Recent Activity

• Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet

  A playwright creates dramatic irony when there is some bit of knowledge that the audience is given but that is unknown to one or more...

• Answered a Question in Twelfth Night

  It’s impossible to say for sure what Shakespeare’s intention was in writing the play. He didn’t say, at least not to anyone who wrote...

• Answered a Question in Hamlet

  For much of the play Hamlet is terrified of dying, or maybe more accurately terrified of what may happen after death. “No traveler...

• Answered a Question in Hamlet

  Most of the events in “Hamlet” are triggered by Claudius’s ambition; when we first see him in Act 1, scene 2, his ambition seems to...

• Answered a Question in Hamlet

  Is Hamlet being misled by illusions? No one wants an answer to this more than Hamlet himself: he knows that there’s a good chance that...

• Answered a Question in Julius Caesar

  Apostrophe is a literary device in which the writer or speaker addresses someone or something imaginary, either something that is not...

• Answered a Question in Hamlet

  Cornelius and Voltemand are Danish ambassadors who are sent in Act 1 scene 2 on a diplomatic mission to the King of Norway. The King...

• Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet

  Many people, upon being told they’ll have to read a Shakespeare play, fear they won’t understand it because it’s in Old English. In...

• Answered a Question in Othello

  Excellent question. What is driving Iago, anyway? He is full of explanations and motivations, and yet few of them make much sense and...

• Answered a Question in As You Like It

  It’s important to remember that when reading a play the ideas and thoughts of the characters aren’t necessarily the playwright’s own....