A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a comedy by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written around 1594 to 1596. It portrays the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of amateur actors, their interactions with the Duke of Athens, Theseus, the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta, and with the fairies who inhabit a moonlit forest. The play is one of Shakespeare’s most popular works for the stage and is widely performed across the world.

Hamlet, William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy by renowned playwright William Shakespeare. It is one of his best-known works, and also one of the most-quoted writings in the English language. Hamlet has been called “Shakespeare’s greatest play” and it is universally included on lists of the world’s greatest books. It is also one of the most popular of Shakespeare’s plays, judging by the number of productions; for example, it has topped the list at the Royal Shakespeare Company since 1879. With 4,042 lines and 29,551 words, Hamlet is also the longest Shakespeare play. Hamlet is a tragedy of the revenge genre, in which the title character, and two other characters as well, seek revenge for their fathers’ deaths.

Online version of Hamlet

King Lear, William Shakespeare

King Lear is a play by William Shakespeare, considered one of his greatest tragedies, based on the legend of King Lear of Britain. The part of Lear has been played by many great actors, but although Lear is an old man, the part is rarely taken on by older actors in stage versions because it is so strenuous both physically and emotionally.

There are two distinct versions of the play: The True Chronicle of the History of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters, which appeared in quarto in 1608, and The Tragedy of King Lear, which appeared in the First Folio in 1623, a more theatrical version. The two texts are commonly printed in a conflated version, although many modern editors have argued that each version has its individual integrity.

After the Restoration the play was often modified by theatre practitioners who disliked its nihilistic flavour, but since World War II it has come to be regarded as one of Shakespeare’s supreme achievements. The tragedy is particularly noted for its probing observations on the nature of human suffering and kinship on a cosmic scale.