"the first person as if spoken by Quince. The character also inspired the name of Commander Peter Quincy Taggart in the 1999 film ""Galaxy Quest"". Peter Quince Peter Quince is a character in William Shakespeare's ""A Midsummer Night's Dream"". He is one of the six mechanicals of Athens who perform the play which Quince himself authored, ""The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe"" for the Duke Theseus and his wife Hippolyta at their wedding. Titania's Fairies also watch from a distance: Moth, Peaseblossom, Cobweb and Mustardseed. His name is derived from ""quines"" or ""quoins"", which"
"would erect to this supremacy."" The play offers an alternative to the feudal-Machiavellian polarity, an alternative foreshadowed in France's speech (I.1.245–256), in Lear and Gloucester's prayers (III.4. 28–36; IV.1.61–66), and in the figure of Cordelia. Until the decent society is achieved, we are meant to take as role-model (though qualified by Shakespearean ironies) Edgar, ""the machiavel of goodness"", endurance, courage and ""ripeness"". The play also contains references to disputes between King James I and Parliament. In the 1604 elections to the House of Commons, Sir John Fortescue, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was defeated by a member of the Buckinghamshire"
"upper-class. While mocking a pedantic schoolmaster, Costard uses the word ""honorificabilitudinitatibus"", the longest word by far from any of Shakespeare's works. Costard makes many clever puns, and is used as a tool by Shakespeare to explain new words such as ""remuneration"". He is sometimes considered one of the smartest characters in the play due to his wit and wordplay. Costard's name is an archaic term for apple, or metaphorically a man's head. Shakespeare uses the word in this sense in ""Richard III"". Costard Costard is a comic figure in the play ""Love's Labour's Lost"" by William Shakespeare. A country bumpkin,"
"a play within a play, a dramatic device used frequently by Shakespeare; the drama piece has echoes of ""Anthony and Cleopatra"" and the players mention the ""Ides of June"", a reference to the Ides of March in ""Julius Caesar"". Born to Be King (Blackadder) ""Born to Be King"" is the second episode of ""The Black Adder"", the first series of the BBC sitcom ""Blackadder"". Set in late 15th-century England, the episode takes a humorous look at rivalries with the Kingdom of Scotland and centres the dramatic tension on the doubts cast over parentage of the lead character, Prince Edmund, Duke"
"first time, and identifies Maid Marian with 'one of the semi-mythical Matildas persecuted by King John'. The plays are complex in plot and form, the story of Robin Hood appearing as a play-within-a-play presented at the court of Henry VIII and written by the poet, priest and courtier John Skelton. Skelton himself is presented in the play as acting the part of Friar Tuck. Some scholars have conjectured that Skelton may have indeed written a lost Robin Hood play for Henry VIII's court, and that this play may have been one of Munday's sources. Henry VIII himself with eleven of"
"Young Siward Young Siward is a character in William Shakespeare’s play ""Macbeth"" (1606). He is the son of Siward, general of the English forces in the battle against Macbeth. Macbeth kills him in the final battle, shortly before his swordfight with Lord Macduff. He is based on the real-life historical figure of Osbeorn Bulax. He first appears in scene 5.2, as the English forces join with the Scottish. Lennox refers to him as one of many “unrough youths” who “protest their first of manhood.” If he is an “unrough” youth, then he is too young to grow a beard and"
"the cast featured Tim Blake Nelson as Will Shakspere [sic], Mary Louise Wilson as Queen Elizabeth, Kate Jennings Grant as wife Anne Hathaway and Mark Harelik as Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford (Harelik was in the South Coast Rep production also). The play was nominated for the 2004 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Play, and Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play, Mary Louise Wilson. The play is described by critic Robert Brustein as a ""lusty antidote to all forms of Bardolatry, including the perverse and benighted kind that considers the bard a beard"". He describes it as ""an extended"
"comedies or his romance plays, and extended into his histories as well. The character portrayed by Falstaff in the Henriad, or plays dealing with Henry IV, is representative of Shakespeare's exemplary use of the comic type of character in his history plays. Several of Shakespeare's comedies, such as ""Measure for Measure"" and ""All's Well That Ends Well,"" have an unusual tone with a difficult mix of humour and tragedy which has led them to be classified as problem plays. It is not clear whether the uneven nature of these dramas is due to an imperfect understanding of Elizabethan humour and"
"(3.3). Since Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are characters from ""Hamlet"" itself, Stoppard's entire play can be considered a piece of metatheatre. Bernardina da Silveira Pinheiro observes that Stoppard uses metatheatrical devices to produce a ""parody"" of the key elements of Shakespeare's ""Hamlet"" that includes foregrounding two minor characters considered ""nonentities"" in the original tragedy. The play had its first incarnation as a 1964 one-act titled ""Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear"". The expanded version under the current title was first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on 24 August 1966, by the Oxford Theatre Group. The play debuted in London with"
"Costard Costard is a comic figure in the play ""Love's Labour's Lost"" by William Shakespeare. A country bumpkin, he is arrested in the first scene for flouting the king's proclamation that all men of the court avoid the company of women for three years. While in custody, the men of the court use him to further their own romantic endeavors. By sending love notes to the wrong women and blurting out secrets (including that of an unplanned pregnancy), Costard makes fools of the royal court. Along with Moth the page and Jaquenetta, a country wench, Costard pokes fun at the"
"needs"" of a humanity to which the operations of a Commodity-driven society perpetually do violence. This ""new"" thing that Shakespeare discovers is embodied in Cordelia. The play thus offers an alternative to the feudal-Machiavellian polarity, an alternative foreshadowed in France’s speech (I.1.245–256), in Lear and Gloucester's prayers (III.4. 28–36; IV.1.61–66), and in the figure of Cordelia. Cordelia, in the allegorical scheme, is threefold: a person; an ethical principle (love); and a community. Until that decent society is achieved, we are meant to take as role-model Edgar, the Machiavel of patience, of courage and of ""ripeness"". After ""King Lear"" Shakespeare’s view"
"much, but think the more"" (4.1.85) and ""Not I, my thoughts aim at a further matter:/I stay not for love of Edward but the crown"" (141.124–125); Warwick's ""O unbid spite, is sportful Edward come"" (5.1.18); the entirety of Richard's soliloquy in Act 5, Scene 6, after killing Henry (ll.61–93) and Richard's ""To say the truth, so Judas kissed his master/And cried 'All hail', whenas he meant all harm"" (5.7.33–34). The play also featured in ITV's ""Will Shakespeare"", a 1978 six-part (heavily fictionalised) biopic of Shakespeare (Tim Curry), written by John Mortimer. Episode one, ""Dead Shepherd"", focuses on Shakespeare's apprenticeship to"
"All three continual councillors (referred to as ""caterpillars"") feature in Shakespeare's historical play ""King Richard II"", generally listed as ""Bushy, Baghot and Green"". Green also appears in the anonymous Elizabethan play ""Thomas of Woodstock"". He married Maud (or Matilda) Mauduit, daughter and heiress of Thomas Mauduit, by whom he had several children, including; Henry Green (politician, died 1399) Sir Henry Green ( 1347 – 1399) was a courtier and councillor to Richard II. Born in Northamptonshire, he was the son of Sir Henry Green, a lawyer and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, by his second marriage to Katherine Drayton,"
"one of the company's boys, doubling the role of Cordelia. Only one specific performance of the play during Shakespeare's lifetime is known: before the court of King James I at Whitehall on 26 December 1606. Its original performances would have been at The Globe, where there were no sets in the modern sense, and characters would have signified their roles visually with props and costumes: Lear's costume, for example, would have changed in the course of the play as his status diminished: commencing in crown and regalia; then as a huntsman; raging bareheaded in the storm scene; and finally crowned"
"Macbeth Macbeth (; full title The Tragedy of Macbeth) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare; it is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake. Of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of James I, who was patron of Shakespeare's acting company, ""Macbeth"" most clearly reflects the playwright's relationship with his sovereign. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book, and is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy. A brave Scottish general named Macbeth"
"Theatre Company co-production in the Sydney Opera House Playhouse Theatre 2018. The Misanthrope The Misanthrope, or the Cantankerous Lover (; ) is a 17th-century comedy of manners in verse written by Molière. It was first performed on 4 June 1666 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, Paris by the King's Players. The play satirizes the hypocrisies of French aristocratic society, but it also engages a more serious tone when pointing out the flaws which all humans possess. The play differs from other farces at the time by employing dynamic characters like Alceste and Célimène as opposed to the traditionally flat characters"
"other Shakespeare plays are to The Oxford Shakespeare ""Complete Works of Shakespeare"" edited by Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor. Macbeth Macbeth (; full title The Tragedy of Macbeth) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare; it is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake. Of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of James I, who was patron of Shakespeare's acting company, ""Macbeth"" most clearly reflects the playwright's relationship with his sovereign. It was first published in the"
"The Scottish Play The Scottish Play and The Bard's Play are euphemisms for William Shakespeare's ""Macbeth"". The first is a reference to the play's Scottish setting, the second a reference to Shakespeare's popular nickname. According to a theatrical superstition, called the ""Scottish curse"", speaking the name ""Macbeth"" inside a theatre will cause disaster. A variation of the superstition also forbids quoting it within a theatre except as part of an actual rehearsal or performance of the play. Because of this superstition, the lead character is most often referred to as the ""Scottish King"" or ""Scottish Lord"". Lady Macbeth is often"
"Macduff's son Macduff's son is a character in William Shakespeare's tragedy ""Macbeth"" (1606). His name and age are not established in the text, however he is estimated to be 7–10 years of age, and is often named as Andrew, for ease. He follows Shakespeare's typical child character; cute and clever. While Lady Macduff and her children are mentioned in ""Holinshed's Chronicles"" as the innocent victims of Macbeth's cruelty, Shakespeare is completely responsible for developing Macduff's son as a character. The boy appears in only one scene (4.2), in which he briefly banters with his mother and is then murdered by"
"William Charles Macready played Prospero in 1821, 1824, and again in 1833, but he did so unhappily. Later he described the acting version he was forced to use as a ""melange that was called Shakespeare's Tempest, with songs interpolated by Reynolds among the mutilations and barbarous ingraftings of Dryden and Davenant."" Macready found the performances tedious and lamented that his role was a ""stupid old proser of commonplace which the acted piece calls Prospero."" It is not surprising then that when in 1838 Macready revived the Tempest as Shakespeare had originally conceived it, the new production confirmed the romantic critics'"
"Without Mustard"". This has been construed by some critics as a reference to William Shakespeare’s recently acquired coat of arms with its gold color, and its supposed motto, ""Non Sans Droit"", which translates as ""Not Without Right"". When the play was reprinted in Jonson's folio collection of 1616, a cast list of the original 1599 production was included. From this, it is known that the leading players were Richard Burbage, John Heminges, Henry Condell, Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope, and William Sly. Shakespeare was not part of the production, though he had played in ""Every Man in His Humour"" the year"
"Midsummer Mischief Midsummer Mischief is a series of four plays performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place and the Royal Court Theatre in 2014. It was initiated with regard to the ""Roaring Girls"" season at the Swan Theatre in the same year. The playwrights Timberlake Wertenbaker, Alice Birch, E. V. Crowe, and Abi Zakarian were asked to write one play each, answering Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's provocation: ""Well-behaved women seldom make history."" The four resulting plays are ""The Ant and the Cicada"", ""Revolt. She Said. Revolt again."", ""I Can Hear You"", and ""This is Not an Exit"". The"
"he could have stopped the series of events that has brought him to this point. He disappears as well. The final scene features the last few lines from Shakespeare's ""Hamlet"", as the Ambassador from England announces that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Metatheatre is a central structural element of ""Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead"". Scenes that are staged as plays, dumb shows, or commentaries on dramatic theory and practice, are prominent in both Stoppard's play and Shakespeare's original tragedy ""Hamlet"". In ""Hamlet"", metatheatrical elements include the Player's speech (2.2), Hamlet's advice to the Players (3.2), and the meta-play ""The Mousetrap"""
"famous writ. ""Sowed cockle, reap'd no corn,"" a line by William Shakespeare penned in 1594 in ""Love's Labour's Lost"", Act IV, Scene 3, most certainly has reference to blighted wheat caused by the plant parasite, ""Anguina tritici"". Needham (1743) solved the ""riddle of cockle"" when he crushed one of the diseased wheat grains and observed ""Aquatic Animals...denominated Worms, Eels, or Serpents, which they very much resemble."" It is likely that few or no other recorded observations of plant parasitic nematodes or their effects are to be found in ancient literature. From 1750 to the early 1900s, nematology research continued to"
"play is based on various accounts of the semi-legendary Brythonic figure Leir of Britain, whose name has been linked by some scholars to the Brythonic god Lir/Llŷr, though in actuality the names are not etymologically related. Shakespeare's most important source is probably the second edition of ""The Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande"" by Raphael Holinshed, published in 1587. Holinshed himself found the story in the earlier ""Historia Regum Britanniae"" by Geoffrey of Monmouth, which was written in the 12th century. Edmund Spenser's ""The Faerie Queene"", published 1590, also contains a character named Cordelia, who also dies from hanging, as"
"seven years; and he is ready to leave the ""Skittish Jade, and have money to boot."" Learcut offers his daughter's hand to Hazard, and Hazard is taken with her enough to accept, thus making an ""honest woman"" of her. He also vows to abandon his ""wild follies and debaucheries"" for a settled and normal life. The Mistaken Husband The Mistaken Husband is a Restoration comedy in the canon of John Dryden's dramatic works, where it has constituted a long-standing authorship problem. The play was first produced on stage by the King's Company at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1674,"
"is absent from the tale; it is instead the merchant who has the nighttime appointment with Death in Samarra after being startled to see Death that morning in the Baghdad market. Sheppey (play) Sheppey (1933) was William Somerset Maugham's last play, written at the age of 59 and after he had reached distinction as a novelist and playwright. Maugham dedicated the book to Sir John Gielgud. It is the story about the change of fortune of hairdresser Joseph Miller who was born on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent and nicknamed ""Sheppey"". The play is set in the 1930s. Sheppey, a"
"Lady Macbeth’s reference to her having had a child (which, historically, she did - from a previous marriage, having remarried Macbeth after being widowed.) Written in blank verse, the play was published to critical acclaim. Alex Kingston starred as Lady Macbeth opposite Kenneth Branagh in his and Rob Ashford's adaption of ""Macbeth"". The play was first performed at the Manchester Festival in 2013 and then transferred to New York for a limited engagement in 2014. Marion Cotillard played the character in Justin Kurzel's 2015 film adaptation opposite Michael Fassbender. Lady Macbeth Lady Macbeth is a leading character in William Shakespeare's"
"could be an effective comedic device and he inserted it into his line ""I have a plan"" as Baldrick conspires with Edmund to escape from the dungeon. Although the credits give recognition to William Shakespeare, unlike previous episodes in this series, the script of ""Witchsmeller Pursuivant"" does not contain any direct references to Shakespeare's plays. Witchsmeller Pursuivant ""Witchsmeller Pursuivant"" is the fifth episode of the first series of the BBC sitcom ""Blackadder"" (""The Black Adder""). It is set in England in the late 15th century and centres on the fictitious Prince Edmund, who finds himself falsely accused of witchcraft by"
"a play by William Shakespeare, while some are named after characters from ""Robinson Crusoe"", ""Moby Dick"" and others after general nautical or island-based literature. The name of Beatrice, Snicket's dedicatee, may be an allusion to the poem ""La Beatrice"" by Charles Baudelaire. The poem references an ""actor without a job,"" like the actor Count Olaf. The poem also begins with the line ""In a burnt, ash-grey land without vegetation,"" similar to the Baudelaire mansion burning down at the beginning of the series. The name Beatrice could also be an allusion to Italian poet Dante. Dante dedicated all of his works"
"was then sent to an English monastery where he later died. Due to these clear parallels the choice of Edmund and Edgar as names may have been a nod by Shakespeare to the continued story of the Scottish throne following the events of Macbeth. Gloucester's younger, illegitimate son is an opportunistic, short-sighted character whose ambitions lead him to form a union with Goneril and Regan. The injustice of Edmund's situation fails to justify his subsequent actions, although at the opening of the play when Gloucester explains Edmund's illegitimacy (in his hearing) to Kent, with coarse jokes, the audience can initially"
"Sleepwalking scene The sleepwalking scene is a critically celebrated scene from William Shakespeare's tragedy ""Macbeth"" (1606). The first scene in the tragedy's 5th act, the sleepwalking scene is written principally in prose, and follows the guilt-wracked, sleepwalking Lady Macbeth as she recollects horrific images and impressions from her past. The scene is Lady Macbeth's last on-stage appearance, though her death is reported later in the act. Well known phrases from the scene include ""Out, damned spot!"" and ""All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand."" The British tragedienne Sarah Siddons (1755 - 1831) was distinguished for her"
"Ned Poins Edward ""Ned"" Poins, generally referred to as ""Poins"", is a fictional character who appears in two plays by Shakespeare, ""Henry IV, Part 1"" and ""Henry IV, Part 2"". He is also mentioned in ""The Merry Wives of Windsor"". Poins is Prince Hal's closest friend during his wild youth. He devises various schemes to ridicule Falstaff, his rival for Hal's affections. Unlike Hal's other principal low-life associates, who all either reappear or are mentioned in ""Henry V"", Poins disappears from the narrative with no explanation. Poins appears early in ""Henry IV, Part I"" to inform Falstaff that at Gads"