The main themes of Shakespeare’s plays are:
- Love, in particular:
- Rush love, which means love at first sight. This is between two young people.
- Mature love, between two older people.
- Interest love.
- Unreciprocated love.
- Power thirst.
- Betrayal.
- Madness.
- Theatre.
- Family relationships.
- Ambition.
- Conflict between different generations.
- War.
- Death.
An important element in Shakespeare's plays is magic. We find magical and supernatural elements in quite a lot of his works.
We can see it, for example, in a "Midsummer Night's Dream", where there is a magical world and thanks to magic many things can be accomplished. There is a parallelism between the true world and the magical world so we can distinguish them.
Also in the "Tempest" we see that the protagonist is a magician and he uses magic to make people do what he wants. He is a puppeteer who manipulates the other characters and he is also the altherego of Shakespeare, the playwright is a sort of magician 'cause he makes the character do what he wants. The destiny of the characters is always manipulated. We see it in Macbeth, for example, where his destiny is manipulated by supernatural forces, or in Romeo and Juliet, that are considered 'star crossed lovers', their destiny has already been decided.
Power thirst
Kings and queens always had enemies and their lives were constantly at risk.
In lots of Shakespeare's plays we see that the king or queen is kicked away from his or her
throne. An example is King Lear.
Betrayal
The villain is a typical character in Shakespeare's plays.
Ex: Macbeth that betrays the king killing him to take his place.
Monarchy and Church were connected, the king represented God. To kill the king meant to kill God. The king also represents order, so if he dies there is chaos.
Madness
Ex: in order to be an external observer, Macbeth pretends to be crazy. There is also true
madness, which makes Ofelia kill herself. There is Fiction and Reality.
Another way of representing madness is represented by King Lear. The fool is the altherego
of the king. Giving his throne and his possessions to his two bad daughters makes him a fool.
Theatre
All the world's a stage. The stage is a metaphor of life.
There is a play within a play. Ex: As you like it, Hamlet, the Merchant of Venice.
In "As you like it" there are women who disguise as men. This in particular is represented by
the fact that the women couldn't act and men had to do the parts of the women. By the way
women have a positive role because they are the ones that fix things, that overcome
obstacles.
But there are also cruel women that want power. Ex: Lady Macbeth, King Lear's daughters.