William Shakespeare

Playwright, Poet (c. 1564-

1616)
• William Shakespeare, also known as the "Bard of Avon," is
often called England's national poet and considered the
greatest dramatist of all time. Shakespeare's works are known
throughout the world, but his personal life is shrouded in
mystery.
• Who Was William Shakespeare?
• William Shakespeare (baptized on April 26, 1564 to April 23,
1616) was an English playwright, actor and poet also known as
the “Bard of Avon” and often called England’s national poet.
Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, he was an important
member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men company of theatrical
players from roughly 1594 onward. Written records give little
indication of the way in which Shakespeare’s professional life
molded his artistry. All that can be deduced is that, in his 20
years as a playwright, Shakespeare wrote plays that capture
the complete range of human emotion and conflict.
• William Shakespeare’s Plays
• While it’s difficult to determine the exact chronology of William
Shakespeare’s plays, over the course of two decades, from
about 1590 to 1613, he wrote a total of 37 plays revolving
around several main themes: histories, tragedies, comedies and
tragicomedies.
• Early Works: Histories and Comedies
• With the exception of the tragic love story Romeo and Juliet,
William Shakespeare's first plays were mostly histories. Henry
VI (Parts I, II and III), Richard II and Henry V dramatize the
destructive results of weak or corrupt rulers, and have been
interpreted by drama historians as Shakespeare's way of
justifying the origins of the Tudor Dynasty. Julius
Caesar portrays upheaval in Roman politics that may have
resonated with viewers at a time when England’s aging
monarch, Queen Elizabeth I, had no legitimate heir, thus
creating the potential for future power struggles.
• Shakespeare also wrote several comedies during his early
period: the witty romance A Midsummer Night's Dream, the
romantic Merchant of Venice, the wit and wordplay of Much Ado
About Nothing, the charming As You Like It and Twelfth Night.
• Other plays written before 1600 include Titus Andronicus, The
Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming
of the Shrew, Love’s Labour’s Lost, King John, The Merry
Wives of Windsor and Henry V
• Works after 1600: Tragedies and Tragicomedies
• It was in William Shakespeare's later period, after 1600, that he
wrote the tragedies Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. In
these, Shakespeare's characters present vivid impressions of
human temperament that are timeless and universal. Possibly
the best known of these plays is Hamlet, which explores
betrayal, retribution, incest and moral failure. These moral
failures often drive the twists and turns of Shakespeare's plots,
destroying the hero and those he loves.
• In William Shakespeare's final period, he wrote several
tragicomedies. Among these are Cymbeline, The Winter's
Tale and The Tempest. Though graver in tone than the
comedies, they are not the dark tragedies of King
Lear or Macbethbecause they end with reconciliation and
forgiveness.
• Other plays written during this period include All’s Well That
Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Timon of
Athens, Coriolanus, Pericles and Henry VIII.
• When and Where Was William Shakespeare Born?
• Though no birth records exist, church records indicate that a
William Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in
Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564. From this, it is believed
he was born on or near April 23, 1564, and this is the date
scholars acknowledge as William Shakespeare's birthday.
Located 103 miles west of London, during Shakespeare's time
Stratford-upon-Avon was a market town bisected with a country
road and the River Avon.
• Family
• William was the third child of John Shakespeare, a leather
merchant, and Mary Arden, a local landed heiress. William had
two older sisters, Joan and Judith, and three younger brothers,
Gilbert, Richard and Edmund. Before William's birth, his father
became a successful merchant and held official positions as
alderman and bailiff, an office resembling a mayor. However,
records indicate John's fortunes declined sometime in the late
1570s.
• Childhood and Education
• Scant records exist of William's childhood, and virtually none
regarding his education. Scholars have surmised that he most
likely attended the King's New School, in Stratford, which taught
reading, writing and the classics. Being a public official's child,
William would have undoubtedly qualified for free tuition. But
this uncertainty regarding his education has led some to raise
questions about the authorship of his work and even about
whether or not William Shakespeare ever existed.
• William Shakespeare’s Wife and Kids
• William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway on November 28,
1582, in Worcester, in Canterbury Province. Hathaway was
from Shottery, a small village a mile west of Stratford. William
was 18 and Anne was 26, and, as it turns out, pregnant. Their
first child, a daughter they named Susanna, was born on May
26, 1583. Two years later, on February 2, 1585, twins Hamnet
and Judith were born. Hamnet later died of unknown causes at
age 11.
• Shakespeare’s Lost Years
• There are seven years of William Shakespeare's life where no
records exist after the birth of his twins in 1585. Scholars call
this period the "lost years," and there is wide speculation on
what he was doing during this period. One theory is that he
might have gone into hiding for poaching game from the local
landlord, Sir Thomas Lucy. Another possibility is that he might
have been working as an assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire.
It is generally believed he arrived in London in the mid- to late
1580s and may have found work as a horse attendant at some
of London's finer theaters, a scenario updated centuries later by
the countless aspiring actors and playwrights in Hollywood and
Broadway.
• Lord Chamberlain's Men
• By the early 1590s, documents show William Shakespeare was
a managing partner in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, an acting
company in London with which he was connected for most of
his career. Considered the most important troupe of its time, the
company changed its name to the King's Men following the
crowning of King James I, in 1603.
• From all accounts, the King's Men company was very popular.
Records show that Shakespeare had works published and sold
as popular literature. Although the theater culture in 16th
century England was not highly admired by people of high rank,
many of the nobility were good patrons of the performing arts
and friends of the actors.
• William Shakespeare the Actor and Playwright
• By 1592, there is evidence William Shakespeare earned a living
as an actor and a playwright in London and possibly had
several plays produced. The September 20, 1592 edition of
the Stationers' Register (a guild publication) includes an article
by London playwright Robert Greene that takes a few jabs at
William Shakespeare: "...There is an upstart Crow, beautified
with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a
Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a
blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes
factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a
country," Greene wrote of Shakespeare.
• Scholars differ on the interpretation of this criticism, but most
agree that it was Greene's way of saying Shakespeare was
reaching above his rank, trying to match better known and
educated playwrights like Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe
or Greene himself.
• Early in his career, Shakespeare was able to attract the
attention of Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, to
whom he dedicated his first- and second-published poems:
"Venus and Adonis" (1593) and "The Rape of Lucrece" (1594).
• By 1597, Shakespeare had already written and published 15 of
his 37 plays. Civil records show that at this time he purchased
the second largest house in Stratford, called New House, for his
family. It was a four-day ride by horse from Stratford to London,
so it is believed that Shakespeare spent most of his time in the
city writing and acting and came home once a year during the
40-day Lenten period, when the theaters were closed.
• Shakespeare’s Globe Theater
• By 1599, William Shakespeare and his business partners built
their own theater on the south bank of the Thames River, which
they called the Globe. In 1605, Shakespeare purchased leases
of real estate near Stratford for 440 pounds, which doubled in
value and earned him 60 pounds a year. This made him an
entrepreneur as well as an artist, and scholars believe these
investments gave him the time to write his plays uninterrupted.
• Shakespeare’s Writing Style
• William Shakespeare's early plays were written in the
conventional style of the day, with elaborate metaphors and
rhetorical phrases that didn't always align naturally with the
story's plot or characters. However, Shakespeare was very
innovative, adapting the traditional style to his own purposes
and creating a freer flow of words. With only small degrees of
variation, Shakespeare primarily used a metrical pattern
consisting of lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank
verse, to compose his plays. At the same time, there are
passages in all the plays that deviate from this and use forms of
poetry or simple prose.
• Shakespeare’s Death
• Tradition has it that William Shakespeare died on his 52nd birthday,
April 23, 1616, though many scholars believe this is a myth. Church
records show he was interred at Trinity Church on April 25, 1616.
• In his will, he left the bulk of his possessions to his eldest daughter,
Susanna. Though entitled to a third of his estate, little seems to have
gone to his wife, Anne, whom he bequeathed his "second-best bed."
This has drawn speculation that she had fallen out of favor, or that
the couple was not close. However, there is very little evidence the
two had a difficult marriage. Other scholars note that the term
"second-best bed" often refers to the bed belonging to the
household's master and mistress — the marital bed — and the "first-
best bed" was reserved for guests.
• Literary Legacy
• What seems to be true is that William Shakespeare was a respected
man of the dramatic arts who wrote plays and acted in some in the
late 16th and early 17th centuries. But his reputation as a dramatic
genius wasn't recognized until the 19th century. Beginning with the
Romantic period of the early 1800s and continuing through the
Victorian period, acclaim and reverence for William Shakespeare
and his work reached its height. In the 20th century, new movements
in scholarship and performance have rediscovered and adopted his
works.
• Today, his plays are highly popular and constantly studied and
reinterpreted in performances with diverse cultural and political
contexts. The genius of Shakespeare's characters and plots are that
they present real human beings in a wide range of emotions and
conflicts that transcend their origins in Elizabethan England.