. Their predictions prompt him to
murder Duncan, to order the deaths of Banquo and his son, and to blindly believe in
his own immortality. The play leaves the witches’ true identity unclear—aside from
the fact that they are servants of Hecate, we know little about their place in the
cosmos. In some ways they resemble the mythological Fates, who impersonally
weave the threads of human destiny. They clearly take a perverse delight in using
their knowledge of the future to toy with and destroy human beings.
Banquo - The brave, noble general whose children, according to the witches’
prophecy, will inherit the Scottish throne. Like Macbeth, Banquo thinks ambitious
thoughts, but he does not translate those thoughts into action. In a sense, Banquo’s
character stands as a rebuke to Macbeth, since he represents the path Macbeth
chose not to take: a path in which ambition need not lead to betrayal and murder.
Appropriately, then, it is Banquo’s ghost—and not Duncan’s—that haunts Macbeth. In
addition to embodying Macbeth’s guilt for killing Banquo, the ghost also reminds
Macbeth that he did not emulate Banquo’s reaction to the witches’ prophecy.
King Duncan - The good king of Scotland whom Macbeth, in his ambition for the
crown, murders. Duncan is the model of a virtuous, benevolent, and farsighted ruler.
His death symbolizes the destruction of an order in Scotland that can be restored
only when Duncan’s line, in the person of Malcolm, once more occupies the throne.
Macduff - A Scottish nobleman hostile to Macbeth’s kingship from the start. He

eventually becomes a leader of the crusade to unseat Macbeth. The crusade’s
mission is to place the rightful king, Malcolm, on the throne, but Macduff also desires
vengeance for Macbeth’s murder of Macduff’s wife and young son.
Malcolm - The son of Duncan, whose restoration to the throne signals Scotland’s
return to order following Macbeth’s reign of terror. Malcolm becomes a serious
challenge to Macbeth with Macduff’s aid (and the support of England). Prior to this,
he appears weak and uncertain of his own power, as when he and Donalbain flee
Scotland after their father’s murder.
Hecate - The goddess of witchcraft, who helps the three witches work their mischief
on Macbeth.
Fleance - Banquo’s son, who survives Macbeth’s attempt to murder him. At the end
of the play, Fleance’s whereabouts are unknown. Presumably, he may come to rule
Scotland, fulfilling the witches’ prophecy that Banquo’s sons will sit on the Scottish
throne.
Lennox - A Scottish nobleman.
Ross - A Scottish nobleman.
The Murderers - A group of ruffians conscripted by Macbeth to murder Banquo,

Fleance (whom they fail to kill), and Macduff’s wife and children.
Porter - The drunken doorman of Macbeth’s castle.
Lady Macduff - Macduff’s wife. The scene in her castle provides our only glimpse of a
domestic realm other than that of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. She and her home
serve as contrasts to Lady Macbeth and the hellish world of Inverness.
Donalbain - Duncan’s son and Malcolm’s younger brother.
Othello William Shakespeare
Context
Ohe most influential writer in all of English literature, William Shakespeare was born
timeless.
Othello was first performed by the King’s Men at the court of King James I on
November 1, 1604. Written during Shakespeare’s great tragic period, which also
included the composition of Hamlet (1600), King Lear (1604–5), Macbeth (1606),
and Antony and Cleopatra (1606–7), Othello is set against the backdrop of the wars
between Venice and Turkey that raged in the latter part of the sixteenth century.
Cyprus, which is the setting for most of the action, was a Venetian outpost attacked
by the Turks in 1570 and conquered the following year. Shakespeare’s information
on the Venetian-Turkish conflict probably derives from The History of the Turks by
Richard Knolles, which was published in England in the autumn of 1603. The story of
Othello is also derived from another source—an Italian prose tale written in 1565 by
Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinzio (usually referred to as Cinthio). The original story
contains the bare bones of Shakespeare’s plot: a Moorish general is deceived by his
ensign into believing his wife is unfaithful. To Cinthio’s story Shakespeare added
supporting characters such as the rich young dupe Roderigo and the outraged and
grief-stricken Brabanzio, Desdemona’s father. Shakespeare compressed the action
into the space of a few days and set it against the backdrop of military conflict. And,
most memorably, he turned the ensign, a minor villain, into the arch-villain Iago.
The question of Othello’s exact race is open to some debate. The word Moor now
refers to the Islamic Arabic inhabitants of North Africa who conquered Spain in the
eighth century, but the term was used rather broadly in the period and was
sometimes applied to Africans from other regions. George Abbott, for example, in his
A Brief Description of the Whole World of 1599, made distinctions between “blackish
Moors” and “black Negroes”; a 1600 translation of John Leo’s The History and
Description of Africa distinguishes “white or tawny Moors” of the Mediterranean coast
of Africa from the “Negroes or black Moors” of the south. Othello’s darkness or
blackness is alluded to many times in the play, but Shakespeare and other
Elizabethans frequently described brunette or darker than average Europeans as
black. The opposition of black and white imagery that runs throughout Othello is
certainly a marker of difference between Othello and his European peers, but the
difference is never quite so racially specific as a modern reader might imagine it to
be.
While Moor characters abound on the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage, none are
given so major or heroic a role as Othello. Perhaps the most vividly stereotypical
black character of the period is Aaron, the villain of Shakespeare’s early play Titus
Andronicus. The antithesis of Othello, Aaron is lecherous, cunning, and vicious; his
final words are: “If one good deed in all my life I did / I do repent it to my very soul”
(Titus Andronicus, V.iii.188–189). Othello, by contrast, is a noble figure of great
authority, respected and admired by the duke and senate of Venice as well as by
those who serve him, such as Cassio, Montano, and Lodovico. Only Iago voices an
explicitly stereotypical view of Othello, depicting him from the beginning as an
animalistic, barbarous, foolish outsider.
Summary
Othello begins on a street in Venice, in the midst of an argument between Roderigo,

a rich man, and Iago. Roderigo has been paying Iago to help him in his suit to
Desdemona. But Roderigo has just learned that Desdemona has married Othello, a
general whom Iago begrudgingly serves as ensign. Iago says he hates Othello, who
recently passed him over for the position of lieutenant in favor of the inexperienced
soldier Michael Cassio.
Unseen, Iago and Roderigo cry out to Brabanzio that his daughter Desdemona has
been stolen by and married to Othello, the Moor. Brabanzio finds that his daughter is
indeed missing, and he gathers some officers to find Othello. Not wanting his hatred
of Othello to be known, Iago leaves Roderigo and hurries back to Othello before
Brabanzio sees him. At Othello’s lodgings, Cassio arrives with an urgent message
from the duke: Othello’s help is needed in the matter of the imminent Turkish
invasion of Cyprus. Not long afterward, Brabanzio arrives with Roderigo and others,
and accuses Othello of stealing his daughter by witchcraft. When he finds out that
Othello is on his way to speak with the duke, -Brabanzio decides to go along and
accuse Othello before the assembled senate.
Brabanzio’s plan backfires. The duke and senate are very sympathetic toward
Othello. Given a chance to speak for himself, Othello explains that he wooed and
won Desdemona not by witchcraft but with the stories of his adventures in travel and
war. The duke finds Othello’s explanation convincing, and Desdemona herself enters
at this point to defend her choice in marriage and to announce to her father that her
allegiance is now to her husband. Brabanzio is frustrated, but acquiesces and allows
the senate meeting to resume. The duke says that Othello must go to Cyprus to aid
in the defense against the Turks, who are headed for the island. Desdemona insists
that she accompany her husband on his trip, and preparations are made for them to
depart that night.
In Cyprus the following day, two gentlemen stand on the shore with Montano, the
governor of Cyprus. A third gentleman arrives and reports that the Turkish fleet has
been wrecked in a storm at sea. Cassio, whose ship did not suffer the same fate,
arrives soon after, followed by a second ship carrying Iago, Roderigo, Desdemona,
and Emilia, Iago’s wife. Once they have landed, Othello’s ship is sighted, and the
group goes to the harbor. As they wait for Othello, Cassio greets Desdemona by
clasping her hand. Watching them, Iago tells the audience that he will use “as little a
web as this” hand-holding to ensnare Cassio (II.i.169).
Othello arrives, greets his wife, and announces that there will be reveling that
evening to celebrate Cyprus’s safety from the Turks. Once everyone has left,
Roderigo complains to Iago that he has no chance of breaking up Othello’s marriage.
Iago assures Roderigo that as soon as Desdemona’s “blood is made dull with the act
of sport,” she will lose interest in Othello and seek sexual satisfaction elsewhere
(II.i.222). However, Iago warns that “elsewhere” will likely be with Cassio. Iago
counsels Roderigo that he should cast Cassio into disgrace by starting a fight with
Cassio at the evening’s revels. In a soliloquy, Iago explains to the audience that
eliminating Cassio is the first crucial step in his plan to ruin Othello. That night, Iago
gets Cassio drunk and then sends Roderigo to start a fight with him. Apparently
provoked by Roderigo, Cassio chases Roderigo across the stage. Governor Montano
attempts to hold Cassio down, and Cassio stabs him. Iago sends Roderigo to raise
alarm in the town.
The alarm is rung, and Othello, who had left earlier with plans to consummate his
marriage, soon arrives to still the commotion. When Othello demands to know who
began the fight, Iago feigns reluctance to implicate his “friend” Cassio, but he
ultimately tells the whole story. Othello then strips Cassio of his rank of lieutenant.
Cassio is extremely upset, and he laments to Iago, once everyone else has gone,
that his reputation has been ruined forever. Iago assures Cassio that he can get back
into Othello’s good graces by using Desdemona as an intermediary. In a soliloquy,
Iago tells us that he will frame Cassio and Desdemona as lovers to make -Othello
jealous.
In an attempt at reconciliation, Cassio sends some musicians to play beneath

Othello’s window. Othello, however, sends his clown to tell the musicians to go away.
Hoping to arrange a meeting with Desdemona, Cassio asks the clown, a peasant who
serves Othello, to send Emilia to him. After the clown departs, Iago passes by and
tells Cassio that he will get Othello out of the way so that Cassio can speak privately
with Desdemona. Othello, Iago, and a gentleman go to examine some of the town’s
fortifications.
Desdemona is quite sympathetic to Cassio’s request and promises that she will do
everything she can to make Othello forgive his former lieutenant. As Cassio is about
to leave, Othello and Iago return. Feeling uneasy, Cassio leaves without talking to
Othello. Othello inquires whether it was Cassio who just parted from his wife, and
Iago, beginning to kindle Othello’s fire of jealousy, replies, “No, sure, I cannot think
it, / That he would steal away so guilty-like, / Seeing your coming” (III.iii.37–39).
Othello becomes upset and moody, and Iago furthers his goal of removing both
Cassio and Othello by suggesting that Cassio and Desdemona are involved in an
affair. Desdemona’s entreaties to Othello to reinstate Cassio as lieutenant add to
Othello’s almost immediate conviction that his wife is unfaithful. After Othello’s
conversation with Iago, Desdemona comes to call Othello to supper and finds him
feeling unwell. She offers him her handkerchief to wrap around his head, but he finds
it to be “[t]oo little” and lets it drop to the floor (III.iii.291). Desdemona and Othello
go to dinner, and Emilia picks up the handkerchief, mentioning to the audience that
Iago has always wanted her to steal it for him.
Iago is ecstatic when Emilia gives him the handkerchief, which he plants in Cassio’s
room as “evidence” of his affair with Desdemona. When Othello demands “ocular
proof” (III.iii.365) that his wife is unfaithful, Iago says that he has seen Cassio “wipe
his beard” (III.iii.444) with Desdemona’s handkerchief—the first gift Othello ever
gave her. Othello vows to take vengeance on his wife and on Cassio, and Iago vows
that he will help him. When Othello sees Desdemona later that evening, he demands
the handkerchief of her, but she tells him that she does not have it with her and
attempts to change the subject by continuing her suit on Cassio’s behalf. This drives
Othello into a further rage, and he storms out. Later, Cassio comes onstage,
wondering about the handkerchief he has just found in his chamber. He is greeted by
Bianca, a prostitute, whom he asks to take the handkerchief and copy its embroidery
for him.
Through Iago’s machinations, Othello becomes so consumed by jealousy that he falls

into a trance and has a fit of epilepsy. As he writhes on the ground, Cassio comes by,
and Iago tells him to come back in a few minutes to talk. Once Othello recovers,
Iago tells him of the meeting he has planned with Cassio. He instructs Othello to hide
nearby and watch as Iago extracts from Cassio the story of his affair with
Desdemona. While Othello stands out of earshot, Iago pumps Cassio for information
about Bianca, causing Cassio to laugh and confirm Othello’s suspicions. Bianca
herself then enters with Desdemona’s handkerchief, reprimanding Cassio for making
her copy out the embroidery of a love token given to him by another woman. When
Desdemona enters with Lodovico and Lodovico subsequently gives Othello a letter
from Venice calling him home and instating Cassio as his replacement, Othello goes
over the edge, striking Desdemona and then storming out.
That night, Othello accuses Desdemona of being a whore. He ignores her

protestations, seconded by Emilia, that she is innocent. Iago assures Desdemona
that Othello is simply upset about matters of state. Later that night, however,
Othello ominously tells Desdemona to wait for him in bed and to send Emilia away.
Meanwhile, Iago assures the still-complaining Roderigo that everything is going as
planned: in order to prevent Desdemona and Othello from leaving, Roderigo must kill
Cassio. Then he will have a clear avenue to his love.
Iago instructs Roderigo to ambush Cassio, but Roderigo misses his mark and Cassio
wounds him instead. Iago wounds Cassio and runs away. When Othello hears
Cassio’s cry, he assumes that Iago has killed Cassio as he said he would. Lodovico
and Graziano enter to see what the commotion is about. Iago enters shortly
thereafter and flies into a pretend rage as he “discovers” Cassio’s assailant Roderigo,
whom he murders. Cassio is taken to have his wound dressed.
Meanwhile, Othello stands over his sleeping wife in their bedchamber, preparing to
kill her. Desdemona wakes and attempts to plead with Othello. She asserts her
innocence, but Othello smothers her. Emilia enters with the news that Roderigo is
dead. Othello asks if Cassio is dead too and is mortified when Emilia says he is not.
After crying out that she has been murdered, Desdemona changes her story before
she dies, claiming that she has committed suicide. Emilia asks Othello what
happened, and Othello tells her that he has killed Desdemona for her infidelity, which
Iago brought to his attention.
Montano, Graziano, and Iago come into the room. Iago attempts to silence Emilia,
who realizes what Iago has done. At first, Othello insists that Iago has told the truth,
citing the handkerchief as evidence. Once Emilia tells him how she found the
handkerchief and gave it to Iago, Othello is crushed and begins to weep. He tries to
kill Iago but is disarmed. Iago kills Emilia and flees, but he is caught by Lodovico and
Montano, who return holding Iago captive. They also bring Cassio, who is now in a
chair because of his wound. Othello wounds Iago and is disarmed. Lodovico tells
Othello that he must come with them back to Venice to be tried. Othello makes a
speech about how he would like to be remembered, then kills himself with a sword
he had hidden on his person. The play closes with a speech by Lodovico. He gives
Othello’s house and goods to Graziano and orders that Iago be executed.
Character List
Othello - The play’s protagonist and hero. A Christian Moor and general of the
armies of Venice, Othello is an eloquent and physically powerful figure, respected by
all those around him. In spite of his elevated status, he is nevertheless easy prey to
insecurities because of his age, his life as a soldier, and his race. He possesses a
“free and open nature,” which his ensign Iago uses to twist his love for his wife,
Desdemona, into a powerful and destructive jealousy (I.iii.381).
Desdemona - The daughter of the Venetian senator Brabanzio. Desdemona and

Othello are secretly married before the play begins. While in many ways
stereotypically pure and meek, Desdemona is also determined and self-possessed.
She is equally capable of defending her marriage, jesting bawdily with Iago, and
responding with dignity to Othello’s incomprehensible jealousy.
Iago - Othello’s ensign (a job also known as an ancient or standard-bearer), and the
villain of the play. Iago is twenty-eight years old. While his ostensible reason for
desiring Othello’s demise is that he has been passed over for promotion to
lieutenant, Iago’s motivations are never very clearly expressed and seem to originate
in an obsessive, almost aesthetic delight in manipulation and destruction.
Michael Cassio - Othello’s lieutenant. Cassio is a young and inexperienced soldier,

whose high position is much resented by Iago. Truly devoted to Othello, Cassio is
extremely ashamed after being implicated in a drunken brawl on Cyprus and losing
his place as lieutenant. Iago uses Cassio’s youth, good looks, and friendship with
Desdemona to play on Othello’s insecurities about Desdemona’s fidelity.
Emilia - Iago’s wife and Desdemona’s attendant. A cynical, worldly woman, she is
deeply attached to her mistress and distrustful of her husband.
Roderigo - A jealous suitor of Desdemona. Young, rich, and foolish, Roderigo is

convinced that if he gives Iago all of his money, Iago will help him win Desdemona’s
hand. Repeatedly frustrated as Othello marries Desdemona and then takes her to
Cyprus, Roderigo is ultimately desperate enough to agree to help Iago kill Cassio
after Iago points out that Cassio is another potential rival for Desdemona.
Bianca - A courtesan, or prostitute, in Cyprus. Bianca’s favorite customer is Cassio,

who teases her with promises of marriage.
Brabanzio - Desdemona’s father, a somewhat blustering and self-important Venetian

senator. As a friend of Othello, Brabanzio feels betrayed when the general marries
his daughter in secret.
Duke of Venice - The official authority in Venice, the duke has great respect for
Othello as a public and military servant. His primary role within the play is to
reconcile Othello and Brabanzio in Act I,
scene iii, and then to send Othello to Cyprus.
Montano - The governor of Cyprus before Othello. We see him first in Act II, as he
recounts the status of the war and awaits the Venetian ships.
Lodovico - One of Brabanzio’s kinsmen, Lodovico acts as a messenger from Venice

to Cyprus. He arrives in Cyprus in Act IV with letters announcing that Othello has
been replaced by Cassio as governor.
Graziano - Brabanzio’s kinsman who accompanies Lodovico to Cyprus. Amidst the

chaos of the final scene, Graziano mentions that Desdemona’s father has died.
Clown - Othello’s servant. Although the clown appears only in two short scenes, his
appearances reflect and distort the action and words of the main plots: his puns on
the word “lie” in Act III, scene iv, for example, anticipate Othello’s confusion of two
meanings of that word in Act IV, scene i.

William Shakespeare

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All’s Well That Ends Well William Shakespeare

In the absence of definitive proof to the contrary, Shakespeare must be viewed as

In Rousillon, everyone is mourning Helena as dead. The King is visiting, and

Countess - The mother of Bertram, the mistress of Rousillon, and Helena's

Parolles - A companion of Bertram, he is a coward, a liar and a braggart, who

Widow - Diana's mother.

Mariana - A woman of Florence.

Hamlet William Shakespeare

In the absence of credible evidence to the contrary, Shakespeare must be viewed as

As the Renaissance spread to other countries in the sixteenth and seventeenth

Gertrude - The Queen of Denmark, Hamlet’s mother, recently married to Claudius.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern - Two slightly bumbling courtiers, former friends of

Voltimand and Cornelius - Courtiers whom Claudius sends to Norway to persuade

Francisco - A soldier and guardsman at Elsinore.

Reynaldo - Polonius’s servant, who is sent to France by Polonius to check up on and

Comedy of Errors William Shakespeare

In the absence of definitive proof to the contrary, Shakespeare must be viewed as

The Comedy of Errors is generally assumed to be one of Shakespeare's early plays,

Egeon, a merchant of Syracuse, is condemned to death in Ephesus for violating the

Dromio of Syracuse - The bumbling, comical slave of Antipholus of Syracuse. He is

Dromio of Ephesus - The bumbling, comical slave of Antipholus of Ephesus. He is

Adriana - The wife of Antipholus of Ephesus, she is a fierce, jealous woman.

Luciana - Adriana's unmarried sister and the object of Antipholus of Syracuse's

Balthasar - A merchant in Syracuse.

Angelo - A goldsmith in Syracuse and a friend to Antipholus of Ephesus.

Merchant - An Ephesian friend of Antipholus of Syracuse.

Second Merchant - A tradesman to whom Angelo is in debt.

Doctor Pinch - A schoolteacher, conjurer, and would-be exorcist.

Courtesan - An expensive prostitute and friend of Antipholus of Ephesus.

Antony and Cleopatra William Shakespeare

In the absence of credible evidence to the contrary, Shakespeare must be viewed as

Enobarbus - Antony’s most loyal supporter. Worldly and cynical, Enobarbus is

Octavia - Octavius Caesar’s sister. Octavia marries Antony in order to cement an

Charmian and Iras - Cleopatra’s faithful attendants.

Proculeius - One of Caesar’s soldiers, who proves untrustworthy.

Diomedes - Cleopatra’s servant. She employs Diomedes to bring to Antony the

Seleucus - Cleopatra’s treasurer, who betrays his master.

Clown - An Egyptian who brings a basket of figs containing poisonous snakes to

Decretas - One of Antony’s soldiers.

Julius Caesar William Shakespeare

In the absence of definitive proof to the contrary, Shakespeare must be viewed as

Shakespeare’s contemporaries, well versed in ancient Greek and Roman history,

Brutus - A supporter of the republic who believes strongly in a government guided

Cassius - A talented general and longtime acquaintance of Caesar. Cassius dislikes

Decius - A member of the conspiracy. Decius convinces Caesar that Calpurnia

Merchant of Venice William Shakespeare

In the absence of credible evidence to the contrary, Shakespeare must be viewed as

Antonio, a Venetian merchant, complains to his friends of a melancholy that he

In Venice, Antonio and Bassanio approach Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, for a

Shylock - A Jewish moneylender in Venice. Angered by his mistreatment at the

Bassanio - A gentleman of Venice, and a kinsman and dear friend to Antonio.

Graziano - A friend of Bassanio’s who accompanies him to Belmont. A coarse and

Lorenzo - A friend of Bassanio and Antonio, Lorenzo is in love with Shylock’s

Lancelot Gobbo - Bassanio’s servant. A comical, clownish figure who is especially

Salerio - A Venetian gentleman, and friend to Antonio, Bassanio, and Lorenzo.

Solanio - A Venetian gentleman, and frequent counterpart to Salerio.

Old Gobbo - Lancelot’s father, also a servant in Venice.

Tubal - A Jew in Venice, and one of Shylock’s friends.

You Like It William Shakespeare

In general, Shakespeare’s As You Like It develops many of the traditional features

Meanwhile, Phoebe becomes increasingly cruel in her rejection of Silvius. When

Rosalind - The daughter of Duke Senior. Rosalind, considered one of Shakespeare’s

Charles - A professional wrestler in Duke Frederick’s court. Charles demonstrates