- All's Well That Ends Well
- Antony and Cleopatra
- As You Like It
- The Comedy of Errors
- Coriolanus
- Cymbeline
- Hamlet
- Henry IV, Part 1
- Henry IV, Part 2
- Henry V
- Henry VI, Part 1
- Henry VI, Part 2
- Henry VI, Part 3
- Henry VIII
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- Love's Labor's Lost
- A Lover's Complaint
- Macbeth
- Measure for Measure
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- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Much Ado About Nothing
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- Twelfth Night
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- Venus and Adonis
- The Winter's Tale
After securing a marriage proposal from Augustus, Mrs. Erlynne takes Lord Windermere aside to ask him for money to use for the marriage, which he apparently promised her previously. Hesitant, Lord Windermere asks not to discuss it at the party, so she directs him to the terrace. This quotation is notable mainly for the double entendre of the word “background,” which refers literally to the pretty scenery of the terrace while also referring figuratively to Mrs. Erlynne’s plan to convince people she comes from a good family who left her the money. The invocation here of the crucial role of…