Helena Helena is the daughter of the recently deceased court physician, Gerard de Narbon, from whom she has learned his healing secrets. She has become the ward of the Countess of Rossillion, with whom she has a very maternal relationship, though she has fallen in love with the countess’s son, Bertram. She is disturbed by…
Tag: William Shakespeare
Character Profiles of Countess of Rossillion & Diana in All’s Well That Ends Well
Countess of Rossillion The Countess of Rossillion is Bertram’s mother, and she is still mourning the recent death of her husband. She has also willingly become Helena’s guardian since the young woman’s father, a physician of local renown, has also recently passed away. Kind and generous, the countess exemplifies the best of the noble tradition…
Character profiles of Bertram (Count of Rossillion) & Brothers Dumaine in All’s Well That Ends Well
Bertram (Count of Rossillion) Bertram is the Count of Rossillion. His father has recently died, and his mother, the Countess of Rossillion, is still in mourning. Bertram is quite young, perhaps no more than twenty, and he is eager to join the king’s ranks in Paris and then go off to battle in Florence. Bertram’s…
All’s Well That Ends Well – Meaning – Short Summary
Act 1, Scene 1 All’s Well That Ends Well opens at the palace in Rossillion, a region in France that borders Spain and the Mediterranean Sea. Here, the Countess of Rossillion mourns her recently deceased husband and the imminent departure of her son, Bertram, the Count of Rossillion, who has been summoned to Paris by…
William Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well: A Brief Introduction
All’s Well That Ends Well was probably written sometime between 1600 and 1605, and many experts date the work to 1603. Others believe that the play is the lost Shakespearean drama titled Love’s Labour Won, which was written before 1598. The first written mention of the play under its current title appeared in 1623, when…
A speculation on the most valuable book lost to humanity
Much of the knowledge which the world had at one time has been lost to us now. Natural disasters, wars, fires, have destroyed books and the knowledge in them. We know they existed once, but they no longer exist now.Suppose you could protect and save ONE of the things we’ve read this semester so people of future…
William Shakespeare: A Question of Authorship
William Shakespeare and JS Bach are perhaps the two most important cultural figures in Western Civilization. This high pedestal that they occupy makes questions over their authorship almost blasphemous for their admirers. If Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor has come for scholarly debate in recent years, the question marks over Shakespeare’s authorship were…
Shakespeare’s Personal Life and the Writing of Hamlet
It is a well-established fact that an author’s material for fiction is largely derived from his/her own personal experiences. And the greatest of English literary artists in the form of William Shakespeare is not an exception to this rule. The underlying thematic current in the play is tragedy. And based on what scholars have documented…
Why Does Iago Hate Othello?
Iago’s hatred of Othello emerges from a variety of reasons. At the outset, Iago is Othello’s servant and there is bound to be a systemic hatred against one’s masters. Then there is Desdemona, the most gracious and virtuous wife of Othello. The intimate and exemplary nature of their mutual love and devotion inspires envy and…
Important Scenes in King Lear
King Lear is widely acknowledged as one of William Shakespeare’s great tragedies. This essay will identify and analyze a couple of key scenes from the play which makes a significant contribution to the overall development of plot, its character and the theme. Act 1 Scene 1 The very first scene from the first act is…