These highly subjective sonnets are wonderful tales full of love, deception, and betrayal. ... But with the next two lines, "Or who is he so fond will be the tomb/ Of his self-love, to stop posterity" (ll 7-8), Shakespeare now uses the pronoun 'he', which is the basis of the unclearness as to whether or not the audience is a woman. ... This revelation of the audience's self absorbency explains the anger expressed in the final two lines, "But if thou live remembered not to be/ Die single, and thine image dies with thee" (ll 13-14). ... Summer is thought of as the most enjoyab...

• Word Count: 3329
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: High School

If you were to contrast between these words and his warning to the Governor of Harfleur it is striking; telling a city ruler that he must surrender or "look to see... / Your naked infants spitted upon pikes" (III.iv.33- 38) hardly projects the image of a "gentler gamester." ... He is one who took the throne unrightfully, but kept the throne safe and had no threats to his reign, the only King in Shakespeare's tales. ...

• Word Count: 3298
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

But if that is the case, then Lear cannot be in a tragic situation as Hegel defines it, that is, he is not caught in the clash of two legitimate principles, a situation from which there is no simple escape, no matter how much he learns. ... What is precisely characteristic of Lear in act 3 is that he cannot hold together the two images of human nature he observes in Edgar as first Tom o' Bedlam and then as the "noble philosopher" (3.4.172), and that is the deepest reason why his experience on the heath at least momentarily unfits him for rule. ...

• Word Count: 8939
• Approx Pages: 36
• Grade Level: High School