Shakespeare

This spring, the seniors will be working on various Shakespeare projects and plays. This page is intended as a resource for them and a place to publish their essays. In addition to general works on Shakespeare, I have specific material on Macbeth, Hamlet,Caeser, Twelfth Night and Romeo and Juliet.

Shakespeare and the Plays

Shakespeare Homepage. This site is a very comprehensive guide to Shakespeare. Use it happily. If you want to find a papers and other odd pieces, check out the gopher. I don't like the Shakespeare Web but I am warming to it.
Awesome Shakespeare Resource Go here for lots of detail.
Globe Theater. Check out the restored theater. Don't miss the walk through. I visited the Globe this winter and took pictures of the Balconies, the left of the stage, the entire stage, the "sky"and the exteriorThis lecture discusses in depth the Elizabethan theater, complete with slides.
Searching the Bard. This is an amazine electronic search through the works of Shakespeare. Type in the words you want and watch the hits.
The Authorship Problem. The cranks who refuse to believe that Shakespeare wasn't a rich, college trained snot. Bring your irony. PBS looked at the problem as well.
Insults Get insulted from the master. One per visit and it may talk to you. For the tamer, This will provide the quote of the day.
Illustrations?. This is a site in progress, adding paintings and pictures that relate to the Big Guy..
On The Stage. This is a comprehensive listing of Shakespeare festivals. Lots of good information is hiding here. But don't miss out on the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Branagh Interview An odd interview with one of the leading Shakespeare actors and directors today.
Usenet has many discussions of the Big Guy. Worth a wander.

Critics and Essays These sites have literary criticism of Shakespeare

English 305; College. This is a college course on the plays, complete with study guides, essays, discussion, and bibliography.
Electric Shakespeare Princeton Calling from a faraway town.
The Good Doctor St. John's

Macbeth By popular demand, here are a few more specific links for the plays. the text of the play is available at the Shakespeare Homepage. Another version, done in hypertext, is available from New Zealand.

My unit on Macbeth It's big.
This page offers insights and some clear thinking on the play.
Starting with the personal oddities, this is a nice illustration of the first few lines of the play. In the same odd light, here is an excerpt from Gary Will's book Witches and Jesuitswith some funky ideas about why the play fails in performance. Speaking of spoofs, how about PCBeth a version for the geeks. Marillion sings a song, called "the Uninvited Guest" with a wonderful reference to Banquo. If you need to know how the Royal Shakespeare uses urine, this might do the trick.
On a more serious note, this is a new version of a "forgotten" scene, the one where Lady Macbeth kills herself. Henry Fuselli has done a marvelous painting of the wierd sisters. Other paintings can be found at Emory. This is a much darker picture, and worthy of an essay. The Family Tree of the real Macbeth can be interesting, following it through the ages. the MacDuff family also gets to show it's tartan.
See Macbeth Online for excellent integration.>

Hamlet The text of the play and a good forum for some commentary is available at the Shakespeare Homepage. Aside from that, here are my study questions.

there are three quartos (versions) of the play available on-line, the 1603 version, the 1604 version, and the 1623 version
There is not a lot of good commentary on the play out there in Cyberspace. The MIT site will do better than most anything else. Samuel Johnson wrote this early commentary on this most famous of plays. The Lamb's Hamlet helps understand the basics of the plot.This site does the play very well. T.S. Eliot gets his two cents in. Mr. Murdoch chimes in from Australia.
Other commentary: This site is from a student in Dallas, with some general commentary on the play.
Specific parts: This site commemorates Hamlet's crawl during the "play" scene. On the other hand, this site has everything that you need.
Movies: The recent Brannaugh movie. Possibly the definitive one.
Humor: The Skinhead's Hamlet is foul-mouthed, but funny. A cleaner and equally humorous take is the Canadian parody.

Julius The text of the play and a good forum for some commentary is available at the Shakespeare Homepage. I have not had a lot of success in finding resources. I did find some famous quotes and a synopsis.

The California Shakespeare Festival put on the play and included the directors notes and an interesting picture. If you need to hear selections of the playyou will need to have plenty of time, but they are good sounding. Even a picture of the man is available.
The history of the time is briefly covered here, and this helps with Caesar's life.This page has a much more scholarly answer to the question "Why did Brutus kill Caeser"? This brief discussion of Caesar's death might help some. If you need a much more detailed discussion, this archive of messages may be useful. For any other Roman stuff, please go to the archive.
on the other hand, if you want to know about Lupercalia come here.

Twelfth Night This is a tremendous comedy that is getting very popular. The text of the play and a good forum for some commentary is available at the Shakespeare Homepage. Go here first.

twelfth Night Handouts You know you want them.
Twelfth Night. This is an annotated play, where you click on the blue word and get a definition. They are making a movie of this one too.
there are many courses, including this one from Fairfield University
Twelfth Night has had some popularity in the last few years, especially among theater companies. Most of these sites have a brief synopsis and their poster. Harvard, Cincinnati, Incognito,
Some other art has interpreted the play. the last lines get handled well and often.
Commentary: The study questions from someone else. Read the the summary if you need it.
This site offer definitions for feudal terms, and can help with the financial system of the play.

The Henry IV plays While there is some information out there, go to the Shakespeare Homepage.first.

Essays. Check out The Making of a King on Hal and HenryIV, part 2
Henry IV, Part 1 The handouts and lesson plans

Romeo and Juliet The love classic.

The play and some scenes in Quicktime There is even a plot summary complete with pictures. This is the start of a very nice site. Good for the first Act.
Listen to excerpts of the play. This site has even more quotes.
EssaysAn essay on fire and the play.
Such a play begets a wealth of parodies. Check out this version of the Balcony Scene Or the Bathroom scene?. While not a parody per se, this update has some notable points. Hey, how about some pens
Picture time: This is the cover of one playbill. Here is more. And yet one more. A nice set of pictures from the show (memory intensive). Claire Danes is in a new movie version Finally, something that celebrates androgynes. Whatever.

Merchant of Venice Nothing much right now, just the Merchant of Venice and Merchant 2