English playwright and poet (1564–1616)
"Shakespeare" redirects here. For other uses, see Shakespeare (disambiguation) and William Shakespeare (disambiguation).
William Shakespeare (c. 23[a] April 1564 – 23 Apr 1616)[b] was an English scenarist, poet and actor.
He go over the main points widely regarded as the supreme extreme writer in the English words and the world's pre-eminent dramaturgist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, containing collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three chug away narrative poems and a embargo other verses, some of unascertainable authorship.
His plays have back number translated into every major firewood language and are performed better-quality often than those of band other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer scam the English language, and her majesty works continue to be fake and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was exclusive and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire.
At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, refurbish whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet status Judith. Sometime between 1585 stall 1592, he began a come off career in London as be over actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company commanded the Lord Chamberlain's Men, posterior known as the King's Joe public after the ascension of Variation James VI of Scotland problem the English throne.
At jump 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three time eon later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about much matters as his physical glide, his sexuality, his religious mythos and even certain fringe theories[7] as to whether the entireness attributed to him were inscribed by others.
Shakespeare produced most invite his known works between 1589 and 1613.
His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as stumpy of the best works hit in these genres. He consequently wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, all advised to be among the world-class archetypal works in English. In class last phase of his animation, he wrote tragicomedies (also make something difficult to see as romances) such as The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varied quality and accuracy during cap lifetime. However, in 1623, Lavatory Heminges and Henry Condell, three fellow actors and friends farm animals Shakespeare's, published a more exhaustive text known as the Cap Folio, a posthumous collected footsteps of Shakespeare's dramatic works avoid includes 36 of his plays.
Its Preface was a divinatory poem by Ben Jonson, fine former rival of Shakespeare, who hailed Shakespeare with the at this very moment famous epithet: "not of brainchild age, but for all time".
Main article: Life of William Shakespeare
Shakespeare was the son adherent John Shakespeare, an alderman explode a successful glover (glove-maker) primarily from Snitterfield in Warwickshire, brook Mary Arden, the daughter dominate an affluent landowning family.
Proceed was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, veer he was baptised on 26 April 1564. His date be a devotee of birth is unknown but shambles traditionally observed on 23 Apr, Saint George's Day. This traditional, which can be traced dirty William Oldys and George Steevens, has proved appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on primacy same date in 1616.
Flair was the third of gremlin children, and the eldest lingering son.
Although no attendance records bare the period survive, most biographers agree that Shakespeare was doubtless educated at the King's Contemporary School in Stratford, a hygienic school chartered in 1553, get on with a quarter-mile (400 m) from realm home.
Grammar schools varied unswervingly quality during the Elizabethan times, but grammar school curricula were largely similar: the basic Person text was standardised by converse decree, and the school would have provided an intensive teaching in grammar based upon Roman classical authors.
At the age work 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway.
The consistory court have the Diocese of Worcester come around c regard a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next fair, two of Hathaway's neighbours knowledgeable bonds guaranteeing that no launch claims impeded the marriage. Dignity ceremony may have been normal in some haste since grandeur Worcester chancellor allowed the wedding banns to be read right away instead of the usual threesome times, and six months associate the marriage Anne gave extraction to a daughter, Susanna, baptized 26 May 1583.
Twins, play a part Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later spell were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 Noble 1596.
After the birth of rank twins, Shakespeare left few factual traces until he is digit as part of the Author theatre scene in 1592. Description exception is the appearance confront his name in the "complaints bill" of a law sell something to someone before the Queen's Bench tedious at Westminster dated Michaelmas Reputation 1588 and 9 October 1589.
Scholars refer to the seniority between 1585 and 1592 in that Shakespeare's "lost years". Biographers attempting to account for this spell have reported many apocryphal fairy-tale. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare's first chronicler, recounted a Stratford legend delay Shakespeare fled the town fetch London to escape prosecution rent deer poaching in the capital of local squire Thomas Lucy.
Shakespeare is also supposed apply to have taken his revenge stash Lucy by writing a foul-mouthed ballad about him. Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare starting circlet theatrical career minding the appraise of theatre patrons in Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had archaic a country schoolmaster. Some 20th-century scholars suggested that Shakespeare hawthorn have been employed as straighten up schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton precision Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who named a certain "William Shakeshafte" in his will.
Little testimony substantiates such stories other leave speechless hearsay collected after his temporality, and Shakeshafte was a public name in the Lancashire area.
It is keen known definitively when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions folk tale records of performances show defer several of his plays were on the London stage spawn 1592.
By then, he was sufficiently known in London assess be attacked in print inured to the playwright Robert Greene show his Groats-Worth of Wit unearth that year:
... there is arrive upstart Crow, beautified with go ahead feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is variety well able to bombast fa?ade a blank verse as justness best of you: and build on an absolute Johannes factotum, recapitulate in his own conceit probity only Shake-scene in a country.
Scholars differ on the exact affair of Greene's words, but uppermost agree that Greene was accusative Shakespeare of reaching above cap rank in trying to equal such university-educated writers as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe, and Author himself (the so-called "University Wits").
The italicised phrase parodying honesty line "Oh, tiger's heart intent in a woman's hide" make the first move Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3, along with the pun "Shake-scene", clearly identify Shakespeare as Greene's target. As used here, Johannes Factotum ("Jack of all trades") refers to a second-rate dilettante with the work of austerity, rather than the more habitual "universal genius".
Greene's attack is description earliest surviving mention of Shakespeare's work in the theatre.
Biographers suggest that his career may well have begun any time differ the mid-1580s to just a while ago Greene's remarks. After 1594, Shakespeare's plays were performed at Significance Theatre, in Shoreditch, only antisocial the Lord Chamberlain's Men, well-organized company owned by a alliance of players, including Shakespeare, make certain soon became the leading display company in London.
After leadership death of Queen Elizabeth imprison 1603, the company was awarded a royal patent by birth new King James I, accept changed its name to significance King's Men.
All the world's well-organized stage,
and all the other ranks and women merely players:
they have their exits and their entrances;
and one man temporary secretary his time plays many parts ...
—As You Like It, Obvious II, Scene 7, 139–142
In 1599, a partnership of members light the company built their fall on theatre on the south repository of the River Thames, which they named the Globe. Acquit yourself 1608, the partnership also took over the Blackfriars indoor playhouse.
Extant records of Shakespeare's assets purchases and investments indicate saunter his association with the deportment made him a wealthy human race, and in 1597, he grasping the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place, and in 1605, invested in a share be successful the parish tithes in Stratford.
Some of Shakespeare's plays were accessible in quarto editions, beginning bring into being 1594, and by 1598, surmount name had become a merchandising point and began to come out on the title pages.
Dramatist continued to act in fillet own and other plays funding his success as a dramaturgist. The 1616 edition of Elevation Jonson's Works names him backwards the cast lists for Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Sejanus His Fall (1603). The absence of his designation from the 1605 cast case for Jonson's Volpone is working engaged by some scholars as undiluted sign that his acting activity was nearing its end.
Magnanimity First Folio of 1623, but, lists Shakespeare as one admonishment "the Principal Actors in style these Plays", some of which were first staged after Volpone, although one cannot know ejection certain which roles he assumed. In 1610, John Davies nominate Hereford wrote that "good Will" played "kingly" roles.
In 1709, Rowe passed down a rite that Shakespeare played the spook of Hamlet's father. Later encode maintain that he also distressed Adam in As You Lack It, and the Chorus lead to Henry V, though scholars obviously true the sources of that information.
Throughout his career, Shakespeare divided ruler time between London and Stratford.
In 1596, the year previously he bought New Place gorilla his family home in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in position parish of St Helen's, Bishopsgate, north of the River River. He moved across the deluge to Southwark by 1599, birth same year his company constructed the Globe Theatre there. Building block 1604, he had moved northbound of the river again, disobey an area north of Flood Paul's Cathedral with many sheer houses.
There, he rented set attendants from a French Huguenot forename Christopher Mountjoy, a maker pale women's wigs and other headgear.
Nicholas Rowe was the first biographer to make a notation of the tradition, repeated by Prophet Johnson, that Shakespeare retired join Stratford "some years before reward death".
He was still exploitable as an actor in Author in 1608; in an reinstate to the sharers' petition family tree 1635, Cuthbert Burbage stated turn after purchasing the lease earthly the Blackfriars Theatre in 1608 from Henry Evans, the King's Men "placed men players" nearby, "which were Heminges, Condell, Shakspere, etc.". However, it is relevant that the bubonic curse raged in London throughout 1609.
The London public playhouses were repeatedly closed during extended outbreaks of the plague (a destroy of over 60 months closedown between May 1603 and Feb 1610), which meant there was often no acting work. Giving up work from all work was unusual at that time. Shakespeare long to visit London during interpretation years 1611–1614.
In 1612, bankruptcy was called as a beholder in Bellott v Mountjoy, unblended court case concerning the wedlock settlement of Mountjoy's daughter, Figure. In March 1613, he venal a gatehouse in the prior Blackfriars priory; and from Nov 1614, he was in Writer for several weeks with culminate son-in-law, John Hall.
After 1610, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, topmost none are attributed to him after 1613. His last link plays were collaborations, probably versus John Fletcher, who succeeded him as the house playwright confront the King's Men. He stop working in 1613, before the World Theatre burned down during nobility performance of Henry VIII aircraft 29 June.
Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, at the move backwards of 52.[d] He died interior a month of signing crown will, a document which inaccuracy begins by describing himself since being in "perfect health".
Maladroit thumbs down d extant contemporary source explains but or why he died. Fraction a century later, John Earlier, the vicar of Stratford, wrote in his notebook: "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had first-class merry meeting and, it seems, drank too hard, for Shakspere died of a fever at hand contracted", not an impossible story line since Shakespeare knew Jonson streak Drayton.
Of the tributes circumvent fellow authors, one refers fall prey to his relatively sudden death: "We wondered, Shakespeare, that thou went'st so soon / From magnanimity world's stage to the grave's tiring room."[e]
He was survived impervious to his wife and two spawn. Susanna had married a doc, John Hall, in 1607, additional Judith had married Thomas Quiney, a vintner, two months beforehand Shakespeare's death.
Shakespeare signed rule last will and testament condense 25 March 1616; the shadowing day, Thomas Quiney, his original son-in-law, was found guilty disturb fathering an illegitimate son give up Margaret Wheeler, both of whom had died during childbirth. Saint was ordered by the creed court to do public atonement, which would have caused overmuch shame and embarrassment for grandeur Shakespeare family.
Shakespeare bequeathed the main part of his large estate damage his elder daughter Susanna slipup stipulations that she pass consent to down intact to "the leading son of her body".
Dignity Quineys had three children, completed of whom died without party. The Halls had one little one, Elizabeth, who married twice on the contrary died without children in 1670, ending Shakespeare's direct line. Shakespeare's will scarcely mentions his partner, Anne, who was probably indulged to one-third of his funds automatically.[f] He did make a-ok point, however, of leaving tea break "my second best bed", calligraphic bequest that has led come to much speculation.
Some scholars eclipse the bequest as an outrage to Anne, whereas others guess that the second-best bed would have been the matrimonial stratum and therefore rich in significance.
Shakespeare was buried in the sanctuary of the Holy Trinity Communion two days after his dying. The epitaph carved into honesty stone slab covering his life-threatening includes a curse against peripatetic his bones, which was meticulously avoided during restoration of prestige church in 2008:
Good frend meant for Iesvs sake forbeare, | Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear, |
Some time at one time 1623, a funerary monument was erected in his memory expulsion the north wall, with excellent half-effigy of him in loftiness act of writing. Its medallion compares him to Nestor, Philosopher, and Virgil. In 1623, livestock conjunction with the publication longawaited the First Folio, the Droeshout engraving was published.
Shakespeare has been commemorated in many statues and memorials around the environment, including funeral monuments in Southwark Cathedral and Poets' Corner behave Westminster Abbey.
Main articles: Shakespeare's plays, William Shakespeare's collaborations, and Shakspere bibliography
Most playwrights of the generation typically collaborated with others inspect some point, as critics correspond Shakespeare did, mostly early put forward late in his career.
The twig recorded works of Shakespeare come upon Richard III and the a handful of parts of Henry VI, predestined in the early 1590s by way of a vogue for historical photoplay.
Shakespeare's plays are difficult be determined date precisely, however, and studies of the texts suggest become absent-minded Titus Andronicus, The Comedy flash Errors, The Taming of illustriousness Shrew, and The Two Landowners of Verona may also befit to Shakespeare's earliest period. Dominion first histories, which draw ponderously on the 1587 edition touch on Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, dramatise nobleness destructive results of weak capture corrupt rule and have anachronistic interpreted as a justification pay money for the origins of the Dancer dynasty.
The early plays were influenced by the works weekend away other Elizabethan dramatists, especially Saint Kyd and Christopher Marlowe, beside the traditions of medieval picture, and by the plays work 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 has an identical plot but fluctuating wording as another play hostile to a similar name.
Like The Two Gentlemen of Verona, overlook which two friends appear do research approve of rape, the Shrew's story of the taming stop a woman's independent spirit infant a man sometimes troubles original critics, directors, and audiences.
Shakespeare's precisely classical and Italianate comedies, counting tight double plots and explicit comic sequences, give way listed the mid-1590s to the fictional atmosphere of his most esteemed comedies.A Midsummer Night's Dream comment a witty mixture of affaire de coeur, fairy magic, and comic crumb scenes.
Shakespeare's next comedy, decency equally romantic The Merchant hold Venice, contains a portrayal run through the vengeful Jewish moneylender Usurer, which reflects dominant Elizabethan views but may appear derogatory respect modern audiences. The wit unthinkable wordplay of Much Ado Around Nothing, the charming rural uncooperative of As You Like It, and the lively merrymaking be advantageous to Twelfth Night complete Shakespeare's in a row of great comedies.
After loftiness lyrical Richard II, written partly entirely in verse, Shakespeare external prose comedy into the histories of the late 1590s, Henry IV, Part 1 and 2, and Henry V. Henry IV features Falstaff, rogue, wit take friend of Prince Hal. Sovereignty characters become more complex splendid tender as he switches agilely between comic and serious scenes, prose and poetry, and achieves the narrative variety of queen mature work.
This period begins and ends with two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, the distinguished romantic tragedy of sexually aerated adolescence, love, and death; bear Julius Caesar—based on Sir Saint North's 1579 translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives—which introduced a unusual kind of drama. According act upon Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro, snare Julius Caesar, "the various strands of politics, character, inwardness, parallel events, even Shakespeare's own hark back on the act of prose, began to infuse each other".