Complete Biography of William Shakespeare
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William Shakespeare |
Full Biography of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare, also known as the "Bard of
Avon," is often called England's national poet and considered the greatest
dramatist of all time. Shakespeare's works are known throughout the world, but
his personal life is shrouded in mystery.
William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and
actor, widely regarded as both the greatest writer in the English language, and
the world's pre-eminent dramatist. His extant works, including collaborations,
consist of approximately 39 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a
few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated
into every major living language, and are performed more often than those of
any other playwright.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon,
Warwickshire. Though there is no birth records exist, church records indicate
that a William Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in
Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564. From this, it is believed he was born on
or near April 23, 1564, and this is the date scholars acknowledge as William
Shakespeare's birthday. Though this date, which can be traced to a mistake made
by an 18th-century scholar, has proved appealing to biographers because
Shakespeare died on the same date in 1616.
Shakespeare was an important member of the Lord
Chamberlain’s Men Company of theatrical players also was actor and dramatist
from roughly 1594 onward. In 1599 Shakespeare became a shareholding member of
The Lord Chamberlain's Men. The company changed its name to the King's Men
following the crowning of King James I, in 1603. Written records give little
indication of the way in which Shakespeare’s professional life molded his
artistry. All that can be deduced is that, in his 20 years as a playwright,
Shakespeare wrote plays that capture the complete range of human emotion and
conflict.
At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway (26), with whom
he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamlet and Judith. Sometime between
1585 and 1592. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to
Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's
private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such
matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and
whether the works attributed to him were, in fact, written by others. Said
theories are often criticized for failing to adequately note the fact that few
records survive of most commoners of the period.
The works of William Shakespeare have been performed in
countless hamlets, villages, cities and metropolises for more than 400 years.
And yet, the personal history of William Shakespeare is somewhat a mystery.
There are two primary sources that provide historians with a basic outline of
his life. One source is his work the plays, poems and sonnets and the other is
official documentation such as church and court records. However, these only
provide brief sketches of specific events in his life and provide little on the
person who experienced those events.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589
and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories, and are
regarded as some of the best work ever produced in these genres. Then, until
about 1608, he wrote mainly tragedies, among them Hamlet, Othello, King Lear,
and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English
language. In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as
romances), and collaborated with other playwrights.
Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, Shakespeare's works
have been continually adapted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship
and performance. His plays remain highly popular and are constantly studied,
performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts the
world over.
While it’s difficult to determine the exact chronology of
William Shakespeare’s plays, over the course of two decades, from about 1590 to
1613, he wrote a total of 37 plays revolving around several main themes:
histories, tragedies, comedies and tragicomedies.
Early Works: Histories and Comedies
With the exception of the tragic love story Romeo and
Juliet, William Shakespeare's first plays were mostly histories. Henry VI
(Parts I, II and III), Richard II and Henry V dramatize the destructive results
of weak or corrupt rulers, and have been interpreted by drama historians as
Shakespeare's way of justifying the origins of the Tudor Dynasty. Julius Caesar
portrays upheaval in Roman politics that may have resonated with viewers at a
time when England’s aging monarch, Queen Elizabeth I, had no legitimate heir,
thus creating the potential for future power struggles.
Shakespeare also wrote several comedies during his early
period: the witty romance A Midsummer Night's Dream, the romantic Merchant of
Venice, the wit and wordplay of Much Ado about Nothing, the charming As You
Like It and Twelfth Night.
Other plays written before 1600 include Titus Andronicus,
The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew,
Love’s Labor’s Lost, King John, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry V.
Works after 1600: Tragedies and Tragicomedies
It was in William Shakespeare's later period, after 1600,
that he wrote the tragedies Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. In these,
Shakespeare's characters present vivid impressions of human temperament that
are timeless and universal. Possibly the best known of these plays is Hamlet,
which explores betrayal, retribution, incest and moral failure. These moral
failures often drive the twists and turns of Shakespeare's plots, destroying
the hero and those he loves.
In William Shakespeare's final period, he wrote several
tragicomedies. Among these are Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest.
Though graver in tone than the comedies, they are not the dark tragedies of
King Lear or Macbeth because they end with reconciliation and forgiveness.
Other plays written during this period include All’s Well
That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Timon of Athens, Coriolanus, Pericles and
Henry VIII.
William Shakespeare's early plays were written in the
conventional style of the day, with elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases
that didn't always align naturally with the story's plot or characters.
However, Shakespeare was very innovative, adapting the traditional style to his
own purposes and creating a freer flow of words. With only small degrees of
variation, Shakespeare primarily used a metrical pattern consisting of lines of
unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse, to compose his plays. At the same
time, there are passages in all the plays that deviate from this and use forms
of poetry or simple prose.
Although there are no records to prove Shakespeare's
enrollment in school, critics accept it with considerable certainty that he
most likely attended the King's New School, in Stratford, which taught reading,
writing and the classics. At school, Shakespeare would have studied reading and
writing (in English as well as in Latin), and Greek and Roman writers including
Horace, Aesop, Ovid, Virgil, Seneca, and Plautus. The extent to which he would
have been familiar with the works of such ancient classics is unknown, but
studying Shakespeare's plays and long poems suggests he had at least a degree
of knowledge about them in their original forms, not merely translations. Being
a public official's child, William would have undoubtedly qualified for free
tuition. But this uncertainty regarding his education has led some to raise
questions about the authorship of his work and even about whether or not
William Shakespeare ever existed.
There are seven years of William Shakespeare's life where no
records exist after the birth of his twins in 1585. Scholars call this period
the "lost years," and there is wide speculation on what he was doing
during this period. One theory is that he might have gone into hiding for
poaching game from the local landlord, Sir Thomas Lucy. Another possibility is
that he might have been working as an assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire. It
is generally believed he arrived in London in the mid- to late 1580s and may
have found work as a horse attendant at some of London's finer theaters, a
scenario updated centuries later by the countless aspiring actors and
playwrights in Hollywood and Broadway.
Although we commonly single out Shakespeare's work as extraordinary
and deserving of special attention, at the time of the plays' performances,
they were typically dismissed as popular entertainment. In fact, Shakespeare
was not the most popular dramatist of his time. Ben Jonson, Shakespeare's
contemporary (and Britain's first Poet Laureate), and Christopher Marlowe, a
slight predecessor to Shakespeare, were both commonly held in higher esteem
than the man whose reputation has since eclipsed both of his competitors.
Shakespeare's reputation as Britain's premier dramatist did
not begin until the late eighteenth century. His sensibility and storytelling
captured people's attention, and by the end of the nineteenth century, his
reputation was solidly established. Today Shakespeare is more widely studied
and performed than any other playwright in the Western world, providing a clear
testament to the skills and timelessness of the stories told by the Bard.
William Shakespeare died on his 52nd birthday, April 23,
1616, though many scholars believe this is a myth. Church records show he was
interred at Trinity Church on April 25, 1616.
What seems to be true is that William Shakespeare was a
respected man of the dramatic arts who wrote plays and acted in some in the
late 16th and early 17th centuries. But his reputation as a dramatic genius
wasn't recognized until the 19th century. Beginning with the Romantic period of
the early 1800s and continuing through the Victorian period, acclaim and
reverence for William Shakespeare and his work reached its height. In the 20th
century, new movements in scholarship and performance have rediscovered and
adopted his works.
Today, his plays are highly popular and constantly studied
and reinterpreted in performances with diverse cultural and political contexts.
The genius of Shakespeare's characters and plots are that they present real
human beings in a wide range of emotions and conflicts that transcend their
origins in Elizabethan England.
