Month: October 2022

“Now my charms are all o’erthrown” (The Tempest) Ariel tells Prospero that the day has reached its “sixth hour” (6 p.m.), when Ariel is allowed to stop working. Prospero acknowledges Ariel’s request and asks how the king and his followers are faring. Ariel tells him that they are currently imprisoned, as Prospero ordered, in a […]

‘If We Shadows Have Offended’ (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) is the opening line of Puck’s closing speech from ‘The Dream’. In summary, the speech sees Puck (also known as Robin Goodfellow) seeking forgiveness from the audience if the fairies (including Puck himself) have ‘offended’ any of the audience with their antics. In other words: ‘If […]

“Our revels now are ended” (The Tempest) The Tempest is one of Shakespeare’s most enchanting and enchanted plays: a fantasy or ‘romance’ featuring a magician, the ‘monstrous’ offspring of a wicked witch, fairies, a lavish masque, drunken conspirators, young lovers, and much else. It is one of Shakespeare’s late plays that he wrote alone. In […]

“Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen” (Henry V). The Chorus enters and ends the play, explaining that the events on the stage were mightier than could be actually portrayed. Henry and Katharine did produce a son, Henry the Sixth, whose story is told in other plays. The epilogue is written in the form of […]

“A glooming peace this morning with it brings.” (Romeo and Juliet) The epilogue to Romeo and Juliet is spoken by Prince Escalus at the very end of the play. After the bodies of Romeo and Juliet have been discovered, Friar Laurence makes a full confession explaining the series of events. Lord Montague and Lord Capulet […]

“It is not the fashion to see the lady the Epilogue” (As You Like It) Another example of Shakespeare writing for women and indeed allowing them to take the place usually reserved for men. This being said, of course the women characters were in Shakespeare’s day played by men, because it was illegal for women […]

“Could great men thunder…” (Measure for Measure). I was reminded of this monologue by Isabella a few days ago when the prospect of Boris Johnson returning top No.10 loomed large. Having now seen the cabinet that Rishi Sunak has assembled around him, these words came back to me just as strongly. Isabella believes that men […]

“What’s he that wishes so” (Henry V) This is better known as the ‘St Crispin’s Day’ speech and is one of the most famous speeches in all of Shakespeare. Henry V is a history play written in around 1599 and detailing the English king’s wars with France during the Hundred Years War (1337-1453). Henry V […]

‘Two households, both alike in dignity’ (Romeo and Juliet) So begins the Prologue to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The Prologue tells us the setting of the play: we are to be transported to the beautiful (‘fair’) Italian city of Verona, where the ensuing action takes place. There, a long-standing feud between two well-respected households or […]

‘Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand?’ (Macbeth) This scene is often staged, and filmed, with the dagger suspended in mid-air. But this makes the implied boundary between the real and the hallucinatory too clear-cut: as numerous critics have pointed out, the point is that Macbeth believes […]