MF

shakespear life

2004-11-16T21:27:00.000-08:00

INTRODUCTION
dynamic timeline William Shakespeare
Shakespeare, William (1564-1616), English playwright and poet, recognized in much of the world as the greatest of all dramatists. Hundreds of editions of his plays have been published, including translations in all major languages. Scholars have written thousands of books and articles about his plots, characters, themes, and language. He is the most widely quoted author in history, and his plays have probably been performed more times than those of any other dramatist.

Shakespeare's Plays © Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Expand
Globe Theatre Interior Audience members at the reconstructed Globe Theatre in London can sit on benches in one of the three covered galleries or stand in the open yard, just as audiences did in the original Globe Theatre of Shakespeare’s time. The projecting stage has a thatched roof and an elaborately decorated back wall. Large oak pillars, painted to look like marble, support a canopy, which has been painted to represent the heavens.The Image Bank/Andrea Pistolesi Expand
William Shakespeare Quick Facts © Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Expand There is no simple explanation for Shakespeare’s unrivaled popularity, but he remains our greatest entertainer and perhaps our most profound thinker. He had a remarkable knowledge of human behavior, which he was able to communicate through his portrayal of a wide variety of characters. He was able to enter fully into the point of view of each of his characters and to create vivid dramatic situations in which to explore human motivations and behavior. His mastery of poetic language and of the techniques of drama enabled him to combine these multiple viewpoints, human motives, and actions to produce a uniquely compelling theatrical experience.
II LIFE
sidebar SIDEBAR Ten Who Changed the Millennium In this December 1999 feature article from Encarta Yearbook, educator and author Agnes Hooper Gottlieb identifies and profiles ten individuals who changed the course of the last 1,000 years. open sidebar
For someone who lived almost 400 years ago, a surprising amount is known about Shakespeare’s life. Indeed we know more about his life than about almost any other writer of his age. Nonetheless, for the life of the greatest writer in the English language, there are still significant gaps, and therefore much supposition surrounds the facts we have. He composed his plays during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, who ruled England from 1558 to 1603, and during the early part of the reign of her cousin James VI of Scotland, who took England’s throne as James I after Elizabeth’s death in 1603. During this period England saw an outpouring of poetry and drama, led by Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, and Christopher Marlowe, that remains unsurpassed in English literary history (see English Literature).
A Early Years
Shakespeare’s Birthplace English playwright William Shakespeare was born in this house on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564. Shakespeare’s father, John, purchased the building in two stages, in 1556 and 1572. Today, Shakespeare’s birthplace is a museum, furnished as it might have been in Shakespeare’s time. It also houses an exhibit on Shakespeare’s life.The Image Works/Topham Expand Although the exact date of Shakespeare’s birth is unknown, his baptism on April 26, 1564, was recorded in the parish register of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, a prosperous town in the English Midlands. Based on this record and on the fact that children in Shakespeare’s time were usually baptized two or three days after birth, April 23 has traditionally been accepted as his date of birth. The third of eight children, William Shakespeare was the eldest son of John Shakespeare, a locally prominent glovemaker and wool merchant, and Mary Arden, the daughter of a well-to-do landowner in the nearby village of Wilmcote. The young Shakespeare probably attended the Stratford grammar school, the King’s New School, which educated the sons of Stratford citizens. The school’s rigorous curriculum was based largely on the study of Latin and the major classical writers. Shakespeare’s writings show that he was well acquainted with the Latin poet Ovid as well as other Latin works, including comedies by Terence and Plautus, two much-admired Roman playwrights.
web center Ä Find the best online information about Shakespeare, William. Encarta Editors' PicksBartleby Shakespeare CollectionSelected Poetry of William Shakespeare (1564-1616)William Shakespeare (1564-1616) more...
As his family’s eldest son, Shakespeare ordinarily would have been apprenticed to his father’s shop after he completed grammar school, so that he could learn and eventually take over the business. We do not have any evidence that he did so, however. According to one late 17th-century account, he was apprenticed instead to a butcher because of declines in his father’s financial situation, but this claim is no more convincing that a number of other claims. A potentially reliable source, William Beeston, the son of an actor and theater manager who would certainly have known Shakespeare, claimed that Shakespeare had been “a schoolmaster in the country.” Recently, some scholars have been intrigued by a letter from 1581 from a prominent landowner, Alexander Hoghton, recommending a William Shakeshafte to Sir Thomas Hesketh. Some believe that Shakeshafte is Shakespeare, working perhaps as a schoolmaster for the Hoghtons, a Catholic family in Lancashire. However, no absolutely reliable historical records remain to provide information about Shakespeare’s life between his baptism and his marriage.
On November 27, 1582, a license was issued to permit Shakespeare’s marriage, at the age of 18, to Anne Hathaway, aged 26 and the daughter of a Warwickshire farmer. (Although the document lists the bride as “Annam Whateley,” the scribe most likely made an error in the entry.) The next day a bond was signed to protect the bishop who issued the license from any legal responsibility for approving the marriage, as William was still a minor and Anne was pregnant. The couple’s daughter, Susanna, was born on May 26, 1583, and twins—Hamnet and Judith who were named for their godparents, neighbors Hamnet and Judith Sadler—followed on February 2, 1585.
Sometime after the birth of the twins, Shakespeare apparently left Stratford, but no records have turned up to reveal his activity between their birth and his presence in London in 1592, when he was already at work in the theater. For this reason Shakespeare’s biographers sometimes refer to the years between 1585 and 1592 as “the lost years.” Speculations about this period abound. An unsubstantiated report claims Shakespeare left Stratford after he was caught poaching in the deer park of Sir Thomas Lucy, a local justice of the peace. Another theory has him leaving for London with a theater troupe that had performed in Stratford in 1587.
B Arrival in London
Shakespeare seems to have arrived in London about 1588, and by 1592 he had attained sufficient success as an actor and a playwright to attract the venom of an anxious rival. In his Groat’s Worth of Wit, English dramatist Robert Greene sneers at “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 [jack of all trades], is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.” The pun on Shakespeare’s name and the parody in the quotation of a line from Henry VI leave no doubt of Greene’s target. Shortly after this remark, Shakespeare’s first publications appeared. His poetry rather than his plays reached print first: Venus and Adonis in 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece in 1594. These two fashionably erotic narrative poems were probably written to earn money as the theaters were closed from the summer of 1592 to the spring of 1594 because of plague, and Shakespeare’s normal source of income was thus denied him. Even so, the two poems, along with the Sonnets, established Shakespeare’s reputation as a gifted and popular poet. Shakespeare dedicated the two poems to Henry Wriothesley, 3rd earl of Southampton. Scholars disagree on whether the dedications are evidence of a close relationship between Shakespeare and Southampton. Literary dedications were designed to gain financial support from wealthy men interested in fostering the arts, and it is probable that Southampton rewarded Shakespeare for his two poems. Both poems became best-sellers—The Rape of Lucrece appearing in eight editions by 1632, Venus and Adonis in a remarkable 16 editions by 1636—and both were widely quoted and often imitated.
The Sonnets were not published until 1609, but as early as 1598, a contemporary, Francis Meres, praised Shakespeare as a “mellifluous and honey-tongued” poet equal to the Roman Ovid, praising in particular his “sugared sonnets” that were circulating “among his private friends.” The 154 sonnets describe the devotion of a character, often identified as the poet himself, to a young man whose beauty and virtue he praises and to a mysterious and faithless dark lady with whom the poet is infatuated. The sonnets are prized for their exploration of love in all its aspects. Sonnet 18, which begins “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day,” ranks among the most famous love poems of all time. See also Shakespeare’s Sonnets.
C Actor and Playwright
Globe Theatre in London The Globe Theatre, where dramatist William Shakespeare saw his plays performed 400 years ago, has been rebuilt near its original location on the south bank of the Thames River in London, England. The rebuilt theater opened in 1997 and offers performances of Shakespeare’s plays during the summer. Traditional materials were used in the rebuilding. A thatched roof covers the galleries where the audience sits, and the outer walls are made of lime plaster.The Image Bank/MacDuff Everton Expand Shakespeare’s reputation today is, however, based primarily on the 38 plays that he wrote, modified, or collaborated on. Records of Shakespeare’s plays begin to appear in 1594, when the theaters reopened with the passing of the plague that had closed them for 21 months. In December of 1594 his play The Comedy of Errors was performed in London during the Christmas revels at Gray’s Inn, one of the London law schools. In March of the following year he received payment for two plays that had been performed during the Christmas holidays at the court of Queen Elizabeth I by his theatrical company, known as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. The receipt for payment, which he signed along with two fellow actors, reveals that he had by this time achieved a prominent place in the company. He was already probably a so-called sharer, a position entitling him to a percentage of the company’s profits rather than merely a salary as an actor and a playwright. In time the profits of this company and its two theaters, the Globe Theatre, which opened in 1599, and the Blackfriars, which the company took over in 1608, enabled Shakespeare to become a wealthy man.
It is worth noting that Shakespeare’s share in the acting company made him wealthy, not any commissions or royalties from writing his plays. Playwriting was generally poorly paid work, which involved providing scripts for the successful theater business. His plays would have belonged to the acting company, and when they did reach print they then belonged to the publisher. No system of royalties existed at that time. Indeed, with the exception of the two narrative poems he published in 1593 and 1594, Shakespeare never seems to have bothered about publication. The plays that reached print did so without his involvement. The only form of “publication” he sought was their performance in the theater.
Music of the Renaissance Theater During the Renaissance (15th-16th century) a “rebirth” of artists and intellectuals paralleled a movement to restore the philosophical and artistic ideals of classical antiquity. The spirit of this time is often reflected in its secular songs and consort music. This was also a time when music became more of a part of artistic and literary life. The English playwright William Shakespeare utilized music in the form of popular songs and well-known ballads in his plays. Not surprisingly, his verses inspired numerous composers of songs and dramatic orchestral music."Greensleeves" performed by the Deller Consort, from Shakespeare Songs (Cat.# Harmonia Mundi HMA 190202) (p)1967 Harmonia Mundi, Ltd. All rights reserved. Expand The theater served Shakespeare’s financial needs well. In 1597 he bought New Place, a substantial three-story house in Stratford. With the opening of the splendid Globe Theatre in 1599, Shakespeare’s fortunes increased and in 1602 he bought additional property: 43 hectares (107 acres) of arable land and 8 hectares (20 acres) of pasture north of the town of Stratford and, later that year, a cottage facing the garden at New Place. In 1605 he bought more property in a neighboring village. His financial activities can be traced, and his final investment is the purchase of a house in the Blackfriars district of London in 1613.
Shakespeare wrote nearly all of his plays from 1590 to 1611, when he retired to New Place. A series of history plays and joyful comedies appeared throughout the 1590s, ending with As You Like It and Twelfth Night. At the same time as he was writing comedy, he also wrote nine history plays, treating the reigns of England’s medieval kings and exploring realities of power still relevant today. The great tragedies—including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth—were written during the first decade of the 1600s. All focus on a basically decent individual who brings about his own downfall through a tragic flaw. Scholars have theorized about the reasons behind this change in Shakespeare’s vision, and the switch from a focus on social aspects of human activity to the rending experience of the individual. But no one knows whether events in his own life or changes in England’s circumstances triggered the shift, or whether it was just an aesthetic decision. Shakespeare’s only son, Hamnet, had died in 1596 at the age of 11, his father died in 1601, and England’s popular monarch, Elizabeth I, died in 1603, so it is not unreasonable to think that the change in Shakespeare’s genre and tone reflects some change in his own view of life prompted by these events. In his last years working as a playwright, however, Shakespeare wrote a number of plays that are often called romances or tragicomedies, plays in which the tragic facts of human existence are fully acknowledged but where reassuring patterns of reconciliation and harmony can be seen finally to shape the action.
Shakespeare’s plays were performed at the courts of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I more frequently than those of any other dramatist of that time. Shakespeare risked losing royal favor only once, in 1599, when his company performed “the play of the deposing and killing of King Richard II” at the request of a group of conspirators against Elizabeth. In the subsequent inquiry, Shakespeare’s company was absolved of any knowing participation in the conspiracy. Although Shakespeare’s plays enjoyed great popularity with the public, most people did not consider them literature. Plays were merely popular entertainments, not unlike the movies today.
D Last Years
Shakespeare’s Burial Site England’s greatest playwright, William Shakespeare, died on April 23, 1616, and was buried in the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, shown here. His epitaph reads: Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare To digg the dust encloased heare: Blese be ye man yt spares thes stones And curst be he yt moves my bones.The Image Bank/Chris Cole Expand After about 1608 Shakespeare began to write fewer plays. For most of his working life he wrote at least two plays a year; by 1608 he had slowed usually to one a year, even though the acting company continued to enjoy great success. In 1608 the King’s Men, as his company was called after King James took the throne, began to perform at Blackfriars, an indoor theater that charged higher prices and drew a more sophisticated audience than the outdoor Globe. An indoor theater presented possibilities in staging and scenery that the Globe did not permit, and these can be recognized in the late plays.
In 1613 fire destroyed the Globe Theatre during a performance of Henry VIII. Although the Globe was quickly rebuilt, Shakespeare’s association with it—and probably with the company—had ended. Around the time of the fire, Shakespeare retired to Stratford, where he had established his family and become a prominent citizen. Shakespeare’s daughter Susanna had married John Hall, a doctor with a thriving practice in Stratford, in 1607. His younger daughter, Judith, married a Stratford winemaker, Thomas Quiney, in 1616.
Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616—the month and day traditionally assigned to his birth—and was buried in Stratford’s Holy Trinity Church. He had made his will the previous month, “in perfect health and memory.” The cause of his death is not known, though a report from the Holy Trinity’s vicar in the 1660s claims that he “died of a fever … contracted after a night of drinking with Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton, friends and fellow writers.”
Shakespeare left the bulk of his estate to his daughter Susanna and the sum of 300 pounds to his daughter Judith. The only specific provision for his wife was their “second-best bed with the furniture [linens],” although customary practice allowed a widow one-third of the estate. Shakespeare also left money for “the poor of Stratford,” and remembered the three surviving original members of his acting company, Richard Burbage, John Heminges, and Henry Condell, with small grants to buy memorial rings.
Shakespeare’s wife, Anne, died on August 6, 1623. She lived long enough to see a monument to her husband erected in Holy Trinity Church, but she died just before the publication of the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays, the more lasting monument to his memory. Soon after her death, Susanna and John Hall moved into New Place, where they lived until their deaths, his in 1635 and hers in 1649. Their daughter, Elizabeth Hall, died childless in 1670. Judith Quiney had three sons, but none lived long enough to produce heirs, and she died in 1662. Thus, by 1670, the line of Shakespeare’s descendants had reached its end.
III PUBLICATION
So far as is known, Shakespeare had no hand in the publication of any of his plays and indeed no interest in the publication. Performance was the only public forum he sought for his plays. He supplied the scripts to the Chamberlain’s Men and the King’s Men, but acting companies of that time often thought it bad business to allow their popular plays to be printed as it might give other companies access to their property. Some plays, however, did reach print. Eighteen were published in small, cheap quarto editions, though often in unreliable texts. A quarto resembled a pamphlet, its pages formed by folding pieces of paper in half twice.
For none of these editions did Shakespeare receive money. In the absence of anything like modern copyright law, which recognizes an author’s legal right to his or her creation, 16th- and 17th-century publishers paid for a manuscript, with no need to enquire about who wrote it, and then were able to publish it and establish their ownership of the copy. Fortunately for posterity, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare—Heminges and Condell—collected 36 of his plays, 18 of them never before printed, and published them in a handsome folio edition, a large book with individual pages formed by folding sheets of paper once. This edition, known as the First Folio, appeared in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death.
The First Folio divided Shakespeare’s plays into three categories: comedies, histories, and tragedies. These categories are used in this article, with the addition of a fourth category: tragicomedies, a term that modern critics have often used for the late plays, which do not neatly fit into any of the three folio categories.
IV THE COMEDIES
Shakespeare’s comedies celebrate human social life even as they expose human folly. By means that are sometimes humiliating, even painful, characters learn greater wisdom and emerge with a clearer view of reality. Some of his early comedies can be regarded as light farces in that their humor depends mainly upon complications of plot, minor foibles of the characters, and elements of physical comedy such as slapstick. The so-called joyous comedies follow the early comedies and culminate in As You Like It. Written about 1600, this comedy strikes a perfect balance between the worlds of the city and the country, verbal wit and physical comedy, and realism and fantasy.
After 1600, Shakespeare’s comedies take on a darker tone, as Shakespeare uses the comic form to explore less changeable aspects of human behavior. All’s Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure test the ability of comedy to deal with the unsettling realities of human desire, and these plays, therefore, have usually been thought of as “problem comedies,” or, at very least, as evidence that comedy in its tendency toward wish fulfillment is a problem.
A Early Comedies
Shakespeare remained busy writing comedies during his early years in London, until about 1595. These comedies reflect in their gaiety and exuberant language the lively and self-confident tone of the English nation after 1588, the year England defeated the Spanish Armada, an invasion force from Spain. The comedies in this group include The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, and Love’s Labour’s Lost.
A1 The Comedy of Errors
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from The Comedy of Errors Antipholus of Syracuse, newly arrived in the island state of Ephesus, awaits his servant Dromio. The pair are as yet unaware that their twin brothers, separated from them in a shipwreck soon after their births, are still alive and living in Ephesus. Confusion quickly ensues, as the newcomers are repeatedly mistaken for the island-dwelling pair, and vice versa. Shakespeare’s quick-paced comedy has much in common with the modern genre of farce: the play features frequent quick entrances and exits, mistaken identities, marital disharmony, and a good measure of slapstick. Just before this scene the Syracusan Antipholus has met with Dromio of Ephesus, and mistaken him for his own servant, resulting in a beating for the poor Ephesian, who has naturally not completed the task set for his Syracusan twin. When the latter finally arrives, and claims no knowledge of this incident, he too receives a beating. Things quickly become even more complicated with the arrival of the disaffected Adriana, in pursuit of her wayward husband, Antipholus of Ephesus… open sidebar
Shakespeare based the plot of The Comedy of Errors, a farce performed in 1594, on classical comedies by Plautus. It was published for the first time in the First Folio of 1623. The play, Shakespeare’s shortest, depends for its appeal on the mistaken identities of two sets of twins both separated in their youth. The comedy ends happily with the reunion of both sets of twins, after a bewildering series of confusions. Shakespeare makes his play more complex than Plautus’s by the addition of the second set of twins, twin servants to the twin brothers of the main action, and the play displays the young Shakespeare’s formal mastery of the comic form and anticipates themes and techniques of his later plays.
A2 The Two Gentlemen of Verona
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from The Two Gentlemen of Verona One of Shakespeare’s earliest comedies, The Two Gentlemen of Verona follows the romantic fortunes of Proteus and Valentine, the gentlemen of the title. The changeable Proteus, having left his lover Julia in Verona with promises of affection, has traveled to Milan at his father’s request. There he has fallen for Silvia, who is engaged to his friend Valentine. Unknown to Proteus, Julia has followed him to Milan, dressed as a page-boy. In this scene she watches as Proteus pretends to help Thurio, another suitor for Silvia’s hand, to win Silvia’s love by serenading her; the deceitful Proteus then remains behind to plead his own suit. Despite Silvia’s obvious disinterest, and her strong disapproval of his disloyal behaviour towards both his friend and his lover, he persists, falsely claiming that both Valentine and Julia are dead. Although the situation presented is painful, there is much humour in the scene when staged, deriving from the hoodwinking of Thurio, the outrageous nature of Proteus’s vain attempts to woo the exasperated Silvia, and the bitter irony in Julia’s sharp wit, demonstrated in her double-edged comment to the Host that Proteus “plays false”—not, as the confused Host takes it to mean, in his music, but in his love. open sidebar
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which appears as the second comedy in the First Folio, was probably first performed about 1594. Shakespeare’s first attempt at romantic comedy, it concerns two friends, Proteus and Valentine, and two women, Julia and Sylvia. The play traces the relations of the four, until the two sets of lovers are happily paired off: Proteus with Julia, and Valentine with Sylvia. Much of the humor in the play comes from a clownish servant, Launce, and his dog, Crab, described as “the sourest-natured dog that lives.” Shakespeare probably wrote the part of Launce for comic actor Will Kemp.
A3 The Taming of the Shrew
sidebar SIDEBAR Excerpt from The Taming of the Shrew Petruchio, a gentleman from Verona, has travelled to Padua to find himself a wealthy wife. There he is introduced to Katherina, or Kate, the “shrew” of the play’s title. She has been endowed with a large dowry by her rich father Baptista, who is extremely keen to find her a husband because he thinks her ill-tempered, wilful, and a nag—in Elizabethan terms, shrewish. The quick-witted Petruchio is impressed by her spirit and her wealth, and eagerly takes up the challenge of taming Kate into a loyal and obedient wife. In Act 4, Scene i, his servants and the audience watch as he “kills her in her own humour,” his contrariness parodying her own self-willed behaviour. Soon she is begging him to “be not so disquiet”, as others have begged her before. In a famous speech at the close of the scene Petruchio explains further how he will tame Katherina as a falconer tames a hawk. On stage, the slapstick, wordplay, and contradictions are full of an energy and humor that overpowers the sense of cruelty that can seem apparent on the page. While The Taming of the Shrew has been condemned by some feminist writers, other critics have argued that Petruchio and Katherina eventually arrive at a happier, more balanced partnership than Kate’s younger sister, Bianca, achieves through her more conventional marriage to Lucentio, which forms the sub-plot of the play. open sidebar
The Taming of the Shrew (1593?) was first published in the First Folio in 1623. This comedy contrasts the prim and conventional Bianca, who grows willful and disobedient over the course of the play, with the shrewish Katherine, who is finally tamed by Petruchio, her suitor and, finally, husband. Yet Katherine and Petruchio are clearly well matched in style and temperament, and Katherine’s speech at the end on the importance of obedience may be delivered with an obvious sense of how far this is from what she believes or even from what Petruchio really wants. Kiss Me Kate (1948), a musical based on The Taming of the Shrew, proved popular on stage, as did a motion-picture version of Shakespeare’s play in 1953 with actors Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. However, unless the action is played with its possible ironies clearly apparent, audiences today will likely find the play’s ostensible values difficult to take, especially the belief in the need to tame a wife.
A4 Love’s Labour’s Lost
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from Love’s Labour’s Lost King Ferdinand of Navarre and his companions, the lords Berowne, Longaville, and Dumaine, have sworn a vow, at the king’s suggestion, that they will forego the society of women and the pleasures of love for three years, in order to devote themselves to study. A pre-arranged state visit from the Princess of France and her ladies, forgotten by the king, forces them to revise the terms of their vow to allow for the necessity of meeting with the women, and soon all four men are in love. As befits the courtly setting and the scholarly aims of the young men, the language and wit of Love’s Labour’s Lost are sophisticated and refined, but despite the literary atmosphere of the play, the comic possibilities of the stage are not neglected. In Act IV, Scene 3, Berowne—the only one of the lords to have protested at the impossibility of maintaining the vow—is attempting to write a sonnet to his beloved, when he is disturbed by the arrival of the king and forced to hide. From his vantage point he spies on the other men, as one by one they enter to reveal—to both the on- and off-stage audiences—their own lovestruck attempts at poetry. Through the style of the young men’s verses Shakespeare parodies the poetic fashions of the day for images of hunting and melancholy, but it is the structure of the scene that provides the greatest humour. The multiple eavesdropping is exquisitely executed, and as each man emerges to berate the others for breaking their vow, the audience has the pleasure of knowing that Berowne, too, is forsworn, and likely soon to be discovered. While Berowne is in the middle of a self-confident assault on his companions’ treacherous promise-breaking, Costard and Jaquenetta make a perfectly timed entrance with an incriminating letter. open sidebar
Love’s Labour’s Lost was first published in 1598 and was the first published play to have “By W. Shakespeare” on its title page. The play’s slight action serves as a peg on which to hang a glittering robe of wit and poetry. It satirizes the loves of its main male characters as well as their fashionable devotion to studious pursuits. The noblemen in the play have sought to avoid romantic and worldly entanglements by devoting themselves in their studies, and they voice their pretensions in an artificially ornate style, until love forces them to recognize their own self-deceptions. The play’s title anticipates its unconventional ending: The women refuse to marry at the end, demanding a waiting period of 12 months for the men to demonstrate their reformation. “Our wooing does not end like an old play,” says Berowne; “Jack hath not Jill.”
B Middle Comedies
Although very different in tone, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Merchant of Venice from the mid-1590s provide evidence of Shakespeare’s growing mastery of the comic form and his willingness to explore and test its dramatic possibilities. A Midsummer Night’s Dream represents Shakespeare’s first outstanding success in the field of romantic comedy. The Merchant of Venice is in its main plot another example of a romantic comedy, but the presence of Shylock disrupts the comic action, haunting the place even after he has disappeared from it.
B1 A Midsummer Night’s Dream
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Fairies emerge from doorways in space, and Bottom’s bed hangs suspended before the moon in this 1998 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon. The set, lighting, staging, and costumes all combine to intensify the play’s enchanted, unreal atmosphere.Oregon Shakespeare Festival/David Cooper A Midsummer Night’s Dream, first performed probably in 1594 or 1595 and first published in 1600, presents a happy blend of fantasy and realism, and may have been intended for performance at an aristocratic wedding. The comedy weaves together a number of separate plots involving three different realms: one inhabited by two pairs of noble Athenian lovers; another by members of the fairy world—notably, King Oberon, Queen Titania, and the mischievous Puck; and the third by a group of bumbling and unconsciously comic townspeople who seek to produce a play for wedding celebrations. These three worlds are brought together in a series of encounters that veer from the realistic to the magical to the absurd and back again in the space of only a few lines. In Act III, for example, Oberon plays a trick on Titania while she sleeps, employing Puck to anoint her with a potion that will cause her to fall in love with the first creature she sees on waking. As it happens, she opens her eyes to the sight of Bottom the weaver, adorned by Puck with an ass’s head. Yet the comic episode of the Queen of the Fairies “enamored of an ass” echoes the play’s more profound concerns with the nature of love and imagination.
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from A Midsummer Night's Dream A Midsummer Night's Dream weaves together a number of separate plots: an argument between the fairy king and queen; a royal wedding in Athens; the love affairs of four young Athenians; and the efforts of a group of common workmen to produce a play for the state wedding celebrations. Act I, Scene 2, introduces the workmen as they begin their production and assemble for the distribution of parts; Bottom the weaver's desire to steal the stage and play every role contrasts comically with Snug's timidity. They meet to begin their rehearsals in Act III, Scene 1, and Shakespeare's portrayal of this early amateur dramatic society at work has charmed audiences for many years. As the summer night moves towards its conclusion the many strands of the plot are increasingly woven together. Here Bottom is drawn into the middle of the conflict between Oberon, the fairy king, and his queen Titania. The sleeping Titania has been bewitched with a magical flower so that she will fall in love with the first man she sees on waking. Stumbling across Bottom and his companions in the forest near Titania's bed, Oberon's servant Puck decides to ensure that the queen's humiliation—and thus his master's revenge—are complete, by transforming the unwitting weaver into an ass. open sidebar
B2 The Merchant of Venice
sidebar SIDEBAR Excerpt from The Merchant of Venice The courtroom scene in The Merchant of Venice crystallizes the play’s concerns with value, judgment, justice, and mercy. In its presentation of the unthinking prejudice of the Venetians on one side, and the unforgiving resentment of Shylock on the other, it also raises disturbing side issues that have made the play an uncomfortable one for some audiences.Antonio, the merchant of Venice, has provided the funds for his friend Bassanio’s successful courtship of Portia of Belmont. His own capital tied up in trading ventures, Antonio has had to turn to the Jewish money-lender, Shylock, in order to borrow the money. (While Jews were permitted to loan money for interest to Gentiles, Christians were entirely forbidden from practicing usury, and—with the exception of Antonio—unwilling to give loans interest-free.) When Antonio’s ships are lost at sea, he becomes unable to repay the debt and Shylock summons him to court to force him to pay the forfeit on the bond—a pound of his own flesh. Despite the court’s prejudice, the legality of Shylock’s claim makes the outcome appear certain, until Portia’s intervention turns the courtroom action upside down. Disguised as a lawyer, she employs powerful rhetoric and wit in an attempt to persuade Shylock to show mercy. Following his refusal, she uses his own insistence on the letter of the law to bring about his downfall, transforming the accuser into the accused. A comic sub-plot, which surfaces briefly at the end of the scene, concerns a vow that Bassanio has made to his new wife Portia—whom he fails to recognize—never to remove the ring she has given him. open sidebar
The Merchant of Venice, first published in 1600 though seemingly written in 1596 or 1597, shares the lyric beauty and fairy-tale ending of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. But the strong characterization of the play’s villain, a Jewish moneylender named Shylock, shadows the gaiety. Shakespeare drew the main plot from an Italian story in which a crafty Jew threatens the life of a Christian merchant. Its composition may have arisen from a desire by Shakespeare’s acting company to stage a play that could compete with The Jew of Malta (1589?), a tragedy by English dramatist Christopher Marlowe, performed by a rival company, the Admiral’s Men. In the play Shakespeare sets motifs of masculine friendship and romantic love in opposition to the bitterness of Shylock, whose own misfortunes are presented so as to arouse understanding and even sympathy. While this play reflects European anti-Semitism of the time (although Jews had been banished from England in 1290 and were not formally readmitted until 1656), its exploration of power and prejudice also promote a critique of such bigotry. As Shylock says, confronted by the double standards of his opponents:
He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies, and what’s his reason?—I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.
(Act III, scene 1)
C Mature Comedies
The romantic plays Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Twelfth Night are often characterized as joyous comedies because of their generally happy mood and sympathetic characters. Written around 1599 and 1600, they represent Shakespeare’s triumph in the field of high comedy. These mature comedies revolve around beautiful, intelligent, and strong-minded heroines, a type anticipated by the quick-witted heiress Portia in The Merchant of Venice. Nothing quite like these plays appears in earlier English drama, and Shakespeare never wrote anything like them in later years. They present a contrast to the satiric comedy that was coming into fashion at the time, and many critics believe they demonstrate not only Shakespeare’s mastery of his art but also his congenial temperament in the sympathy he reveals toward his characters.
C1 Much Ado About Nothing
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from Much Ado About Nothing The war of wit between the independently-minded lovers-to-be Beatrice and Benedick has made Much Ado About Nothing one of the most popular of Shakespeare’s comedies with modern audiences. The pair’s favored status has a long history: in his copy of Shakespeare’s published works, Charles I amended the play’s title to read “Benedicke and Betteris”. Nevertheless, their relationship is, in as far as the structure of the play is concerned, only a sub-plot to the conventional romance played out by their counterparts, Claudio and Hero. In this, the first scene of the play, the two intertwining stories are set up, and Beatrice and Benedick soon look set to steal the show. Leonato, his daughter Hero, and niece Beatrice await the return of the men who have been away at war. On their arrival, the quick-witted Benedick is soon involved in a “merry war” with the sharp-tongued Beatrice. In spite of their rivalry, the couple’s inability to think of much except for each other soon reveals to the audience, if not to themselves, the true nature of their feelings. Meanwhile, Claudio, much honored for his valour on the battlefield, confesses his love for the beautiful Hero, and, having confirmed that she is worthy of him, accepts the support of Don Pedro, the Prince of Arragon, in obtaining her hand in marriage. open sidebar
The witty comedy Much Ado About Nothing, written about 1599 and first published the following year, concerns two pairs of lovers. In the play’s main plot, the war hero Claudius is deceived into believing Hero has been unfaithful and calls off their wedding, until he is forced to recognize his error and take her as his wife. The subplot, a “merry war” of words and wit between Beatrice and Benedick, has long delighted audiences. Although the two outwardly dislike each other, the audience soon comprehends the real affection between the two. One of the play’s most popular characters is the bumbling village constable Dogbery, who finally exposes the plot that has deceived Claudio. In 1993 a film version was released, starring Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson.
C2 As You Like It
Scene from As You Like It Shakespeare’s second period, encompassing the mid and late-1590s, is characterized by comedies and histories. The scene pictured here features American actors Cloris Leachman and Katharine Hepburn in a 20th century production of As You Like It (1599-1600), one of Shakespeare’s best-known comedies.THE BETTMANN ARCHIVE Expand In As You Like It, written about 1599 but not published until the 1623 First Folio, Shakespeare draws a rich and varied contrast between the strict code of manners at the court and the relative freedom from such structure in the countryside. Yet it also satirizes popular pastoral plays, novels, and poems of the time. Those popular but sentimental works presented rural life as idyllic and its inhabitants as innocents not yet corrupted by the world. In Shakespeare’s play the rural world is far from perfect, and the characters are not always what they appear. Rosalind and Celia have disguised themselves as men when they flee the court for the forest, but other characters not disguised are self-deceived. In the forest, however, true identities are re-established. A number of love matches mark the conclusion, and the play ends in a parade of lovers marching two-by-two, like “couples coming to the Ark.” Even the melancholy Jacques, who remains outside the play’s concluding harmonies, expresses his benevolent hopes for the lovers, as the comic logic promises all “true delights.”
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE From As You Like It Witticisms and innuendo fly fast and furious in this playful scene from dramatist William Shakespeare’s comedy As You Like It (1599?). Earlier in the play, the nobleman Orlando falls in love with the lady Rosalind. Rosalind, disguised as a boy named Ganymede, then comes across Orlando in the forest and urges him to pretend that “Ganymede” is Rosalind. Orlando plays along, oblivious to the fact that he is indeed speaking to Rosalind. Other characters who appear in this scene are Rosalind’s cousin Celia, disguised as the boy Aliena, and the nobleman Jaques, whom Rosalind teases for his somberness. open sidebar
C3 The Merry Wives of Windsor
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from The Merry Wives of Windsor The Merry Wives of Windsor is among the most popular of Shakespeare's comedies. Firmly English in its character and setting, it draws its inspiration from the popularity of Sir John Falstaff in Shakespeare's earlier history plays, Henry IV, Parts I and II, and from the body of folk tales and ribald fabliaux, popular in medieval and early modern England, that featured jealous husbands, wily wives, and lecherous and greedy old men. Falstaff, down on his luck, has been attempting to seduce both Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, in order to gain access to their finances. Neither woman is impressed by his advances, which they regard as an assault on their honour, and together they concoct schemes to humiliate him in revenge. In Act 3, Scene iii, Falstaff arrives for a supposed love-tryst with Mistress Ford. The two women have planned to trick him into thinking that Ford, known for his jealousy, is about to return home so that Falstaff will be forced into the trap they have set. The plan goes even better than the women could have hoped when Ford—who has earlier heard Falstaff bragging of his seduction attempt—arrives in person, but is unable to discover the secret. Mistress Ford is thus revenged not only on Falstaff and his dishonorable intentions, but also on her own distrustful husband, who is shamefully forced to admit that he has done wrong in doubting her. The comic potential of the situation is further exploited by the presence of Mistress Page's husband, together with the comically accented French doctor Caius and Welsh cleric Evans, as witnesses to Ford's humiliation. In its tone, situations, breakneck pace, and the opportunities it offers for slapstick and physical humour, it is perhaps Shakespeare's most farce-like comedy. open sidebar
The Merry Wives of Windsor, written probably in 1599 but first published in 1602, is Shakespeare’s only comedy of middle-class life. The “merry wives,” Mistress Page and Mistress Ford, outwit Shakespeare’s greatest comic invention, Sir John Falstaff, who had first appeared in Henry IV. Falstaff’s unsuccessful efforts to seduce the two wives and their comic revenge upon him make up the main plot of the play. The comedy also includes the story of Anne Page, who is wooed by two inappropriate lovers, but who finally is united with Fenton, the man she loves. According to an early 18th-century tradition The Merry Wives of Windsor was written at the request of Queen Elizabeth I, who wished to see “Falstaff in love” following his comic appearance in both of the Henry IV plays.
C4 Twelfth Night
sidebar SIDEBAR Excerpt from Twelfth Night Twelfth Night may not have been written, as some critics have suggested, for presentation at a Twelfth Night celebration, but it is nevertheless richly imbued with the chaotic spirit embodied in that festival’s Lord of Misrule. Viola, shipwrecked on Illyria, takes the guise of a boy and enters the service of Duke Orsino in order to have the freedom to search for her missing brother, Sebastian, that would not be granted to a woman. With her arrival the mournful atmosphere that rules on the island is quickly overthrown, and madness and confusion reign. Characters act out of sorts, becoming deluded in themselves and mistaken in their perceptions of others, while the wisest people present appear to be the cross-dressing girl and a singing clown. Here, as Act 3, Scene iv begins, Olivia awaits the return of Cesario, the page-boy with whom she has fallen in love, unaware that “he” is in fact Viola. Elsewhere, the normally sober and censorious official Malvolio—tricked by a letter faked by Maria, a servant—has been dressing himself in ludicrous attire, believing that this will win him Olivia’s love, and is about to enter the scene. Meanwhile, the cowardly Sir Andrew is readying himself to issue a bold challenge to Cesario; the disguised Viola prepares once more to woo Olivia on behalf of Orsino, the man she herself longs to marry; and Antonio, seeking his friend Sebastian, is about to be deeply hurt by “his” disloyalty… open sidebar
Twelfth Night is the most mature of Shakespeare’s romantic comedies and one that recalls his own earlier plays. It was written probably in 1601 and was published for the first time in the Folio of 1623. We know it was performed in the winter of 1602 at the Middle Temple, one of London’s law schools. It is a play of great emotional range, from farcical misunderstandings (based on a set of separated twins, as in The Comedy of Errors) to poignant moments in which a woman in disguise must serve the man she loves (as in Two Gentlemen of Verona). The play ends with lovers happily paired, but with the ambitious Malvolio isolated (like Jacques in As You Like It or Shylock in The Merchant of Venice) and swearing to “be revenged upon the whole pack of you.”
The comedy may have been written specifically for presentation at a festival of Twelfth Night, which occurs 12 nights after Christmas Eve and was once a time for mirth and merrymaking, marking the end of the Christmas revels. The play’s outrageous antics, especially for Sir Toby Belch, reflect in spirit the outrageous behavior permitted at Twelfth Night celebrations during the Middle Ages. Yet there is a darker side to Twelfth Night. Not only is Malvolio unreconciled to the community at the end, but Sir Andrew, Antonio, and the clown, Feste, all stand apart from the final celebrations, and Feste’s final song reminds the audience of how far our day-to-day world is from the idealization of comedy.
D Problem Comedies
Three plays—All’s Well That Ends Well, Troilus and Cressida, and Measure for Measure—written soon after the mature comedies are usually called by modern critics “problem plays,” a term first coined for them in 1896. The problem comedies touch on complex and often unpleasant themes and contain characters whose moral flaws are graver and more difficult to change than the shortcomings of the characters in the farces or the joyous comedies. Little of the light-hearted humor of the earlier comedies, nor the easy satisfactions of their endings, appears in these plays. They are, however, emotionally rich and dramatically exciting, and have become increasingly successful on stage and stimulating to readers.
D1 All’s Well That Ends Well
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from All's Well That Ends Well Helena, the orphaned daughter of a healer, cures the King of his illness and is rewarded with her choice of husband from among the nobles at court. She chooses Bertram—with whom she has been deeply in love for some time—the son of the Countess, in whose house she has been brought up. However, there is no fairytale ending for Helena. In Act 3, Scene ii, following the wedding ceremony, the two women receive letters from Bertram: horrified at the match into which he has been forced, he has run away to war, placing seemingly impossible constraints upon the validity of the marriage.All’s Well That Ends Well has been termed, along with Measure for Measure, a “problem play.” For many modern readers, both tales conclude in a troubling manner, seemingly unsatisfactorily resolved despite their adherence to the conventional pattern for comedy: that each separated couple should be reunited. The problem is created largely by the measures used to gain the ends, the most notable example being the device of the bed-trick, which is used in each play. Helena, like Mariana in Measure for Measure, later disguises herself as the mistress her husband desires in order to achieve the consummation of her marriage. Such alienation from the personal in an intimate act is disturbing, and difficult to reconcile with the modern Western conception of marriage as the fulfilment of romantic love. Thus to the modern reader or audience member, all may not end well. open sidebar
All’s Well That Ends Well, written about 1603 but not published until the 1623 Folio, adheres to the conventional pattern for comedy, as its title promises, ending with the reunion of a separated couple. But the reunion is deeply troubled and troubling. The callow, cowardly, and ungenerous Bertram is finally successfully paired with Helena, but they have reached that point through a process that has humiliated each. He immediately flees to Italy, and she must trick him to consummate the marriage. At the end they accept each other, but the ending is appropriately hedged with conditionals: “All yet seems well, and if it end so meet,/ The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.” The stability of even this muted resolution is itself unsettled by the King’s offer to Diana, a young woman Bertram has tried to seduce, to choose a husband for herself. At best this offer reveals how little the King has learned and at worst it threatens to start the dispiriting action all over again.
D2 Troilus and Cressida
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from Troilus and Cressida Against the backdrop of the Trojan War, Prince Troilus has become infatuated with Cressida. The young woman is niece to Pandarus, one of the lords whom Troilus knows well from the battlefield. Cressida has long admired Troilus but has been wary of showing her affection. However, when Pandarus steps in and arranges a secret tryst between the pair, she consents. As Act 3, Scene ii of Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida begins, Pandarus awaits the arrival of Troilus, who is eagerly anticipating his meeting with Cressida. Pandarus fetches her in and fusses around the pair, making preparations for their night together. The play is complex—critics have long argued over its genre, whether it is tragedy, comedy, or something different—and this scene demonstrates some of its ambiguity. Although on the surface the action is that of a romantic union, the talk is more of fear, falsehood, folly, doubt, and shame, than of love. Moreover, the presence of Pandarus undercuts any illusion that this is an idyllic, generous-spirited love-affair, despite Troilus’s apparent concern with integrity, truth, and constancy. As the young couple walk in together to the bedchamber prepared for them, Pandarus joins their hands to seal the “bargain” of their love: instead of a priest to join them in the mutual service of marriage, they have only a businesslike “pander”, or pimp, able to guarantee only temporal concerns. open sidebar
Critics always have had trouble classifying Troilus and Cressida (written about 1602) as a tragedy, a history, or a comedy. In many ways it qualifies as all three, and its earliest readers did not seem to know what kind of play it was. The editors of the First Folio placed the play at the beginning of the section of tragedies; the 1609 quarto titles the play The Famous Historie of Troylus and Cresesid; and the prefatory note in that edition considers the play one of Shakespeare’s comedies and worthy of comparison with the best of the classical comic playwrights. Some critics believe that Troilus somewhat resembles the satiric comedy in fashion at the time it was written. The play has two plots. The first, a dramatic version of the siege of Troy by Greek armies during the Trojan War, and the second, which gives the play its name, a rendering of the medieval legend of the doomed love between Troilus, son of the king of Troy, and Cressida, daughter of a Trojan priest who defects to the Greek side during the war. The legend inspired a number of other works, including the tragic poem Troilus and Criseyde (1385?) by Geoffrey Chaucer. Shakespeare’s play, however, brilliantly combines the two plots in a withering exploration of the realities of both chivalric honor and romantic love.
D3 Measure for Measure
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from Measure for Measure Sex, death, and justice are the central concerns of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. The Duke of Vienna has disguised himself as a friar so that he can move freely among his subjects, leaving the severe Angelo as acting head of state. Angelo begins to act upon the harsh laws that govern moral purity in Vienna, which the Duke had left unregarded. Claudio, now sentenced to death for having gotten his fiancée, Julia, pregnant, waits in jail, hoping that his religious sister Isabella’s attempt to plead for his pardon will succeed. In Act III, Scene 1, the Friar-Duke is speaking with Claudio when Isabella arrives to tell her brother of Angelo’s offer of mercy: if Isabella will consent to sleep with Angelo, Claudio will be freed. Claudio, fearing death, begs her to give up her virginity; Isabella, proud of her virtue and fearing eternal punishment, urges him to die with honour. Their conflict, passionately argued, throws the issues at stake into a sharper relief than any rhetorical debate between Flesh and Spirit, and the straining of the brother-sister bond between them makes the scene painful to watch; there appears to be no possible solution. Only the intervention of the Duke prevents a total estrangement of the pair, though his remedy—that Angelo’s abandoned wife stand in for Isabella in the device of the bed-trick—is in itself morally perplexing. In this, the scene mirrors the play as a whole: even once the Duke has returned to government at the close of the play, and provided formal resolution by uniting the various couples, the questions that have been raised throughout Measure for Measure remain unanswered. What are the essential differences between love and lust, sex and marriage? And which is it more important to maintain: law or liberty, innocence or life? open sidebar
Measure for Measure (written about 1604 but not printed until the 1623 Folio) raises complex questions about sex, marriage, identity, and justice but does not offer the comfort of easy solutions. Like the other problem plays, it stretches the normal limits of the comic form. In the play the Duke of Vienna sets out in disguise to test the virtue of his unruly subjects, and leaves a harsh deputy, Angelo, in charge. Although the deputy reveals himself a hypocrite and couples are successfully united at the end, the questions that the play raises remain unanswered. At the very end Isabella remains silent at the Duke’s proposal of marriage, leaving open the question of whether she is overcome with joy or with horror, whether the proposal promises future happiness or a mere recapitulation of Angelo’s earlier intimidations.
The play’s most likely source was Promos and Cassandra (1578), a two-part play by English author George Whetstone. Shakespeare’s additions and changes, however, create a far more disturbing play, which increasingly has found enthusiasm from critics and audiences in its anticipation of modern questionings: Can one find a middle ground between law and liberty? Is sexual desire constructive or transgressive (an overstepping of proper limits)? Can morality be legislated?
V THE HISTORY PLAYS
History plays, sometimes known as chronicle plays (after the “chronicles” from which the plots were taken), were a highly popular form of drama in Shakespeare’s time. By 1623, every English monarch from William the Conqueror to Elizabeth I had been represented in a play, as the English past served as an important repository of plots for the dramatists of the burgeoning theater industry of Elizabethan England. The plays not only offered entertainment but also served many people as an important source of information about the nation’s past. In 1612 English dramatist Thomas Heywood claimed that such plays “instructed such as cannot read in the discovery of all our English Chronicles.”
The Elizabethans considered history instructive but did not always agree on the particular lessons it taught. Sometimes history was thought to be a branch of theology, the record of God’s providential guidance of events, and sometimes it was seen solely as the record of human motives and actions. Sometimes history was valued because it was an accurate record of the past, and sometimes because it provided examples of behavior to be imitated or avoided. History plays became increasingly popular after 1588 and the defeat of the Spanish Armada, so clearly the interest in English history reflected a growing patriotic consciousness.
Shakespeare wrote ten plays listed in the 1623 Folio as histories and differentiated from the other categories, comedies and tragedies, by their common origin in English history. Eight of Shakespeare’s history plays re-create the period in English history from 1399, when King Henry IV took the throne after deposing King Richard II, to the defeat of Richard III in battle in 1485. Henry IV was the first English king from the house of Lancaster. The history plays cover the conflict between the houses of Lancaster and York, known as the Wars of the Roses, from 1455 to 1485. The final event is the victory of Henry VII over Richard III in 1485, ending the rule of the York dynasty and beginning the Tudor dynasty. The eight plays devoted to this period, listed in the chronological order of the kings with the dates of their composition in parentheses, are Richard II (1597?); Henry IV, Parts I and II (1597?); Henry V (1598?); Henry VI, Parts I, II, and III (1590-1592?); and Richard III (1592-1593?). As their dates indicate, Shakespeare did not write the plays in chronological order. He wrote the second half of the story first, and only later returned to the events that initiated the political problems.
The two remaining Shakespeare history plays are King John (1596?) and Henry VIII (1613?). King John, beginning soon after John’s coronation in 1199, was seemingly reworked from an anonymous, older play on the same subject. It treats the English king’s failed effort to resist the power of the pope, a theme of obvious relevance in England after the Protestant Reformation. Henry VIII, probably co-written with English dramatist John Fletcher, is a loosely connected pageant of events in Henry’s reign, ending with the prophecy of the birth of Elizabeth and her succession by King James.
Shakespeare’s main sources for the events of the history plays were the Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1577; 2nd ed. 1586, which Shakespeare used) by Raphael Holinshed and Edward Hall’s Chronicle (1542). Although Shakespeare took situations from these and a few other historical sources, he selected only such facts as suited his dramatic purposes. Sometimes he ignored chronology and telescoped the events of years to fit his own dramatic time scheme. Above all, he used the power of his imagination and language to mold vivid and memorable characters out of the historical figures he found in his sources.
The overall theme of the history plays is the importance of a stable political order, but also the heavy moral and emotional price that often must be paid for it. Shakespeare dramatized the great social upheaval that followed Henry IV’s usurpation of the throne until the first Tudor king, Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather, restored peace and stability. In addition to chronicling the often violent careers of England’s great kings, Shakespeare’s history plays explore the extreme pressures of public life, the moral conflicts that kings and queens uniquely face, and the potential tragedy of monarchy.
A Early Histories
The four plays that dramatize the Wars of the Roses, the turbulent period from 1422 to 1485, are possibly Shakespeare’s earliest dramatic works. These plays, Henry VI, Parts I, II, and III and Richard III, deal with disorder resulting from weak leadership and from national disunity fostered for selfish ends. Richard III, however, closes triumphantly with the death of Richard and the ascent to the throne of Henry VII, the founder of the Tudor dynasty and grandfather of Queen Elizabeth. See also England: The Lancastrian and Yorkist Kings.
Although Shakespeare probably did not invent the genre of the history play, only a very few plays on English history had been written before he turned to it for his plots, and no contemporary playwright wrote more histories than his ten. Clearly Shakespeare learned from his few predecessors in English drama, especially Christopher Marlowe. Marlowe had initiated the early greatness of Elizabethan tragedy, placing a single monumental personality at the center of each of his major plays. By studying Marlowe’s style and energetic protagonists, Shakespeare learned in Richard III to construct a play around a complex, dominating personality. But Shakespeare is as interested in the sweep of history itself, as it catches up personalities in rhythms they are unable to predict or control.
A1 Henry VI, Parts I, II, and III
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from Henry VI Henry VI, Parts I, II, and III, chronicle the troubled reign of Henry VI, during which time England is reduced from a position of influence and status within Western Europe, earned by his father, Henry V, to a state that is all but torn apart by civil war. A pious man but not a gifted ruler, Henry VI was beset by opposition from the House of York, culminating in the Wars of the Roses, which disturbed English soil for 30 years. In Part III, Act 2, Scene v, Shakespeare poignantly illustrates the personal torment that inevitably arises from the public conflict of civil war: the upsetting of the order of the state has upset the natural order of kinship, so that father is set against son, and son against father, in a war that “profits nobody”. The despairing Henry is powerless to do anything but sit by and lament as he observes the tragic grief of men whom, as king, he should have had the authority and ability to lead and protect, as a shepherd does his flock. open sidebar
The three parts of Henry VI chronicle the troubled reign of that king, from the death of his father in 1422 to his own death in 1471. During that time England was all but torn apart by civil strife following the death of Henry V. Part I deals with wars in France, including combat with Joan of Arc, and had early success on stage, performed 15 times in 1592 alone. Parts II and III, revealing Henry VI as a weak and ineffectual king, treat England after it has lost its possessions in France and factionalism at home erupts into full-fledged civil war. Today, the Henry VI plays, if staged at all, are likely to be seen in condensed adaptations or conflations (combination of parts) as in English director John Barton’s Wars of the Roses in 1963 at Stratford-upon-Avon.
A2 Richard III
sidebar SIDEBAR Excerpt from Richard III Richard III presents a fictionalized account of the English king’s rise and fall, from his usurpation of the Crown to his death at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Richard, as presented by Shakespeare, is an eloquent, intelligent man, but with a moral outlook even more deformed than his hunchbacked body. He dominates the stage with a combination of wit and wickedness that has made the part a popular one among actors: Richard Burbage (c. 1593), David Garrick (1741), Edmund Kean (1820), Sir Laurence Olivier (1956), Antony Sher (1984), and Sir Ian McKellen (1991) have all earned acclaim in the role. In Act 1, Scene ii, Richard woos Lady Anne, recently bereaved of her father-in-law, Henry VI, and her husband, Edward, Prince of Wales, both of whom Richard has murdered in order to secure his own passage to the throne. The horror of his proposition is further emphasized by the manner in which it is conducted, in the presence of the shrouded body of Henry VI. Nevertheless, Richard’s cool verbal maneuvering in the “keen encounter of…wits” that ensues can prove mesmerizing on the stage. open sidebar
Richard III begins where Henry VI, Part III leaves off and completes the sequence begun with the Henry VI plays. It presents a fictionalized account of Richard III’s rise and fall, from the time he gains the crown through murder and treachery to his death at the Battle of Bosworth Field, which ends the Wars of the Roses and brings the Tudor dynasty to power. The story of Richard’s rise and fall derives from an account by English statesman Thomas More, written about 1513. As presented by Shakespeare, Richard is an eloquent, intelligent man, who is morally and physically deformed. Richard dominates the stage with a combination of wit and wickedness that has fascinated audiences and made the part a popular one among actors.
B Later Histories
Shakespeare wrote his most important history plays in the period from 1596 to 1598, plays that reveal both his dramatic mastery and his deep understanding of politics and history. The so-called second tetralogy (four related works), consisting of Richard II, Henry IV, Parts I and II, and Henry V, encompass the 23 years immediately prior to those portrayed in the Henry VI plays. The last three plays of the second tetralogy constitute Shakespeare’s supreme achievement in writing histories, focusing on the development of Prince Hal (in the two parts of Henry IV) into England’s greatest medieval hero—King Henry V.
B1 Richard II
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from Richard II In 1601, on the day before beginning his unsuccessful revolt against Queen Elizabeth I, the earl of Essex commissioned a group of actors to perform a play about Richard II at the Globe Theatre, believed by many critics to have been Shakespeare’s Richard II. The performance was controversial, since Elizabeth disliked any connection made between herself and the earlier monarch, who had come to a tragic end. In 1599 the archbishop of Canterbury, acting on her behalf, had ordered the destruction of a book concerning King Richard and Henry Bolingbroke, who had taken over Richard’s throne to become Henry IV: the book had borne a dedication to Essex and the potential for comparison was deemed too dangerous. It is thought unlikely, however, that Shakespeare had any such direct political purpose in mind, and the actors who undertook the 1601 performance were not punished along with the conspirators.In one of the contentious episodes, Act 4, Scene i, Richard, resigned to his fate, sends news of his abdication of the throne to his stronger opponent, Bolingbroke, and those assembled with him. The bishop of Carlisle, who voices opposition, is silenced and arrested for treason, just before Richard arrives to hand over the crown. Although self-indulgent, Richard’s melancholy is poignantly expressed, and while the forceful, plain-speaking Bolingbroke seems a more natural leader, the contrasting presentation of the pair is not entirely unsympathetic to Richard’s plight. open sidebar
Richard II is a study of a sensitive, self-dramatizing, ineffective but sympathetic monarch who loses his kingdom to his forceful successor, Henry IV. As a model for this play Shakespeare relied heavily on Marlowe’s chronicle play Edward II (1592?) with its focus on a personality ill-suited for the demands of rule. The play was a success on stage and in the bookstalls, but until 1608 the scene of Richard relinquishing his crown to Henry Bolingbroke, in Act 4, was omitted from the printed versions because it portrayed the overthrow of a monarch.
B2 Henry IV, Parts I and II
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from Henry IV Henry IV, Parts I and II, continue the quartet of history plays begun with Richard II and ending with Henry V. In the Henry IV plays, however, Shakespeare makes much use of comedy, particularly in the portrayal of Sir John Falstaff, to provide light relief and to offer parallels to, and a level of commentary on, the main plot. In Richard II, King Henry IV had usurped the throne from Richard; in Henry IV, Part I, he finds himself facing rebellion from both his subjects and his own son and heir, Prince Hal. Hal is the real focus of the plays: together they trace his development from a seemingly wayward youth, enjoying the company and influence of an ignoble father-figure, Falstaff, to the loyal son and future king who will prove triumphant in Henry V. The first scene presented here, taken from Part I, shows Hal idling with Falstaff and his friends; yet even though he agrees to join in their plan to commit a robbery, his final speech begins to set the stage for the transformation that is to come. The second scene, the deathbed scene from Part II, movingly portrays the moment at which Hal is reconciled to his true father, and takes up his destiny: the crown of England. open sidebar
In the two parts of Henry IV, Henry recognizes his own guilt for usurping the throne from Richard and finds himself facing rebellion from the very families that had helped him to the throne. His son, Prince Hal, is, however, in many ways the focus of the plays, which trace the prince’s development from a seemingly wayward youth, enjoying the company and influence of the fat knight Falstaff and other drinking cronies, to the future king who proves triumphant in the play Henry V. Many critics consider Henry IV, Part I to be the most entertaining and dramatic of the Henry plays with its struggle between King Henry and his rebellious nobles, led by the volatile Hotspur. The king’s fears for his son prove unfounded when Prince Hal leaves the tavern to take his place on the battlefield, where his defeat of Hotspur in combat proves his readiness to assume the burdens of rule.
Shakespeare makes much use of comedy in the plays, particularly in the portrayal of the fat knight Falstaff, whose irrepressible wit has long been the major source of the plays’ remarkable popularity. The comedy, however, neither dominates nor is subordinated to the historical plot, but is brilliantly intermingled with it, commenting often witheringly on its actions and values. At the same the comedy insists that history is something more spacious than a mere record of aristocratic men and motives.
B3 Henry V
Scene from Henry V British actors Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson share a scene in the 1989 film Henry V, which Branagh also directed. After defeating French forces at the battle of Agincourt, Henry, who speaks no French, courts French princess Katherine, who speaks no English.The Everett Collection, Inc. Henry V was the last history play that Shakespeare wrote, until he returned to the genre with his collaboration on Henry VIII late in his career. Henry V celebrates the great military and political achievements of the king in his victories over France, but also allows other angles of vision upon his accomplishments that may well raise doubts about their moral cost. While the Chorus speaks the lofty rhetoric of heroic idealization, the comic plot reveals a world of baser motive, which parallels and comments on the historical action. Henry V may well have been the first play performed at the Globe Theatre in the summer of 1599.
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from Henry V In the history play Henry V, Shakespeare’s rhetoric successfully creates a heroic vision of the English king and his people in their fight against the French. The use of a formal chorus, as here at the beginning of Act 3, further emphasizes the epic thrust of the play. Patriotic—almost jingoistic—in sentiment, the play has become a symbol of popular nationalism, and was famously presented in this manner in the classic 1944 film by Laurence Olivier, during World War II. In Act 3, Scene i, Henry delivers a rousing speech to rally his troops in readiness for the battle at Agincourt; the time has come for bravery: “The game’s afoot!” open sidebar
VI THE TRAGEDIES
Shakespeare’s tragedies are among the most powerful studies of human nature in all literature and appropriately stand as the greatest achievements of his dramatic artistry. Attention understandably has focused on his unforgettable tragic characters, such as Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Yet the plays also explore and extend the very nature of tragedy itself by discovering within it a structure that derives meaning precisely from its refusal to offer consolation or compensation for the suffering it traces.
A Early Tragedies
Shakespeare wrote his first tragedies in 1594 and 1595. But he left the field of tragedy untouched for at least five years after finishing Romeo and Juliet, probably in 1595, and turned to comedy and history plays. Julius Caesar, written about 1599, served as a link between the history plays and the mature tragedies that followed.
A1 Titus Andronicus
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from Titus Andronicus Titus Andronicus, thought to have been Shakespeare’s first tragedy, moves at a frantic pace through successive sensational episodes of violence and revenge. Returning from war against the Goths, the Roman general Titus sacrifices Alarbus, son of Empress Tamora of the Goths, in honour of the death of his own sons during the campaign. The sacrifice, together with Titus’s involvement in the selection of the new emperor of Rome, triggers a chain of violent acts that does not cease until both families have been slaughtered. At the conclusion of the play, only Lucius, Titus’s one remaining son, is left to bring about a restoration of order. At the point that has been reached in Act 3, Scene i, Titus is pleading in vain with the Roman tribunes to free two of his sons, who have been wrongly accused and sentenced to death for the murder of their brother-in-law. Titus’s misery is compounded by the arrival of his brother Marcus, who has found Titus’s daughter, Lavinia, raped and mutilated—her tongue and hands cut off so that she cannot identify her attackers. Titus is then tricked into cutting off his own hand by Aaron, Tamora’s lover, who convinces him that it is the only way to save his sons. The horrifying scene reaches its climax when the hand, together with the heads of the young men, is delivered back to Titus, leaving him hysterical, and vowing revenge. The bloody violence in the play reaches outrageous, even ridiculous, extremes—yet there is dignity in the verse with which Titus, Marcus, and Lucius express the depth of their grief. open sidebar
The earliest tragedy attributed to Shakespeare is Titus Andronicus (published in 1594). In its treatment of murder, mutilation, and bloody revenge, the play is characteristic of many popular tragedies of the Elizabethan period (see Revenge Tragedy). The structure of a spectacular revenge for earlier heinous and bloody acts, all of which are staged in sensational detail, derives from Roman dramatist Seneca. It probably reached Shakespeare by way of Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy (1589?). Shakespeare’s gory tragedy proved highly successful in Shakespeare’s time. But later audiences found the violent excesses of Titus Andronicus absurd or disgusting, and only recently has the play’s theatrical power been rediscovered. From the 1960s on, many directors and critics have recognized in the play’s daring exploration of violence concerns that go beyond the merely sensationalistic to address some of the deepest fears and preoccupations of the modern world.
A2 Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet, Balcony Scene In the famous balcony scene from the tragedy Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, Juliet Capulet emerges from her bedroom to muse upon the young man she has just met and fallen in love with, Romeo Montague. He, much taken with her, overhears her thoughts with pleasure while hidden below. A long-standing feud between the Capulets and Montagues keeps the young lovers apart.Courtesy of BBC Worldwide Americas, Inc. All rights reserved. Expand Romeo and Juliet (1595?) is justly famous for its poetic treatment of the ecstasy of youthful love. The play dramatizes the fate of two lovers victimized by the feuds and misunderstandings of their elders and by their own hasty temperaments. Shakespeare borrowed the tragic story of the two young Italian lovers from a long narrative poem, The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet (1562) by English writer Arthur Brooke. Shakespeare, however, added the character of Mercutio, increased the roles of the friar and the nurse, and reduced the moralizing of Brooke’s work. The play made an instant hit; four editions of the play were published before the 1623 Folio, demonstrating its popularity. The play continues to be widely read and performed today, and its story of innocent love destroyed by inherited hatred has seen numerous reworkings, as, for example, in the musical West Side Story (1957) by American composer Leonard Bernstein.
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from Romeo and Juliet The balcony scene (Act 2, Scene ii) from Romeo and Juliet is one of the best-known scenes in Shakespeare’s plays, and is almost certainly the most frequently parodied. Juliet’s line “O Romeo, Romeo!—wherefore art thou Romeo?” is perhaps as well known as Hamlet’s famous question, “To be or not to be…?”, but is often misunderstood. Romeo, having fallen for Juliet at a party he gatecrashed, has made his way to her window to woo her. There he overhears her talking aloud of her own love for him, and her concern about the fact that he is a Montague, born of a family that are enemies to her own household: “wherefore”, or “why”, she asks herself, could he not have been born with any other name? The celestial imagery that Romeo uses to describe Juliet, and her use of beautiful images from nature—a rose, the sea—develop a richly romantic atmosphere. However, at the same time, Juliet’s concern for the danger facing Romeo should he be found, and the interruptions of the nurse, who almost discovers their secret meeting, build up dramatic tension, foreshadowing the tragedy that will eventually engulf these “star-crossed lovers”. open sidebar
A3 Julius Caesar
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE From Julius Caesar The great English dramatist William Shakespeare showed his mastery of the art of rhetoric in this excerpt from Julius Caesar (1599?). The scene, the funeral of Roman ruler Julius Caesar, opens with a well-received speech by Marcus Brutus, one of Caesar’s assassins. Brutus, who was highly respected by the people of Rome, argues that Caesar had become overly ambitious. Here, Roman statesman Mark Antony replies with a virtuoso address that turns the crowd against Brutus, but leaves the impression that Antony is a noble bystander, rather than a cunning agitator. open sidebar
Julius Caesar was written about 1599 and first published in 1623. Though a serious tragedy of political rivalries, it is less intense in style than the tragic dramas that followed it. Shakespeare based this political tragedy concerning the plot to overthrow Julius Caesar on Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans by 1st-century Greek biographer Plutarch. Plutarch’s Lives had first appeared in English in 1579, in a version produced by Thomas North from a French translation of the original. The North translation provided Shakespeare and his contemporaries with a great deal of historical material. Shakespeare followed Plutarch closely in Julius Caesar; little of incident or character appears in the play that is not found in the Lives as well, and he sometimes used North’s wording. Shakespeare’s play centers on the issue of whether the conspirators were justified in killing Caesar. How a production answers that question determines whether the conspirator Brutus is seen as sympathetic or tragically self-deceived.
B Mature Tragedies
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Hamlet's Soliloquy Since first performed in the early 1600s, the title role in William Shakespeare's Hamlet has remained a favorite of many actors because of the emotional complexity of Hamlet's personality. Nowhere is this complexity more apparent than in Hamlet's famous soliloquy in Act III, Scene 1. The soliloquy is a monologue in which a character reveals inner thoughts, motivations, and feelings. Shakespeare used the technique often, and his soliloquies are poetic and rich in imagery. In Hamlet, a play about a man whose mind may be his fatal flaw, the form reaches its highest level. open sidebar
The tragedies Shakespeare wrote after 1600 are considered the most profound of his works and constitute the pillars upon which his literary reputation rests. Some scholars have tied the darkening of his dramatic imagination in this period to the death of his son in 1601. But in the absence of any compelling biographical information to support this theory, it remains only a speculation. For whatever reason, sometime around 1600 Shakespeare began work on a series of plays that in their power and profundity are arguably unmatched in the achievement of any other writer.
B1 Hamlet

Olivier as Hamlet British actor Laurence Olivier is shown here playing the title character in the Academy Award-winning motion picture Hamlet (1948), based on the play by William Shakespeare. Olivier is considered by many people to be one of the most famous stage and film actors in history. He produced, directed, and acted in a series of films based on plays by Shakespeare, including Henry V (1946), Hamlet, and Richard III (1962).Corbis/UPI Expand
Hamlet’s Soliloquy, Act III In this excerpt from the tragic play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Hamlet reveals that his self-doubt and inability to avenge his father’s death have led him to the brink of suicide. A British actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company recites the well-known soliloquy “To Be or Not to Be.”"'To Be or Not To Be' from Hamlet" written by William Shakespeare, performed by Simon Russell Beale, from Great Speeches and Soliloquies (Cat.# Naxos NA201512) ©and(p)1994 Naxos Audiobooks Ltd. Courtesy of Naxos of America, Inc. www.naxos.com. All Rights Reserved. Hamlet, written about 1601 and first printed in 1603, is perhaps Shakespeare’s most famous play. It exceeds by far most other tragedies of revenge in the power of its ethical and psychological imagining. The play is based on the story of Amleth, a 9th-century Danish prince, which Shakespeare encountered in a 16th-century French account by François Belleforest. Shakespeare’s Hamlet tells the story of the prince’s effort to revenge the murder of his father, who has been poisoned by Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius, the man who then becomes Hamlet’s stepfather and the king. The prince alternates between rash action and delay that disgusts him, as he tries to enact the revenge his father’s ghost has asked from him. The play ends in a spectacular scene of death: As Hamlet, his mother, his uncle, and Laertes (the lord chamberlain’s son) all lie dead, the Norwegian prince Fortinbras marches in to claim the Danish throne. Hamlet is certainly Shakespeare’s most intellectually engaging and elusive play. Literary critics and actors turn to it again and again, possibly succeeding only in confirming the play’s inexhaustible richness and the inadequacy of any single attempt finally or fully to capture it.
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE From Hamlet Hamlet (1601?), by English playwright William Shakespeare, is one of the most famous tragedies in English literature. At the opening of the drama, Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, has returned home after the death of his father, the king. Shortly after the funeral, Hamlet’s mother remarried Hamlet’s uncle Claudius, who succeeded his father on the throne. In the following scenes from the first act, Hamlet is visited by his father’s ghost, which tells Hamlet that he was murdered by Claudius. Hamlet then vows to avenge his father’s death, and forces his friends Horatio and Marcellus to swear never to tell what they saw or heard that night. open sidebar
B2 Othello
sidebar SIDEBAR Excerpt from Othello Othello is a respected army general on whom the Venetian Senate relies. Yet Senator Brabantio is outraged when his daughter, Desdemona, elopes with Othello, because the valiant soldier is also a Moor. In his prejudice he cannot believe that she can love a man of another race, so in Act 1, Scene iii, Brabantio brings his complaint before the Senate. Othello’s defense of his courtship of Desdemona, together with her own statement, demonstrates to the audience both his own nobility, and the sincerity of their love; the Duke, commenting on Othello’s story of his history, says that “this tale would win my daughter too.” Brabantio is ordered to resign himself to the match, but the couple’s happiness is soon to be disturbed. The hypocritical Iago, seemingly Othello’s loyal friend, is in fact plotting trouble for the valiant Moor. He stirs up the hopes of Roderigo, encouraging him to continue to pursue Desdemona despite her marriage. Finally, Iago, alone on the stage, begins to reveal his true thoughts to the audience in his first soliloquy. The play, as this early scene shows, is concerned with the themes of jealousy and possessiveness, the difficulties inherent in discerning truth from mere semblance, and the dangers that can arise from a failure to see beyond surface appearances. open sidebar
Othello was written about 1604, though it was not published until 1622. It portrays the growth of unjustified jealousy in the noble protagonist, Othello, a Moor serving as a general in the Venetian army. The innocent object of his jealousy is his wife, Desdemona. In this domestic tragedy, Othello’s evil lieutenant Iago draws him into mistaken jealousy in order to ruin him. Othello is destroyed partly through his gullibility and willingness to trust Iago and partly through the manipulations of this villain, who clearly enjoys the exercise of evildoing just as he hates the spectacle of goodness and happiness around him. At the end of the play, Othello comes to understand his terrible error; but as always in tragedy, that knowledge comes too late and he dies by his own hand in atonement for his error. In his final act of self-destruction, he becomes again and for a final time the defender of Venice and Venetian values.
B3 King Lear
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from King Lear Storms have often featured in art and literature as a symbol of the torment of the human soul, and one of the most famous examples is the tempest that rages through much of King Lear. Lear, rejected by two of his daughters, Goneril and Regan, and through his own misunderstanding estranged from Cordelia, the third and youngest, is shocked and angered by the treatment he has received and the ingratitude of his children. Although his Fool and the loyal Earl of Kent stand by him, Lear feels alienated from the society he once ruled, and at odds with the values that society now seems to hold, as represented by the behavior of Goneril and Regan, who have turned him out of doors. The natural bonds of family have thus been broken, and to Lear it is as if the whole of Nature has been thrown into disorder. In this distressed state he seems to feel that he is at war with the world itself, and in Act 3, Scene ii, as he cries out his defiant challenges to the elements, his pain is almost tangible. open sidebar
King Lear was written about 1605 and first published in 1608. Conceived on a grander emotional and philosophic scale than Othello, it deals with the consequences of the arrogance and misjudgment of Lear, a ruler of early Britain, and the parallel behavior of his councilor, the Duke of Gloucester. Each of these fathers tragically banishes the child who most has his interests at heart and places himself in the power of the wicked child or children. Each is finally restored to the loving child, but only after a rending journey of suffering, and each finally dies, having learned the truth about himself and the world, but too late to avert disaster. King Lear is arguably Shakespeare’s most shocking play; the scenes of Lear with his dead child and of Gloucester having his eyes struck out are horrible images of the world’s cruelty. But the play offers moving if ineffective examples of love and compassion: Even if these emotions are incapable of redeeming this world, they are discovered as infinitely precious in their very defeat.
B4 Antony and Cleopatra
sidebar SIDEBAR Excerpt from Antony and Cleopatra Bereft of her lover, the disgraced Roman leader Antony, and faced with the fearful prospect of public humiliation at the hands of Caesar, who has defeated both her and Antony in battle, Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, has only one remaining course of action available if she wishes to remain in control of her destiny: to take her own life. She is captured by Caesar’s soldiers within the monument to which she has retreated, and is forced to deal with various Roman guards and officials before she can accomplish her final act. She ponders aloud the horrors of the alternative fate and eulogizes Antony, with whom she longs to be reunited, struggling to maintain her dignity before the haughty Caesar. At last, dressed in her royal finery by her maids, Charmian and Iras, she takes up the venomous snakes that have been brought to her, and commits suicide. In her magnificently staged death, Cleopatra restores and seals forever the image of majesty and nobility that had been robbed from her by Caesar’s criticism and military success. As the play ends, even Caesar, who had previously termed Cleopatra a “strumpet” and Antony a lovestruck “fool,” is impressed. He bestows upon the tragic couple the honor of a “solemn show” to attend their funeral, and brings to completion Cleopatra’s last wish, as he orders that: “She shall be buried by her Antony.” open sidebar
Antony and Cleopatra was written about 1606 and first published in 1623. It deals with a different type of love than that in Shakespeare’s earlier tragedies, namely the middle-aged passions of the Roman general Mark Antony and the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. Their love, which destroys an empire, is glorified by some of Shakespeare’s most sensuous poetry. Antony and Cleopatra, like the other two plays that close Shakespeare’s tragic period—Timon of Athens and Coriolanus—depicts events from ancient history and draws on North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives. The action in the play shifts from Egypt to Rome to Greece and back to Egypt and includes a battle at sea. In the process the play contrasts the luxuriant atmosphere of Egypt with the strict military code of Rome, and the cold and calculating Roman general Octavius with the passionate but ill-advised Antony. The contrasts between Roman rigor and Egyptian luxury are at the heart of this play, which keeps them in provocative balance and offers “no midway/Twixt these extremes at all.”
B5 Macbeth
Shakespeare's Macbeth William Shakespeare, who wrote during the late 1500s and early 1600s in England, is generally considered the greatest dramatist in human history and the supreme poet of the English language. His brilliant works are universally celebrated for their comprehensive understanding of the human condition. In this excerpt from William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth (recited by an actor), Macbeth meditates on the futility of human endeavors. Macbeth’s schemes for gaining power are falling apart, and he has just heard that Lady Macbeth is dead.(p) 1992 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved./Culver Pictures Expand Macbeth was written about 1606 and first published in 1623. In the play Shakespeare depicts the tragedy of a man torn between an amoral will and a powerfully moral intellect. Macbeth knows his actions are wrong but enacts his fearful deeds anyway, led on in part by the excitement of his own wrongdoing. In securing the Scottish throne, Macbeth deadens his moral intelligence to the point where he becomes capable of increasingly murderous (and pointless) behavior, although he never becomes the monster the moral world sees. At all times he feels the pull of his humanity. Yet for Macbeth there is no redemption, only the sharp descent into a bleak pessimism. Human existence, as he sees it (or as he has made it, at least for himself), amounts to nothing:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle. Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
(Act V, scene 4)
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from Macbeth Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a study of the evil that is in every human heart, and of one man’s downfall as he wilfully gives way to its temptations. Returning from battle, Macbeth is greeted by three witches, who tell him that he will one day become king. As a reward for his military successes, he then receives the title of Thane of Cawdor from King Duncan, confirming part of the witches’ prophecy. Once Macbeth arrives back at his estate, Lady Macbeth spurs her husband’s ambition forward, and together they hatch a plan to kill the king and thereby hasten Macbeth’s accession to the throne. In Act 2, Scene ii, Lady Macbeth is waiting while her husband carries out the murder. When he enters in disarray, the murder weapons still in his bloodstained hands, she takes it upon herself to frame Duncan’s grooms for the killing, and to ensure that her husband’s guilt is concealed. The Lady’s purposeful activity provides a stark contrast to Macbeth’s almost paralytic state as he becomes locked into an obsessive contemplation of the bloody deed. Lady Macbeth berates him for allowing such fearful imaginings to distract him, but to a 17th-century audience Macbeth’s account of his inability to say “amen” to the grooms’ prayer clearly illustrates the real peril of his soul. Transfixed by the horror of his crime and the power that it promises, he consciously rejects the possibility of repentance, salvation, and an eternal future for the man that he has been—he chooses to know himself no longer, but instead to “know” only the deed and the power it will bring, and so he becomes the very embodiment of his crime: the bloody, usurping tyrant. Ultimately Macbeth brings about his own downfall, deliberately yielding himself to the destiny suggested by his prophetic encounter with the witches—fleeting kingship and eternal damnation. open sidebar
B6 Coriolanus
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from Coriolanus In Coriolanus Shakespeare explores the conflicts between public and private life, between personal needs and those of the community, and between the pressures of individual honour and family ties. Previously a respected Roman general, Coriolanus has been banished from the city as a result of political unrest within the state. To satisfy his desire for vengeance against those he feels have betrayed him, he has joined with his former enemy, the Volscian leader Tullus Aufidius, and is preparing to fight against Rome. Coriolanus rejects the pleas of friends sent from Rome to persuade him to change his course of action, and believes himself capable of operating independently of and unaffected by others. However, in Act V, Scene 3, his mother, wife, and young son are sent to plead with him on behalf of Rome, and Coriolanus’s pride is finally overcome, ultimately leading to his downfall. open sidebar
Shakespeare’s last tragedies, Coriolanus and Timon of Athens, both set in classical times, were written in 1607 and 1608 and first published in the 1623 Folio. Because their protagonists appear to lack the emotional greatness or tragic stature of the protagonists of the major tragedies, the two plays have an austerity that has cost them the popularity they may well merit. In Coriolanus Shakespeare adapts Plutarch’s account of the legendary Roman hero Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus to the tragedy of a man who is arrogant and rigid, even in his virtue “too noble for the world.” If Coriolanus in his integrity refuses to curry favor with the populace, he also reveals his contempt for the citizenry. The isolating pride of this great but flawed individual prevents him from finding any comfortable place in the community. Finally, he is banished from Rome, and he seeks revenge against the city. Eventually his wife, mother, and young son are sent to plead with him to spare Rome, an action that reveals the relatedness to his others he would deny. The play powerfully explores the conflicts between public and private life, between personal needs and those of the community, and between the pressures of individual honor and family ties and national ties.
B7 Timon of Athens
sidebar SIDEBAR Excerpt from Timon of Athens A stark bitter play by English dramatist William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens tells the story of the Athenian noble and his alienation from the society that he had formerly cherished. Having bankrupted himself through lavish generosity, Timon is shocked to discover that none of his former “friends” are willing to assist him in his plight. Disgusted by the selfishness and ingratitude of those around him, he turns his back on human society and goes into self-imposed exile, dwelling in a cave in the woods. In Act 4, Scene iii, Timon, still haunted by the hypocrisy of those who had once flattered him and sought his favor, is hunting for roots to eat when he uncovers a deposit of gold. He is then approached by a number of Athenian outcasts. The first to arrive is the Athenian general Alcibiades, banished from Athens for daring to plead for a convicted friend before the Senate, and his two mistresses, labeled as whores. Timon is then met by the cynical philosopher Apemantus, and next by a group of criminals. Timon’s utter rejection of Athenian society, in particular its attitude towards both humanity and wealth, is vividly demonstrated in his free and indifferent disposal of gold to those whom society regards as reprobate. Finally Timon is visited by his loyal and honest servant Flavius. The servant’s attempt at comfort comes too late, however, for Timon has by now embraced his identity as “Misanthropus.” Rejecting humanity altogether, he is unable even to bear the society of “One honest man”. open sidebar
Timon of Athens, written about 1608 and first published in the 1623 Folio, is a bitter play about a character who reacts to the ingratitude he discovers by hating all of humanity. Through his generosity to friends and flatterers, Timon bankrupts himself and then finds these same people unwilling to assist him in his poverty. His withering misanthropy follows. As in The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare explores the relationships between financial ties and ties of friendship. Shakespeare probably found some of the material for his play in Plutarch’s Lives, where anecdotes about Timon appear in the life of Marc Antony and the life of the Greek politician and general Alcibiades. He perhaps also found material in a dialogue, Timon, the Man-Hater, by the Greek writer Lucian, which had been adapted into an anonymous English play, Timon, and probably performed around 1602 in one of the London law schools, known as Inns of Court.
VII THE LATE PLAYS
Toward the end of his career, Shakespeare created several experimental plays that have become known as tragicomedies or romances. These plays differ considerably from Shakespeare’s earlier comedies, being more radical in their dramatic art and showing greater concern with reconciliation among generations. Yet like the earlier comedies the tragicomedies end happily with reunions or renewal. Typically, virtue is sorely tested in the tragicomedies, but almost miraculously succeeds. Through the intervention of magic and art—or their emotional equivalent, compassion, or their theological equivalent, grace—the spectacular triumph of virtue that marks the ends of these plays suggests redemptive hope for the human condition. In these late plays, the necessity of death and sadness in human existence is recognized but located within larger patterns of harmony that suggest we are “led on by heaven, and crowned with joy at last,” as the epilogue of Pericles proposes.
A Pericles, Prince of Tyre
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from Pericles Pericles exists only in a somewhat corrupted text, an unauthorized version probably “pirated” by Shakespeare’s contemporaries—created from notes taken during performances and published in order to capitalize on its great popularity. The play is also thought by critics to have originally been a collaborative effort between Shakespeare and another author. Its central themes, however, are characteristic of the tragicomic romances of Shakespeare’s late period. As in The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest, the play focuses particularly on the relationship between father and daughter. Its backdrop of the sea further recalls the exotic atmosphere of The Tempest, while its concern with separation and reunion is reminiscent of Leontes’ estrangement from and reconciliation with his wife and daughter in The Winter’s Tale—although, unlike Leontes, Pericles is innocent of any blame for the separation. Here, in Act V, Scene 1, after a series of adventures, King Pericles, believing his wife and daughter to be dead, has fallen into a deep depression and has not spoken for three months. His ship comes to rest near Mytilene. There, he is welcomed by the governor, Lysimachus, who, hearing of the King’s plight, introduces him to a girl whose beauty and virtue he believes may help to effect a cure. The cure is indeed successful, as the girl is discovered to be Pericles’ long-lost daughter Marina. open sidebar
The romantic tragicomedy Pericles, Prince of Tyre was written in 1607 and 1608 and first published in 1609. It concerns the trials and tribulations of the title character, including the painful loss of his wife and the persecution of his daughter. After many exotic adventures, Pericles is reunited with his loved ones; even his supposedly dead wife is discovered to have been magically preserved. The play’s central themes are characteristic of the late plays. Pericles focuses particularly on the relationship between father and daughter, as do The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest. Its backdrop of the sea also recalls the setting of The Tempest, while its concern with separation and reunion is reminiscent of The Winter’s Tale. However, Pericles is innocent of any blame for the disruption of his family, unlike Leontes’s estrangement from his wife and daughter in The Winter’s Tale.
Although Pericles, Prince of Tyre was a great success in its own time, the play exists only in a somewhat corrupted text. It did not appear in the First Folio, and critics have long debated how much of it Shakespeare actually wrote. Some believe the play was a collaborative effort between Shakespeare and another author, usually thought to be George Wilkins. Pericles is based on a medieval legend, Apollonius, Prince of Tyre, which had many English retellings, from Confessio Amantis (Confessions of a Poet) by John Gower in the late 14th century to a prose novella by Laurence Twine written in the 1570s.
B Cymbeline
Cymbeline was written about 1610 and first published in the 1623 Folio, where it appears as the last of the tragedies. Like the other late plays, Cymbeline responds to the fashion of the time for colorful plots and theatrical display. It is packed with adventure, plot reversals, and dramatic spectacle, and was perhaps intended to exploit the mechanical resources of Blackfriars, the new indoor theater of Shakespeare’s company. One stage direction instructs that “Jupiter descends in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle he throws a thunderbolt.” This bit of staging was far better suited to the indoor theater than to the Globe, where the play was also performed.
The play has three interrelated plots: one concerns Imogen’s love for her husband, Posthumus, and his jealousy; another involves the long-lost sons of King Cymbeline; and the third concerns Britain’s challenge to the power of Rome. The three plots marvelously come together in the play’s astonishing conclusion, as characters move from error to truth, from skepticism to faith, and from hatred to love. Confusion and loss are replaced by clarity and gain, as families and nations are reunited and are again at peace. At the play’s end, the comic order is, as the Soothsayer says, “full accomplished.” King Cymbeline ruled at the time of Jesus Christ’s incarnation. If the Soothsayer’s words seem to the echo Christ’s “consummatum est” (it is finished), it may be because the achievement of harmony in the play offers a secular (worldly) reflection of the patterns of Christian salvation history.
C The Winter’s Tale
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Excerpt from The Winter’s Tale One of Shakespeare’s last plays, the beautiful, poignant romance story of The Winter’s Tale revolves around the estrangement of Leontes, King of Sicilia, from his wife and daughter, and their eventual reconciliation. In a sudden fit of jealousy Leontes becomes convinced that his wife has been conducting an affair with his friend Polixenes and orders the daughter she bears to be abandoned abroad, believing the child is not his own. The first scene presented here shows the humiliating trial to which Leontes then subjects his wife, Hermione, and his tragic realization—too late—that he has made a grave error. Guided by Hermione’s servant Paulina, he enters a 16-year period of mourning and repentance. The fourth act of the play follows the girl, christened Perdita, as she grows up in the Bohemian countryside, before her chance return to her father’s court, where her true identity is gratefully discovered. Finally, in the second scene given below, Paulina leads Perdita to view her mother ’s statue, where the penitent Leontes is granted an even greater miracle of grace and reconciliation. The statue awakes, and the three are finally reunited. “A sad tale’s best for winter”, perhaps, but as this tale reveals, spring follows winter, and the hope of renewal is thus ever present. open sidebar
The Winter’s Tale was written about 1610 and published for the first time in the 1623 Folio. In The Winter’s Tale, as in Cymbeline, characters suffer great loss and pain and families are driven apart, but by the end most of what has been lost has been regained. This poignant romance revolves around the estrangement of Leontes, King of Sicilia, from his wife and daughter. In a sudden fit of jealousy Leontes becomes convinced that his wife, Hermione, has been conducting an affair with his friend Polixenes. Believing the daughter she bears is not his own, he orders the child to be abandoned abroad. The first three acts deal with Leontes’s jealousy, his persecution of Hermione, the death of his son, Mamillius, the loss of his daughter, Perdita, and the recognition of his error and subsequent repentance. In the middle of the play a speech by Time marks the change of fortunes that lead to the reconciliation and renewal of the final scene, with its spectacular revelation that Hermione, long thought dead, in fact still lives. Shakespeare borrowed the plot for The Winter’s Tale from Pandosto, the Triumph of Time (1588), a romance in prose by English writer Robert Greene.
D The Tempest
sidebar SIDEBAR Excerpt from The Tempest Prospero’s farewell to the magic arts in the concluding scene of The Tempest has been popularly supposed to form Shakespeare’s own farewell to the dramatic arts. However, while the play probably was Shakespeare’s final solo creation, he is thought to have continued to work as a collaborator, on Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen. Nevertheless, in its concerns with remembrance and forgiveness, the loss and limitation of power, and reconciliation with both the past and the future, The Tempest is without doubt elegiac in tone. In this, the final scene, Prospero, the wronged former Duke of Milan, now stands as ruler over the small island kingdom to which his banishment from Milan has brought him. Supported by his spirit-servant, Ariel, he finally unravels the many strands of action that he has woven throughout the play with his magic arts. The men who had once conspired against him—King Alonso of Naples, Alonso’s brother Sebastian, and Prospero’s usurping brother Antonio—brought by chance shipwreck to his island, are now entirely in his power, yet he offers them forgiveness. Reconciled to the repentant Alonso, Prospero then relieves the man’s grief at the supposed loss of his son, revealing that the youth, Ferdinand, is not only safe but betrothed to Prospero’s own daughter, Miranda. The aged and trustworthy Gonzalo finds in this scene of “common joy” sufficient reward for his attempts to help Prospero many years previously. The ship is mended; the comic commoners, Trinculo and Stephano are suitably abashed at the failure of their attempt to conquer the island; the strange creature Caliban acknowledges Prospero’s superiority as his master; and Ariel is finally freed. Not even Prospero’s magic, however, can charm the unrepentant heart, and Sebastian’s brief, critical asides and the cold silence maintained by Antonio cast a faint but unrelenting shade of darkness across the stage. open sidebar
The Tempest, perhaps the most successful of the tragicomedies, was written about 1611 and published for the first time in the 1623 Folio. The play’s resolution suggests the beneficial effects of the union of wisdom and power. In this play Prospero is deprived of his dukedom by his brother and banished to an island. But he defeats his usurping brother by employing magical powers and furthering a love match between his daughter and the son of the king of Naples. At the play’s conclusion, Prospero surrenders his magical powers. In this surrender some critics have seen Shakespeare’s own relinquishment of the magic of the theater. In spite of the appealing sentimentality of this idea, The Tempest was not Shakespeare’s last play, and it is worth remembering that Prospero gives up his magic only to return to the responsibilities of rule he had previously ignored.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.
(Act IV, scene 1)
The Tempest is without doubt reflective in tone, especially on the end of life, in its concerns with remembrance and forgiveness, the loss and limitation of power, and the need for the reconciliation of the past, present, and future.
VIII LATE COLLABORATIONS
Although The Tempest probably was Shakespeare’s final solo creation, he is thought to have continued to work as a collaborator on several plays, including Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen. The historical drama Henry VIII, also known as All Is True, was probably written about 1613 with English dramatist John Fletcher, and first published in the 1623 Folio. It dramatizes events from Henry’s reign leading to the birth of the future Queen Elizabeth I, presenting an implied history of the Reformation in a series of scenes on the fall from greatness of some characters (the Duke of Buckingham, Catherine of Aragón, and Thomas Cardinal Wolsey) and the rise of others (Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cranmer). At the end of a performance at the Globe on June 29, 1613, the theater’s thatched roof caught fire and the building burned to the ground.
The Two Noble Kinsmen, probably the last play Shakespeare wrote, was written jointly with John Fletcher about 1613. Both men’s names appear on the first published edition in 1634. Scholars generally attribute to Shakespeare most of acts one and five and to Fletcher the bulk of the play’s middle. The play tells of the competition of two friends, Palamon and Arcite, for the love of one woman, Emilia. She is the sister of Hippolyta, who was queen of the Amazons and wife of the Greek hero Theseus. The story is taken from The Knight’s Tale, part of Chaucer’s influential 14th-century masterpiece The Canterbury Tales.
IX LITERARY QUALITIES OF THE PLAYS
Everyone loves a good story, and Shakespeare was one of the very best storytellers. Most of Shakespeare’s stories have an almost universal appeal, an appeal often lacking in the plays of his contemporaries, who clung more closely to the tastes and interests of their own day. An even greater achievement is Shakespeare’s creation of believable characters. His people are not the exaggerated types or allegorical abstractions found in many other Elizabethan plays. They are instead men and women with the mingled qualities and many of the inconsistencies of life itself. The very richness of Shakespeare’s language continues to delight, and it is always amazing to be reminded how many common words and phrases have their origin in Shakespeare’s art. His poetic and theatrical artistry has created plays that continue to attract readers and theatergoers, and he properly remains one of our own age’s most popular playwrights.
A Shakespeare’s Characters
Shakespeare’s characters emerge in his plays as distinctive human beings. Although some of the characters display elements of conventional dramatic types such as the melancholy man, the braggart soldier, the pedant, and the young lover, they are nevertheless usually individualized rather than caricatures or exaggerated types. Falstaff, for example, bears some resemblance to the braggart soldiers of 16th-century Italian comedy and to representations of the character Vice in medieval morality plays, but his vitality and inexhaustible wit make him unique. Hamlet, one of the most complex characters in all literature, is partly a picture of the ideal Renaissance man, and he also exhibits traits of the conventional melancholic character. However, his personality as a whole transcends these types, and he is so real that commentators have continued for centuries to explore his fascinating mind.
The women in Shakespeare’s plays are vivid creations, each differing from the others. It is important to remember that in Shakespeare’s time boy actors played the female parts. Actresses did not appear in a Shakespeare play until after the restoration of Charles II to the English throne in 1660 and the introduction of French practices such as women actors. It says much about the talent of the boy actors of his own day that Shakespeare could create such a rich array of fascinating women characters. Shakespeare was fond of portraying aggressive, witty heroines, such as Kate of The Taming of the Shrew, Rosaline of Love’s Labour’s Lost, and Beatrice of Much Ado About Nothing. However, he was equally adept at creating gentle and innocent women, such as Ophelia in Hamlet, Desdemona in Othello, and Cordelia in King Lear. His female characters also include the treacherous Goneril and Regan in King Lear, the iron-willed Lady Macbeth, the witty and resourceful Portia in Merchant of Venice, the tender and loyal Juliet, and the alluring Cleopatra.
Shakespeare’s comic figures are also highly varied. They include bumbling rustics such as Dogberry and Verges in Much Ado About Nothing, tireless punsters like the Dromios in The Comedy of Errors, pompous grotesques like Don Armado in Love’s Labour’s Lost, elegant wits like Feste in Twelfth Night, cynical realists like Thersites in Troilus and Cressida, and fools who utter nonsense that often conceals wisdom, such as Touchstone in As You Like It and the Fool in King Lear.
Shakespeare drew his characters with remarkable insight into human character. Even the most wicked characters, such as Iago in Othello, have human traits that can elicit understanding if not compassion. Thus, Macbeth’s violent end arouses pity and awe rather than scornful triumph at a criminal’s just punishment for his deeds. The characters achieve uniqueness through their brilliantly individualized styles of speech. Shakespeare’s understanding of the human soul and his mastery of language enabled him to write dialogue that makes the characters in his plays always intelligible, vital, and memorable.
B Shakespeare’s Attitudes
Shakespeare’s philosophy of life can only be deduced from the ideas and attitudes that appear frequently in his writings, and he remained always a dramatist, not a writer of philosophical or ethical tracts. Nonetheless, the tolerance of human weakness evident in the plays tends to indicate that Shakespeare was a broad-minded person with generous and balanced views. Although he never lectured his audience, sound morality is implicit in his themes and in the way he handled his material. He attached less importance to noble birth than to an individual’s noble relations with other people. Despite the bawdiness of Shakespeare’s language, which is characteristic of his period, he did not condone sexual license. He accepted people as they are, without condemning them, but he did not allow wickedness to triumph. The comments of Shakespeare’s contemporaries suggest that he himself possessed both integrity and gentle manners.
It should be remembered that even though Shakespeare was a poet “for all time,” as his friend Ben Jonson said, he nevertheless was necessarily a product of his own era and shared many beliefs of the time. These beliefs are different from our own, and some of them may now seem strange and even unenlightened. Although Shakespeare anticipated many modern ideas and values, in other ways he does not rise above the ideas and values of his own time. As the history plays indicate, he accepted the idea of monarchy and had little interest in, or even concept of, participatory democracy. Although many of his women characters are assertive and independent, the plays still have them subordinate their energy to the logic of the male-dominated household. It is also likely that Shakespeare believed in ghosts and witches, as did many people of his time, including King James I.
C Shakespeare’s Stagecraft
Shakespeare brilliantly exploited the resources of the theaters he worked in. The Globe Theatre held an audience of 2,000 to 3,000 people. Like other outdoor theaters, it had a covered, raised stage thrusting out into the audience. The audience stood around the three sides of the stage in an unroofed area called the pit. Covered galleries, where people paid more money to sit, rose beyond the pit. Performances took place only during daylight hours, and there was little use of lighting. Few props were used, and little scenery. Costumes, however, were elaborate. Language created the scene, as in this passage from The Merchant of Venice:
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here we will sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears: stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony. Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patens of bright gold.
Act V, scene 1
D Shakespeare’s Language
In Shakespeare’s time English was a more flexible language than it is today. Grammar and spelling were not yet completely formalized, although scholars were beginning to urge rules to regulate them. English had begun to emerge as a significant literary language, having recently replaced Latin as the language of serious intellectual and artistic activity in England. Freed of many of the conventions and rules of modern English, Shakespeare could shape vocabulary and syntax to the demands of style. For example, he could interchange the various parts of speech, using nouns as adjectives or verbs, adjectives as adverbs, and pronouns as nouns. Such freedom gave his language an extraordinary plasticity, which enabled him to create the large number of unique and memorable characters he has left us. Shakespeare made each character singular by a distinctive and characteristic set of speech habits.
Just as important to Shakespeare’s success as the suppleness of the English language was the rapid expansion of the language. New words were being coined and borrowed at an unprecedented rate in Shakespeare’s time. Shakespeare himself had an unusually large vocabulary: about 23,000 different words appear in his plays and poetry, many of these words first appearing in print through his usage. During the Renaissance many new words enriched the English language, borrowed from Latin and from other European languages, and Shakespeare made full use of the new resources available to English. He also took advantage of the possibilities of his native tongue, especially the crispness and energy of the sounds of English that derives in large measure from the language’s rich store of monosyllabic (one-syllable) words.
The main influences on Shakespeare’s style were the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, the homilies (sermons) that were prescribed for reading in church, the rhetorical treatises that were studied in grammar school, and the proverbial lore of common speech. The result was that Shakespeare could draw on a stock of images and ideas that were familiar to most members of his audience. His knowledge of figures of speech and other devices enabled him to phrase his original thoughts concisely and forcefully. Clarity of expression and the use of ordinary diction partly account for the fact that many of Shakespeare’s phrases have become proverbial in everyday speech, even among people who have never read the plays. It is also significant that the passages most often quoted are usually from plays written around 1600 and after, when his language became more subtle and complex. The phrases “my mind’s eye,” “the primrose path,” and “sweets to the sweet” derive from Hamlet. Macbeth is the source of “the milk of human kindness” and “at one fell swoop.” From Julius Caesar come the expressions “it was Greek to me,” “ambition should be made of sterner stuff,” and “the most unkindest cut of all.”
Shakespeare wrote many of his plays in blank verse—unrhymed poetry in iambic pentameter, a verse form in which unaccented and accented syllables alternate in lines of ten syllables. In Shakespeare’s hand the verse form never becomes mechanical but is always subject to shifts of emphasis to clarify the meaning of a line and avoid the monotony of unbroken metrical regularity. Yet the five-beat pentameter line provides the norm against which the modifications are heard. Shakespeare sometimes used rhymed verse, particularly in his early plays. Rhymed couplets occur frequently at the end of a scene, punctuating the dramatic rhythm and perhaps serving as a cue to the offstage actors to enter for the next scene.
As Shakespeare’s dramatic skill developed, he began to make greater use of prose, which became as subtle a medium in his hands as verse. Although prose lacks the regular rhythms of verse, it is not without its own rhythmical aspect, and Shakespeare came to use the possibilities of prose to achieve effects of characterization as subtle as those he accomplished in verse. In the early plays, prose is almost always reserved for characters from the lower classes. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for example, the weaver Bottom speaks in prose to the fairy queen Titania, but she always responds in the verse appropriate to her position. Shakespeare, however, soon abandoned this rigid assignment of prose or verse on the basis of social rank. Although The Merry Wives of Windsor is the only play written almost entirely in prose, many plays use prose for important effects. Examples include Ophelia’s mad scenes in Hamlet, Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene in Macbeth, and Falstaff’s wonderful comedy in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2.
X THE SONNETS
Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 English author William Shakespeare ranks as perhaps the most famous writer in the history of English literature. Shakespeare employed poet verse within his dramatic comedies, tragedies, and histories, and he also composed notable individual poems. His poetic efforts include a series of 154 sonnets, in which he developed the Shakespearian sonnet as a new poetic form, arranged with three quatrains and a couplet. Sonnet 18 (recited by an actor) comes from The Sonnets of Shakespeare (printed in 1609).(p) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved./© Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Expand Although Shakespeare is today best known for his plays, his sonnets still rank among the world’s best-loved poems. Shakespeare’s sonnets were published for the first time as a collection in 1609, although two (numbers 138 and 144) had previously been printed in a volume of Elizabethan verse called The Passionate Pilgrim (1599). The 1609 collection of sonnets was dedicated to “Mr. W.H.,” the “only begetter of these . . . sonnets.” The dedication was signed by “T.T.,” (Thomas Thorpe, the publisher). Thorpe may have secured a copy of the poems that had been circulating among Shakespeare’s friends, or he may somehow have obtained Shakespeare’s own manuscripts. In addition to 154 sonnets, the volume contained “A Lover’s Complaint.” In this poem, too-little read today, a woman tells a herdsman the story of her seduction and later abandonment by her lover. The presence of a “Complaint” in a book of sonnets was a well-recognized practice, and Shakespeare’s sonnets and “The Lover’s Complaint” were undoubtedly intended to be read together.
sidebar GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE Poetry of William Shakespeare English poet and dramatist William Shakespeare sometimes played with existing conventions of courtly love in his sonnets. Courtly love sonnets, a tradition stemming back to 13th-century Italy, often depict a pure love for an idealized, inaccessible woman. By contrast, in love poems such as sonnet 130, Shakespeare describes a far more tangible and imperfect woman. The songs that appear in Shakespeare’s plays can be sweet, playful, lascivious, and absurd. Following are a selection of four of Shakespeare’s sonnets and two of his songs, “Tell Me Where Is Fancy Bred” and “Where the Bee Sucks, There Suck I.” open sidebar
The first 126 sonnets are apparently addressed to a handsome young nobleman, presumably the author’s patron. The poems express the writer’s selfless but not entirely uncritical devotion to the young man. The next 28 sonnets are written to a “dark lady,” whom the poet seemingly cannot resist. Another figure in the sequence is the “rival poet.” Scholars have spent much time trying to identify the specific figures the sonnets address, but it is unlikely that the sonnets are so personal. More likely, the sonnet offered Shakespeare a structure for experiments in lyric verse that enabled him to play with familiar conventions of feeling and poetry. Although no systematic narrative develops in the sonnets, there is a thematic link between the “young man” group and the “dark lady” group. The youth and the mistress betray the poet, and at one point the author berates the young man for stealing the dark lady from him. Miscellaneous sonnets treat various other themes, most notably the rending effects of time and the eternalizing possibilities of art.
The form of the poems is an English variation of the traditional fourteen-line sonnet. The lines, which each have ten syllables, are arranged into three quatrains, or groups of four lines, and a final couplet (two successive lines that rhyme). The rhyme scheme of the sonnets is abab, cdcd, efef, gg. A theme is developed and elaborated in the quatrains, and a concluding thought is presented in the couplet. Sonnet 116 is typical of the form and excellence of the poems.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments; love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O, no, it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand’ring bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error, and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

The poet himself prophesied in Sonnet 55: “Not marble nor the gilded monuments Of princes shall outlive this pow’rful rime.” The appreciation of the sonnets’ power and beauty by successive generations confirms this prophecy. Shakespeare’s sonnets continue to be read and enjoyed, and they remain among the greatest poetic achievements in the English language.
XI SHAKESPEARE TEXTS AND SCHOLARSHIP
So far as is known, Shakespeare had no hand in the publication of any of his plays. In any event, he did not own his plays once he had supplied the scripts to the theatrical company. Except when the plague closed the London theaters, acting companies normally did not consider it in their own interest to allow their popular plays to be printed. However, in whatever manner they reached their publishers, 18 of Shakespeare’s plays were printed during his lifetime in pamphlets (known as quartos, from the format in which they were printed), which sold for sixpence. Publishers secured these plays in various ways, some perhaps from the acting company, and some from lines taken down in shorthand during performances or reconstructed from memory by actors. The plays that reached print, therefore, had various degrees of reliability, but what is of interest is that Shakespeare seemed not to care one way or the other.
A The Folios
Fortunately for posterity, John Heminges and Henry Condell, friends and colleagues of Shakespeare in the Lord Chamberlain’s and King’s companies, collected 36 of the plays now accepted as Shakespeare’s and published them in a handsome folio edition in 1623. This volume preserved 18 plays that had never before been printed. Heminges and Condell promised that they were offering all the plays “cured and perfect of their limbs,” that is, purged of the errors that marred the early editions. The First Folio nevertheless contains many imperfections resulting from misreading of the manuscripts and inevitable printer’s errors, and their claim of accuracy is little more than advertising for the volume. Yet without the efforts of Heminges and Condell, 18 of the plays that we know as Shakespeare’s would not have been preserved.
The demand for Shakespeare’s works was sufficiently great to warrant the printing of the Second Folio in 1632. The Third Folio edition, printed in both 1663 and 1664, included, in its second printing, Pericles, which had been omitted from the previous editions, and six other plays that are not regarded by modern editors as Shakespeare’s. These are The London Prodigal, The History of Thomas Lord Cromwell, Sir John Oldcastle, The Puritan Widow, A Yorkshire Tragedy, and The Tragedy of Locrine. In 1685 the Fourth Folio appeared, which also included the unauthenticated plays. With each reprinting of Shakespeare’s works some corrections were made but new errors were introduced in spelling and punctuation, and the final text became more removed from the original work.
B 18th-Century Editions
The first edition of Shakespeare’s plays with an editor’s name attached was prepared by dramatist and poet Nicholas Rowe and printed in 1709. Rowe based his six-volume edition on the Fourth Folio, with almost no comparison with other editions. He added the first biography of Shakespeare and attached a list of characters to each play. The folios had supplied such lists for only a few plays. Rowe also divided the plays into acts and scenes according to 18th-century practice.
The next edition (6 vols., 1723-1725) was prepared by English poet Alexander Pope, who did some slight comparison of texts, relegated some passages he considered inauthentic to the bottom of pages, and arbitrarily omitted others. Although he frequently rewrote Shakespeare’s lines, mainly to make the verse regular, Pope offered some valuable restorations of readings, rearranged passages as verse that were incorrectly printed as prose in the early texts, and rejected the six spurious plays that had been added to the Third Folio.
English writer Lewis Theobald’s seven-volume edition of 1733 was the earliest systematic restoration of Shakespeare’s texts. Many of Theobald’s emendations, or textual corrections, are still accepted by scholars. Among the other important 18th-century editions was that of English writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, published in eight volumes in 1765. Johnson’s edition was notable chiefly for its sensible interpretations and critical evaluations of Shakespeare as a literary artist. Also important was literary scholar Edmund Malone’s ten-volume edition published in 1790, which was the most trustworthy text printed to that time. The first American edition, published in Philadelphia in 1795 and 1796, was a reprinting of Johnson’s text.
C 19th-Century Editions
In 1807, English editors Henrietta and Thomas Bowdler first published The Family Shakespeare. Bowdler announced that it “has been my study to exclude . . . whatever is unfit to be read aloud by a gentleman to a company of ladies” and that he had endeavored to omit “words and expressions which are of a nature as to raise a blush on the cheek of modesty.” The term bowdlerized has subsequently been applied to any text from which passages have been removed to suit notions of propriety.
Among the more scholarly Shakespeare collections of the 19th century were a handsomely illustrated edition (1838-1842) of Charles Knight and the first Cambridge edition (1863-1866), edited by W. G. Clark, J. Glover, and W. A. Wright. The one-volume reprint of the Cambridge text, known as the Globe edition, was until recently the most widely accepted text of the works ever distributed, and it was in this form that Shakespeare first became a playwright belonging to the world.
The most ambitious editions undertaken have been the various variorum editions, which collect and reprint the corrections and comments of earlier critics and editors. (The word variorum comes from the Latin phrase “cum notis variorum,” meaning “with the notes of various people.”) The First and Second variorums (1803 and 1813) were edited by Isaac Reed. The Third Variorum (21 vols., 1821) was prepared by James Boswell, son of Samuel Johnson’s biographer, and was based on Edmund Malone’s text. Like the preceding variorums, it contained a vast amount of biographical and critical matter. In 1871 American scholar H. H. Furness began the New Variorum Shakespeare, a project that has been continued to the present and is the most comprehensive of all editions of Shakespeare. The Modern Language Association of America has sponsored the New Variorum Shakespeare since 1936.
D 20th-Century Editions
Scholars of the 20th century had the advantage not only of the exhaustive work done by editors of the past but also of new bibliographical techniques. They also had at their disposal a vast amount of information on the theatrical and printing conditions of Shakespeare’s time, on Elizabethan handwriting, and on the historical background. Furthermore, they were less hampered by the belief of many earlier editors that Shakespeare was incapable of writing in imperfect meter or of using indelicate expressions.
American scholars W. A. Neilson and George Lyman Kittredge each compiled a single-volume collection of Shakespeare’s complete works in 1936 and 1942, respectively. From the 1960s and 1970s on, many university presses and other publishers brought out their own editions of Shakespeare, including paperback editions. The best of the modern editions of individual plays are generally thought to be the Arden Shakespeare, the Oxford Shakespeare, and the New Cambridge Shakespeare editions. For the collected works, the Riverside Shakespeare and the Norton Shakespeare are arguably the best editions.
Shakespeare plays began to appear on the Internet during the 1990s. The University of Virginia has posted electronic versions of the First Folio and the Globe edition on its Web site, http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/shakespeare/. Other Websites dedicated to the plays are sponsored by the University of Victoria in Canada (http://web.uvic.ca/shakespeare/) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (http://classics.mit.edu/Shakespeare/).
E The Authorship Controversy
With the exception of Homer, about whom nothing definite is known, Shakespeare is the only major writer in the world’s history whose authorship has been so widely disputed. Since the 18th century, scores of books have been written to prove that Shakespeare’s works were written by another person or persons. Dozens of candidates have been proposed, including writers such as Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, Robert Greene, George Peele, and John Lyly; a multitude of titled men, including the earls of Rutland and Derby, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Francis Bacon, and the Earl of Oxford; and even Queen Elizabeth I.
The first systematic theory doubting Shakespeare’s authorship was set forth by William Henry Smith, who in 1856 published a book declaring that Sir Francis Bacon was the real author of the plays. In the same year, an American schoolteacher named Delia Bacon (no relation to Francis Bacon) wrote an article and then a book supporting Bacon’s authorship, and later she conceived the notion of the dual authorship of Sir Walter Raleigh and Bacon. For a long time, Bacon was the leading candidate of the anti-Shakespeareans, but Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, is now the most popular nominee. He was first proposed by an English schoolmaster with an unfortunate last name, J. Thomas Looney, in 1920. Christopher Marlowe, whose candidacy also has been strongly advocated, was first named by American writer Wilbur Zeigler in 1892 as one of a group of possible authors of the plays.
Skepticism as to Shakespeare’s authorship has arisen for a number of reasons. Some critics have claimed that too little is known about the man from Stratford for him to be the author of these great plays. But it is important to remember that far less is known about most other writers and public men of the time. Other critics have said that what is known about Shakespeare is incompatible with the sort of man who could have written the works. Still others have argued that the lack of surviving manuscripts of the plays indicates a mystery concerning the author’s identity. In general, however, resistance to the notion that a glover’s son from Stratford wrote the plays we attribute to Shakespeare comes from a form of snobbery. We know Shakespeare did not go to university and he was not educated at court, so it has seemed to some impossible that he could have written the wonderful works ascribed to him.
The biography of Shakespeare that Rowe included with his edition of the works in 1709 may have added to the skepticism. Rowe painted a very respectable background for Shakespeare and made sweeping assumptions from the known facts. In addition, a number of traditional although unsubstantiated stories about Shakespeare, such as that of his deer poaching, came to be accepted as true, and other legends accumulated. On the basis of these, some skeptics decided that Shakespeare was an ignorant butcher’s boy from an uncultured background who could not have written anything significant, let alone great literary masterpieces that show intimate knowledge of aristocratic manners. The misconceptions about Shakespeare were compounded in the 19th century, when he acquired a reputation for vast learning and virtual omniscience.
For a more balanced evaluation of Shakespeare’s knowledge and education, it is necessary to take into account the facts of his background. His native Stratford was a prosperous market town with one of the best grammar schools in England. Shakespeare’s father held official positions, which would indicate that he must have been an ambitious man who would hardly have denied his son the free education to which he was entitled at the grammar school. Most scholars familiar with the Elizabethan age believe that the works display exactly the sort of knowledge that Shakespeare could have obtained in the Stratford grammar school.
A number of scholars have closely studied the book-learning exhibited in the works. They have concluded that even the mythological allusions, which have sometimes been cited as proof of the author’s wide classical reading, are no more numerous or obscure than those used by other writers. Moreover, these allusions come from relatively few literary sources or popular traditions. Nor is there evidence in the works of precise knowledge of the scientific and philosophical trends of the day. As most modern scholars see it, the author revealed in the works was a keenly sensitive and intelligent man whose reading was inspired by wide curiosity, but that, unlike Sir Francis Bacon, he was not a learned man of scientific bent.
The claim that the plays display Shakespeare’s intimate knowledge of the customs and manners of nobility and royalty is illusory. The plays show kings speaking in regal tones when the dramatic situation calls for emphasis on the dignity of royalty. In other scenes, however, they speak as ordinary human beings, in keeping with the emotional situation in which the action places them. In any case, Shakespeare played at court many times before Queen Elizabeth and King James and had an official position as one of James’ servants as a member of the King’s Men. It would not, therefore, have been difficult for him to become familiar with aristocratic life and manners.
The fact that Shakespeare’s manuscripts have vanished is not surprising in the light of Elizabethan practices. Very few play manuscripts from the period have survived. Plays were not considered literature, and play scripts would not have had much value, except to the acting company. In any case, once a playwright sold a script to an acting company, it was no longer the author’s property. The manuscripts in the playhouse were undoubtedly preserved for as long as they were usable, but afterward they were probably used as scrap paper. The manuscripts supplied by Heminges and Condell for the printing of the 18 previously unpublished plays in the First Folio would most likely have been returned to the acting company after the book was in print. The Second, Third, and Fourth folios are printed from the text of the First Folio, rather than from manuscripts. When Parliament ordered the closing of London’s playhouses in 1642, many companies sold their assets, including play manuscripts. In addition, many manuscripts must have perished in the great fire that swept London in 1666. Thus, it would be unusual if the manuscripts of Shakespeare’s plays had survived.
Those who seek another author for Shakespeare’s works believe that distinction of birth and education is a necessary qualification for writing great literature. Yet it is the quality of imaginative genius rather than a display of learning that distinguishes the creator of these plays. The miracle is not that a man of Shakespeare’s background wrote them, but that any human imagination produced creations of such enduring power and beauty.
XII LITERARY REPUTATION
Shakespeare in the Park A popular summer tradition in New York City is “Shakespeare in the Park,” a series of productions of plays by William Shakespeare. The shows take place in the evenings at an open-air theater in Central Park. The Shakespeare in the Park performances were launched by American theater producer Joseph Papp in the 1950s.Corbis/UPI Expand Shakespeare achieved his reputation as perhaps the greatest of all dramatists after his death. Although his contemporary Ben Jonson declared him “not of an age, but for all time,” early 17th-century taste found the plays of Jonson himself, or Thomas Middleton or Beaumont and Fletcher, equally worthy of praise. Shakespeare’s reputation began to eclipse that of his contemporaries some 150 years after his death. He was always popular but until the mid-18th century his reputation was not, as it would become, unrivaled. Although his works were regularly staged in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, theater companies hardly treated his plays with reverence. When they performed the plays, they most often used versions rewritten for the fashions of the age, “purged”—as their adaptors maintained—of their coarseness and absurdities. These alterations could be significant. In the version of King Lear that dominated the stage from 1681 until 1823, Lear and his daughter Cordelia are left alive at the end, transforming a tragedy into a tragicomedy (and reproducing what the historical source material suggests about their fates). While these adaptations seem odd to us today, it was this practice of adapting Shakespeare that kept his plays in the repertory while those of Jonson, Middleton, and others remained on the shelf.
Shakespeare began to assume the role of England’s national poet during the first half of the 18th century. This process reached its culmination with the installation of a memorial statue in Westminster Abbey in 1741 and the celebration of a festival in 1764 to commemorate the bicentenary of his birth. During the 19th century the romantic movement did much to shape both Shakespeare’s international reputation and the view of his achievement that has persisted ever since. Particularly important were the lectures on Shakespeare by English romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the writings of German romantic poet and dramatist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Romantic authors claimed Shakespeare as a great precursor of their own literary values. They celebrated his work as an embodiment of universal human truths and an unequalled articulation of the human condition in all its nobility and variety.
The views of the romantic movement have in many ways been cemented during the 20th century. Institutions such as the Folger Shakespeare Library, established in the United States in 1932, and the Royal Shakespeare Company, founded in Britain in 1961, have ensured that Shakespeare’s work remains a central icon of Western culture. Festival productions of the plays began in 1870 at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-on-Avon. The present theater, built in 1932 after the original was burned, is the Stratford home of the Royal Shakespeare Company. It may itself be rebuilt as part of a redevelopment plan scheduled for completion in 2008. The annual Shakespeare Festival of Stratford, Ontario, presented its first Shakespeare plays in 1953. New York City has held an outdoor Shakespeare in Central Park festival since 1957. A reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe was erected on London’s South Bank and opened in 1997. By the early 2000s, numerous British, Canadian, and American towns and cities held annual Shakespeare festivals.
further reading These sources provide additional information on Shakespeare, William.
As Polish literary critic Jan Kott noted in the title of a 1965 work, Shakespeare is “our contemporary.” At the very least, we strive to make him so. Shakespeare plays are performed today all over the globe, not only in English-speaking countries but in lands and in languages Shakespeare never dreamed of.

Reviewed By:David Scott Kastan
© 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

shakespear,s biography

2004-11-15T10:21:00.000-08:00

Encyclopedia: William Shakespeare
Featured Sites
Gradschools.com - The leading online resource for graduate school information including a comprehensive directory of graduate school programs searchable by subject and ...
Artisan Framed Fine Art - Discount Framed Fine Art, prints, posters and photos. Choose from a selection of frames and mats. Save 40 to 50% off.
Art.com - Coupons and Deals - Shop at Art.com and use coupons from BIGonlineSavings.com to save you lots of money. We offer coupons, links and customer reviews for your favorite on...
More sites like this...
Home: Search: Encyclopedia: William Shakespeare
Search Related Encyclopedia Articles:
William Shakespeare — born April 1564; baptised April 26, 1564; died April 23, 1616 (Julian calendar), May 3, 1616 (Gregorian calendar) — has a reputation as the greatest writer the English language has ever known. Indeed, the English Renaissance has often been called "the age of Shakespeare". As a playwright, he wrote not only some of the most powerful tragedies, but also many comedies and histories. He also wrote 154 sonnets and several major poems, some of which arguably feature amongst the most brilliant pieces of English literature ever written, because of Shakespeare's ability to rise beyond the narrative and describe the innermost and the most profound aspects of human nature. Shakespeare wrote his works between 1585 and 1613, although the exact dates and chronology of the plays attributed to him remain relatively uncertain in many instances.

William Shakespeare (National Portrait Gallery), in the famous Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity unconfirmed.
Shakespeare's influence on the English-speaking world shows in the ready recognition afforded many quotations from Shakespearean plays (http://en.wikiquote.org/search/encyclopedia/Shakespeare), the titles of works based on Shakespearean phrases, and the many adaptations of his plays. Other indicators of contemporary influence include his appearance in the top ten of the "100 Greatest Britons" poll sponsored by the BBC, the frequent productions based on his work, such as the BBC Television Shakespeare, and the success of the fictional account of his life in the 1998 film Shakespeare in Love.
Contents
//

1 Biography
2 Identity and authorship
3 Plays and their categories
4 Dramatic collaborations
5 Plays possibly by Shakespeare
6 Lost plays by Shakespeare
7 Other works
8 Shakespeare and the textual problem
9 Specialist acting companies and theatres
10 See also
11 External links
[edit]

Biography
Most historians agree that actor and playwright equate to the William Shakespeare for whom we have considerable historical records (note that Elizabethan Englishmen did not use standardised spelling; although his surname most commonly appears as Shakespeare, Shakespere also recurs frequently, and the name sometimes appears as Shakespear, Shaksper and even Shaxberd [1] (http://www.shakespeareauthorship.com/name1.html#2)).
Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, in April 1564, the son of John Shakespeare, a glove-maker, and of Mary Arden. His baptismal record dates to April 26 of that year and (given traditional timings of baptisms) tradition considers April 23 as his birthday. His father, prosperous at the time of William's birth, was prosecuted for participating in the black market in wool, and later lost his position as an alderman. Some evidence exists that both sides of the family had Roman Catholic sympathies.
As the son of a prominent town official, Shakespeare most likely attended the Stratford grammar school, which provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and literature. There is no evidence that his formal education extended beyond this.
Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior, on November 28, 1582 at Temple Grafton, near Stratford; two neighbors of Anne, Fulk Sandalls and John Richardson, posted bond that there were no impediments to the marriage. There appears to have been some haste in arranging the ceremony: Anne was three months' pregnant. After his marriage, William Shakespeare left few traces in the historical record until he appeared on the London literary scene.
On May 26, 1583 Shakespeare's first child, Susanna, was baptised at Stratford. There soon followed on February 2, 1585 the baptisms of a son, Hamnet, and of a daughter, Judith.
By 1592 Shakespeare had enough of a reputation for Robert Greene to denounce him as "an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey." (The italicised line parodies the phrase, "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide" which Shakespeare used in Henry VI, part 3.)
In 1596 Hamnet died; he was buried on August 11, 1596. Because of the similarities of their names, some suspect that his death provided the impetus for Shakespeare's The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
In 1597 William sold "one messuage, two barns, two gardens, two orchards, with appurtenances, in Stradford-upon-Avon" to William Underhill for sixty pounds. Sir Hugh Clopton had built the house on this property.
By 1598 Shakespeare had moved to the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, and appeared top of a list of actors in Every man in his Humour written by Ben Jonson.

One version of Shakespeare's signature
Shakespeare became an actor, writer and ultimately part-owner of an acting company known as The Lord Chamberlain's Men — the company took its name, like others of the period, from its aristocratic sponsor, the Lord Chamberlain. The group became sufficiently popular that after the death of Elizabeth I and the coronation of James I (1603), the new monarch adopted the company and it became known as The King's Men.
Various documents recording legal affairs and commercial transactions show that Shakespeare grew increasingly affluent in his London years. He did well enough to buy a property in Blackfriars, London, and owned the second-largest house in Stratford.
In 1609 he published his sonnets, love poems variously addressed: some to a 'dark lady', and some to a young man (or 'fair lord').
Shakespeare retired in approximately 1611 and died in 1616, on April 23 — perhaps part of the reason behind the tradition of his birthday being this same day. He remained married to Anne until his death. His two daughters, Susannah and Judith, survived him. Susannah married Dr John Hall, and later became the subject of a court case.
His tombstone reads, "Blest be the man who cast these stones, and cursed be he that moves my bones." Popular myth claims that unpublished works by Shakespeare may lie within the bard's tomb, but no-one has ever verified these claims, perhaps for fear of the curse included in the quoted epitaph.
[edit]

Identity and authorship
Main article: Shakespearean authorship
The vast majority of academics identify the Shakespeare recorded as living in Stratford-upon-Avon, the actor Shakespeare and the playwright Shakespeare as one and the same person, but this identification has provoked vigorous debate over the years from those who believe that some other writer merely used the name "Shakespeare" as a pseudonym. In part, this debate stems from the scarcity and ambiguity of many of the historical records of this period; even the painting that accompanies this article (and that appears above the name "William Shakespeare" in the National Portrait Gallery, London) may not depict Shakespeare at all. Various fringe scholars have suggested writers such as Sir Francis Bacon, Edward de Vere, Christopher Marlowe and even Queen Elizabeth I as alternative authors or co-authors for some or all of "Shakespeare"'s work. The proponents of such claims necessarily rely on conspiracy theories to explain the lack of direct historical evidence for them.
A related question in mainstream academia addresses whether Shakespeare himself wrote every word of his commonly-accepted plays, given that collaboration between dramatists routinely occurred in the Elizabethan theatre. Serious academic work continues to attempt to ascertain the authorship of plays and poems of the time, both those attributed to Shakespeare and others.
[edit]

Plays and their categories
Shakespeare's plays first appeared in print as a series of folios and quartos, and scholars, actors and directors continue to study and perform them extensively. They form an established part of the Western canon of literature.
One could categorise his dramatic work as follows:
Shakespearean tragedies
Romeo and Juliet
Macbeth
King Lear
Hamlet
Othello
Titus Andronicus
Julius Caesar
Antony and Cleopatra
Coriolanus
Troilus and Cressida
Timon of Athens
Shakespearean comedies
The Comedy of Errors
All's Well That Ends Well
As You Like It
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Measure for Measure
The Tempest
Taming of the Shrew
Twelfth Night or What You Will
The Merchant of Venice
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Love's Labour's Lost
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Cymbeline
The Winter's Tale
The Two Noble Kinsmen
Shakespearean histories
Richard III
Richard II
Henry VI, part 1
Henry VI, part 2
Henry VI, part 3
Henry V
Henry IV, part 1
Henry IV, part 2
Henry VIII
King John
Some scholars of Shakespeare break the category of "Comedies" into "Comedies" and "Romances". Plays in the latter category would include Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, Pericles Prince of Tyre, and The Tempest.
[edit]

Dramatic collaborations
Like most playwrights of his period, Shakespeare did not always write alone, and scholars believe a number of his plays collaborative. Some of the following attributions, such as for The Two Noble Kinsmen, have well-attested contemporary documentation; others, such as for Titus Andronicus, remain more controversial, depending on linguistic analysis by modern scholars.
Cardenio, a lost play; reports suggest Shakespeare collaborated on it with John Fletcher.
Henry VI, part 1, possibly the work of a team of playwrights, whose identities we can only guess at. Some scholars argue that Shakespeare wrote less than 20% of the text.
Henry VIII, generally considered a collaboration between Shakespeare and John Fletcher.
Macbeth: Thomas Middleton may have revised this tragedy in 1615 to incorporate extra musical sequences.
Measure for Measure may have undergone a light revision by Thomas Middleton at some point after its original composition.
Pericles Prince of Tyre may include the work of George Wilkins, either as collaborator, reviser, or revisee.
Timon of Athens may result from collaboration between Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton; this might explain its incoherent plot and its unusually cynical tone.
Titus Andronicus may be a collaboration with, or revision of, George Peele.
The Two Noble Kinsmen, published in quarto in 1654 and attributed to John Fletcher and William Shakespeare; each appears to have written about about half of it.
[edit]

Plays possibly by Shakespeare
Note: For a comprehensive account of plays possibly by Shakespeare, see the separate entry on the Shakespeare Apocrypha.
Edward III Some scholars have recently chosen to attribute this play to Shakespeare, based on the style of its verse. Others refuse to accept it, citing, among other reasons, the mediocre quality of the characters. If Shakespeare had involvement, he probably worked as a collaborator.
Sir Thomas More, a collaborative work by several playwrights, possibly including Shakespeare. That Shakespeare had any part in this play remains uncertain.
[edit]

Lost plays by Shakespeare
Love's Labour's Won A late sixteenth-century writer, Francis Meres, and a scrap of paper (apparently from a bookseller), both list this title among Shakespeare's recent works, but no play of this title has survived. It may have become lost, or it may represent an alternate title of one of the plays listed above, such as Much Ado About Nothing or All's Well That Ends Well.
Cardenio, a late play by Shakespeare and Fletcher, referred to in several documents, has not survived. It re-worked a tale in Cervantes' Don Quixote. In 1727, Lewis Theobald produced a play he called Double Falshood, which he claimed to have adapted from three manuscripts of a lost play by Shakespeare that he did not name. Double Falshood does re-work the Cardenio story, and modern scholarship generally agrees that Double Falshood represents all we have of the lost play.
[edit]

Other works
Shakespeare's other literary works include:
Sonnets. (See also sonnet.)
Longer poems:
Venus and Adonis
The Rape of Lucrece
The Passionate Pilgrim
The Phoenix and the Turtle
A Funeral Elegy by W.S. (?). For a period many believed, on the basis of evidence researched by Don Foster, that Shakespeare wrote a Funeral Elegy for William Peter. However most scholars, including Foster, now conclude that Shakespear did not write this work, more likely from the pen of John Ford.
[edit]

Shakespeare and the textual problem
Unlike his contemporary Ben Jonson, Shakespeare did not have direct involvement in publishing his plays. The problem of identifying what Shakespeare actually wrote became a major concern for most modern editions. Textual corruptions stemming from printers' errors, misreadings by compositors or simply wrongly scanned lines from the source material litter the Quartos and the First Folio. Additionally, in an age before standardised spelling, Shakespeare often wrote a word several times in a different spelling, and this may have contributed to some of the transcribers' confusion. Modern editors have the task of reconstructing Shakespeare's original words and expurgating errors as far as possible.
In some cases the textual solution presents few difficulties. In the case of Macbeth for example, scholars believe that someone (probably Thomas Middleton) adapted and shortened the original to produce the extant text published in the First Folio, but that remains our only authorised text. In others the text may have become manifestly corrupt or unreliable (Pericles or Timon of Athens) but no competing version exists. The modern editor can only regularise and correct erroneous readings that have survived into the printed versions.
The textual problem can, however, become rather complicated. Modern scholarship now believes Shakespeare to have modified his plays through the years, sometimes leading to two existing versions of one play. To provide a modern text in such cases, editors must face the choice between the original first version and the later, revised, usually more theatrical version. In the past editors have resolved this problem by conflating the texts to provide what they believe to be a superior Ur-text, but critics now argue that to provide a conflated text would run contrary to Shakespeare's intentions. In King Lear for example, two independent versions, each with their own textual integrity, exist in the Quarto and the Folio versions. Shakespeare's changes here extend from the merely local to the structural. Hence the Oxford Shakespeare, published in 1986, provides two different versions of the play, each with respectable authority. The problem exists with at least four other Shakespearean plays (Henry IV, part 1, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, and Othello ).
[edit]

Specialist acting companies and theatres
John Bell's Bell Shakespeare Company (http://www.bellshakespeare.com.au/) in Australia
Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon
Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon
Utah Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City, Utah
The Shakespeare Theater (http://www.shakespearedc.org/) in Washington, DC
Shakespeare by the Sea, various companies of this name in Canada and the US
[edit]

See also
Elizabethan theatre
Shakespeare's contemporaries, such as Queen Elizabeth I, Edward de Vere, Edmund Spenser
His fellow dramatists: Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, John Fletcher, John Webster, Thomas Middleton, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Heywood, John Marston, etc.
His godson, William Davenant, and son-in-law John Hall.
Birmingham Central Library has a strong Shakespeare collection
The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC has the biggest Shakespeare collection
Asteroid 2985 Shakespeare, named after the dramatist
[edit]

External links

Wikisource has original works written by:
William Shakespeare

See also Study Guide:Shakespeare on Wikibooks
British Library; original 93 copies in quarto (http://www.bl.uk/treasures/shakespeare/homepage.html)
Shakespeare Study Guide at Wikibooks (http://wikibooks.org/search/encyclopedia/Study_Guide:Shakespeare)
Wikiquote — Quotes by William Shakespeare (http://quote./search/encyclopedia/William_Shakespeare)
Wikisource — Shakespeare's Will (http://sources./search/encyclopedia/Shakespeare%27s_last_will_and_testament)
Wikisource — Complete Works of William Shakespeare (http://sources./search/encyclopedia/Complete_Works_of_William_Shakespeare)
Online Resources for Teaching Shakespeare (http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-3/online.htm)
online texts of William Shakespeare's plays (http://william-shakespeare.classic-literature.co.uk/)
Project Gutenberg e-texts of the works of William Shakespeare (http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?author=Shakespeare%2C+William)
Shakespeare Literature (http://www.shakespeare-literature.com), Chapter-indexed, searchable versions of Shakespeare's works.
Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet (http://daphne.palomar.edu/Shakespeare/)
Shakespeare and the Globe (http://search.eb.com/shakespeare/index2.html) from the Encyclopaedia Britannica
Touchstone - UK Shakespeare collections (http://www.touchstone.bham.ac.uk/index.html)
Shakespeare works in online form and with a searchable database (http://www.elook.org/literature/shakespeare/)
Birmingham Central Library Shakespeare Memorial Room (http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/Shakespeare)
Online Shakespeare Resources and Links (http://www.shakespeare.com)
Short Articles on Shakespeare (http://willamette.edu/~blong/Shakespeare.html) Bill Long

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations by or about:
William Shakespeare
Retrieved from "/search/encyclopedia/William_Shakespeare/"
Categories: 1564 births 1616 deaths British dramatists British poets British writers English Renaissance dramatists Playwrights William Shakespeare
Page Updated: Wed Oct 27 20:10:36 2004
See Also:
Artcyclopedia - "William Shakespeare"
Artists by Name
Artworks by Title
Art Museums
ArtLex - William Shakespeare
Encyclopedia.com - William Shakespeare
Related Links:
Get More Information about "William Shakespeare" in:
Shop for "William Shakespeare" Merchandise in:
Featured Sites: Top Ten
American Arts and Crafts Directory
Web Directory: Local Color
Encyclopedia: Wikipedia
News: Moreover®
Discussion: Google® Groups
Search Engine: Google®
Art Prints: Art.com®
Art Supplies: DickBlick®
Online Auctions: eBay®
Books: Amazon®
General Merchandise: Amazon®
Catalogs: CatalogCity®
Price Comparisons: NexTag®
Reciprocal Links (sites currently linking to this page)*
The last 6 URLs to refer visitors to this page:
www.google.com - "biography of shakespear"
www.google.com - Short Biography of shakespear
www.google.com - shakespeare "richard II" clipart
www.google.co.nz - shakespear william's history
www.google.com.pe - city stradford-upon-avon history
www.google.com - shakespeare born stradford dramatist writer short
*Webmasters: Simply link to this page from your website and a reciprocal link back to your referring page will automatically appear above. See Also: Reciprocal Links
Random Art Quote
The moving finger writes; and, having writ, / Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit / Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, / Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
- Edward Fitzgerald

2004-11-15T10:14:00.000-08:00

FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,That thereby beauty's rose might never die,But as the riper should by time decease,His tender heir might bear his memory:But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel,Making a famine where abundance lies,Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.Thou that art now the world's fresh ornamentAnd only herald to the gaudy spring,Within thine own bud buriest thy contentAnd, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.Pity the world, or else this glutton be,To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.II.When forty winters shall beseige thy brow,And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held:Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies,Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mineShall sum my count and make my old excuse,'Proving his beauty by succession thine!This were to be new made when thou art old,And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.III.Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewestNow is the time that face should form another;Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,Thou dost beguile