Themes and Images in All's Well that Ends Well
The Dumb Are Made to Speak
Letters
Shakespeare spent the first 25 or maybe 30 years of his life thinking that he was a gifted homosexual, like his best friend Christopher Marlowe, and lived happily in a homosexual coterie. When he discovered that he liked girls, he was very unhappy--shocked is probably a better word--and he wrote his unhappiness into Berowne, Othello and Angelo. Call or write me for details.
Shakespeare wrote his (heterosexual) happiness into Much Ado. But in this ecstasy, he despised his career as a (homosexual) playwright. He despised intellectuality and wrritten words in general. In Much Ado, Benedick throws his sonnets on the stage, and all the other characters walk on them.
All's Well represents Shakespeare's understanding of his sexuality and, more importantly, of his intellect. All's Well is filled with writing--letters--and in fact we cannot understand Hellen's transformation from "good girl" to "bad girl" unless we analyze her suicide note to the Countess in III.4. I have discussed the matter, tediously, as is my fashion, in the notes to that scene.
If it's a morality play, shouldn't it have miracles in it? And it does.
Scar, Scarre, Scarves, Cicatrices and Similar Images
Drums and Anatomical Details
Table of Contents