Romeo and Juliet is a play written by the English playwright William Shakespeare. It was published for the first time in 1597. Romeo and Juliet probably the most famous love story of all time. It is a tragic tale depicting the forbidden love shared by two young livers coming from two feuding families. The story is along with Hamlet Shakespeare's most popular and frequently performed play. Romeo and Juliet is regarded by many experts as a great example of Shakespeare's early dramatic skill. The play is set in Italian city Verona where two noble families, the Montague and the Capulets have been sworn enemies for years on end. An unlikely turn of events results in Romeo and Juliet falling in love and getting married in secret. When ensues is a typical Shakespearean tragedy in which social norms, honor and pride irreversibly affect Romeo and Juliet's love story. The play's prologue calls the two protagonists star crossed lovers a most fitting description of their story one in which Universe seems to conspire against them. Although the play draws lots of elements from Classical Greek tragedies William Shakespeare's take on the theme of forbidden love is a unique, masterful piece of literature. This fact is proven by its endurance in the public's conscience and by its numerous adaptions, spanning over four centuries. Throughout the lesson series for the purpose of intelligibility Romeo and Juliet will be presented in a simplified, mostly narrative version and not in its original traditional play form.

The Twilight Saga breaking dawn part 1 commonly referred to as breaking dawn part 1 is a 2001 American fantasy film directed by Bill Condone based on the 2008 novel of the same name by Stephanie Meyer. Constituting the first of a two part adaption of the novel, the film is the fourth and penultimate installment in the Twilight Saga film series and was followed by breaking dawn part 2 in 2012. All three main cast members Kristen Stewart, Robert Patti Son and Taylor Lautner reprised their roles. Wyck Godfrey and Karen Rose Felt served as producers of the film along with the author of the series Stephanie Meyer the screenplay of the first three entries. It was released in theatres on November 18, 2011 and released to DVD on February 11, 2012 in United States. Although negatively reviewed by critics the film was commercially successful grossing over $712 million worldwide.

Eclipse commonly referred to as Eclipse is a 2010 American romantic fantasy film based on Stephanie Meyer's 2007 novel of the same name and the 2010 companion novella. The short second life of Bree Tanner. It is the third installment of the Twilight Saga film series following 2008's Twilight and 2009's New Moon Summit Entertainment green lit the film in February 2009. Directed by David Slade the film stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner reprising their roles as Bella Swan, Edward Cullen and Jacob Black respectively. Melissa Rosenberg who penned the scripts for both twilight and new moon returned as screen writer. Filming began on August 17,2009 at Vancouver film studios and finished in late October with post production began early the following month. Bryce Dallas Howard joins the cast as returning character Victoria who was previously portrayed by Rachelle Lefevre in the first two films.

New Moon is a 2009 American romantic fantasy film based on Stephanie Meyer's 2006 novel new Moon. It is the second film in The Twilight Saga film series and is the sequel to 2008's Twilight Summit Entertainment green lit the sequel in late November 2008 following the early success of Twilight. Directed by Chris Weitz the film stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner reprising their roles as Bella Swan, Edward Cullen and Jacob Black respectively. Melissa Rosenberg who handed in a draft of the film script during the opening weekend of Twilight returned as screen writer for the New Moon as well. Filming began in Vancouver in late March 2009 and in Montepulcisno Italy in late May 2009. The film was released on 20 November 2009 in most countries and set domestic box office records as the biggest midnight screening grossing $26.3 million which was superseded by its sequel Eclipse.

Twilight Stephenie Mayer's debut novel tells the story of Isabella Bella Swan a normal seventeen year old who falls in love with a vampire Edward Cullen. Though Edward loves Bella deeply in return he also battles his natural instinct to kill her. As a vampire he is after all hardwired to think of Bella and all other humans as his prey. Meyer got her idea for the book from a dream she had a about an average girl and her vampire lover having a conversation while sitting in a woodsy meadow. Meyer recalls. I was so intrigued by the nameless couples story that I hated the idea of forgetting it. Also the vampire was just so darned good looking that I didn't lose the mental image. Put everything that I possibly could on the back burner and sat down at the computer to write something I hadn't done in so long that i wondered why I was bothering. Published in 2005, Twilight won tons of praise. The novel was selected as an Editor's Choice by the New York Times and a book of the year by Publisher's weekly. Twilight is also ranked in the American Library Association's top ten Books for Young Adults and is one of Amazon's Best Books of the Decade so Far. After three sequels and a movie Twilight has followed in Harry Potter's footsteps to become a full-fledged cultural phenomenon on which everybody has an opinion

Jane Eyre is an orphan penniless and plain but full of courage and spirit. She has endured incredible hardship to secure her humble status as a governess in the household of her brooding employer, Mr. Rochester. Jane's sharp wit and defiant nature meet with Rochester's sardonic temperament. Charlotte Brontë lived from 1816 to 1855. Jane Eyre appeared in 1847 and was followed by Shirley 1848 and Violette's 1853. In 1854, Charlotte Brontë married her father's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholas. She died during her pregnancy on March 31, 1855 in Haworth Yorkshire. Jane Eyre is published by Charlotte Bronte on 16 October 1847 by Smith Elder and Co of London. The first American edition was published the following year by Harper and Brothers of New York. Jane Eyre is a Blidungsroman which follows the experiences of its eponymous heroine including her growth to adulthood and her love of Mr.Rochester the brooding master of Thronefield Hall. Charlotte Brontë's has been called the "first historian of the private consciousness" and the literary ancestor of writers like Proust and Joyce. The book contains elements of social criticism with a strong sense of Christian morality at its core, and it is considered by many to be ahead of its time because of Jane's individualistic character.

Oliver twist is one of the most famous novels Charles Dickens ever wrote (which is impressive given that he wrote fifteen super popular novels during his life). It's a classic rags to riches story about an orphan who has to find his way through a city full of criminals and avoid being corrupted. People read Oliver twist in Dickens day and are still reading it now for the gritty realism with which Dickens portrays working class people and the horrible living conditions of the London slums. Oliver twist is the second novel Dickens ever wrote, and it was published in installments between 1837 and 1839. Many novels at the time were published serially meaning that each chapter was issued separately once a month over the space of a year or two. And this only upped the hype of his novels. The publishing of novels in magazines is similar to TV today each magazine was like a different channel. The Victorians had magazines with different specialities. Bentley's Miscellany was like an early Victorian HBO it pushed the envelope in terms of the content that could be published and a lot of prominent novelists and essayists started out writing for Bentley's including our man Charles Dickens he started writing the monthly installments Oliver twist before he had even finished writing his first novel The Pickwick papers. But while The Pickwick papers was all fun and games, Twist was dark and gritty. Oliver twist is an example of a style of novel that was incredibly popular ( but widely criticized) from the 1820s to the 1840s:the Newgate novel. The Newgate novel takes its names from the Newgate prison, the main prison of felons ( pickpockets, thieves, prostitutes, murders) in London. Those Newgate novels Solid like hotcakes.

There once was a girl whose Grand mother made her a red cloak thus she became known as little red riding hood. One day when her Grand mother was ill. Little red went to visit her and take a basket of goodies. Her mother tells her to stay on the path and not to speak to strangers. There are many versions of little red riding hood. Some oral tales date from before Perrault and there have been countless versions since Perrault's was first penned. The story does not always follow the same plot or have the same end. The tale commonly known by people today takes on characteristics of the version written by the Brother Grimm. If you asked someone to recall the story of little red riding hood they might retell the story similar to this. Upon meeting a wolf in the woods she ignores her mother's advice and tells the wolf where she is going. The wolf encourages her to pick flowers and to take longer path to her Grand mother. The mother than rushes to Grandmother's house and eats Grandmother whole. When little red arrives, the wolf in bed disguised in Grandmother's clothes. He devours her whole. A near by huntsman hears the wolf snoring and cuts open his stomach to save little red and her Grandmother. Once upon a time, there was a little girl, who lived in a village near the forest. Whenever she went out, the little girl wore a red riding cloak, so everyone in the village called her little red riding hood. One morning, little red riding hood asked her mother if she could go to visit her grandmother as it had been awhile since they had seen each other.

Hamlet is the first tragedy in Shakespeare's series of great tragedies which is believed to be published in between 1601 and 1603. The super natural elements in the dramas of Shakespeare and subservient to the main action. It provokes the protagonist to do certain actions. This play is one of his successful, perfect and best plays ever known. Hamlet centers on the problems arising from love, death and betrayal without offering the audience a decisive and positive resolution to these complications for Hamlet himself is ambiguous and answers to these problems are complex. In Shakespeare tragedies the characters are presented with abnormal state of mind. But Shakespeare does not allow the abnormal state to be dominant actions. It provokes the suffering from the protagonist. Shakespeare links the super natural elements with the natural. Hamartia leads the downfall of the characters in Shakespearean plays. Hamartia is a kind of force that is already inherited in characters which works as a spiritual force. And it ultimately leads to destruction. The use of this force makes the Shakespearean tragedy different from the Greek tragedies.

A Midsummer night's dream is a comedy by William Shakespeare written in the mid 1590s. Most of the action takes place in a forest just outside ancient Anthens and it has both human and fairy characters. Titania, the fairy queen has just woken up in the forest and sees Nick bottom who has the head of a donkey. Bottom Quince and friends are rehearsing a play to reform at Theseus's wedding. They are comically bad actors and Bottom lead actor and foolish fellow has lots of ideas about how things should be improved which gets on the nerves of director Peter Quince. The actors go into the forest to rehearse where they are spotted by the mischievous fairy Puck. Puck decides to have some fun by tormenting them giving Bottom the head of a donkey and chasing the others off. Alone in the forest Bottom meets fairy queen Titania who's been put under a magic spell that makes her fall in love with him despite his strange appearance. She showers with praise, songs and food before the spell is broken and Puck changes Bottom back to normal. Bottom finds his friends again just in time to do the show at Theseus's wedding.

The Merchant of Venice contains some of Shakespeare's most memorable and complex characters. While Antonio is central to this play after all he is normally considered the person for whom it is named audiences are inevitably fascinated by Sherlock the Jew who sues Antonio for a lethal proud of flesh in return for unpaid loans and by Portia the wealthy heiress who marries Antonio's friend Bassanio and saves Antonio's life in a dramatic courtroom scene. Although Shylock is the villian of this play Shakespeare departs from the Elizabethan caricature of the cruel hated Jew as exemplified by Marlowe's Barabas in The Jew of Malta 1589-90. His creation is more complex fusing humanity with unrelenting cruelty and a strict adherence to the letter of the law. In this way the Jew- figure becomes something impossible to define performable as the clownish, evil, red- haired Elizabethan devil or as the sympathetic Jew of our modern post- holocaust view. Whether his ultimately cruel punishment is his redemption or his humiliation just does not matter when a broken Sherlock murmurs his last line: I am not well. Despite being on a more comic trajectory Portia like Sherlock is also bound by strict adherence to the law. First she faithfully submits to the terms of her father's will which force her to select her future husband according to their choice of gold, silver or leaden casket . Second once Bassanio has chosen the correct box she displays a brilliant understanding of the law to free Antonio from Sherlock on a technality. Yet for all her brilliance in the court room Portia must dress as a man there and again like Sherlock this rich heiress actions demonstrate the prejudices and limitations of a Venetian society.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes, author Sir Arthur Canon Doyle kills of his famous detective at the end of the story "The final problem"published in 1894. We may all love Sherlock Holmes, the classic Victorian gentleman detective who uses his brilliant observations to reason his way to the solutions of 19 century London's most bizarre crimes. However, Canon Doyle resented the fact that demands for his Holmes stories were overwhelming all of his other, more serious, writing projects. So Canon Doyle killed off Holmes by throwing his character in to a waterfall with his archenemy Doctor Moriarty. And then he got down to the business of writing novels hardly anyone reads today, including Rodney Stone (1898) and the Tragedy of the Koro so (1898). Still while Canon Doyle may have regarded the Holmes stories as trashy fiction, he had to admit that they paid well. Everybody wanted to read about Sherlock Holmes. Very few people wanted to read Canon Doyle's historical novel set during the Nepoleonic Wars, Uncle Bernac 1897. So in 190, Canon Doyle brushed off his detective's old pipe and manfiyging glass and produced another Holmes story:the novel length The Hounds of Baskervilles.He published it first in chapters for the Strand Magazine and then as a book in 1902. The reason we say that Holmes is a zombie in this novel is not because he has an uncontrollable desire for brains. But The Hounds of Baskervilles came out seven years after Canon Doyle killed off Holmes, supposedly for good. And it came also out four years before Canon Doyle officially brought Holmes back to life, in The Return of Sherlock Holmes 1905. So like any good zombie, the Holmes in Hound is both alive and dead.