William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the foremost dramatist of world literature. He wrote approximately thirty-eight plays, one hundred fifty-four sonnets, and several longer poems.

Life

Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564 and was baptised on 26 April of that year. He was the son of John Shakespeare, a glove maker and local official, and Mary Arden. He probably attended the local grammar school, where he would have studied Latin literature and rhetoric.

He married Anne Hathaway in 1582, and they had three children. During the 1590s he established himself in London as an actor and playwright, becoming a shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a leading theatre company that later became the King's Men under James I.

He retired to Stratford around 1613 and died there in 1616. He was buried in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church, and his monument remains in the church.

Plays

The plays are commonly divided into comedies, histories, and tragedies, though the categories overlap. The comedies include A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night. The histories cover the English kings, including Henry IV and Henry V. The tragedies include Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth.

The plays were written over about two decades and were performed at the Globe Theatre and at the court. They draw on classical sources, on English chronicles, and on the literature of the period, and they are written in a mixture of blank verse and prose.

The later plays, including The Tempest and The Winter's Tale, are sometimes grouped as romances. They combine elements of comedy and tragedy and often involve reconciliation and forgiveness.

Poetry

The Sonnets are a sequence of one hundred fifty-four poems addressed to a young man and to a dark lady. They explore themes of love, time, beauty, and mortality, and they are among the most admired poems in English.

The narrative poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece were published in the 1590s and were popular in his lifetime. They show the influence of classical literature and of the Renaissance tradition.

Style

Shakespeare's style is characterised by its range, its inventiveness, and its command of language. He coined many words and phrases that remain in use, and his plays are a source of quotations that are part of the common culture.

His use of blank verse, of imagery, and of dramatic structure influenced the development of English drama and of literature more broadly. The plays have been performed continuously since his lifetime and have been translated into many languages.

Legacy

Shakespeare's influence on literature, on the theatre, and on the English language is profound. His plays are studied in schools and universities throughout the world and are performed by companies on every continent.

The interpretation of the plays has changed over time, reflecting the concerns of each age. The characters, including Hamlet, Falstaff, and Lady Macbeth, are among the most enduring in world literature.

The Theatre of His Time

Shakespeare worked in a theatre that was flourishing and competitive. The public playhouses, including the Globe and the Rose, were open-air buildings that held large audiences, and the companies performed a different play each day.

The theatre companies were organised as partnerships, and the shareholders, including Shakespeare, shared in the profits. Actors played multiple roles, and the parts were written for the company's personnel, which explains the prominence of certain roles and the frequent need for doubling.

The drama of the period was written in verse and in prose, and it drew on classical models and on the traditions of the medieval mystery plays and of the morality plays. Shakespeare's contemporaries included Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, and John Webster.

The Sonnets and the Problem of Interpretation

The Sonnets are addressed to a young man, often identified as the Fair Youth, and to a woman, the Dark Lady. The identity of these figures is unknown, and the question of whether the poems are autobiographical has been debated for centuries.

The poems explore themes of love, beauty, time, and mortality, and they are notable for their emotional intensity and their formal mastery. The sequence is among the most admired bodies of poetry in English.

The order of the poems and their relationship to one another remain subjects of scholarly debate. The dedication, which refers to the "only begetter" of the poems, has attracted much speculation.

Textual History

The plays were published in quarto editions during Shakespeare's lifetime and in the First Folio of 1623, collected by his fellow actors. The folio is the principal source for many of the plays and the only source for some.

The texts differ among the editions, and the differing versions have been studied for what they reveal about the transmission of the plays and about the process of revision. The editors of modern editions must choose among the variants and must sometimes reconstruct the text.

Reception and Influence

Shakespeare's reputation grew after his death, and by the eighteenth century he was regarded as the national poet of England. His works were edited and performed throughout the world, and they were translated into many languages.

His influence on later writers, on the theatre, and on the language is immense. His plays are studied in schools and universities and are performed by companies on every continent, and his characters and phrases are part of the common culture.

Summary

Shakespeare is the central figure of English literature, and his plays and poems are among the most studied and most performed works in the world. His work reflects the theatre and the culture of his time, and it has shaped the literature and the language that followed.

See also

• Christopher Marlowe
• Ben Jonson
• English drama