William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare is one of the greatest personalities of World literature . His plays reflect a huge variety of types situations and epochs , of people and social mediums. This richness of fantasy as well as the belief in man's spiritual beauty are typical for the Renaissance.
The 1st period of his work full of optimism , joy and vividness includes the poems, the sonnets and some of his play 22122m1222w s as: Henry VI , the Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Richard II, Romeo and Juliet, King John, the Merry Wives of Windsor, As you Like it, Iulius Caesar, Love's Labour's Lost, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Much Ado about Nothing, A Midsummer Night's Dream.
The second period is that of Shakespeare's great tragedies, the crowning achievement of his creation: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth,, Timon of Athens. Even the comedies of the period, All's Well that Ends Well, Troliusand and Cressida, Measure for Measure, are cast in tragic atmosphere. The Roman plays, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus Were also written at that time.
During the third period, Shakespeare's pessimism gives way to calm and detachment, which is obvious in the plays: Cymbeline, Winter's Tale, The Tempest, Pericles, Prince of Tyr and Henry VIII.
1.Romeo and Juliet
In Romeo and Juliet there are two main themes- the family feud and the course of true love. The main contrast in the play, that between the two feuding houses-the Capulets and the Montagues is accompanied by the other oppositions between:romance and revenge, youth and age, love and hate.
The decisive events occur rapidly: the heroes meet on Sunday at the feast in the Capulet's ballroom, fall in love at first sight, and are united in marriage by Friar Laurence the very next day. But Romeo kills Tybalt, Juliet's cousin, after trying to settle a quarrel between him and Mercutio. Romeo is banished from Verona and while he is away in Mantua, the Capulets decide to marry their daughter to Paris. Friar Laurence gives Juliet a potion which makes her look dead for a certain time in order to help her avoid the marriage. Not knowing that, Romeo, seeing Juliet's body in the tomb, drinks poison just before she wakes up. Understanding the tragic mistake, Juliet kills herself.
In Romeo and Juliet the mechanism of fate destroy the heroes: the source of tragedy is not inside but outside the tragic characters, who can not do anything to prevent the catastrophe from happening.
The play's ending reveals the authors's concern with the idea of reconciliation achieved only through bloody and intense violence.
The reconciliation of opposites is
present throughout the play: the mature Lady 
Montague and Capulet contrast with Juliet's youth, innocence and
freshness; the Nurse coarse vitality
contrast with Juliet's delicacy; the tender lyricism of lovers is opposed to
the cruel laws of revenge dominating their families. The leitmotiv of day in
night, of light in darkness, is mentined very often in the play. Romeo
associates Juliet with the image of torches when he first sees her and with a
flash of lightning in the tomb. Juliet calls Romeo "day in night".
The play conclusion is the reconciliation of the opposites, of the rival families, of the city itself.
2.TheTragedy of Julius Caesar
The play is a tragedy in which we witness a carefully balanced confrontation between political rivals. Shakespeare, like all humanist playrights placed man and his aspirations in the center of his literary creation. The necessity of ensuring internal unity, internal peace, central state , authority, the idea of justice, of man's happiness, the respect of truth. In this play he portrays a few types of human nature: the patriot (Caesar) the noble character combined with fatal imperfection (Brutus) and tactful and diplomatic character (Antony). While Caesar is godlike, a real hero and patriot, Brutus is a man, deaf to counsel proud, prone to fletery, truly noble but he cannot command a noble revolution. He ruined himself by misunderstanding Caesar's actions.
Anthony's speech is a triumph of oratory. He takes on the hard task of turning the people's minds against what they strongly believe at the beginning. Shakespeare's play are variations on the same theme: "essence and appearance".
Antony's speech is the best example: appearantly Brutus and his men are positive characters, honorable persons and Caesar's true friends.
Essentialy they are wrong-doers. By subtle hints and double-meaning sentences, Antony succced in making the people understand the essense beyond the appeareance. The Romans receive him with feelings of doubt and resentment. In order to win their confidence Antony begins by praising the conspirators. His tactics consist of casting doubt little by little on Brutus's words.
He repeats that Brutus and his men are honorouble men. They said Caesar was ambitious. Against their statement Antony presents Caesar's atitude as he refused three times to be king. He leaves for the Romans to judge and logically deduce that Caesar was not ambitious so he was killed for nothing. Antony stresses that he doesn't want to disprove what Brutus Spoke but to speak what he knows. Antony reminds the Romans that they once loved Caesar for all he had done for them and he urges them to mourn for him. The climax of Antony's speech is Caesar's will. He uses it in order to show the Romans, Caesar's noble character.
He pretends that he doesn't want to read it because they will find out that Caesar loved them and they were his heirs.
The result of his speech is a surprising and total change in people's mind.
They realized Caesar was not ambitious and probably he was killed for no good reason.
Hearing Caesar's will they turned against Brutus and his men considering them troitors and criminals and dashed to punish them.
This drama is written in blank verse. Shakespeare's language is characterized by methaphors rich in meaning.
3.Hamlet
Hamlet is a Blood and Thunder
Tragedy, a kind of theatrical performance which was very popular at the end of
the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century.
The plot is the murder by a person in power of a close relative of the character.
The main character is then faced with the problem of whether or not to seek revenge against a murderer who, by his social importance is out of the reach of ordinary justice.
Revenge personally carried out is viewed from several points of view: the family of the avenger sees it as a duty; the church sees it as a sin; the state sees it as a crime. Having to consider all these aspects, the avenger usually decides in favour of personal action and believes himself the instrument of Divine Justice. This is the main character's chief error: he thinks he is God and tries to transcend his human condition. That is why he himself gets punished in the end.
Hamlet-Summary: The scene is Elsinore Castle in Denmark around the year 1200. Hamlet, prince of Denmark speaks to his dead father's Ghost who tells him that he was murdered by his brother Claudius. In the two months since the murder, Claudius has crowned himself king and has married Hamlet's mother. The Gost demands revenge. But Hamlet is not sure the Ghost is really his father's-what if it is the devil who wants to push him to murder?
He has to find out the truth. First he pretends to be mad so that nobody should be surprised at what he does or says. Then, when a group of actors come to Elsinore Hamlet thinks of a trick: the actors will perform in a play presenting the murder of Hamlet's father by Claudius (a play within a play) Hamlet wants to watch Claudius's reaction. During the performance the king gives himself away by walking out before the end of the play. Now Hamlet is sure.
The Ghost was right. But he has another problem: should he punish murder by another murder? On the same evening, while in his mother's room, Hamlet hears noise behind a curtain. Believing it is Claudius, he stobs into the curtain and kills Polonius, the Lord Chamberlain. Polonius's daughter, Ophelia, who loves Hamlet is so disturbed by the prince's madness and her father's death that she loses her mind and eventually drowns herself in a river. Laertes, her brother, sets upon avenging his father's an his sister's deaths, both caused by Hamlet. In this he is helped by Claudius who wants to get rid of the prince.
He arrangas a duel between Hamlet and Laertes, in which Laertes's rapier is poisoned. He also arranges that a cup of poisoned wine be brought in case Hamlet is thirsty during the duel. As the queen drinks from the wine, she dies.
Aware now of foul play, Hamlet, who has already been wounded and fatally poisoned, exchanges weapons with Laertes, whom he kills. Hamlet also stabs Claudius. The Ghost has been avenged.
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