This topic is intended to be used as a theme. Note the two names, reflecting the different possible spellings of Shakespear's name. Plays by Shakespeare This topic is intended to establish a type. It can of course be a subject in its own right, so this distinction between themes, types and subjects is somewhat arbitrary, reflecting more how the topic map author is using the topic, rather than the intrinsic nature of the topic. However, because a single subject can be represented by multiple topics (through the use of identifying topics), it's also meaningful and rational to create multiple topics for the same subject that have different intended uses. Broadway Musical Another type topic. Romeo and Juliet This topic is intended as a subject within this topic map, that is, a topic that the topic map author will eventually expound on in some detail.

Note the use of both the type and identity attributes. The type attribute establishes that this subject is a type of Shakespeare play. The identity attribute associates this topic with an object that establishes the "true" subject the topic is about with a minimum of ambiguitity. In this case, the thing pointed to is an SGML version of the play. King Richard III

This play is a highly fictionalized account of the last years of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who usurped the throne of England in the last days of the Wars of the Roses. His death in battle paved the way for the Stewart kings.

The play about Othello. This is an example of an association established between two topics. This association asserts that West Side Story was derived from Romeo and Juliet.

Note that the link type (linktype) is the HyTime link type needed for HyTime-specific semantics and is distinct from topic map type (type=), which is topic-map specific. Of course, the two types may describe the same abstract type.

Shakespear's Richard III is the third is comparable to Hamlet in many ways. It is arguably the best of the Histories. Like Hamlet, it explores the mind, motivation, and madness of a ruler. Where Hamlet involves a fundamentally good person driven to do bad things by circumstance, principle, and cultural expectations, Richard is driven to do bad things by a thirst for power. Both are forced from lives of essentially adolescent leisure to lives of adult responsibility and power. Both plays are tradegies, Hamlet explicitly, Richard by history. Both Richard and Hamlet lose their femine loves by their own actions--for Hamlet, in a tragic attempt to protect her, for Richard, in a callous attempt to gain more power. Both kill close friends and both, ultimately, die premature and tragic deaths. Hamlet is an exploration of goodness driven to madness. Richard III is an exploration of sentient evil, a madness for a time harnessed but ultimately, like Hamlet, doomed.