Cards Flashcards
The story of Mark Antony, Roman military leader and triumvir, who is madly in love with Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt.
Antony and Cleopatra
The last of Shakespeare’s great political tragedies, chronicling the life of the mighty warrior Caius Marcius Coriolanus.
Coriolanus
The story of a Danish prince whose uncle murders the prince’s father, marries his mother, and claims the throne.
Hamlet
an aging monarch who decides to divide his kingdom amongst his three daughters, according to which one recites the best declaration of love.
King Lear
a valiant Moorish general in the service of Venice, falls prey to the devious schemes of his false friend, Iago.
Othello
Another tragedy about a famous political leader who was cut down by his own allies.
Julius Caesar
Helena wants to marry Bertram. Bertram goes to war hoping to not marry Helena. Helena follows, and (pretending to be one of Bertram’s other girlfriends) sleeps with Bertram. Bertram, matured, marries Helena.
All’s well that ends well
Rosalind loves Orlando. Rosalind is exiled to a forest when her father/Duke is exiled. Orlando is also exiled to the forest. Rosalind (disguised as a male) meets with Orlando, who proclaims his love for Rosalind. There’s a complicated love triangle of many characters. Disguised Rosalind drops her disguise and marries Orlando. Her father/Duke is reconciled with his usurper and they all go home happy.
As you like it
Twin brothers and twin slaves get mistaken for each other
The comedy of errors
Two couples in love: one couple says they love each other, the other says they hate each other. The bad guy starts a rumour that one of the girls is a slut, which leads to problems, until they realize it’s not true and everyone gets married.
Much Ado about nothing
are guy friends Valentine and Proteus. Proteus used to love his girlfriend Julia, but now loves Valentine’s Silvia. Proteus gets Valentine banished, which depresses Silvia. Julia (disguised as a guy) sees Proteus wooing Silvia and gets depressed. Proteus tries to force Silvia, but exiled Valentine saves her. Proteus repents and marries his Julia. Valentine, redeemed, marries his Silvia.
Two Gentlemen of Verona
assassinates rightful King (because Magic Sisters said it was his destiny, and his wife convinces him to do it), ascends throne. MacDuff learns MacBeth is a murderer; there’s a war. MacBeth dies, and there is a new good king.
Macbeth
Shipwrecked people arrive on island, ruled by an exiled disguised magical Duke. The shipwrecked prince falls in love with the Duke’s daughter, and the Duke makes her hard to get. Meanwhile, monster Caliban doesn’t like Duke. Duke reveals himself, and everyone leaves island.
Temptest
King Leontes (wrongfully) thinks wife Queen Hermione is adultering with King Polixenes. Polixenes escapes home, but Queen Hermione is imprisoned. Queen gives birth to daughter but Leontes abandons child. Oracle tells Leontes he’s wrong and must find daughter. Queen Hermione “dies” of grief. Sixteen years later, Leontes's (anonymous) daughter is courted by Polixene’s son (a prince). There is trouble because of class differences, until Leontes identifies his daughter as a princess, and the lovers can marry. Queen Hermione reappears, saying she only pretended to be dead.
The Winter’s Tale
Hawthorne’s compelling story of the callous judgment meted out to an unmarried mother by the puritans of Boston, Massachusetts, is a moving and thoughtful study of society’s ambivalent and contradictory treatment of women.
The Scarlet Letter
“In landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God,” says wandering sailor Ishmael, as he sets sail with vengeful Quaker Captain Ahab on the hunt for the monstrous white whale that maimed him. Fathoms deep in allusion and nautical nomenclature.
Moby Dick (Melville)
Set in the geographic centre of the antebellum US, the sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the colourful tale of an abused and motherless boy’s coming of age along the Mississippi River which wittily challenged America’s perception of itself as the “sivilized” land of the free.
The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn (Twain)
Caught between her entitled taste for luxury and her yearning for true love, Lily Bart, the beautiful and intelligent heroine of this acutely observed novel slowly slithers down the rungs of superficial New York society to a tragic end.
The House of Mirth (Wharton)
a poor family of “Okies” driven from their land in the Great Depression. It was the main reason he was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Grapes of Wrath (Steinback)
“sort of” autobiographical account of the misfit Holden Caulfield’s flight from his “phony” prep school is a controversial classic of adolescent angst that has inspired readers as diverse as President George HW Bush and John Lennon’s assassin Mark Chapman.
The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger)
dystopian future where literature (and all original thought) is on the brink of extinction.
Guy Montag is a fireman whose job is to burn printed books as well as the houses where they’re hidden. But when his wife commits suicide and a young neighbor who introduced him to reading disappears, Guy begins hoarding books in his own home.
Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury)
The memoir follows Angelou during her youth as she survives soul-crushing racism, a brutal sexual assault, and finally her hard-won independence as she becomes a young woman. Her poetic prose continues to influence and inspire generations today.
I know why a caged bird sings (Angelou)
Billy Pilgrim is a man who has become unstuck in time after being abducted by aliens, specifically Tralfamadorians for their planet’s zoo. The book follows his capture, as well as his time as an American prisoner of war witnessing the firebombing of Dresden during World War II.
Slaughter House Five (Vonnegut)
Little Women
Louisa May Alcott
Iliad
Homer
Paradise Lost
John Milton
Jane Eyre
Bronte
The Divine Comedy
Dante
A Tale of Two Cities
Dickens
A Raisin in the Sun
Hansberry
To Kill a MOckingbird
Lee
Les Miserables
Victor Hugo
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Stowe
The Sun also Rises
Hemingway
Lolita
Nabokov
Gulliver’s Travels
Swift
Treasure Island
Stevenson
Lord of the Flies
Golding
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Caroll
The Three Musketeers
Dumas
