Macbeth
‘Macbeth’, a tragedy in five acts by William Shakespeare, is considered to be written sometime in 1606–1607. The play is the shortest of Shakespeare’s tragedies, without diversions or subplots. It chronicles Macbeth’s seizing of power and subsequent destruction, both his rise and his fall the result of blind ambition. As a tragedy, ‘Macbeth’ is a […]
Julius Caesar
‘Julius Caesar’ is a tragedy by William Shakespeare first performed in 1599. In the play, Jealous conspirators convince Caesar’s friend Brutus to join their assassination plot against Caesar. To stop Caesar from gaining too much power, Brutus and the conspirators kill him on the Ides of March. Mark Antony drives the conspirators out of Rome […]
Hamlet: Prince of Denmark
The ghost of the King of Denmark tells his son Hamlet to avenge his murder by killing the new king, Hamlet’s uncle. Hamlet feigns madness, contemplates life and death, and seeks revenge. His uncle, fearing for his life, also devises plots to kill Hamlet. The play ends with a duel, during which the King, Queen, […]
Cymbeline
‘Cymbeline’ is a late Shakespeare play where he brings some of his most persistent ideas on to the stage. Appearance and reality in the form of deceit is strong in this play. Cymbeline is the King of Britain. He marries an unpleasant woman who has an arrogant son called Cloten. Cymbeline arranges the marriage of […]
Antony and Cleopatra
‘Antony and Cleopatra’, a tragedy in five acts by William Shakespeare, written in 1606–1607, is considered one of Shakespeare’s richest and most moving works. The principal source of the play was Sir Thomas North’s ‘Parallel Lives’ (1579), an English version of ‘Plutarch’s Bioi parallēloi’. The story concerns Mark Antony, Roman military leader and triumvir, who […]
Oliver Twist
‘Oliver Twist’, in full ‘Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress’, novel by Charles Dickens, published serially under the pseudonym “Boz” from 1837 to 1839 in Bentley’s Miscellany and in a three-volume book in 1838. The novel was the first of the author’s works to realistically depict the impoverished London underworld and to illustrate his […]
A Tale of Two Cities
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” Charles Dickens writes in the opening lines of ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ as he paints a picture of life in England and France. It is 1775, and Mr. Jarvis Lorry is traveling to Dover to meet Lucie Manette. He tells her that […]
A Christmas Carol
Originally published in 1843, Charles Dickens’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ defined and popularized quintessential Christmas tropes while condemning Victorian England’s harsh social division between the rich and the poor. ‘A Christmas Carol’ centers around a businessman named Ebenezer Scrooge, who is renowned for miserly behavior. When the novel opens, it is approaching Christmas, and Scrooge […]
Great Expectations
‘Great Expectations’ follows the childhood and young adult years of Pip, a blacksmith’s apprentice. He suddenly comes into a large fortune (his great expectations) from a mysterious benefactor and moves to London where he enters high society. He thinks he knows where the money has come from, but he turns out to be sadly mistaken. […]
