David Alberts, Ph.D.
eNotes Educator
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1098
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About
Educator, author, playwright, and theatre professional. Dr. Alberts has been an actor, theatre director, and producer, a high school music and drama teacher, and college theatre professor. He's a published playwright, and he's written several articles and five books on theatre-related subjects.
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Recent Activity
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Answered a Question in The Merchant of Venice
Gratiano does quite a lot of talking in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, and he often talks at great length, so we have plenty to choose from in terms of which one of his friends belittles... -
Answered a Question in Pygmalion
Henry Higgins isn't quite the misogynist we think he is. Neither is George Bernard Shaw, the writer of Pygmalion, even though Higgins seems at times to be speaking with Shaw's voice. Shaw was a... -
Answered a Question in A Shropshire Lad
A Shropshire Lad by Alfred Edward (A. E.) Housman (1859-1936) is a collection of sixty-three poems first published in England in 1896. Most of the poems in the collection were written around 1895,... -
Answered a Question in The Merchant of Venice
The title of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice refers to Antonio, the protagonist in the play, who is a well-regarded Venetian merchant. Interestingly, unlike the titles of Shakespeare's... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
Banquo speaks these lines in Shakespeare's Macbeth in act 1, scene 3. Let's look at the context of these lines. Banquo and Macbeth enter the scene after a fierce battle in which Macbeth fought... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
At the beginning of act 3, scene 2 in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Juliet is waiting for Romeo to come to her so they can spend their first night together as husband and wife. Juliet has sent... -
Answered a Question in The Merchant of Venice
In Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Portia devises a plan to help her husband's friend, Antonio (who is the "merchant" in the title of the play), escape the fate of having a "pound of flesh"... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
To set the stage for act 3, scene 4 of Shakespeare's Macbeth, Macbeth has murdered King Duncan and taken the throne. Duncan's sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, have fled the country, which lessens... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
Shakespeare's Hamlet is about many things, including murder (intentional and accidental), revenge, friendship, betrayal, romantic love, familial love, books, a suicide (or not), pirates, an... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
These lines are spoken by Helena at the end of the first scene of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. At the beginning of the play, Helena is in love with Demetrius—who once wooed her—but he... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
As the are examples in other answers regarding fear and pity in the play, I will focus my answer on the issue of hatred in Macbeth. Other than Macduff's hatred for Macbeth for killing his family,... -
Answered a Question in The Tempest
Magic, illusions, mistaken identities, ghosts, an imaginary banquet, and all manner of deceptions are found in Shakespeare's The Tempest. Gonzalo put it succinctly towards the end of the play:... -
Answered a Question in She Stoops to Conquer
If for no other reason, Kate Hardcastle in Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer is the most important character in the play because she is the titular "She" (who "stoops to conquer"). A young... -
Answered a Question in Twelve Angry Men
In Twelve Angry Men, by Reginald Rose, the eighteen-year-old defendant has been charged with "murder in the first degree . . . premeditated homicide" for allegedly killing his father with a knife.... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
Macbeth speaks these lines in Shakespeare's Macbeth at act 2, scene 3. In exploring the meaning of these lines, it helps to look at the lines in the context of the play itself, and in the context... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
In the first scene of Shakespeare's Macbeth, we see that the Witches are planning to meet with Macbeth, "When the hurlyburly's done; When the battle's lost and won" (1.1.3–4). They give no... -
Answered a Question in Tartuffe
The first version of Tartuffe, by Jean Baptiste Poquelin, better known as Moliere, was performed at the Palace of Versailles in 1664, during the reign of King Louis XIV of France, who promptly... -
Answered a Question in King Lear
The concept of "The Hero's Journey" was explored by scholar and mythologist Joseph Campbell in his 1949 book, The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Campbell summarizes the essential myth of the hero in... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
Act 2 of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a treasure trove of foreshadowing. It's as if Shakespeare couldn't resist telling us what's going to happen to the star-crossed lovers so that we... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
Violence involving characters in Macbeth occurs even before the play begins. In the second scene of the play, the Sergeant tells King Duncan about Macbeth's bravery in battle and how he cut... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
A theme is the central idea (or ideas) of a play. The theme of a play is the reason for the characters' motivations, actions, and interactions with other characters during the play. Major themes... -
Answered a Question in Henry V
But if it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul alive. [Henry, in Henry V, 4.3.31-32] Honor is of the utmost importance to King Henry V in Shakespeare's Henry V. Henry views honor... -
Answered a Question in Oedipus Rex
A play is composed of three parts: plot, character, and theme. The theme of a play, particularly of a Greek tragic play like Sophocles's Oedipus Rex, explores fundamental, universal ideas that can... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
At the beginning of act 1, scene 3 of Macbeth, the "Weird Sisters" (the three witches) are gathering to meet Macbeth, which is something they arranged in the first scene of the play: FIRST WITCH:... -
Answered a Question in The Taming of the Shrew
In the 1967 movie version of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew (directed by Franco Zeffirelli and starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor), Katherine—played by Elizabeth Taylor—throws a... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
In Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet, Romeo goes on an emotional journey from a shallow, irresponsible, love-struck teenager to a more mature, deeply passionate, and compassionate young man.... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
Lady Capulet speaks the line "I would the fool were married to her grave" [3.5.143] after she has an argument with Juliet because Juliet refuses to marry Paris. LADY CAPULET: Marry, my child, early... -
Answered a Question in Killers of the Flower Moon
On the first page of Chapter 1, "The Vanishing," in Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, author David Gann explains the story behind the title of the book. In... -
Answered a Question in Othello
Consistent with the attitude towards women prevalent in Elizabethan England at the time Othello was written, Cassio and Iago's treatment of women is purely sexist. Cassio views women either as... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
"Enough: hold or cut bowstrings" is the last line in act 1, scene 2 of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1.2.101). To understand the meaning of the line, let's look at its context within the... -
Answered a Question in Othello
I hate the Moor. (Iago in Othello, 1.3.379) Iago alone sets in motion the events in Shakespeare's Othello which ultimately lead to tragic consequences for all of the major characters in the play.... -
Answered a Question in A Christmas Carol
In Stave Two of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, the Ghost of Christmas Past is the first of three Spirits who appeared to Scrooge, as was foretold to him by Marley's Ghost earlier in the... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
Macbeth undoubtedly has a conscience. Throughout Shakespeare's play, Macbeth's conscience is in continual conflict with his political ambitions. Conscience is often confused with guilt. Macbeth has... -
Answered a Question in Julius Caesar
Even though Cassius's greatest loyalty is unquestionably to himself, he does extend loyalty to other characters during the course of the play. At a time prior to the events of Shakespeare's Julius... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
Let's look at the issue of Shakespeare's subverting of gender and power roles from the perspective that when Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, around the time that James I assumed the throne of England in... -
Answered a Question in The Eagle of the Ninth
The Eagle of the Ninth (Book One of the Eagle of the Ninth Trilogy, by Rosemary Suttcliff) is a historical novel set in Roman Britain during the early Republic: Sometime about A.D. 117, the Ninth... -
Answered a Question in Caryl Churchill
In The Skriker, playwright Caryl Churchill combines narrative text with dance and pantomime to create a mysteriously magical play that incorporates many of the elements associated with performance... -
Answered a Question in A Streetcar Named Desire
In addition to the themes of fantasy vs. reality, the destruction of the Old South, and the conflict between old and new in general (along with other themes discussed in the other answers to this... -
Answered a Question in Antigone
Aristotle writes in Poetics, Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the... -
Answered a Question in Oedipus Rex
According to Greek mythology, Oedipus freed the people of Thebes from a devastating plague by solving the riddle of the Sphinx. In gratitude, the people of Thebes made Oedipus their king and... -
Answered a Question in 20,000 Leagues under the Sea
In Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, Captain Nemo's submarine, the Nautilus, is pursued by an expeditionary force aboard the Abraham Lincoln, a US Navy frigate powered by a... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
Act 1, xcene 5 is the famous "Ghost Scene" in Hamlet, when the ghost of Hamlet's father, the former King of Denmark, appears to Hamlet to tell him the truth about his death (Hamlet's uncle,... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
Our best educated guess is that Macbeth was written between 1603-1606. Although some Shakespeare scholars believe that Macbeth was written as early as 1599, the circumstances surrounding the...
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