In Paris in 1953, one of the strangest and most popular plays of the 20th century premiered, Waiting for Godot , written by the Irish writer Samuel Beckett. Since the premier, people have been trying to figure out what this play means. Waiting for Godot is famous as a play about nothing, but it has endured because it is in fact a play about life. For what is life but a sequential collection of waitings? Waiting for school to end. Waiting to find someone to love. Waiting to know what to do. Waiting to feel b
William Shakespeare is the greatest writer in history, and Hamlet is his greatest work. In Hamlet , Shakespeare gave us one of the first modern characters in literature. We are invited into the mind of Hamlet, to see how he thinks and acts in the face of love, grief, and revenge. It is a work of deep psychological complexity, and has inspired many writers to explore and reveal the inner lives of their characters. Part of what keeps Hamlet alive is its delicate balance of textured specificity and capacious v
Don Quixote was written by the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes in two parts. Part one was published in 1605, and part two ten years later, in 1615. The story is about a middle-aged nobleman named Alonso Quijano who is so obsessed with stories of brave medieval knights that he decides to become one, renaming himself Don Quixote. After recruiting a squire, the faithful Sancho Panza, Don Quixote goes on all sorts of misguided adventures; fighting a windmill, jousting with a flock of sheep, and constantly su