Characteristics of Women: Moral, Poetical, and Historical

In Juliet and Helena, love is depicted as a passion, properly so called; that is, a natural impulse, throbbing in the heart's blood, and mingling with the very sources of life;-...

In the interview between Imogen and Iachimo, he does not begin his attack on her virtue by a direct accusation against Posthumus; but by dark hints and half-uttered insinuations...

The impression left upon our hearts and minds by the character of Rosalind--by the mixture of playfulness, sensibility, and what the French (and we for lack of a better expressi...

Though I cannot go the length of those who have defended Bertram on almost every point, still I think the censure which Johnson has passed on the character is much too severe. B...

Constance, being now left a widow, returned to Bretagne, where her barons rallied round her, and acknowledged her as their sovereign. The Salique law did not prevail in Bretagne...

"The hour of my death now approaching, I cannot choose but, out of the love I bear you, advise you of your soul's health, which you ought to prefer before all considerations of...

And our impression of Juliet's loveliness and sensibility is enhanced, when we find it overcoming in the bosom of Romeo a previous love for another. His visionary passion for th...

All that she says afterwards--her strong expressions, which are calculated to strike a shuddering horror through the nerves--the reflections she interposes--her delays and circu...

The old chronicler Hall informs us, that Queen Margaret "excelled all other as well in beauty and favor, as in wit and policy, and was in stomach and courage more like to a man...

[29] The "Giulietta" of Luigi da Porta was written about 1520. In a popular little book published in 1565, thirty years before Shakspeare wrote his tragedy, the name of Juliet o...

What do you mean? who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy Thane, You do unbend your noble strength, to think So brainsickly of things.--Go, get some water, &c. &c.

I know a Desdemona in real life, one in whom the absence of intellectual power is never felt as a deficiency, nor the absence of energy of will as impairing the dignity, nor the...

Egypt, thou know'st too well My heart was to the rudder tied by the strings, And thou should'st tow me after. O'er my spirit Thy full supremacy thou know'st; and that Thy beck m...

Spirits are not finely touched, But to fine issues: nor nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence, But like a thrifty goddess she determines, Herself the glory o...

Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth! Call me not slanderer; thou and thine usurp The dominations, royalties, and rights Of this oppressed boy. This is thy eldest son's so...

Yes, many such; the development of affection and sentiment is more quiet and unobtrusive than that of passion and intellect, and less observed; it is more common, too, therefore...

Stay! before we waste epithets of indignation, let us consider. If these people mean that Shakspeare's women are inferior in power to his men, I grant it at once; for in Shakspe...

Schlegel observes somewhere, that in the literal accuracy and apparent artlessness with which Shakspeare has adapted some of the events and characters of history to his dramatic...

Now this is perfectly natural. Cordelia has penetrated the vile characters of her sisters. Is it not obvious, that, in proportion as her own mind is pure and guileless, she must...

Those who ever heard Mrs. Siddons read the play of Hamlet, cannot forget the world of meaning, of love, of sorrow, of despair, conveyed in these two simple phrases. Here, and in...

appear strangely applied to a statue, such as we usually imagine it--of the cold colorless marble; but it is evident that in this scene Hermione personates one of those images o...

You have heard of Bertoldo's captivity and the king's neglect, the greatness of his ransom; _fifty thousand crowns_, Adorni! _Two parts of my estate!_ Yet I so love the gentlema...

In preparing for the press a new edition of this little work, the author has endeavored to render it more worthy of the approbation and kindly feeling with which it has been rec...

Great crimes, springing from high passions, grafted on high qualities, are the legitimate source of tragic poetry. But to make the extreme of littleness produce an effect like g...

The mother covered her face, and burst into tears. But when Virgil mentioned her son by name, ("Tu Marcellus eris,") which he had artfully deferred till the concluding lines, Oc...

"A youthful passion," says Goethe, (alluding to one of his own early attachments,) "which is conceived and cherished without any certain object, may be compared to a shell throw...

[92] When at Naples, I have often stood upon the rock at the extreme point of Posilippo, and looked down upon the little Island of Nisida, and thought of this scene till I forgo...