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William ShakespeareA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
“I / know you are my eldest brother, and in gentle / condition of blood you should so know me. The / courtesy of nations allows you my better, in that you / are the first-born, but the same tradition takes not / away my blood, were there twenty brothers betwixt / us. I have as much of my father in me as you, albeit I / confess your coming before me is nearer to his / reference.”
Orlando criticizes his brother Oliver for taking advantage of the “courtesy of nations.” By that, he means the custom of primogeniture, by which the first-born son inherits the father’s estate. Orlando criticizes primogeniture itself, saying that he is as much a part of his father as Oliver and that their only difference is in order of birth.
“Marry, I prithee do, to make sport withal; but / love no man in good earnest, nor no further in / sport neither than with safety of pure blush thou / mayst in honor come off again.”
“The more pity that fools may not speak / wisely what men do foolishly.”
The fool Touchstone jokes that the words of fools are never taken seriously due to their joking nature. However, their comments on the foolish actions of others might in fact be wise. This is a common theme across Shakespeare’s plays, many of which contain a stock “fool” character.
By William Shakespeare
All's Well That Ends Well
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Antony and Cleopatra
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Coriolanus
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Cymbeline
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Hamlet
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Henry IV, Part 1
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Henry IV, Part 2
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Henry V
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Henry VIII
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Henry VI, Part 1
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Henry VI, Part 3
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Julius Caesar
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King John
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King Lear
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Love's Labour's Lost
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Macbeth
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Measure For Measure
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Much Ado About Nothing
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Othello
William Shakespeare