vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
Romeo and Juliet
In Romeo and Juliet , Shakespeare employs several dramatic techniques that have garnered praise from critics ; most notably the abrupt shifts from comedy to tragedy ( an example is the punning exchange between Benvolio and Mercutio just before Tybalt arrives ) . Before Mercutio 's death in Act three , the play is largely a comedy . After his accidental demise , the play suddenly becomes serious and takes on a tragic tone . When Romeo is banished , rather than executed , and Friar Laurence offers Juliet a plan to reunite her with Romeo , the audience can still hope that all will end well . They are in a `` breathless state of suspense '' by the opening of the last scene in the tomb : If Romeo is delayed long enough for the Friar to arrive , he and Juliet may yet be saved . These shifts from hope to despair , reprieve , and new hope , serve to emphasise the tragedy when the final hope fails and both the lovers die at the end .
Theatre of ancient Greece
The ancient Greek drama was a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece from c. 700 BC . The city - state of Athens , which became a significant cultural , political , and military power during this period , was its center , where it was institutionalised as part of a festival called the Dionysia , which honoured the god Dionysus . Tragedy ( late 500 BC ) , comedy ( 490 BC ) , and the satyr play were the three dramatic genres to emerge there . Athens exported the festival to its numerous colonies and allies in order to promote a common cultural identity . Only men were allowed to play female parts .
Richard III (play)
The connection between Lincoln and the play was indelibly printed on history when on April 14 , 1865 , within a fortnight of the president 's visit to the defeated city , he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth , a Shakespearean actor known for playing both Richard and Richmond . Booth 's notorious , final words from the stage were `` Sic semper tyrannis '' . ``
Groundling
A groundling was a person who visited the Globe Theatre in the early 17th century . They were too poor to pay to be able to sit on one of the three levels of the theatre . If they paid one penny , they could stand in `` the pit '' , also called `` the yard '' , just below the stage to watch the play . Standing in the pit was uncomfortable , and people were usually packed in tightly . The groundlings were commoners who were also referred to as stinkards or penny - stinkers . The name ' groundlings ' came about after Hamlet referenced them as such when the play was first performed around 1600 . At the time , the word had entered the English language to mean a small type of fish with a gaping mouth - from the vantage point of the actor playing Hamlet , set on a stage raised around 5 feet from the ground , the sea of upturned faces may have looked like wide - mouthed fish . They were known to misbehave and are commonly believed to have thrown food such as fruit and nuts at characters they did not like , although there is no evidence of this . They would watch the plays from the cramped pits with sometimes over 500 people standing there .
The Merchant of Venice
From Kean 's time forward , all of the actors who have famously played the role , with the exception of Edwin Booth , who played Shylock as a simple villain , have chosen a sympathetic approach to the character ; even Booth 's father , Junius Brutus Booth , played the role sympathetically . Henry Irving 's portrayal of an aristocratic , proud Shylock ( first seen at the Lyceum in 1879 , with Portia played by Ellen Terry ) has been called `` the summit of his career '' . Jacob Adler was the most notable of the early 20th century : Adler played the role in Yiddish - language translation , first in Manhattan 's Yiddish Theater District in the Lower East Side , and later on Broadway , where , to great acclaim , he performed the role in Yiddish in an otherwise English - language production .
The Merchant of Venice
Jewish actor Jacob Adler and others report that the tradition of playing Shylock sympathetically began in the first half of the 19th century with Edmund Kean , and that previously the role had been played `` by a comedian as a repulsive clown or , alternatively , as a monster of unrelieved evil . '' Kean 's Shylock established his reputation as an actor .
Romeo and Juliet
The earliest known version of the Romeo and Juliet tale akin to Shakespeare 's play is the story of Mariotto and Gianozza by Masuccio Salernitano , in the 33rd novel of his Il Novellino published in 1476 . Salernitano sets the story in Siena and insists its events took place in his own lifetime . His version of the story includes the secret marriage , the colluding friar , the fray where a prominent citizen is killed , Mariotto 's exile , Gianozza 's forced marriage , the potion plot , and the crucial message that goes astray . In this version , Mariotto is caught and beheaded and Gianozza dies of grief .
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare 's most - illustrated works . The first known illustration was a woodcut of the tomb scene , thought to be by Elisha Kirkall , which appeared in Nicholas Rowe 's 1709 edition of Shakespeare 's plays . Five paintings of the play were commissioned for the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery in the late 18th century , one representing each of the five acts of the play . The 19th - century fashion for `` pictorial '' performances led to directors drawing on paintings for their inspiration , which , in turn , influenced painters to depict actors and scenes from the theatre . In the 20th century , the play 's most iconic visual images have derived from its popular film versions .
Romeo and Juliet
Early psychoanalytic critics saw the problem of Romeo and Juliet in terms of Romeo 's impulsiveness , deriving from `` ill - controlled , partially disguised aggression '' , which leads both to Mercutio 's death and to the double suicide . Romeo and Juliet is not considered to be exceedingly psychologically complex , and sympathetic psychoanalytic readings of the play make the tragic male experience equivalent with sicknesses . Norman Holland , writing in 1966 , considers Romeo 's dream as a realistic `` wish fulfilling fantasy both in terms of Romeo 's adult world and his hypothetical childhood at stages oral , phallic and oedipal '' -- while acknowledging that a dramatic character is not a human being with mental processes separate from those of the author . Critics such as Julia Kristeva focus on the hatred between the families , arguing that this hatred is the cause of Romeo and Juliet 's passion for each other . That hatred manifests itself directly in the lovers ' language : Juliet , for example , speaks of `` my only love sprung from my only hate '' and often expresses her passion through an anticipation of Romeo 's death . This leads on to speculation as to the playwright 's psychology , in particular to a consideration of Shakespeare 's grief for the death of his son , Hamnet .
Shakespeare's reputation
Rodney Symington , Professor of Germanic and Russian Studies at the University of Victoria , Canada , deals with this question in The Nazi Appropriation of Shakespeare : Cultural Politics in the Third Reich ( Edwin Mellen Press , 2005 ) . The scholar reports that Hamlet , for instance , was reconceived as a proto - German warrior rather than a man with a conscience . Of this play one critic wrote : `` If the courtier Laertes is drawn to Paris and the humanist Horatio seems more Roman than Danish , it is surely no accident that Hamlet 's alma mater should be Wittenberg . '' A leading magazine declared that the crime which deprived Hamlet of his inheritance was a foreshadow of the Treaty of Versailles , and that the conduct of Gertrude was reminiscent of the spineless Weimar politicians .
Romeo and Juliet
In 1933 , the play was revived by actress Katharine Cornell and her director husband Guthrie McClintic and was taken on a seven - month nationwide tour throughout the United States . It starred Orson Welles , Brian Aherne and Basil Rathbone . The production was a modest success , and so upon the return to New York , Cornell and McClintic revised it and for the first time , the play was presented with almost all the scenes intact , including the Prologue . The new production opened in December 1934 with Ralph Richardson as Mercutio and Maurice Evans as Romeo . Critics wrote that Cornell was `` the finest Juliet of her time '' , `` endlessly haunting '' , and `` the most lovely and enchanting Juliet our present - day theatre has seen '' . John
Romeo and Juliet
Shakespeare 's use of his poetic dramatic structure ( especially effects such as switching between comedy and tragedy to heighten tension , his expansion of minor characters , and his use of sub-plots to embellish the story ) has been praised as an early sign of his dramatic skill . The play ascribes different poetic forms to different characters , sometimes changing the form as the character develops . Romeo , for example , grows more adept at the sonnet over the course of the play .
Hamlet
In 2013 , American actor Paul Giamatti won critical acclaim for his performance on stage in the title role of Hamlet , performed in modern dress , at the Yale Repertory Theater , at Yale University in New Haven , Connecticut .
Richard III (play)
In 1996 , Al Pacino made his directoral debut and played the title role in Looking for Richard , analysing the plot of the play and playing out several scenes from it , as well as conducting a broader examination of Shakespeare 's continuing role and relevance in popular culture . Also in 1996 , a pristine print of Richard III ( 1912 ) , starring Frederick Warde in the title role , was discovered by a private collector and donated to the American Film Institute . The 55 - minute film is considered to be the earliest surviving American feature film .
The Comedy of Errors
The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare 's early plays . It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies , with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity , in addition to puns and word play . The Comedy of Errors ( along with The Tempest ) is one of only two of Shakespeare 's plays to observe the Unity of Time ( classical unities ) . It has been adapted for opera , stage , screen and musical theatre numerous times worldwide .
La traviata
Today , the opera has become immensely popular and is a staple of the standard operatic repertoire . As of 2012 / 13 season , it was in first place on the Operabase list of the most - performed operas worldwide .
Hamlet
`` Any dating of Hamlet must be tentative '' , cautions the New Cambridge editor , Phillip Edwards . The earliest date estimate relies on Hamlet 's frequent allusions to Shakespeare 's Julius Caesar , itself dated to mid-1599 . The latest date estimate is based on an entry , of 26 July 1602 , in the Register of the Stationers ' Company , indicating that Hamlet was `` latelie Acted by the Lo : Chamberleyne his servantes '' .
Western (genre)
The Western was the most popular Hollywood genre from the early 20th century to the 1960s . Western films first became well - attended in the 1930s . John Ford 's landmark Western adventure Stagecoach became one of the biggest hits in 1939 and it made John Wayne a mainstream screen star . Westerns were very popular throughout the 1950s and 1960s . Many of the most acclaimed Westerns were released during this time , including High Noon ( 1952 ) , Shane ( 1953 ) , The Searchers ( 1956 ) , and The Wild Bunch ( 1969 ) . Classic Westerns such as these have been the inspiration for various films about Western - type characters in contemporary settings , such as Junior Bonner ( 1972 ) , set in the 1970s , and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada ( 2005 ) , set in the 21st century . Play
Musical theatre
In London , writer - stars such as Ivor Novello and Noël Coward became popular , but the primacy of British musical theatre from the 19th century through 1920 was gradually replaced by American innovation after the war as Kern and other Tin Pan Alley composers began to bring new musical styles such as ragtime and jazz to the theatres and the Shubert Brothers took control of the Broadway theatres . Musical theatre writer Andrew Lamb notes , `` The operatic and theatrical styles of nineteenth - century social structures were replaced by a musical style more aptly suited to twentieth - century society and its vernacular idiom . It was from America that the more direct style emerged , and in America that it was able to flourish in a developing society less hidebound by nineteenth - century tradition . ''
The Comedy of Errors
In 1734 , an adaptation called See If You Like It was staged at Covent Garden . Drury Lane mounted a production in 1741 , in which Charles Macklin played Dromio of Syracuse -- in the same year as his famous breakthrough performance as Shylock . In the 1980s , the Flying Karamazov Brothers performed a unique adaptation of this play at the Lincoln Center in New York ; it was shown on MTV and PBS .
Theatre of ancient Greece
The power of Athens declined following its defeat in the Peloponnesian War against the Spartans . From that time on , the theatre started performing old tragedies again . Although its theatrical traditions seem to have lost their vitality , Greek theatre continued into the Hellenistic period ( the period following Alexander the Great 's conquests in the fourth century BCE ) . However , the primary Hellenistic theatrical form was not tragedy but ' New Comedy ' , comic episodes about the lives of ordinary citizens . The only extant playwright from the period is Menander . One of New Comedy 's most important contributions was its influence on Roman comedy , an influence that can be seen in the surviving works of Plautus and Terence .
Romeo and Juliet
Shearer and Leslie Howard , with a combined age over 75 , played the teenage lovers in George Cukor 's MGM 1936 film version . Neither critics nor the public responded enthusiastically . Cinemagoers considered the film too `` arty '' , staying away as they had from Warner 's A Midsummer Night Dream a year before : leading to Hollywood abandoning the Bard for over a decade . Renato Castellani won the Grand Prix at the Venice Film Festival for his 1954 film of Romeo and Juliet . His Romeo , Laurence Harvey , was already an experienced screen actor . By contrast , Susan Shentall , as Juliet , was a secretarial student who was discovered by the director in a London pub and was cast for her `` pale sweet skin and honey - blonde hair '' .
Musical theatre
The antecedents of musical theatre in Europe can be traced back to the theatre of ancient Greece , where music and dance were included in stage comedies and tragedies during the 5th century BCE . The music from the ancient forms is lost , however , and they had little influence on later development of musical theatre . In the 12th and 13th centuries , religious dramas taught the liturgy . Groups of actors would use outdoor Pageant wagons ( stages on wheels ) to tell each part of the story . Poetic forms sometimes alternated with the prose dialogues , and liturgical chants gave way to new melodies . A
Medieval theatre
Changing political and economic factors greatly affected theatre at the end of the Middle Ages and beginning of the Modern Era . First , the Protestant Reformation targeted the theatre , especially in England , in an effort to stamp out allegiance to Rome . In Wakefield , for example , the local mystery cycle text shows signs of Protestant editing , with references to the pope crossed out and two plays completely eliminated because they were too Catholic . However , it was not just the Protestants who attacked the theatre of the time . The Council of Trent banned religious plays in an attempt to rein in the extrabiblical material that the Protestants frequently lampooned .
The Comedy of Errors
The play contains a topical reference to the wars of succession in France , which would fit any date from 1589 to 1595 . Charles Whitworth argues that The Comedy of Errors was written `` in the latter part of 1594 '' on the basis of historical records and textual similarities with other plays Shakespeare wrote around this time . The play was not published until it appeared in the First Folio in 1623 .
Richard III (play)
Literary critic Paul Haeffner writes that Shakespeare had a great understanding of language and the potential of every word he used . One word that Shakespeare gave potential to was `` joy '' . This is employed in Act I , Scene III , where it is used to show `` deliberate emotional effect '' . Another word that Haeffner points out is `` kind '' , which he suggests is used with two different definitions .
Romeo and Juliet
The First Folio text of 1623 was based primarily on Q3 , with clarifications and corrections possibly coming from a theatrical prompt book or Q1 . Other Folio editions of the play were printed in 1632 ( F2 ) , 1664 ( F3 ) , and 1685 ( F4 ) . Modern versions -- that take into account several of the Folios and Quartos -- first appeared with Nicholas Rowe 's 1709 edition , followed by Alexander Pope 's 1723 version . Pope began a tradition of editing the play to add information such as stage directions missing in Q2 by locating them in Q1 . This tradition continued late into the Romantic period . Fully annotated editions first appeared in the Victorian period and continue to be produced today , printing the text of the play with footnotes describing the sources and culture behind the play .
Shakespeare's influence
`` Shakespeare 's characters are more sharply individualized after Love 's Labour 's Lost '' . His Richard II and Bolingbroke are complex and solid figures whereas Richard III has more `` humanity and comic gusto '' . The Falstaff trilogy is in this respect very important . Falstaff , although a minor character , has a powerful reality of its own . `` Shakespeare uses him as a commentator who passes judgments on events represented in the play , in the light of his own super abundant comic vitality '' . Falstaff , although outside `` the prevailing political spirit of the play '' , throws insight into the different situations arising in the play . This shows that Shakespeare had developed a capacity to see the plays as whole , something more than characters and expressions added together . In Falstaff trilogy , through the character of Falstaff , he wants to show that in society `` where touchstone of conduct is success , and in which humanity has to accommodate itself to the claims of expediency , there is no place for Falstaff '' , a loyal human - being . This sentiment is so true even after centuries .
Battle of Towton
In the sixteenth century William Shakespeare wrote a number of dramatisations of historic figures . The use of history as a backdrop , against which the familiar characters act out Shakespeare 's drama , lends a sense of realism to his plays . Shakespeare wrote a three - part play about Henry VI , relying heavily on Hall 's chronicle as a source . His vision of the Battle of Towton ( Henry VI , Part 3 , Act 2 , Scene 5 ) , touted as the `` bloodiest '' engagement in the Wars of the Roses , became a set piece about the `` terror of civil war , a national terror that is essentially familial '' . Historian Bertram Wolffe said it was thanks to Shakespeare 's dramatisation of the battle that the weak and ineffectual Henry was at least remembered by English society , albeit for his pining to have been born a shepherd rather than a king .
Shakespeare's influence
Among Shakespeare 's greatest contributions to the English language must be the introduction of new vocabulary and phrases which have enriched the language making it more colourful and expressive . Some estimates at the number of words coined by Shakespeare number in the several thousands . Warren King clarifies by saying that , `` In all of his work -- the plays , the sonnets and the narrative poems -- Shakespeare uses 17,677 words : Of those , 1,700 were first used by Shakespeare . '' He is also well known for borrowing from the classical literature and foreign languages . He created these words by `` changing nouns into verbs , changing verbs into adjectives , connecting words never before used together , adding prefixes and suffixes , and devising words wholly original . '' Many of Shakespeare 's original phrases are still used in conversation and language today . These include , but are not limited to ; `` seen better days , strange bedfellows , a sorry sight , '' and `` full circle '' . Shakespeare added a considerable number of words to the English language when compared to additions to English vocabulary made in other times . Shakespeare helped to further develop style and structure to an otherwise loose , spontaneous language . Written Elizabethan English stylistically closely followed the spoken language . The naturalness gave force and freedom since there was no formalized prescriptive grammar binding the expression . While lack of prescribed grammatical rules introduced vagueness in literature , it also expressed feelings with profound vividness and emotion which created , `` freedom of expression '' and `` vividness of presentment '' . It was a language which expressed feelings explicitly . Shakespeare 's gift involved using the exuberance of the language and decasyllabic structure in prose and poetry of his plays to reach the masses and the result was `` a constant two way exchange between learned and the popular , together producing the unique combination of racy tang and the majestic stateliness that informs the language of Shakespeare '' .
Medieval theatre
Medieval theatre refers to theatrical performance in the period between the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century A.D. and the beginning of the Renaissance in approximately the 15th century A.D. Medieval Theatre covers all drama produced in Europe over that thousand - year period and refers to a variety of genres , including liturgical drama , mystery plays , morality plays , farces and masques . Beginning with Hrosvitha of Gandersheim in the 10th century , Medieval drama was for the most part very religious and moral in its themes , staging and traditions . The most famous examples of Medieval plays are the English cycle dramas , the York Mystery Plays , the Chester Mystery Plays , the Wakefield Mystery Plays and the N - Town Plays , as well as the morality play , Everyman . One of the earliest surviving secular plays in English is The Interlude of the Student and the Girl ( c. 1300 ) .
Hamlet
In 1990 Franco Zeffirelli , whose Shakespeare films have been described as `` sensual rather than cerebral '' , cast Mel Gibson -- then famous for the Mad Max and Lethal Weapon movies -- in the title role of his 1990 version ; Glenn Close -- then famous as the psychotic `` other woman '' in Fatal Attraction -- played Gertrude , and Paul Scofield played Hamlet 's father .
The Merchant of Venice
The earliest performance of which a record has survived was held at the court of King James in the spring of 1605 , followed by a second performance a few days later , but there is no record of any further performances in the 17th century . In 1701 , George Granville staged a successful adaptation , titled The Jew of Venice , with Thomas Betterton as Bassanio . This version ( which featured a masque ) was popular , and was acted for the next forty years . Granville cut the clownish Gobbos in line with neoclassical decorum ; he added a jail scene between Shylock and Antonio , and a more extended scene of toasting at a banquet scene . Thomas Doggett was Shylock , playing the role comically , perhaps even farcically . Rowe expressed doubts about this interpretation as early as 1709 ; Doggett 's success in the role meant that later productions would feature the troupe clown as Shylock .