Act 1, Scene 1 Antony and Cleopatra begins in Cleopatra’s palace in Alexandria. Demetrius and Philo, two of Antony’s veteran soldiers, complain that Antony’s infatuation with Cleopatra has had a bad effect on his qualities as a general. They see him as a great warrior transformed by his passion into a harlot’s slave. Antony enters…
Tag: The United Kingdom
All’s Well That Ends Well – Themes
Critical interpretation of All’s Well That Ends Well often hinges on whether the critic believes the play lives up to its title. The widespread belief that it does not has led to its reputation as a problem play, or rather, a comedy with strings attached. Shakespeare, who was by all accounts an astute observer of…
All’s Well That Ends Well – Analysis
Marriage is a central element in the construct of Renaissance comedy. In the Shakespearean canon, a number of the comedies include marriages, placing them (or implying that they impend) close to or at the plays’ ends as a reaffirmation, restoration and promise for the continuation of society. Other comedies deal with married women as in…
The Lamb by William Blake – Analysis
It is easy to dismiss “The Lamb” as a sentimental or naive poem. Simple in its structure and vocabulary, it leaves no difficulties of interpretation. Unlike some of the Songs of Innocence, it does not force the reader to consider ironies or ambiguities involved in the state of innocence. The only question the child speaker…
The Lamb by William Blake – Poetic Devices – Setting
“The Lamb” consists of two ten-line stanzas which pose a question and give an answer. Each stanza has five pairs of rhyming couplets, where the end word of one line rhymes with the next. Note that Blake often repeats a word to create this rhyme, creating a type of refrain, and twice employs the slant…
The Lamb by William Blake – Themes
Innocence When Blake published Songs of Innocence and of Experience in 1794, he subtitled the book, “Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.” The qualities displayed by the child speaker in “The Lamb” are an example of what Blake meant by the state of innocence, which may be found in children but is…
The Lamb by William Blake – Summary
Lines 1–2 One of the most famous poems in Blake’s collection Songs of Innocence and of Experience, “The Lamb” establishes its theme quickly in the first two lines. When the narrator asks the lamb if it knows who created it, it is not calling attention to the biological parents. The narrator specifically asks about the…
The First Year Of My Life – Analysis
The first sentence of Muriel Spark’s ‘‘The First Year of My Life’’ (‘‘I was born on the first day of the second month of the last year of the First World War, a Friday’’) is arresting. It causes the reader to pause and calculate the actual date being referred to. It is also notable that…
The First Year Of My Life – Setting
World War I World War I began in 1914 and ended in 1918. It was the first mechanized war, the first to rely on advances in technology (such as airplanes and poison gas), and it was also the first worldwide conflict of the modern age. Accordingly, it had a lasting impact on the twentieth century,…
The First Year Of My Life – Literary Devices
Allusion An allusion is a literary or artistic device that refers to a historical or mythological event or figure. It can also refer to another literary or artistic work. Allusions can ground a work in the time in which it is written or the time in which it is set. The narrator’s reciting of the…