Amanda's Shakespeare Blog

The cause of Shakespeare's death is a mystery, but an entry in the diary of John Ward, the vicar of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford (where Shakespeare is buried), tells us that "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted." Ward, a self-proclaimed Shakespeare fan, wrote his diary fifty years after Shakespeare died...

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• Shakespeare's Will
  
  
• Famous Last Words: The Quiz
  
  
• Three Vials of Blood and a Sheep's Lungs: Shocking Elizabethan Drama
  
  

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks...

Here is our detailed examination of Shakespeare's Sonnet 130, with annotations, glossary, a paraphrase in contemporary English, and critical analysis - everything a student needs to know about Shakespeare's parody of the traditional Petrarchan sonnet.

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• Sonnet Structure: Shakespeare vs. Petrarch
  
  
• The Marriage of True Minds: A Guide to Sonnet 116
  
  
• Shakespeare's Dark Lady
  
  

What does Shakespeare have to say about growing older and being old? Here is a selection of Shakespearean quotations about old age.

Othello, the story of a valiant Moorish general who falls prey to the devious schemes of Iago, is packed with memorable lines. Here are the most famous of them all.

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• Top 10 Quotations from The Tempest
  
  
• Famous Last Words: The Quiz
  
  
• History of Othello: The First Woman on the Stage
  
  

Lady Macbeth is Shakespeare's most evil feminine creation. Her satanic prayer to the forces of darkness in Act 1 is chilling to modern readers and it would have been absolutely terrifying to Jacobean groundlings watching the horror unfold in Shakespeare's own Globe Theatre. Most critical analysis of Lady Macbeth focuses on her as catalyst for Macbeth's first murder, that of Duncan, and the linear progression of her deteriorating mental state, culminating in her 'sleepwalking scene.' However, the most interesting facet of Lady Macbeth's character is hardly ever explored. Find out what it is in our Macbeth Study Guide, complete with a play overview, character introduction, study questions, soliloquy analysis, student quiz with detailed answers, and line by line annotations.

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• Famous Quotations from Macbeth
  
  
• Hugh Hefner and Macbeth
  
  
• Heebie-jeebies: The Curse of Macbeth
  
  
• Macbeth at the Globe, 20 April 1610
  
  
• Shakespeare, Macbeth, and the Gunpowder Plot

Shakespeare's complex sentence structures and use of now obsolete words lead many students to think they are reading Old or Middle English. In fact, Shakespeare's works are written in Early Modern English. Once you see a text of Old or Middle English you'll really appreciate how easy Shakespeare is to understand (well, relatively speaking)...

Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself,
As I, perchance, hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on,
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
With arms encumber'd thus, or this head-shake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As 'Well, well, we know'; or 'We could, an if we would';
Or 'If we list to speak'; or 'There be, an if they might';
Or such ambiguous giving out, to note
That you know aught of me: this is not to do,
So grace and mercy at your most need help you.
(1.5.187-198)

The following introduction to the many instances of deception in Hamlet will help you plan your own essay on the broader topic of how this important theme relates to the play on the whole.

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• The Revenge Plot of Hamlet
  
  
• The Romance Between Hamlet and Ophelia
  
  
• Fortinbras and the War with Norway
  
  
• Top 10 Quotations from Hamlet
  
  

Could it be the tyrannical, morally vacuous Richard III? Or perhaps the greedy and exceptionally cruel Cornwall? What do you think? Cast your vote here.

Although the idea of the wheel of fortune existed before Boethius, his work was the source on the subject for Chaucer, Dante, Machiavelli, and of course, Shakespeare. Call it what you will - fate, fortune, destiny, providence - here is a collection of Shakespeare's most famous quotations on Lady Fortune's wheel.

There Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb
The crowns o’ the world; oh, eyes sublime
With tears and laughter for all time!
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861), "A Vision of Poets"
More quotes praising the world's most famous dramatist, whose birthday is on April 23.