Shakespeare Flashcards
Summary of major works from William Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet: Prologue
“Two households, both alike in dignity
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.”
Romeo and Juliet: Synopsis
Montagues and Capulets have tense relations. Romeo and Juliet fall in love with each other, marries in secret, Tybalt kills Mercutio, Romeo kills Tybalt, Romeo is exiled. Juliet fakes her death, Romeo thinks her death is real and kills himself, Juliet kills herself.
Romeo and Juliet: Characters
Romeo Juliet Friar Laurence Juliet's nurse Benvolio Mercutio Tybalt
Romeo and Juliet: Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech (I.4)
“Her wagon spokes made of long spinners’ legs, The cover of the wings of grasshopers, Her traces of the smallest spider’s web…”
“…O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream, Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.”
“This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, That presses them and learns them first to bear…”
(Mercutio has a different passion from that of Romeo and Tybalt - rejects both honor and love)
(Children’s tale devolving into dark desires)
Romeo and Juliet: Balcony Scene (II.1)
“Can I go forward when my heart is here? Turn back, dull earth, and find thy center out.”
“He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not, The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.”
(Romeo hides away, Mercutio teases him, Benvolio chides him)
Romeo and Juliet: Balcony Scene (II.2)
“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?”
“wherefore art thou Romeo?”
“Or if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, Which is the god of my idolatry, And I’ll believe thee.”
(Juliet fears for her honor, Juliet and Romeo exchange vows, promise for marriage is made)
Hamlet: Synopsis
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, lost his father and witnessed father’s brother Claudius marrying his mother Gertrude. The father’s ghost appears and says Claudius murdered him, Hamlet stages a play and confirms the guilt, murders Polonius on accident, his lover Ophelia goes mad, Hamlet kills Laertes and Claudius in a duel, Laertes kills Hamlet in the duel, Gertrude dies from poison intended for Hamlet.
Hamlet: Characters (Ophelia)
Polonius’ daughter and Laertes’ sister and Hamlet’s object of affection.
“Get thee to a nunnery.”
“My brother shall know of it, and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies. Good night, sweet ladies.” (T. S. Eliot [The Waste Land] “Goodnight”)
Hamlet: Characters (Horatio)
Hamlet’s best friend and confidante.
“And let me speak to th’ yet-unknowing world / How these things came about. So shall you hear / Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts…”
Hamlet: Characters (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern)
Hamlet’s “friends” sent to England with him, bearing letter that the recipient of the letter should kill Hamlet. Not smart enough to save themselves from Hamlet’s scheme to have them killed instead.
Tom Stoppard [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead] (1966)
Hamlet: Characters (Fortinbras)
“strong-armed” Prince of Norway, acts as constant pressure on Denmark from without. Arrives to the castle sounding off cannons (announced by Osric)
“But I do prophesy the election lights / On Fortinbras. He has my dying voice.” (Hamlet)
“I have some rights of memory in this kingdom, / Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.”
Hamlet: Quotes (Chasing the ghost. I.4)
“So oft it chances in particular men / That for some vicious mole of nature in them…”
“Making night hideous and we fools of nature, / So horridly to shake our disposition / With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?”
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”
Hamlet: Quotes (Hamlet’s soliloquy before torturing Ophelia III.1)
“The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art, / Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it / Than is my deed to my most painted word.”
“To be, or not to be? That is the question…”
“That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.”
Hamlet: The Murder of Gonzago / The Mousetrap (III.2)
Play within a play. Guilt. Hamlet jesting at Ophelia, expressing anger at Gertrude and Claudius.
“Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters…”
“Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man / As e’er my conversation coped withal.”
“Make you a wholesome answer. My wit’s diseased.”
Macbeth: Synopsis
Macbeth hears a prophesy from three witches predicting his rise to power and tells Lady Macbeth about it. The two plot and kill King Duncan on his way back from the battlefield and kills a bunch of more people. Macbeth becomes King but is insecure and undone by Thane of Fife, Macduff. Lady Macbeth kills herself.
Macbeth: Quotes (Lady Macbeth urging I.5)
“Yet I do fear thy nature. / It is too full o’th’ milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way.”
“Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here…”
“Your face, my thane, is as a book where men / May read strange matters.”
Macbeth: Quotes (William Faulkner source V.5)
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
Othello: Synopsis
War hero Othello and daughter of Brabantio Desdemona are recently married, convincing Brabantio of their love in the process. Othello promotes Cassio to be his lieutenant and Iago, who wants the job, removes him by a staged fight with Roderigo. Iago convinces Othello that Desdemona and Cassio are sleeping together with a handkerchief. Othello strangles Desdemona, realizes he’s been fooled and kills himself, Iago is likely hanged.
Othello: Iago
Quintessential example of a literary antagonist, his motivations in betrayal is source of interest. In Harold Bloom’s [The Anxiety of Influence], Iago is prototype for evil/rebellion so profound to be object of endless conjecture (John Milton’s Satan).
Othello: Quotes (I.1)
“For when my outward action doth demonstrate / The native act and figure of my heart / In compliment extern, ‘tis not long after / But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve /For daws to peck at. I am not what I am.”
“Even now, now, very now, an old black ram is tupping your white ewe.”
“You’ll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse. You’ll have your nephews neigh to you. You’ll have coursers for cousins and gennets for germans.”
Othello: Quotes (I.3)
“She swore in faith ‘twas strange, ‘twas passing strange,/ Twas pitiful, ‘twas wondrous pitiful.”
“I hate the Moor…”
“She loved me for the dangers I had passed, / And I loved her that she did pity them, / This only is the witchcraft I have used.”
“Hell and night / Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.”
