44
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Accepted
Did William Shakespeare hide things in his writings?
I think you're reading too much into this - Shakespeare was known to capitalize significant nouns fairly commonly in his writings (several examples can be seen here).
Remember that when Shakespeare ...
- 566
44
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How did Shakespeare get away with staging witchcraft in his plays such as Othello, Macbeth, or The Tempest?
The public saw the plays were fiction, perhaps even a warning against witchcraft, and the magic in them is divorced of religious overtones.
It is noteworthy that the two Shakespeare plays which deal ...
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35
votes
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Since when has Shakespeare's "Scottish play" been considered unlucky?
tl;dr
The superstition that Macbeth is unlucky and must not be named is often supposed to date from the very first performance, or very shortly thereafter. However, a documented belief in this alleged ...
- 30.8k
33
votes
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Why does Shakespeare's Julius Caesar switch to Latin for the "Et tu, Brute" line?
It's not for the sake of veracity
Whether the historical Caesar pronounced or not the said words is disputed. Of five Antique sources on Caesar's death:
Nicolaus of Damascus, Plutarch and Appian do ...
- 1,948
28
votes
Why does Macbeth well deserve his name?
"Name" is here not used in the sense of "proper name" but in the sense of "distinguished or honourable repute, honour" (C. T. Onions: A Shakespeare Glossary).
In other ...
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27
votes
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Were all of Shakespeare's plays fully in iambic pentameter?
No.
In fact, much of the content of Shakespeare's plays isn't even written in verse. There's plenty of prose in Shakespeare - indeed, at least one play (Merry Wives of Windsor) is written almost ...
- 74.4k
27
votes
What is the source of "You can achieve a lot with hate, but even more with love" (Shakespeare?)
This is from Émile Montégut’s translation of Romeo and Juliet:
Roméo. — Hélas! pourquoi faut-il que l’amour, dont la vue est toujours couverte d’un bandeau, puisse sans yeux trouver le chemin qui ...
- 60.7k
27
votes
Why would Henry want to close the breach?
By starting the second line with “or”, the king indicates that this is the worse of two alternative actions: closing up the wall with English dead would of course be good for the defenders of Harfleur ...
- 60.7k
26
votes
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Would "most unkindest" have been considered poor grammar in Shakespeare's time?
One of Shakespeare's contemporaries, the dramatist Ben Jonson, published an English Grammar in 1640. Chapter XII, Of Comparisons, discusses the comparative and superlative degrees for adjectives and ...
- 48.4k
25
votes
What is the benefit in the Prologue "spoiling" the play in Romeo and Juliet?
You have to remember, the audience is well aware that a tragedy usually ends in the deaths of many of the main characters; therefore, I would argue that the enjoyment of the play is derived from an ...
- 359
25
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Why does the prophecy imply Macbeth has to murder the king?
You are quite right that the witches did not prophecy that Macbeth would murder Duncan, and so the option was available to him to “play it safe”: that is, to wait and see how the prophecy transpired, ...
- 60.7k
23
votes
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What reference is Shakespeare making in Act 2 Scene 2 of Macbeth?
It's a Biblical reference.
Noting that Macbeth is speaking of his own hands, and his own fears,
How is ’t with me when every noise appals me?
it is clear that this is an allusion to Matthew ...
- 1,405
21
votes
Accepted
The meaning of "The rest is silence" in "Hamlet"
There appear to be multiple ways of reading this sentence, depending on how you interpret the context of "rest" and "silence".
Hamlet has been experiencing a great deal of upset and distress during ...
- 23.2k
21
votes
How do these lines in Shakespeare's Sonnet 151 mean what they're supposed to?
Just glossing the last two lines.
No want of conscience hold it that I call
Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.
The main difficulty is with “No want of conscience hold it”. This is an ...
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20
votes
Accepted
Was Shakespeare a religious fanatic?
I don't believe it would be right to call him a religious fanatic. His plays contain both pro- and anti-Christian elements, all of which seem to be more about playing into the sense of the times than ...
- 5,138
20
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What is the benefit in the Prologue "spoiling" the play in Romeo and Juliet?
If Shakespeare had depended on surprise for his plays to be enjoyable, you would never have heard of him. People would see the play once, get the full effect, and then there would be no point in going ...
- 5,138
20
votes
Why does the murderer call Macduff's son "egg"?
A. R. Braunmuller (Macbeth, New Cambridge Shakespeare, 1997) provides the following gloss:
Contemptuous epithet for a young person (OED Egg sb 2b, citing only this line and another from 1835); (...)
...
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19
votes
Why does Shakespeare sometimes use "do" with the verbs in his plays?
Rhythm
The word ‘do’ fills what would otherwise be a gap in the rhythm. With ‘do’ you can scan the line as regular iambic pentameter:
x / x / x / x / x / x
As two ...
- 60.7k
19
votes
Accepted
"Sly frantic wretch, that holp'st to make me great" what is the meaning of "holp'st"?
“Holp” is the archaic past tense of “help”, which was formerly a strong verb (a verb that inflects by changing its vowel) like freeze/froze or ride/rode. The old form was obsolete in ordinary language ...
- 60.7k
18
votes
Did Shakespeare consider Julius Caesar a tyrant or a martyr?
It is left open by the playwright
I am going to look at the three characters you have chosen, starting with Cassius.
Cassius is not an honorable man no matter whether you think Caesar should have ...
- 6,848
18
votes
Were all of Shakespeare's plays fully in iambic pentameter?
No. As the other answers say, there are large portions of Shakespeare's plays that are in prose and not iambic pentameter.
However, even in the sections that are in iambic pentameter, Shakespeare didn'...
- 13.7k
18
votes
Accepted
Did Lady Macbeth communicate signs of her instability prior to the blood scene?
Oh, yeah, she's clearly unstable from the moment we meet her. Even better, she chooses to be unstable. In her very first appearance, she calls on supernatural forces to remove all traces of compassion:...
- 5,138
18
votes
Accepted
How might Shakespeare have become familiar with Dante's work?
TLDR: Shakespeare was clearly familiar with a lot of Italian literature second-hand, and there is circumstantial evidence for first-hand.
Shakespeare's Italian influence is a question that's aroused ...
- 23.2k
18
votes
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Why are there three different versions of the "solid/sullied/sallied flesh" line in Hamlet?
Since Hamlet was published in several editions during the Jacobethan era, it is worth looking at how these early editions rendered these lines, using the old-spelling editions published by Internet ...
- 48.4k
17
votes
Accepted
Why did Shakespeare write in iambic pentameter?
Shakespeare wrote iambic pentameter because that was the most common verse meter of the time. He didn't establish it. Edmund Spenser used it in The Faerie Queene:
Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome ...
- 5,138
17
votes
Accepted
Is Macbeth or Lady Macbeth the real villain in Shakespeare's play?
Lady Macbeth is the villain. Macbeth is, in fact, a tragic hero.
The first time I ever read Macbeth I was struck by the feeling of sympathy I had for the eponymous character at the end of the play. He ...
- 23.2k
17
votes
Accepted
What does the clown mean by saying that brothels in the cities "shall stand for seed" in the second scene of "Measure for Measure"?
Some agricultural crops are normally harvested before the plant produces its seeds, or before the seeds mature. For example, hay is mown when the leaves are largest, before the seeds ripen and the ...
- 60.7k
17
votes
In "Romeo and Juliet", why is Juliet the "sun"?
I think it is helpful to cite a bit more than just those two lines:
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious ...
- 48.4k
16
votes
What does "Happy man be his dole" mean in The Taming of the Shrew?
The phrase is proverbial. The OED has this under dole:
Portion or lot (in life); fate, destiny: chiefly in proverbial phrase happy man be his dole. c1520– archaic
Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “...
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