SIGNIFICANT OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEAR IN ENGLISH LITERATURE…

Shakespeare Biography

A Comprehensive Shakespeare BiographyAmazingly, we know very little about Shakespeare’s life. Even though he is the world’s most famous and popular playwright, historians have had to fill in the gaps between the handful of surviving records from Elizabethan times.

Shakespeare Biography: The Basics

Born: April 23, 1564 Died: April 23, 1616 Married Anne Hathaway in November 1582 Born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, but moved to London in the late 1580s. Shakespeare’s 37 plays and 154 sonnets are considered the most important and enduring

ever written. Although the plays have captured the imagination of theatergoers for centuries, some historians claim that Shakespeare didn’t actually write them.

Shakespeare's Early Years:

Shakespeare was probably born on April 23, 1564, but this date is an educated guess because we only have a record of his baptism three days later. His parents, John Shakespeare and Mary Arden, were successful townsfolk who moved to a large house in Henley Street,

Stratford-upon-Avon from the surrounding villages. His father became a wealthy town official and his mother was from an important, respected family.

It is widely assumed that he attended the local grammar school where he would have studied Latin, Greek and classical literature. His early education must have made a huge impact on him because many of his plots draw on the classics.

Shakespeare’s Family: At 18, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway from Shottery who was already pregnant with their first daughter. The wedding would have been arranged quickly to avoid the shame of having a child born out of wedlock. Shakespeare fathered three children in all:

Susanna: born in May 1583, but conceived out of wedlock Judith and Hamnet: twins born in February 1585

Hamnet died in 1596, at age 11. Shakespeare was devastated by the death of his only son, and it is argued that Hamlet, written four years later, is evidence of this.

Shakespeare’s Theater Career:

At some point in the late 1580s, Shakespeare made the four-day ride to London, and by 1592 had established himself as a writer.

In 1594 came the event that changed the course of literary history – Shakespeare joined Richard Burbage’s acting company and became its chief playwright for the next two decades. Here, Shakespeare was able to hone his craft, writing for a regular group of performers.

Shakespeare also worked as an actor in the theater company, although the lead roles were always reserved for Burbage himself.

The company became very successful and often performed in front of the Queen of England, Elizabeth I. In 1603, James I ascended the throne and granted his royal patronage to Shakespeare’s company, which became known as The King’s Men.

Top 10 Most Important Plays (in chronological order):

Romeo and Juliet (1594-1595) A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595-1596) Much Ado About Nothing (1598-1599) Henry V (1598-1599) Twelfth Night (1599-1600) Hamlet (1600-1601) Measure for Measure (1604-1605) King Lear (1605-1606) Macbeth ( 1605-1606) The Tempest (1611-1612)

Shakespeare the Gentleman:

Like his father, Shakespeare had excellent business sense. He had bought the largest house in Stratford-upon-Avon by 1597, he owned shares in the Globe Theater, and profited from some real estate deals near Stratford-upon-Avon in 1605.

Before long, Shakespeare officially became a gentleman, partly due to his own wealth and partly due to inheriting a coat of arms from his father who died in 1601.

Shakespeare’s Later Years:

Shakespeare retired to Stratford in 1611 and lived comfortably off his wealth for the rest of his life.

In his will, he bequeathed most of his properties to Susanna, his eldest daughter, and some actors from The King’s Men. Famously, he left his wife his “second best bed” before he died on April 23, 1616 (this date is an educated guess because we only have a record of his burial two days later).

If you visit Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, you can still view his grave and read his epitaph engraved into the stone:

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones.

Shakespeare's Birthplace - His Life and Early Years in Stratford-upon-Avon

Essentials:

Where: Henley Street, Stratford-upon-Avon town center Hours:

June-August, from 9 a.m. Monday to Saturday and from 9:30 a.m. Sundays. Last entry 5 p.m.

April-May and September-October, from 10 a.m. Monday to Saturday and from 10 a.m. Sundays. Last entry 5p.m.

November-March, from 10 a.m. Monday to Saturday and from 10:30 a.m. Sunday. Last entry 4 p.m.

Admission: Adult -£7, Child -£2.75, Seniors -£6, Family ticket -£17 Telephone: +44 (0)1789 201822 Visit the website

To save, buy a multiple ticket for all 5 Shakespeare houses. It's valid indefinitely. Visit a few houses this year, return next year to see more.

From his father's house:

Shakespeare's father, John Shakespeare, was a successful glove maker with a substantial house in the center of Stratford-upon-Avon. Shakespeare was born here in 1564 and spent his early life, with his brothers and sisters, in the family home. It is also likely that he and Anne Hathaway lived in this house in the early year's of their marriage. By the time Shakespeare returned to Stratford-upon-Avon, he'd acquired New Place, a larger house for his wife and children. The birthplace house passed, eventually to his sister Joan, whose descendents owned it until 1806.

Shakespeare's boyhood home:

The house has been restored to allow visitors to see what life would have been like for a boy growing up in Tudor England. Many of the objects are original to the house while replicas are based on research into the way the Tudors lived. Apparently they liked bright colors and every room is decorated with colored clothes and wall hangings, hand dyed using traditional Tudor methods.

What else is there to see?:

The chamber over the parlour would have been, by tradition, the birthing room - so visitors can actually stand in the room where Shakespeare was born. There is also a replica of John Shakespeare's workshop, offering insight to the lucrative glover's trade.

And more:

An exhibition on Shakespeare's life including Parish records and a fragment copy of the First Folio of completed works, dated 1623.

A country garden with traditional plants, herbs and flowers mentioned in Shakespeare's plays.

Celebrity visitors:

Shakespeare's birthplace was acquired by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in 1847, but it has been a place of pilgrimage for centuries. Visitors can see a facsimile guest book signed by Charles Dickens, John Keats and other famous literary and historical figures. Some names can even be seen etched into the glass of the birth room window.

Buy Tickets Online:

Tickets for the Shakespeare Houses are now available online. And don't forget, all of the Shakespeare Houses are included in the Great British Heritage Pass, the best unlimited admission pass (for overseas visitors) that we've ever seen.

Shakespeare's influence

William Shakespeare

The Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity unconfirmed (National Portrait Gallery, London, currently on display at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.).

Born

baptised 26 April 1564 (birth date unknown)Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England

Died23 April 1616Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England

Occupation Playwright, poet, actor

Signature

William Shakespeare's influence extends from theatre to literature to present day movies and to the English language itself. Widely regarded as the greatest writer of the English language[1] and the world's pre-eminent dramatist,[2][3][4] Shakespeare transformed English theatre by expanding expectations about what could be accomplished through characterization, plot, language and genre.[5][6][7] Shakespeare's writings have also influenced a large number of notable novelists and poets over the years, including Herman Melville [8] and Charles Dickens.[9] Finally, Shakespeare is the second most quoted writer in the history of the English-speaking world [10] [11] after the various writers of the Bible, and many of his quotations and neologisms have passed into everyday usage in English and other languages.

The use of English among scholars, lawyers, public officials and other authors of public written documents rose under the primary influence of the printing press. Until the end of the fifteenth century, most oral communication was conducted in English, whereas most written communication was in Latin[where?]. The mass production and widespread distribution of books tipped the scales in favour of the vernacular. As more people began to read, writers noticed that English had become a practical means of reaching the public. A rise of nationalism also contributed to the rise of the vernacular. As England ascended as a force in European politics, first with Henry VIII and then with Elizabeth I, educators and writers began to associate the English language with English values and national pride. A need to change the structure and vocabulary of the language began to arise.

Changes in English at the time

Early Modern English as a literary medium was unfixed in structure and vocabulary in comparison to Greek and Latin, and was in a constant state of flux. When William Shakespeare began writing his plays, the English language was rapidly absorbing words from other languages due to wars, exploration, diplomacy and colonization. By the age of Elizabeth, English had become widely used with the expansion of philosophy, theology and physical sciences, but many writers lacked the vocabulary to express such ideas. To accommodate, writers such as Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare expressed new ideas and distinctions by inventing, borrowing or adopting a word or a phrase from another language, known as neologizing. Scholars estimate that, between the years 1500 and 1659, nouns, verbs and modifiers of Latin, Greek and modern Romance languages added 30,000 new words to the English language.

The influence of Shakespeare on the English language, both spoken and written, has been debated and opinions have varied over the centuries.

Shakespeare’s contribution to the expansion of the English language was commented on as early as 1598, when commentator Francis Meres, applauding English literature in relation to the classics, placed Shakespeare among the writers who had dignified the language. Later in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, critics and scholars began to doubt whether Shakespeare had a significant effect on the expansion of English vocabulary. This is mainly based on the neoclassical image of him as a poor Latinist. In the early twentieth century, there was an overreaction to this, so that one critic credited William Shakespeare with having coined nearly 10,000 words, though some critics wonder how his audience could have understood his plays if they were full of words of which nobody had ever heard.

Shakespeare is cited as an influence on a large number of writers in the following centuries, including major novelists such as Herman Melville,[8] Charles Dickens,[9] Thomas Hardy [12]

and William Faulkner.[13] Examples of this influence include the large number of Shakespearean quotations throughout Dickens' writings[14] and the fact that at least 25 of Dickens' titles are drawn from Shakespeare,[15] while Melville frequently used Shakespearean devices, including formal stage directions and extended soliloquies, in Moby-Dick.[16] In fact, Shakespeare so influenced Melville that the novel's main antagonist, Captain Ahab, is a classic Shakespearean tragic figure, "a great man brought down by his faults."[8] Shakespeare has also influenced a number of English poets, especially Romantic poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge who were obsessed with self-consciousness, a modern theme Shakespeare anticipated in plays such as Hamlet.[17] Shakespeare's writings were so influential to English poetry of the 1800s that critic George Steiner has called all English poetic dramas from Coleridge to Tennyson "feeble variations on Shakespearean themes."

Influence on the English language

Shakespeare's writings greatly influenced the entire English language. Prior to and during Shakespeare's time, the grammar and rules of English were not fixed. [18] But once Shakespeare's plays became popular in the late seventeenth and eighteenth century, they helped contribute to the standardization of the English language, with many Shakespearean words and phrases becoming embedded in the English language, particularly through projects such as Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language which quoted Shakespeare more than any other writer.[19] He expanded the scope of English literature by introducing new words and phrases, experimenting with blank verse, and also introducing new poetic and grammatical structures.

Pre-Shakespearian English

Shakespeare wrote under the influence of writers such as Chaucer, Spenser and Sidney. It is also important to note the setting of Shakespeare's language. In 449 A.D., the Germanic tribes - the Angles, Saxons and Jutes - had moved to Britain to side with the Celts in order to help them defeat their northern neighbors. After their victory, however, the Germanic tribes gradually pushed the Celts into what became Wales and Cornwall. The tribes introduced Anglo-Saxon, more commonly known as Old English language (Mario Pei). Anglo-Saxon survived despite the Norman invasion of 1066 A.D., which introduced French to England and strengthened Latin's existing power. These events marked the beginning of the Middle English period. Around 1204 A.D., bilingualism developed amongst "Norman officials, supervisors, [and] bilingual children [resulting from] French and English marriages".[20]

English was, however, still not in common use, at least in matters of the state and clergy. King John Lackland's death indicated the end of Norman rule. The decision of the Norman proprietors and Edward I's (Henry III's son) conquest of Wales all contributed to increased usage of the English language. French/Norman cultural supremacy in England waned. The increase in the use of English resulted in the "smoothing out of dialectal differences [and] beginning of standard English based on London dialect".[20] Nevertheless, French remained the official language until around the 14th century. It was not until 1509 A.D., however, that English was recognized as the official language of England.[20] Until 1583 A.D., the rhetoric of the English language was deeply indebted to Chaucer. Otherwise, given the relative lack of written records, "the innovation of the language was uncertain".[21] The late 15th and early 16th century marks the approximate shift from Middle English to Early Modern English, the

language of the Renaissance. "Before the arrival of Shakespeare to London, there was little hope for the future of English but by 1613, when Shakespeare's last work was written, the literature of modern English was already rich in varied achievements, self confident and mature".[21][21]

Vocabulary

One of Shakespeare's biggest contributions to the English language is the introduction of vocabulary and phrases which enriched the language making it more colourful and expressive. Shakespeare used around 3,000 new words[citation needed] in his work, sometimes borrowing from the classical literature and foreign languages.[21] His exceptional experimentation with words "also resulted in formation of expressions and phrases". Many of his phrases like "All's well that ends well", "To be or not to be", etc. have become an integral part of the English language and have been used as quotes. The addition of these words gave his style distinctness. These phrases are major contributions to everyday conversation in the English language.

Shakespeare introduced style and structure to an otherwise loose, spontaneous language. The Elizabethan era language was written as it was spoken. The naturalness gave force and freedom since there was no formalized prescriptive grammar binding the expression. Lack of prescribed grammar rules introduced vagueness in literature, but expressed feelings with vividness and emotion. It had "freedom of expression" and "vividness of presentment".[22] It was a language which expressed feelings explicitly. Shakespeare used the exuberance of the language and decasyllabic structure in prose and poetry of his plays to reach the masses and the result was "a constant two way exchange between learned and the popular, together producing the unique combination of racy tang and the majestic stateliness that informs the language of Shakespeare".

It is true that in Shakespeare's works generally occur all the English words and grammatical structures of his era. A prominent example is the usage of the personal pronouns thee, thy, thou etc. Nevertheless, it is obvious that his language is very innovative for his times, as he introduced new words, phrases and grammatical structures and also picked up words that were new and fashionable at the time. The Oxford English Dictionary records over 2000 entries that have a supporting quotation from Shakespeare's works and his quotation often is the earliest source available.[

Blank verse

Shakespeare's first plays were experimental as he was still learning from his own mistakes. It was a long journey from Titus Andronicus and King Henry VI to The Tempest. Gradually his language followed the "natural process of artistic growth, to find its adequate projection in dramatic form".[21] As he continued experimenting, his style of writing found many manifestations in plays. The dialogues in his plays were written in verse form and followed a decasyllabic rule.[citation needed] In Titus Andronicus, decasyllables have been used throughout. "There is considerable pause; and though the inflexibility of the line sound is little affected by it, there is a certain running over of sense". His work is still experimental in Titus Andronicus. However, in Love's Labour's Lost and The Comedy of Errors, there is "perfect metre-abundance of rime [rhyme], plenty of prose, arrangement in stanza". After these two comedies, he kept experimenting until he reached a maturity of style. "Shakespeare's

experimental use of trend and style, as well as the achieved development of his blank verses, are all evidences of his creative invention and influences".[citation needed] Through experimentation of tri-syllabic substitution and decasyllabic rule he developed the blank verse to perfection and introduced a new style.

"Shakespeare's blank verse is one of the most important of all his influences on the way the English language was written".[citation needed] He used the blank verse throughout in his writing career experimenting and perfecting it. The free speech rhythm gave Shakespeare more freedom for experimentation. "Adaptation of free speech rhythm to the fixed blank-verse framework is an outstanding feature of Shakespeare's poetry".[21] The striking choice of words in common place blank verse influenced "the run of the verse itself, expanding into images which eventually seem to bear significant repetition, and to form, with the presentation of character and action correspondingly developed, a more subtle and suggestive unity".[21]

Expressing emotions and situations in form of a verse gave a natural flow to language with an added sense of flexibility and spontaneity.

Poetry

He introduced in poetry two main factors - "verbal immediacy and the moulding of stress to the movement of living emotion".[21] Shakespeare's words reflected passage of time with "fresh, concrete vividness" giving the reader an idea of the time frame.[21] His remarkable capacity to analyze and express emotions in simple words was amazing:

"When my love swears that she is made of truth,

I do believe her, though I know she lies-"

—(Sonnet CXXXVIII)

In the sonnet above, he has expressed in very simple words "complex and even contradictory attitudes to a single emotion".[21]

The sonnet form was limited structurally, in theme and in expressions. Liveliness of Shakespeare's language and strict discipline of the sonnets imparted economy and intensity to his writing style. "It encouraged the association of compression with depth of content and variety of emotional response to a degree unparalleled in English".[21] Complex human emotions found simple expressions in Shakespeare's language.

Shakespeare Timeline

Discover Shakespeare's Life with Our Shakespeare TimelineThis Shakespeare timeline covers all the significant events that shaped Shakespeare’s biography. Born in 1564, Shakespeare lived through the massive cultural and socio-political

shifts of the Elizabethan and Jacobean period. Before his death in 1616, he managed to produce 37 plays and 154 sonnets, considered to be the most important and enduring ever written. This Shakespeare timeline brings together all of these significant events in one place.

1564Shakespeare was born on 23 April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptized at Holy Trinity Church.

1571-1578Shakespeare attended King Edward IV Grammar School in Stratford-upon-Avon between the age of 7 and 14.

1582Married Anne Hathaway from nearby Shottery in November 1582, possibly in a Catholic ceremony.

1583His daughter Susanna was born in May – she was conceived out of wedlock.

1585Shakespeare’s twins, Judith and Hamnet born in February 1585.

1585-1592During the Shakespeare lost years, Shakespeare disappears from the history books for several years.

1592By this time, Shakespeare had moved to London and established himself as a popular dramatist. We don’t know when Shakespeare moved to London, but it is widely accepted that it happened in the late 1580s.

1594Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, his classic tragedy about star-crossed lovers.

1596Hamnet died at the age of 11. Shakespeare was devastated by the death of his only son, and it is argued that the character of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, written four years later, is evidence of this.

1598Shakespeare wrote Much Ado About Nothing, one of his best-loved comedies.

1600Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, possibly in response to the death of his son.

1605Macbeth first performed at the Globe Theater.

1610-1611Shakespeare retires from London and moves back to his home town of Stratford-upon-Avon. He spent the rest of life living in New Place, one of the town’s largest houses.

1616Shakespeare's death occurred on April 23, 1616. He was buried two days later in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon. You can still view his grave and read the epitaph engraved into the stone.

SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM (1564-1616). —

Dramatist and poet, b. at Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire, on 22nd or 23rd, and baptised on 26th April, 1564. On his father's side he belonged to a good yeoman stock, though his descent cannot be certainly traced beyond his grandfather, a Richard S., settled at Snitterfield, near Stratford. His f., John S., appears to have been a man of intelligence and energy, who set up in Stratford as a dealer in all kinds of agricultural produce, to which he added the trade of a glover. He became prosperous, and gained the respect of his neighbours, as is evidenced by his election in succession to all the municipal honours of his community, including those of chief alderman and high bailiff. He m. Mary, youngest dau. of Robert Arden, a wealthy farmer at Wilmcote, and a younger branch of a family of considerable distinction, and whose tenant Richard S. had been. On her father's death Mary inherited Asbies, a house with 50 acres of land attached to it. The first children of the marriage were two dau., who d. in infancy. William was the third, and others followed, of whom three sons, Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund, and a dau. Joan, reached maturity. He was ed. with his brother Gilbert at Stratford Grammar School, where he learned Latin from Lilly's Grammar, English, writing, and arithmetic. He probably read some of the Latin classics and may have got a little Greek, and though his learned friend Ben Jonson credits him with "little Latin and less Greek," Aubrey says he "knew Latin pretty well." This happy state of matters continued until he was about 13, when his f. fell into misfortune, which appears to have gone on deepening until the success and prosperity of the poet in later years enabled him to reinstate the family in its former position. Meanwhile, however, he was taken from school, and appears to have been made to assist his f. in his business. The next certain fact in his history is his marriage in November, 1582, when he was 18, to Ann Hathaway, dau. of a yeoman at the neighbouring hamlet of Shottery, and 8 years his senior. Various circumstances point to the marriage having been against the wishes of his own family, and pressed on by that of his wife, and that it was so urged in defence of the reputation of the lady, and as perhaps might be expected, they indicate, though not conclusively, that it did not prove altogether happy. The birth, in May, 1583, of his eldest child Susannah (who is said to have inherited something of his wit and practical ability, and who m. a Dr. John Hall), followed in the next year by that of twins, Hamnet and Judith, and the necessity of increased means, led to his departure from Stratford, whence he travelled on foot to London, where the next 23 years of his life were mainly spent. The tradition that his departure was also caused by trouble into which he had got by killing the deer of Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlcote, is credible. Leaving Stratford in 1585 or the beginning of 1586, he seems at once to have turned to the theatres, where he soon found work, although, as Rowe, his first biographer, says, "in a very mean rank." It was not long,

however, before he had opportunities of showing his capacities as an actor, with the result that he shortly became a member of one of the chief acting companies of the day, which was then under the patronage of the Earl of Leicester, and after being associated with the names of various other noblemen, at last on the accession of James I. became known as the King's Company. It played originally in "The Theatre" in Shoreditch, the first playhouse to be erected in England, and afterwards in the "Rose" on the Bankside, Southwark, the scene of the earliest successes of S. as an actor and playwright. Subsequently to 1594, he acted occasionally in a playhouse in Newington Butts, and between 1595 and 1599 in the "Curtain." In the latter year the "Globe" was built on the Bankside, and 10 years later the "Blackfriars:" and with these two, but especially with the former, the remainder of his professional life was associated. It is not unlikely that he visited various provincial towns; but that he was ever in Scotland or on the Continent is improbable. Among the plays in which he appeared were Jonson's Every Man in his Humour and Sejanus, and in Hamlet he played "The Ghost;" and it is said that his brother Gilbert as an old man remembered his appearing as "Adam" in As You Like It. By 1595 S. was famous and prosperous; his earlier plays had been written and acted, and his poems Venus and Adonis, and Lucrece, and probably most of the sonnets, had been pub. and received with extraordinary favour. He had also powerful friends and patrons, including the Earl of Southampton, and was known at Court. By the end of the century he is mentioned by Francis Meres (q.v.) as the greatest man of letters of the day, and his name had become so valuable that it was affixed by unscrupulous publishers to works, e.g. Locrine, Oldcastle, and The Yorkshire Tragedy, by other and often very inferior hands. He had also resumed a close connection with Stratford, and was making the restoration of the family position there the object of his ambition. In accordance with this he induced his f. to apply for a grant of arms, which was given, and he purchased New Place, the largest house in the village. With the income derived from his profession as an actor and dramatist, and his share of the profits of the Globe and Blackfriars theatres, and in view of the business capacity with which he managed his affairs, he may be regarded as almost a wealthy man, and he went on adding to his influence in Stratford by buying land. He had enjoyed the favour of Elizabeth, and her death in 1603 did nothing to disturb his fortunes, as he stood quite as well with her successor. His company received the title of the "King's Servants," and his plays were frequently performed before the Court. But notwithstanding this, the clouds had gathered over his life. The conspiracy of Essex in 1601 had involved several of his friends and patrons in disaster; he had himself been entangled in the unhappy love affair which is supposed to be referred to in some of his sonnets, and he had suffered unkindness at the hands of a friend. For a few years his dramas breathe the darkness and bitterness of a heart which has been sounding the depths of sad experience. He soon, however, emerged from this and, passing through the period of the great tragedies, reached the serene triumph and peace of his later dramas. In 1611 S. severed his long connection with the stage, and retired to Stratford, where the remaining five years of his life were spent in honour and prosperity. Early in 1616 his health began to give way, and he made his will. In the spring he received a visit from his friends, Jonson and Drayton, and the festivity with which it was celebrated seems to have brought on a fever, of which he d. on April 23. He was survived by his wife and his two dau., both of whom were married. His descendants d. out with his grand-daughter, Elizabeth Hall.

Immense research has been spent upon the writings of S., with the result of substantial agreement as to the order of their production and the sources from which their subjects were drawn; for S. rarely troubled himself with the construction of a story, but adopting one already existing reared upon it as a foundation one of those marvellous superstructures which make him the greatest painter and interpreter of human character the world has ever seen. His

period of literary production extends from about 1588 to 1613, and falls naturally into four divisions, which Prof. Dowden has named, "In the Workshop" ending in 1596; "In the World" 1596-1601; "Out of the Depths" 1601-1608; and "On the Heights" 1608-1613. Of the 37 plays usually attributed to him, 16 only were pub. during his lifetime, so that the exact order in which they were produced cannot always be determined with certainty. Recent authorities are agreed to the extent that while they do not invariably place the individual plays in the same order, they are almost entirely at one as to which belong to the four periods respectively. The following list shows in a condensed form the order according to Mr. Sidney Lee (Dictionary of National Biography) with the most probable dates and the original sources on which the plays are founded.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

FIRST PERIOD—1588?-1596

LOVE'S LABOUR LOST (1591)—Plot probably original. TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA (1591)— The Shepherdess Felismena in George of

Montmayor's Diana. COMEDY OF ERRORS (1591)— Menæchmi of Plautus and earlier play. ROMEO AND JULIET (1591)—Italian romance in Painter's Palace of Pleasure and

Broke's Romeus and Juliet. HENRY VI. 1, 2, and 3 (1592)—Retouched old plays, probably with Marlowe. RICHARD III. (1592-3)—Holinshed's Chronicle. RICHARD II. (1593-4?)— do. TITUS ANDRONICUS (1594)—Probably chiefly by Kyd, retouched. KING JOHN (1594)—Old play retouched.

SECOND PERIOD—1596-1601-2 MERCHANT OF VENICE (1594)—Italian novels, Gesta Romanorum, and earlier

plays. MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (1595)—North's Plutarch, Chaucer, Ovid. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL (1595)—Painter's Palace of Pleasure. TAMING OF THE SHREW (1596?)—Old play retouched, and Supposes of G.

Gascoigne, Shakespeare's in part only. HENRY IV. 1 and 2 (1597?)—Holinshed and earlier play. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR (1597-8)—Italian novels (?). HENRY V. (1599). MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (1599)—Partly from Italian. AS YOU LIKE IT (1599)—Lodge's Rosalynde, Euphues' Golden Legacie. TWELFTH NIGHT (1599)—B. Riche's Apolonius and Silla.

THIRD PERIOD—1602-1608 JULIUS CÆSAR (1601)—North's Plutarch. HAMLET (1601-2)—Belleforest's Histoires Tragiques.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA (1603?)—Probably Chaucer's Troilus and Cresseide and Chapman's Homer.

OTHELLO (1604)—Cinthio's Hecatommithi. MEASURE FOR MEASURE (1604?)—Cinthio's Epithia. MACBETH (1605-6?)—Holinshed. LEAR (1606)— do. TIMON OF ATHENS (1607?)— Palace of Pleasure and Plutarch written with G.

Wilkins (?) and W. Rowley (?). PERICLES (1607-8)—Gower's Confessio Amantis, with G. Wilkins (?). ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA (1608)—North's Plutarch. CORIOLANUS (1608)— do.

FOURTH PERIOD—1608-1613 CYMBELINE (1610-11?)—Holinshed and Ginevra in Boccaccio's Decamerone. WINTER'S TALE (1610-11)—Green's Dorastus and Fawnia. TEMPEST (1611?)—S. Jourdain's Discovery of the Bermudas. HENRY VIII. (1612-13)—Draft by S. completed by Fletcher and perhaps Massinger.

POEMS VENUS AND ADONIS (1593). RAPE OF LUCRECE (1594). SONNETS (1591-94?).

The evidence as to chronology is three-fold—(1) External, such as entries in registers of Stationers' Company, contemporary references, or details as to the companies of actors; (2) External and internal combined, such as references in the plays to events or books, etc.; (3) Internal, content and treatment, progressive changes in versification, presence of frequency of rhyme, etc. The genius of S. was so intensely dramatic that it is impossible to say confidently when he speaks in his own character. The sonnets, written probably 1591-94 have, however, been thought to be of a more personal nature, and to contain indications as to his character and history, and much labour and ingenuity have been expended to make them yield their secrets. It is generally agreed that they fall into two sections, the first consisting of sonnets 1 to 126 addressed to a young man, probably Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, the friend and patron of S., and 9 years his junior; and the second from 127 to 154 addressed or referring to a woman in whose snares the writer had become entangled, and by whom he was betrayed. Some, however, have held that they are allegorical, or partly written on behalf of others, or that the emotion they express is dramatic and not personal.

There are contemporary references to S. which show him to have been generally held in high regard. Thus Ben Jonson says, "I loved the man, and do honour to his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any," and Chettle refers to "His demeanour no lesse civil than exelent in the qualities he professes." The only exception is a reference to him in Greene's Groat's-worth of Wit, as "an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that with his tyger's heart wrapt

in a player's hide supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you. .. and is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a countrie." He is said to have written rapidly and with facility, rarely requiring to alter what he had set down. In addition to his generally received works, others have been attributed to him, some of which have been already mentioned: the only two which appear to have serious claims to consideration are The Two Noble Kinsmen, partly by Fletcher, and Edward III., of which part of Act I. and the whole of Act II. have been thought to be Shakespeare's. On the other hand a theory has been propounded that none of the plays bearing his name were really his, but that they were written by Bacon (q.v.). This extraordinary view has been widely supported, chiefly in America, and has been sometimes maintained; with considerable ability and misplaced ingenuity.

The Witches’ Spell

Act IV, Scene 1 from Macbeth (1606) by William Shakespeare

A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron boiling. Thunder.Enter the three Witches.

1 WITCH. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.2 WITCH. Thrice and once, the hedge-pig whin’d.

3 WITCH. Harpier cries:—’tis time! ’tis time!1 WITCH. Round about the caldron go;

In the poison’d entrails throw.—Toad, that under cold stone,

Days and nights has thirty-one;Swelter’d venom sleeping got,

Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot!ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and caldron bubble.2 WITCH. Fillet of a fenny snake,

In the caldron boil and bake;Eye of newt, and toe of frog,

Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,

Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing,—For a charm of powerful trouble,Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

3 WITCH. Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf;Witches’ mummy; maw and gulf

Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark;Root of hemlock digg’d i the dark;

Liver of blaspheming Jew;Gall of goat, and slips of yewSliver’d in the moon’s eclipse;Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips;Finger of birth-strangled babeDitch-deliver’d by a drab,—

Make the gruel thick and slab:Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,

For the ingrediants of our caldron.ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and caldron bubble.2 WITCH. Cool it with a baboon’s blood,

Then the charm is firm and good.

WilliamShakespeare from A History of English Literature

from Chapter VI. The Drama From About 1550 To 1642  

SHAKESPEARE, 1564-1616.

William Shakespeare, by universal consent the greatest author of England, if not of the world, occupies chronologically a central position in the Elizabethan drama. He was born in 1564 in the good-sized village of Stratford-on-Avon in Warwickshire, near the middle of England, where the level but beautiful country furnished full external stimulus for a poet's eye and heart. His father, John Shakespeare, who was a general dealer in agricultural products and other commodities, was one of the chief citizens of the village, and during his son's childhood was chosen an alderman and shortly after mayor, as we should call it. But by 1577 his prosperity declined, apparently through his own shiftlessness, and for many years he was harassed with legal difficulties. In the village 'grammar' school William Shakespeare had acquired the rudiments of book-knowledge, consisting largely of Latin, but his chief education was from Nature and experience. As his father's troubles thickened he was very likely removed from school, but at the age of eighteen, under circumstances not altogether creditable to himself, he married Anne Hathaway, a woman eight years his senior, who lived in the neighboring village of Shottery. The suggestion that the marriage proved positively unhappy is supported by no real evidence, but what little is known of Shakespeare's later life implies that it was not exceptionally congenial. Two girls and a boy were born from it.

In his early manhood, apparently between 1586 and 1588, Shakespeare left Stratford to seek his fortune in London. As to the circumstances, there is reasonable plausibility in the later tradition that he had joined in poaching raids on the deer-park of Sir Thomas Lucy, a neighboring country gentleman, and found it desirable to get beyond the bounds of that gentleman's authority. It is also likely enough that Shakespeare had been fascinated by the performances of traveling dramatic companies at Stratford and by the Earl of Leicester's costly entertainment of Queen Elizabeth in 1575 at the castle of Kenilworth, not many miles away. At any rate, in London he evidently soon secured mechanical employment in a theatrical company, presumably the one then known as Lord Leicester's company, with which, in that case, he was always thereafter connected. His energy and interest must soon have won him the opportunity to show his skill as actor and also reviser and collaborator in play-writing, then as independent author; and after the first few years of slow progress his rise was rapid. He became one of the leading members, later one of the chief shareholders, of the company, and evidently enjoyed a substantial reputation as a playwright and a good, though not a great, actor. This was both at Court (where, however, actors had no social standing) and in the London dramatic circle. Of his personal life only the most fragmentary record has been preserved, through occasional mentions in miscellaneous documents, but it is evident that his rich nature was partly appreciated and thoroughly loved by his associates. His business talent was marked and before the end of his dramatic career he seems to have been receiving as manager, shareholder, playwright and actor, a yearly income equivalent to $25,000 in money of the present time. He early began to devote attention to paying the debts of his father, who lived until 1601, and restoring the fortunes of his family in Stratford. The death of his only son, Hamnet, in 1596, must have been a severe blow to him, but he obtained from the Heralds' College the grant of a family coat of arms, which secured the position of the family as gentlefolks; in 1597 he purchased New Place, the largest house in Stratford; and later on he acquired other large property rights there. How often he may have visited Stratford in the twenty-five years of his career in London we have no information; but however enjoyable London life and the society of the writers at the 'Mermaid' Tavern may have been to him, he probably always looked forward to ending his life as the chief country gentleman of his native village. Thither he retired about 1610 or 1612, and there he died prematurely in 1616, just as he was completing his fifty-second year.

Shakespeare's dramatic career falls naturally into four successive divisions of increasing maturity. To be sure, no definite record of the order of his plays has come down to us, and it can scarcely be said that we certainly know the exact date of a single one of them; but the evidence of the title-page dates of such of them as were hastily published during his lifetime, of allusions to them in other writings of the time, and other scattering facts of one sort or another, joined with the more important internal evidence of comparative maturity of mind and art which shows 'Macbeth' and 'The Winter's Tale,' for example, vastly superior to 'Love's Labour's Lost'--all this evidence together enables us to arrange the plays in a chronological order which is certainly approximately correct. The first of the four periods thus disclosed is that of experiment and preparation, from about 1588 to about 1593, when Shakespeare tried his hand at virtually every current kind of dramatic work. Its most important product is 'Richard III,' a melodramatic chronicle-history play, largely imitative of Marlowe and yet showing striking power. At the end of this period Shakespeare issued two rather long narrative poems on classical subjects, 'Venus and Adonis,' and 'The Rape of Lucrece,' dedicating them both to the young Earl of Southampton, who thus appears as his patron. Both display great fluency in the most luxuriant and sensuous Renaissance manner, and though they appeal little to the taste of the present day 'Venus and Adonis,' in particular, seems to have become at once the most popular poem of its own time. Shakespeare himself regarded

them very seriously, publishing them with care, though he, like most Elizabethan dramatists, never thought it worth while to put his plays into print except to safeguard the property rights of his company in them. Probably at about the end of his first period, also, he began the composition of his sonnets, of which we have already spoken.

The second period of Shakespeare's work, extending from about 1594 to about 1601, is occupied chiefly with chronicle-history plays and happy comedies. The chronicle-history plays begin (probably) with the subtile and fascinating, though not yet absolutely masterful study of contrasting characters in 'Richard II'; continue through the two parts of 'Henry IV,' where the realistic comedy action of Falstaff and his group makes history familiarly vivid; and end with the epic glorification of a typical English hero-king in 'Henry V.' The comedies include the charmingly fantastic 'Midsummer Night's Dream'; 'The Merchant of Venice,' where a story of tragic sternness is strikingly contrasted with the most poetical idealizing romance and yet is harmoniously blended into it; 'Much Ado About Nothing,' a magnificent example of high comedy of character and wit; 'As You Like It,' the supreme delightful achievement of Elizabethan and all English pastoral romance; and 'Twelfth Night,' where again charming romantic sentiment is made believable by combination with a story of comic realism. Even in the one, unique, tragedy of the period, 'Romeo and Juliet,' the main impression is not that of the predestined tragedy, but that of ideal youthful love, too gloriously radiant to be viewed with sorrow even in its fatal outcome.

The third period, extending from about 1601 to about 1609, includes Shakespeare's great tragedies and certain cynical plays, which formal classification mis-names comedies. In these plays as a group Shakespeare sets himself to grapple with the deepest and darkest problems of human character and life; but it is only very uncertain inference that he was himself passing at this time through a period of bitterness and disillusion.

'Julius Casar' presents the material failure of an unpractical idealist (Brutus); 'Hamlet' the struggle of a perplexed and divided soul; 'Othello' the ruin of a noble life by an evil one through the terrible power of jealousy; 'King Lear' unnatural ingratitude working its hateful will and yet thwarted at the end by its own excess and by faithful love; and

'Macbeth' the destruction of a large nature by material ambition. Without doubt this is the greatest continuous group of plays ever wrought out by a human mind, and they are followed by 'Antony and Cleopatra,' which magnificently portrays the emptiness of a sensual passion against the background of a decaying civilization.

Shakespeare did not solve the insoluble problems of life, but having presented them as powerfully, perhaps, as is possible for human intelligence, he turned in his last period, of only two or three years, to the expression of the serene philosophy of life in which he himself must have now taken refuge. The noble and beautiful romance-comedies, 'Cymbeline,' 'The Winter's Tale,' and 'The Tempest,' suggest that men do best to forget what is painful and center their attention on the pleasing and encouraging things in a world where there is at least an inexhaustible store of beauty and goodness and delight.

Shakespeare may now well have felt, as his retirement to Stratford suggests, that in his nearly forty plays he had fully expressed himself and had earned the right to a long and peaceful old age. The latter, as we have seen, was denied him; but seven years after his death two of his

fellow-managers assured the preservation of the plays whose unique importance he himself did not suspect by collecting them in the first folio edition of his complete dramatic works.

Shakespeare's greatness rests on supreme achievement--the result of the highest genius matured by experience and by careful experiment and labor--in all phases of the work of a poetic dramatist. The surpassing charm of his rendering of the romantic beauty and joy of life and the profundity of his presentation of its tragic side we have already suggested. Equally sure and comprehensive is his portrayal of characters. With the certainty of absolute mastery he causes men and women to live for us, a vast representative group, in all the actual variety of age and station, perfectly realized in all the subtile diversities and inconsistencies of protean human nature. Not less notable than his strong men are his delightful young heroines, romantic Elizabethan heroines, to be sure, with an unconventionality, many of them, which does not belong to such women in the more restricted world of reality, but pure embodiments of the finest womanly delicacy, keenness, and vivacity. Shakespeare, it is true, was a practical dramatist. His background characters are often present in the plays not in order to be entirely real but in order to furnish amusement; and even in the case of the chief ones, just as in the treatment of incidents, he is always perfectly ready to sacrifice literal truth to dramatic effect. But these things are only the corollaries of all successful playwriting and of all art.

To Shakespeare's mastery of poetic expression similarly strong superlatives must be applied. For his form he perfected Marlowe's blank verse, developing it to the farthest possible limits of fluency, variety, and melody; though he retained the riming couplet for occasional use (partly for the sake of variety) and frequently made use also of prose, both for the same reason and in realistic or commonplace scenes. As regards the spirit of poetry, it scarcely need be said that nowhere else in literature is there a like storehouse of the most delightful and the greatest ideas phrased with the utmost power of condensed expression and figurative beauty. In dramatic structure his greatness is on the whole less conspicuous. Writing for success on the Elizabethan stage, he seldom attempted to reduce its romantic licenses to the perfection of an absolute standard. 'Romeo and Juliet, 'Hamlet,' and indeed most of his plays, contain unnecessary scenes, interesting to the Elizabethans, which Sophocles as well as Racine would have pruned away. Yet when Shakespeare chooses, as in 'Othello,' to develop a play with the sternest and most rapid directness, he proves essentially the equal even of the most rigid technician.

Shakespeare, indeed, although as Ben Jonson said, 'he was not for an age but for all time,' was in every respect a thorough Elizabethan also, and does not escape the superficial Elizabethan faults. Chief of these, perhaps, is his fondness for 'conceits,' with which he makes his plays, especially some of the earlier ones, sparkle, brilliantly, but often inappropriately. In his prose style, again, except in the talk of commonplace persons, he never outgrew, or wished to outgrow, a large measure of Elizabethan self-conscious elegance. Scarcely a fault is his other Elizabethan habit of seldom, perhaps never, inventing the whole of his stories, but drawing the outlines of them from previous works--English chronicles, poems, or plays, Italian 'novels,' or the biographies of Plutarch. But in the majority of cases these sources provided him only with bare or even crude sketches, and perhaps nothing furnishes clearer proof of his genius than the way in which he has seen the human significance in stories baldly and wretchedly told, where the figures are merely wooden types, and by the power of imagination has transformed them into the greatest literary masterpieces, profound revelations of the underlying forces of life.

Shakespeare, like every other great man, has been the object of much unintelligent, and misdirected adulation, but his greatness, so far from suffering diminution, grows more apparent with the passage of time and the increase of study.

[Note: The theory persistently advocated during the last half century that Shakespeare's works were really written not by himself but by Francis Bacon or some other person can never gain credence with any competent judge. Our knowledge of Shakespeare's life, slight as it is, is really at least as great as that which has been preserved of almost any dramatist of the period; for dramatists were not then looked on as persons of permanent importance. There is really much direct contemporary documentary evidence, as we have already indicated, of Shakespeare's authorship of the plays and poems. No theory, further, could be more preposterous, to any one really acquainted with literature, than the idea that the imaginative poetry of Shakespeare was produced by the essentially scientific and prosaic mind of Francis Bacon. As to the cipher systems supposed to reveal hidden messages in the plays: First, no poet bending his energies to the composition of such masterpieces as Shakespeare's could possibly concern himself at the same time with weaving into them a complicated and trifling cryptogram. Second, the cipher systems are absolutely arbitrary and unscientific, applied to any writings whatever can be made to 'prove' anything that one likes, and indeed have been discredited in the hands of their own inventors by being made to 'prove' far too much. Third, it has been demonstrated more than once that the verbal coincidences on which the cipher systems rest are no more numerous than the law of mathematical probabilities requires. Aside from actually vicious pursuits, there can be no more melancholy waste of time than the effort to demonstrate that Shakespeare is not the real author of his reputed works.]

SHAKESPEARE, 1564-1616.

William Shakespeare, by universal consent the greatest author of England, if not of the world, occupies chronologically a central position in the Elizabethan drama. He was born in 1564 in the good-sized village of Stratford-on-Avon in Warwickshire, near the middle of England, where the level but beautiful country furnished full external stimulus for a poet's eye and heart. His father, John Shakespeare, who was a general dealer in agricultural products and other commodities, was one of the chief citizens of the village, and during his son's childhood was chosen an alderman and shortly after mayor, as we should call it. But by 1577 his prosperity declined, apparently through his own shiftlessness, and for many years he was harassed with legal difficulties. In the village 'grammar' school William Shakespeare had acquired the rudiments of book-knowledge, consisting largely of Latin, but his chief education was from Nature and experience. As his father's troubles thickened he was very likely removed from school, but at the age of eighteen, under circumstances not altogether creditable to himself, he married Anne Hathaway, a woman eight years his senior, who lived in the neighboring village of Shottery. The suggestion that the marriage proved positively unhappy is supported by no real evidence, but what little is known of Shakespeare's later life implies that it was not exceptionally congenial. Two girls and a boy were born from it.

In his early manhood, apparently between 1586 and 1588, Shakespeare left Stratford to seek his fortune in London. As to the circumstances, there is reasonable plausibility in the later tradition that he had joined in poaching raids on the deer-park of Sir Thomas Lucy, a neighboring country gentleman, and found it desirable to get beyond the bounds of that

gentleman's authority. It is also likely enough that Shakespeare had been fascinated by the performances of traveling dramatic companies at Stratford and by the Earl of Leicester's costly entertainment of Queen Elizabeth in 1575 at the castle of Kenilworth, not many miles away. At any rate, in London he evidently soon secured mechanical employment in a theatrical company, presumably the one then known as Lord Leicester's company, with which, in that case, he was always thereafter connected. His energy and interest must soon have won him the opportunity to show his skill as actor and also reviser and collaborator in play-writing, then as independent author; and after the first few years of slow progress his rise was rapid. He became one of the leading members, later one of the chief shareholders, of the company, and evidently enjoyed a substantial reputation as a playwright and a good, though not a great, actor. This was both at Court (where, however, actors had no social standing) and in the London dramatic circle. Of his personal life only the most fragmentary record has been preserved, through occasional mentions in miscellaneous documents, but it is evident that his rich nature was partly appreciated and thoroughly loved by his associates. His business talent was marked and before the end of his dramatic career he seems to have been receiving as manager, shareholder, playwright and actor, a yearly income equivalent to $25,000 in money of the present time. He early began to devote attention to paying the debts of his father, who lived until 1601, and restoring the fortunes of his family in Stratford. The death of his only son, Hamnet, in 1596, must have been a severe blow to him, but he obtained from the Heralds' College the grant of a family coat of arms, which secured the position of the family as gentlefolks; in 1597 he purchased New Place, the largest house in Stratford; and later on he acquired other large property rights there. How often he may have visited Stratford in the twenty-five years of his career in London we have no information; but however enjoyable London life and the society of the writers at the 'Mermaid' Tavern may have been to him, he probably always looked forward to ending his life as the chief country gentleman of his native village. Thither he retired about 1610 or 1612, and there he died prematurely in 1616, just as he was completing his fifty-second year.

Shakespeare's dramatic career falls naturally into four successive divisions of increasing maturity. To be sure, no definite record of the order of his plays has come down to us, and it can scarcely be said that we certainly know the exact date of a single one of them; but the evidence of the title-page dates of such of them as were hastily published during his lifetime, of allusions to them in other writings of the time, and other scattering facts of one sort or another, joined with the more important internal evidence of comparative maturity of mind and art which shows 'Macbeth' and 'The Winter's Tale,' for example, vastly superior to 'Love's Labour's Lost'--all this evidence together enables us to arrange the plays in a chronological order which is certainly approximately correct. The first of the four periods thus disclosed is that of experiment and preparation, from about 1588 to about 1593, when Shakespeare tried his hand at virtually every current kind of dramatic work. Its most important product is 'Richard III,' a melodramatic chronicle-history play, largely imitative of Marlowe and yet showing striking power. At the end of this period Shakespeare issued two rather long narrative poems on classical subjects, 'Venus and Adonis,' and 'The Rape of Lucrece,' dedicating them both to the young Earl of Southampton, who thus appears as his patron. Both display great fluency in the most luxuriant and sensuous Renaissance manner, and though they appeal little to the taste of the present day 'Venus and Adonis,' in particular, seems to have become at once the most popular poem of its own time. Shakespeare himself regarded them very seriously, publishing them with care, though he, like most Elizabethan dramatists, never thought it worth while to put his plays into print except to safeguard the property rights of his company in them. Probably at about the end of his first period, also, he began the composition of his sonnets, of which we have already spoken.

The second period of Shakespeare's work, extending from about 1594 to about 1601, is occupied chiefly with chronicle-history plays and happy comedies. The chronicle-history plays begin (probably) with the subtile and fascinating, though not yet absolutely masterful study of contrasting characters in 'Richard II'; continue through the two parts of 'Henry IV,' where the realistic comedy action of Falstaff and his group makes history familiarly vivid; and end with the epic glorification of a typical English hero-king in 'Henry V.' The comedies include the charmingly fantastic 'Midsummer Night's Dream'; 'The Merchant of Venice,' where a story of tragic sternness is strikingly contrasted with the most poetical idealizing romance and yet is harmoniously blended into it; 'Much Ado About Nothing,' a magnificent example of high comedy of character and wit; 'As You Like It,' the supreme delightful achievement of Elizabethan and all English pastoral romance; and 'Twelfth Night,' where again charming romantic sentiment is made believable by combination with a story of comic realism. Even in the one, unique, tragedy of the period, 'Romeo and Juliet,' the main impression is not that of the predestined tragedy, but that of ideal youthful love, too gloriously radiant to be viewed with sorrow even in its fatal outcome.

The third period, extending from about 1601 to about 1609, includes Shakespeare's great tragedies and certain cynical plays, which formal classification mis-names comedies. In these plays as a group Shakespeare sets himself to grapple with the deepest and darkest problems of human character and life; but it is only very uncertain inference that he was himself passing at this time through a period of bitterness and disillusion.

'Julius Casar' presents the material failure of an unpractical idealist (Brutus); 'Hamlet' the struggle of a perplexed and divided soul; 'Othello' the ruin of a noble life by an evil one through the terrible power of jealousy; 'King Lear' unnatural ingratitude working its hateful will and yet thwarted at the end by its own excess and by faithful love; and

'Macbeth' the destruction of a large nature by material ambition. Without doubt this is the greatest continuous group of plays ever wrought out by a human mind, and they are followed by 'Antony and Cleopatra,' which magnificently portrays the emptiness of a sensual passion against the background of a decaying civilization.

Shakespeare did not solve the insoluble problems of life, but having presented them as powerfully, perhaps, as is possible for human intelligence, he turned in his last period, of only two or three years, to the expression of the serene philosophy of life in which he himself must have now taken refuge. The noble and beautiful romance-comedies, 'Cymbeline,' 'The Winter's Tale,' and 'The Tempest,' suggest that men do best to forget what is painful and center their attention on the pleasing and encouraging things in a world where there is at least an inexhaustible store of beauty and goodness and delight.

Shakespeare may now well have felt, as his retirement to Stratford suggests, that in his nearly forty plays he had fully expressed himself and had earned the right to a long and peaceful old age. The latter, as we have seen, was denied him; but seven years after his death two of his fellow-managers assured the preservation of the plays whose unique importance he himself did not suspect by collecting them in the first folio edition of his complete dramatic works.

Shakespeare's greatness rests on supreme achievement--the result of the highest genius matured by experience and by careful experiment and labor--in all phases of the work of a

poetic dramatist. The surpassing charm of his rendering of the romantic beauty and joy of life and the profundity of his presentation of its tragic side we have already suggested. Equally sure and comprehensive is his portrayal of characters. With the certainty of absolute mastery he causes men and women to live for us, a vast representative group, in all the actual variety of age and station, perfectly realized in all the subtile diversities and inconsistencies of protean human nature. Not less notable than his strong men are his delightful young heroines, romantic Elizabethan heroines, to be sure, with an unconventionality, many of them, which does not belong to such women in the more restricted world of reality, but pure embodiments of the finest womanly delicacy, keenness, and vivacity. Shakespeare, it is true, was a practical dramatist. His background characters are often present in the plays not in order to be entirely real but in order to furnish amusement; and even in the case of the chief ones, just as in the treatment of incidents, he is always perfectly ready to sacrifice literal truth to dramatic effect. But these things are only the corollaries of all successful playwriting and of all art.

To Shakespeare's mastery of poetic expression similarly strong superlatives must be applied. For his form he perfected Marlowe's blank verse, developing it to the farthest possible limits of fluency, variety, and melody; though he retained the riming couplet for occasional use (partly for the sake of variety) and frequently made use also of prose, both for the same reason and in realistic or commonplace scenes. As regards the spirit of poetry, it scarcely need be said that nowhere else in literature is there a like storehouse of the most delightful and the greatest ideas phrased with the utmost power of condensed expression and figurative beauty. In dramatic structure his greatness is on the whole less conspicuous. Writing for success on the Elizabethan stage, he seldom attempted to reduce its romantic licenses to the perfection of an absolute standard. 'Romeo and Juliet, 'Hamlet,' and indeed most of his plays, contain unnecessary scenes, interesting to the Elizabethans, which Sophocles as well as Racine would have pruned away. Yet when Shakespeare chooses, as in 'Othello,' to develop a play with the sternest and most rapid directness, he proves essentially the equal even of the most rigid technician.

Shakespeare, indeed, although as Ben Jonson said, 'he was not for an age but for all time,' was in every respect a thorough Elizabethan also, and does not escape the superficial Elizabethan faults. Chief of these, perhaps, is his fondness for 'conceits,' with which he makes his plays, especially some of the earlier ones, sparkle, brilliantly, but often inappropriately. In his prose style, again, except in the talk of commonplace persons, he never outgrew, or wished to outgrow, a large measure of Elizabethan self-conscious elegance. Scarcely a fault is his other Elizabethan habit of seldom, perhaps never, inventing the whole of his stories, but drawing the outlines of them from previous works--English chronicles, poems, or plays, Italian 'novels,' or the biographies of Plutarch. But in the majority of cases these sources provided him only with bare or even crude sketches, and perhaps nothing furnishes clearer proof of his genius than the way in which he has seen the human significance in stories baldly and wretchedly told, where the figures are merely wooden types, and by the power of imagination has transformed them into the greatest literary masterpieces, profound revelations of the underlying forces of life.

Shakespeare, like every other great man, has been the object of much unintelligent, and misdirected adulation, but his greatness, so far from suffering diminution, grows more apparent with the passage of time and the increase of study.

[Note: The theory persistently advocated during the last half century that Shakespeare's works were really written not by himself but by Francis Bacon or some other person can never gain credence with any competent judge. Our knowledge of Shakespeare's life, slight as it is, is really at least as great as that which has been preserved of almost any dramatist of the period; for dramatists were not then looked on as persons of permanent importance. There is really much direct contemporary documentary evidence, as we have already indicated, of Shakespeare's authorship of the plays and poems. No theory, further, could be more preposterous, to any one really acquainted with literature, than the idea that the imaginative poetry of Shakespeare was produced by the essentially scientific and prosaic mind of Francis Bacon. As to the cipher systems supposed to reveal hidden messages in the plays: First, no poet bending his energies to the composition of such masterpieces as Shakespeare's could possibly concern himself at the same time with weaving into them a complicated and trifling cryptogram. Second, the cipher systems are absolutely arbitrary and unscientific, applied to any writings whatever can be made to 'prove' anything that one likes, and indeed have been discredited in the hands of their own inventors by being made to 'prove' far too much. Third, it has been demonstrated more than once that the verbal coincidences on which the cipher systems rest are no more numerous than the law of mathematical probabilities requires. Aside from actually vicious pursuits, there can be no more melancholy waste of time than the effort to demonstrate that Shakespeare is not the real author of his reputed works.]

Famous William Shakespeare Quotes

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is the most famous playwright of all times. His emphatic expression and unique writing style make an impact on the reader. Below, find links to the best Shakespeare quotes. Do you think you know your Shakespeare? Find an interesting quiz to test your knowledge.

William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare built a new vocabulary. In his plays, William Shakespeare coined new words, which enriched English literature. His words are uncanny to the untrained ear. Though we don't speak the English of the Victorian era, our language and culture continue to be heavily influenced by the expressions invented by William Shakespeare.

Shakespeare PlaysShakespeare plays continue to exert a profound impact on the literary scene. These plays are always responsive to the taste of the audience. By using literary devices such as rhythmic patterns and soliloquies, Shakespeare engaged the audience. Read Shakespeare plays to discover the richness of English literature. Or better yet, read these quotes culled from famous Shakespeare plays.

ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare, the English poet, playwright and dramatist, is the center of adulation and inspiration to artists from all genres. As the author of famous plays like Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and King Lear, Shakespeare became a legend in his own right.

With a mature narrative embellished with a mix of romance and witty comedy, he always infused life to his characters. Read along and …

How to Quote ShakespeareYou can quote Shakespeare to make your essays impressive. But, a quotation used in the wrong context can convey the wrong meaning. In this article, you will learn how to quote Shakespeare, without losing the context of the quotation.

Romantic Shakespeare QuotesShakespeare was considered a true romantic. He portrayed love as a heady mix of passion, aggression, despair, and determination. There are amorous love scenes in many of his plays. If you are a romantic person, you will appreciate the intensity of Shakespeare quotes.

Shakespeare Death QuotesShakespeare's tragedies have some deeply moving death-quotes. His quotations on death bring tears rolling down the cheeks. The sadness in the quotes moves you so much that you feel as though you have experienced a great loss. Here is a page of Shakespeare death quotes.

Brilliant Shakespeare QuotesWilliam Shakespeare has written many plays. It is believed that some of his scripts were lost forever. But, we know that Shakespeare wrote at least 36 plays, 154 sonnets, and 5 poems. Each one of his works is considered a masterpiece. It is no wonder that no playwright till date can match the brilliance of William Shakespeare.

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Quotes from Shakespeare Plays: Legendary Quotes from Shakespeare PlaysRead a list of handpicked quotes from Shakespeare plays. On this page, you will find an interesting array of quotes that bring out the dramatic tone of Shakespeare plays. If you love theatre, you will be impressed with this collection.

Shakespeare Quotes: Best of Shakespeare QuotesNoted playwright William Shakespeare was known as a man with a razor sharp wit. He was brilliant with words that left an echo in the hearts of art lovers all over the world. Read some of the greatest Shakespeare quotes in these pages and you will know what I mean. Even if you are not familiar with Shakespeare's famous plays, the quotes convey a lot of meaning.

Shakespeare Quotations: Best of Shakespeare QuotationsHere is a collection of gems from one of the greatest writers that ever lived. William Shakespeare was an institution by himself; the God of classic theatre. This site would be incomplete without a collection of exclusive Shakespeare quotations. These are Shakespeare quotations cited from his famous plays, including The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, and more. One reading cannot do justice to the brilliance of these quotes. So read them, ponder over them and come back for more.

Shakespeare is the best known playwright of all times. Quotations lovers find Shakespeare quotes delightful. On this page, you will find a collection of the top 10 Shakespeare quotes. Read them and enjoy the Bard's articulation and drama.

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Shakespeare's Death

Facts about Shakespeare's Death

William Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, his 52nd birthday (Shakespeare was born on 23 April 1564). In truth, the exact date is not known as only a record of his burial two days later has survived.

When Shakespeare retired from London around 1610, he spent the last few years of his life in New Place – Stratford-upon-Avon’s largest house which he purchased in 1597. It is believed that Shakespeare’s death occurred in this house and would have been attended by his son-in-law, Dr John Hall, the town physician.

New Place is no longer standing, but the site of the house has been preserved by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and is open to visitors.

The Cause of Shakespeare’s Death

The cause of death is not known, but some scholars believe that he was sick for over a month before he died. On March 25 1616, Shakespeare signed his dictated will with a “shaky” signature, evidence of his frailty at the time. Also, it was customary in the early seventeenth century to draw up your will on your deathbed, so Shakespeare must have been acutely aware that his life was coming to an end.

In 1661, many years after his death, the vicar of Stratford-upon-Avon noted in his diary: “Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting, and it seems drank too hard; for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted.” With Stratford-upon-Avon’s reputation for scandalous stories and rumors in the seventeenth century, it is difficult to authenticate this story – even if it was written by a vicar. For example, there have been other observations about Shakespeare’s character that seemingly contradict this: Richard Davies, archdeacon of Lichfield, reported, “He died a papist.”

Shakespeare’s Burial

The Stratford Parish Register records Shakespeare’s burial on the 25 April, 1616. As a local gentleman, he was buried inside Holy Trinity Church beneath a stone slab engraved with his epitaph:

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones.

To this day, Holy Trinity Church remains an important place of interest for Shakespeare enthusiasts as it marks the beginning and end of the Bard’s life. Shakespeare was both baptized and buried at the church.

SUMMARY.— B. 1564, ed. at Stratford School, f. falls into difficulties c. 1577, m. Ann Hathaway 1582, goes to London end of 1585, finds employment in theatres and acts in chief companies of the time, first in "The Theatre" afterwards the "Rose," the "Curtain," the "Globe" and "Blackfriars," appearing in Jonson's Every Man in his Humour and Sejanus. Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, earlier plays, and perhaps most of sonnets pub. by 1595, when he was friend of Southampton and known at Court, purchases New Place at Stratford, falls into trouble c. 1600, having lost friends in Essex's conspiracy, and has unfortunate love affair; emerges from this into honour and peace, retires to Stratford and d. 1616. Productive period c. 1588-1613, 4 divisions, first (1588-96), second (1596-1601), third (1601-1608), fourth (1608-1613). Of 37 plays usually attributed, only 16 pub. in his life.

As might have been expected, there is a copious literature devoted to Shakespeare and his works. Among those dealing with biography may be mentioned Halliwell Phillipps's Outline of the Life of Shakespeare (7th ed., 1887), Fleay's Shakespeare Manual (1876), and Life of Shakespeare (1886). Life by S. Lee (1898), Dowden's Shakespeare, his Mind and Art (1875), Drake's Shakespeare and his Times (1817), Thornberry's Shakespeare's England (1856), Knight's Shakespeare (1843). See also Works by Guizot, De Quincey, Fullom, Elze, and others. Criticisms by Coleridge, Hazlitt, Swinburne, T.S. Baynes, and others. Concordance by Mrs. Cowden Clarke. Ed., Rowe (1709), Pope (1725), Theobald (1733), Johnson (1765), Capell (1768), Steevens's improved re-issue of Johnson (1773), Malone (1790), Reed's 1st Variorum (1803), 2nd Variorum (1813), 3rd Variorum by Jas. Boswell the younger (1821), Dyce (1857), Staunton (1868-70), Camb. by W.G. Clark and Dr. Aldis Wright (1863-66), Temple (ed. I. Gollancz, 1894-96), Eversley Shakespeare (ed. Herford, 1899).

References

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2. "William Shakespeare" . Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9109536. Retrieved 2007-06-14.

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5. Miola, Robert S. (2000). Shakespeare's Reading. Oxford University Press.6. Chambers, Edmund Kerchever (1944). Shakespearean Gleanings. Oxford University

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8. Hovde, Carl F. "Introduction" Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, Spark Publishing, 2003, page xxvi.

9. a b Gager, Valerie L. (1996). Shakespeare and Dickens: The Dynamics of Influence. Cambridge University Press. pp. 163.

10. The Literary Encyclopedia entry on William Shakespeare by Lois Potter, University of Delaware, accessed June 22, 2006

11. The Columbia Dictionary of Shakespeare Quotations , edited by Mary Foakes and Reginald Foakes, June 1998.

12. Millgate, Michael and Wilson, Keith, Thomas Hardy Reappraised: Essays in Honour of Michael Millgate University of Toronto Press, 2006, 38.

13. Kolin, Philip C.. Shakespeare and Southern Writers: A Study in Influence. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 124.

14. Gager, Valerie L. (1996). Shakespeare and Dickens: The Dynamics of Influence. Cambridge University Press. pp. 251.

15. Gager, Valerie L. (1996). Shakespeare and Dickens: The Dynamics of Influence. Cambridge University Press. pp. 186.

16. Bryant, John. "Moby Dick as Revolution" The Cambridge Companion to Herman Melville Robert Steven Levine (editor). Cambridge University Press, 1998, page 82.

17. Dotterer, Ronald L. (1989). Shakespeare: Text, Subtext, and Context. Susquehanna University Press. pp. 108.

18. Introduction to Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Barron's Educational Series, 2002, page 12.

19. Lynch, Jack. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary: Selections from the 1755 Work that Defined the English Language. Delray Beach, FL: Levenger Press (2002), page 12.

20. ^ a b c Fidel Fajardo-Acosta (1997-10-29). "Middle English". Creighton University Department of English. http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/english/worldlit/teaching/upperdiv/mideng.htm.

21. Borris Ford, ed (1955). The Age of Shakespeare. Great Britain: Penguin Books. pp. 16,51,54,55,64,71,87,179,184,187,188,197.

22. A.W. Ward, A.R. Waller, W.P. Trent, J. Erskine, S.P. Sherman, and C. Van Doren, ed (1907–21/2000). "XX. The Language from Chaucer to Shakespeare - 11. Elizabethan English as a literary medium". The Cambridge history of English and American literature: An encyclopedia in eighteen volumes. III. Renascence and Reformation. Cambridge, England: University Press. ISBN 1-58734-073-9. http://www.bartleby.com/213/2011.html.

23. Jucker, Andreas H. History of English and English Historical Linguistics. Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Verlag (2000), page 51.