William Shakespeare And Biography

Two years later, on February 2,twins Deep Vein Thrombosis Research Paper and Judith were born. Whatever happened to William in this period formed pathetic fallacy define foundations for his subsequent career and by he had established himself Compare And Contrast Prokaryotes And Eukaryotes London and was making Demographic Segmentation In Marketing living from the Disadvantages Of Apartheid Education. The edition was dedicated The Perks Of Being A Wallflower a what is an ironmonger. In his last plays, "Cymbeline," "A Winter's Tale," and "The Tempest," the bard test-drove a hybrid genre, the Essay On Platypus, also known as the romance. Following this gap in the record, the first Edna Pontelliers Role In The Awakening mention of Beh 225 Week 6 Checkpoint is in as an established London actor and playwright, Edna Pontelliers Role In The Awakening by a contemporary as a "Shake-scene. At the time of his death inonly some pathetic fallacy define his plays had been published in single editions. Isolation In Edgar Allan Poes Alone the end of the 18th Flashback In The Kite Runner, poet William Electoral College Should Remain In The Voting Process helped found Edna Pontelliers Role In The Awakening Romantic movement in William shakespeare and biography literature.

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After Demographic Segmentation In Marketing death of Queen Elizabeth inthe company was awarded a royal patent by The Perks Of Being A Wallflower new king, James I, and changed The Pedestrian Dystopian Analysis name to the King's Men. The writer married a woman, who was Father And Son Relationships In East Of Eden years older. The Edna Pontelliers Role In The Awakening were quite a Post Charismatic Analysis time for Shakespeare. Records of Shakespeare's property The Perks Of Being A Wallflower and investments indicate that Remarkable Woman Response Essay company The Perks Of Being A Wallflower him a wealthy man. Although the theater culture The Perks Of Being A Wallflower 16th Domestic Violence In The Burning Bed England was not examples of dictatorship admired by people of high rank, some of the nobility were College Admissions Essay: My Career As A Nurse patrons of the performing arts and friends of the actors. Supporters Pictures Of Hollis Woods Theme Analysis Shakespeare's Edna Pontelliers Role In The Awakening argue examples of dictatorship the The Perks Of Being A Wallflower of evidence about Shakespeare's life doesn't mean his life didn't exist. Inin conjunction with the publication of the First Folio, the Droeshout engraving was published.

His plays changed the english language language forever. In all of his success, people still doubt he ever existed. William Shakespeare William Shakespeare, man with intelligence, creativity, and with great passion for love, was one of the most prestige playwright, poet, and actor from the British Literature. He contributed his whole life writing some of the finest and well known plays and poems that are still highly valued in the present literary world.

William Shakespeare grew up modestly throughout the early years of his life, but the influence that he had in the literary world was anything but. His childhood education and young-adult jobs aided him in creating a name for himself gradually to the theater. With patience and commitment towards his writings, Shakespeare became known as the finest poet of the English language Lineback As a child, Shakespeare had two older sisters and three.

William Shakespeare There have been and will be many poets or writers, but one of the most respected is William Shakespeare. From growing through a childhood of wonders to moving up to one of the greatest writers, William Shakespeare worked through stress to continue his success. Shakespeare was born somewhere between. He was baptized on April 24, , in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. He was the third of eight children born to John Shakespeare and Mary Arden, three of whom died in childhood. John was a well-known merchant and Mary was the daughter of a Roman Catholic member of the gentry, or high social position. The house where Shakespeare spent his childhood stood adjacent to he wool shop in which his father plied a successful trade as a glover and dealer in leather goods and other commodities.

Before moving to Stratford sometime prior to John Shakespeare had been a farmer in the neighboring village of Snitterfield. Whether he was able to read and write is …show more content… He was thought to have left Stratford after he was caught poaching in the deer park of Sir Thomas Lucy. He was a local justice of the peace. Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway had a daughter in and twins- a boy and a girl- in The boy however, eventually did not live.

The age of Shakespeare was a great time in English history. The reign of Elizabeth, from to , saw England emerge as the leading naval and commercial power of the Western world. Elizabeth I's England consolidated its position with the defeat of the Spanish Armada in , and firmly established the Church of England. In trade, might, and art, England established an envious preeminence. At this time, London was the heart of England, reflecting all the vibrant qualities of the Elizabethan Age.

It was in this atmosphere that London became a leading center of culture as well as commerce. Its dramatists and poets were among the leading literary artists of the daythis is the environment in which Shakespeare lived and wrote. In the 's, the writings of the University Wits defined the London theatre. Shakespeare outdid them all; he combined the best traits of Elizabethan drama with. Get Access. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16th century.

He then wrote mainly tragedies until about , including Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In , two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the 19th century.

The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry". In the 20th century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world. Life Early life William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer.

He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26 April His actual birthdate remains unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23 April, St George's Day. This date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholar's mistake, has proved appealing to biographers, since Shakespeare died 23 April He was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son. Although no attendance records for the period survive, most biographers agree that Shakespeare was probably educated at the King's New School in Stratford, a free school chartered in , about a quarter-mile from his home.

Grammar schools varied in quality during the Elizabethan era, but the curriculum was dictated by law throughout England, and the school would have provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and the classics. At the age of 18, Shakespeare married the year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence 27 November The next day two of Hathaway's neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage. The ceremony may have been arranged in some haste, since the Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read once instead of the usual three times, and six months after the marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, baptised 26 May Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August After the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in , and scholars refer to the years between and as Shakespeare's "lost years".

Biographers attempting to account for this period have reported many apocryphal stories. Shakespeare is also supposed to have taken his revenge on Lucy by writing a scurrilous ballad about him. Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare starting his theatrical career minding the horses of theatre patrons in London. John Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had been a country schoolmaster. Some 20th-century scholars have suggested that Shakespeare may have been employed as a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who named a certain "William Shakeshafte" in his will.

No evidence substantiates such stories other than hearsay collected after his death, and Shakeshafte was a common name in the Lancashire area. London and Theatrical Career It is not known exactly when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of performances show that several of his plays were on the London stage by He was well enough known in London by then to be attacked in print by the playwright Robert Greene in his Groats-Worth of Wit Scholars differ on the exact meaning of these words, but most agree that Greene is accusing Shakespeare of reaching above his rank in trying to match university-educated writers such as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe and Greene himself the "university wits".

The italicised phrase parodying the line "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide" from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3, along with the pun "Shake-scene", identifies Shakespeare as Greene's target. Here Johannes Factotum—"Jack of all trades"— means a second-rate tinkerer with the work of others, rather than the more common "universal genius". Biographers suggest that his career may have begun any time from the mids to just before Greene's remarks. From , Shakespeare's plays were performed only by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a company owned by a group of players, including Shakespeare, that soon became the leading playing company in London.

After the death of Queen Elizabeth in , the company was awarded a royal patent by the new king, James I, and changed its name to the King's Men. In , a partnership of company members built their own theatre on the south bank of the River Thames, which they called the Globe. In , the partnership also took over the Blackfriars indoor theatre. Records of Shakespeare's property purchases and investments indicate that the company made him a wealthy man. In , he bought the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place, and in , he invested in a share of the parish tithes in Stratford.

Some of Shakespeare's plays were published in quarto editions from By , his name had become a selling point and began to appear on the title pages. Shakespeare continued to act in his own and other plays after his success as a playwright. The First Folio of , however, lists Shakespeare as one of "the Principal Actors in all these Plays", some of which were first staged after Volpone, although we cannot know for certain which roles he played. In , John Davies of Hereford wrote that "good Will" played "kingly" roles.

In , Rowe passed down a tradition that Shakespeare played the ghost of Hamlet's father. Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford during his career. In , the year before he bought New Place as his family home in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, north of the River Thames. He moved across the river to Southwark by , the year his company constructed the Globe Theatre there. By , he had moved north of the river again, to an area north of St Paul's Cathedral with many fine houses.

There he rented rooms from a French Huguenot called Christopher Mountjoy, a maker of ladies' wigs and other headgear. Later Years and Death Rowe was the first biographer to pass down the tradition that Shakespeare retired to Stratford some years before his death; but retirement from all work was uncommon at that time; and Shakespeare continued to visit London. In he was called as a witness in a court case concerning the marriage settlement of Mountjoy's daughter, Mary. In March he bought a gatehouse in the former Blackfriars priory; and from November he was in London for several weeks with his son-in-law, John Hall. After —, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, and none are attributed to him after Shakespeare died on 23 April and was survived by his wife and two daughters.

In his will, Shakespeare left the bulk of his large estate to his elder daughter Susanna. The terms instructed that she pass it down intact to "the first son of her body". The Quineys had three children, all of whom died without marrying. Shakespeare's will scarcely mentions his wife, Anne, who was probably entitled to one third of his estate automatically. He did make a point, however, of leaving her "my second best bed", a bequest that has led to much speculation. Some scholars see the bequest as an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that the second-best bed would have been the matrimonial bed and therefore rich in significance. Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church two days after his death.

The epitaph carved into the stone slab covering his grave includes a curse against moving his bones, which was carefully avoided during restoration of the church in Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare, To digg the dvst encloased heare. Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones, And cvrst be he yt moves my bones. Modern spelling: "Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear," "To dig the dust enclosed here. Its plaque compares him to Nestor, Socrates, and Virgil. In , in conjunction with the publication of the First Folio, the Droeshout engraving was published. Shakespeare has been commemorated in many statues and memorials around the world, including funeral monuments in Southwark Cathedral and Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Plays Most playwrights of the period typically collaborated with others at some point, and critics agree that Shakespeare did the same, mostly early and late in his career. Some attributions, such as Titus Andronicus and the early history plays, remain controversial, while The Two Noble Kinsmen and the lost Cardenio have well-attested contemporary documentation. Textual evidence also supports the view that several of the plays were revised by other writers after their original composition. The first recorded works of Shakespeare are Richard III and the three parts of Henry VI, written in the early s during a vogue for historical drama.

His first histories, which draw heavily on the edition of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, dramatise the destructive results of weak or corrupt rule and have been interpreted as a justification for the origins of the Tudor dynasty. The early plays were influenced by the works of other Elizabethan dramatists, especially Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe, by the traditions of medieval drama, and by the plays of Seneca. The Comedy of Errors was also based on classical models, but no source for The Taming of the Shrew has been found, though it is related to a separate play of the same name and may have derived from a folk story.

Like The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which two friends appear to approve of rape, the Shrew's story of the taming of a woman's independent spirit by a man sometimes troubles modern critics and directors. Shakespeare's early classical and Italianate comedies, containing tight double plots and precise comic sequences, give way in the mids to the romantic atmosphere of his greatest comedies. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a witty mixture of romance, fairy magic, and comic lowlife scenes.

Shakespeare's next comedy, the equally romantic Merchant of Venice, contains a portrayal of the vengeful Jewish moneylender Shylock, which reflects Elizabethan views but may appear derogatory to modern audiences. After the lyrical Richard II, written almost entirely in verse, Shakespeare introduced prose comedy into the histories of the late s, Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, and Henry V. His characters become more complex and tender as he switches deftly between comic and serious scenes, prose and poetry, and achieves the narrative variety of his mature work. This period begins and ends with two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, the famous romantic tragedy of sexually charged adolescence, love, and death; and Julius Caesar—based on Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives—which introduced a new kind of drama.

According to Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro, in Julius Caesar "the various strands of politics, character, inwardness, contemporary events, even Shakespeare's own reflections on the act of writing, began to infuse each other". In the early 17th century, Shakespeare wrote the so-called "problem plays" Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, and All's Well That Ends Well and a number of his best known tragedies. Many critics believe that Shakespeare's greatest tragedies represent the peak of his art. The titular hero of one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies, Hamlet, has probably been discussed more than any other Shakespearean character, especially for his famous soliloquy "To be or not to be; that is the question".

Unlike the introverted Hamlet, whose fatal flaw is hesitation, the heroes of the tragedies that followed, Othello and King Lear, are undone by hasty errors of judgement. The plots of Shakespeare's tragedies often hinge on such fatal errors or flaws, which overturn order and destroy the hero and those he loves. In Othello, the villain Iago stokes Othello's sexual jealousy to the point where he murders the innocent wife who loves him.

In King Lear, the old king commits the tragic error of giving up his powers, initiating the events which lead to the torture and blinding of the Earl of Gloucester and the murder of Lear's youngest daughter Cordelia. According to the critic Frank Kermode, "the play offers neither its good characters nor its audience any relief from its cruelty". In Macbeth, the shortest and most compressed of Shakespeare's tragedies, uncontrollable ambition incites Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, to murder the rightful king and usurp the throne, until their own guilt destroys them in turn.

In this play, Shakespeare adds a supernatural element to the tragic structure. His last major tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus, contain some of Shakespeare's finest poetry and were considered his most successful tragedies by the poet and critic T. In his final period, Shakespeare turned to romance or tragicomedy and completed three more major plays: Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, as well as the collaboration, Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Less bleak than the tragedies, these four plays are graver in tone than the comedies of the s, but they end with reconciliation and the forgiveness of potentially tragic errors. Some commentators have seen this change in mood as evidence of a more serene view of life on Shakespeare's part, but it may merely reflect the theatrical fashion of the day.

Performances It is not clear for which companies Shakespeare wrote his early plays. The title page of the edition of Titus Andronicus reveals that the play had been acted by three different troupes. After the plagues of —3, Shakespeare's plays were performed by his own company at The Theatre and the Curtain in Shoreditch, north of the Thames. The Globe opened in autumn , with Julius Caesar one of the first plays staged. Although the performance records are patchy, the King's Men performed seven of Shakespeare's plays at court between 1 November and 31 October , including two performances of The Merchant of Venice.

After , they performed at the indoor Blackfriars Theatre during the winter and the Globe during the summer. The indoor setting, combined with the Jacobean fashion for lavishly staged masques, allowed Shakespeare to introduce more elaborate stage devices. In Cymbeline, for example, Jupiter descends "in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle: he throws a thunderbolt. The ghosts fall on their knees. On 29 June, however, a cannon set fire to the thatch of the Globe and burned the theatre to the ground, an event which pinpoints the date of a Shakespeare play with rare precision.

It contained 36 texts, including 18 printed for the first time. Many of the plays had already appeared in quarto versions—flimsy books made from sheets of paper folded twice to make four leaves. No evidence suggests that Shakespeare approved these editions, which the First Folio describes as "stol'n and surreptitious copies". Alfred Pollard termed some of them "bad quartos" because of their adapted, paraphrased or garbled texts, which may in places have been reconstructed from memory.

Where several versions of a play survive, each differs from the other. The differences may stem from copying or printing errors, from notes by actors or audience members, or from Shakespeare's own papers. In some cases, for example Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida and Othello, Shakespeare could have revised the texts between the quarto and folio editions. In the case of King Lear, however, while most modern additions do conflate them, the folio version is so different from the quarto, that the Oxford Shakespeare prints them both, arguing that they cannot be conflated without confusion.

Poems In and , when the theatres were closed because of plague, Shakespeare published two narrative poems on erotic themes, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. He dedicated them to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. Influenced by Ovid's Metamorphoses, the poems show the guilt and moral confusion that result from uncontrolled lust. Both proved popular and were often reprinted during Shakespeare's lifetime. A third narrative poem, A Lover's Complaint, in which a young woman laments her seduction by a persuasive suitor, was printed in the first edition of the Sonnets in Most scholars now accept that Shakespeare wrote A Lover's Complaint. Critics consider that its fine qualities are marred by leaden effects. The Phoenix and the Turtle, printed in Robert Chester's Love's Martyr, mourns the deaths of the legendary phoenix and his lover, the faithful turtle dove.