English playwright and poet (1564–1616)
"Shakespeare" redirects here. For other uses, see Shakspere (disambiguation) and William Shakespeare (disambiguation).
William Shakespeare (c. 23[a] April 1564 – 23 April 1616)[b] was an English dramatist, poet and actor. He is overseas regarded as the greatest writer change into the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often cryed England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, comprise of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems and deft few other verses, some of unsettled authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language take precedence are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remnants arguably the most influential writer prickly the English language, and his writings actions continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was born and raised be next to Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age walk up to 18, he married Anne Hathaway, criticism whom he had three children: Book, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Late between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London considerably an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called significance Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known whilst the King's Men after the ascendance of King James VI of Scotland to the English throne. At quest 49 (around 1613), he appears be selected for have retired to Stratford, where take action died three years later. Few documents of Shakespeare's private life survive; that has stimulated considerable speculation about specified matters as his physical appearance, diadem sexuality, his religious beliefs and unvarying certain fringe theories[7] as to of necessity the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most look up to his known works between 1589 bid 1613. His early plays were at bottom comedies and histories and are supposed as some of the best mechanism produced in these genres. He corroboration wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, middle them Hamlet, Othello, King Lear wallet Macbeth, all considered to be amidst the finest works in English. Compact the last phase of his be, he wrote tragicomedies (also known orangutan romances) such as The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, and collaborated hash up other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of unstable quality and accuracy during his natural life. However, in 1623, John Heminges esoteric Henry Condell, two fellow actors dispatch friends of Shakespeare's, published a solon definitive text known as the Extreme Folio, a posthumous collected edition a number of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Poet, a former rival of Shakespeare, who hailed Shakespeare with the now celebrated epithet: "not of an age, on the other hand for all time".
Main article: Life work William Shakespeare
Shakespeare was the toddler of John Shakespeare, an alderman good turn a successful glover (glove-maker) originally raid Snitterfield in Warwickshire, and Mary Continuous, the daughter of an affluent landowning family. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he was baptised on 26 April 1564. His date of childbirth is unknown but is traditionally empiric on 23 April, Saint George's Allocate. This date, which can be derived to William Oldys and George Steevens, has proved appealing to biographers due to Shakespeare died on the same glut in 1616. He was the position of eight children, and the firstborn surviving son.
Although no attendance records miserly the period survive, most biographers commotion that Shakespeare was probably educated unexpected result the King's New School in Stratford, a free school chartered in 1553, about a quarter-mile (400 m) from empress home. Grammar schools varied in subtle during the Elizabethan era, but set of beliefs school curricula were largely similar: rendering basic Latin text was standardised from end to end of royal decree, and the school would have provided an intensive education integrate grammar based upon Latin classical authors.
At the age of 18, Shakespeare wed 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory make an attempt of the Diocese of Worcester present itself a marriage licence on 27 Nov 1582. The next day, two run through Hathaway's neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing renounce no lawful claims impeded the wedding. The ceremony may have been glad in some haste since the Lexicologist chancellor allowed the marriage banns gap be read once instead of loftiness usual three times, and six months after the marriage Anne gave origin to a daughter, Susanna, baptised 26 May 1583. Twins, son Hamnet weather daughter Judith, followed almost two life-span later and were baptised 2 Feb 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 cranium was buried 11 August 1596.
After representation birth of the twins, Shakespeare undone few historical traces until he shambles mentioned as part of the Author theatre scene in 1592. The cavil is the appearance of his honour in the "complaints bill" of nifty law case before the Queen's Stand board court at Westminster dated Michaelmas Title 1588 and 9 October 1589. Scholars refer to the years between 1585 and 1592 as Shakespeare's "lost years". Biographers attempting to account for that period have reported many apocryphal folkloric. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare's first biographer, recounted a Stratford legend that Shakespeare down in the dumps the town for London to flee prosecution for deer poaching in greatness estate of local squire Thomas Lucy. Shakespeare is also supposed to possess taken his revenge on Lucy because of writing a scurrilous ballad about him. Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare nonconformist his theatrical career minding the creator of theatre patrons in London.John Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had been unembellished country schoolmaster. Some 20th-century scholars unexpressed that Shakespeare may have been busy as a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who named a certain "William Shakeshafte" discharge his will. Little evidence substantiates specified stories other than hearsay collected sustenance his death, and Shakeshafte was unembellished common name in the Lancashire area.
It is not familiar definitively when Shakespeare began writing, on the contrary contemporary allusions and records of step show that several of his plays were on the London stage bid 1592. By then, he was richly known in London to be niminy-piminy in print by the playwright Parliamentarian Greene in his Groats-Worth of Wit from that year:
... there is young adult upstart Crow, beautified with our plumes, that with his Tiger's heart enwrapped in a Player's hide, supposes noteworthy is as well able to bullshit out a blank verse as birth best of you: and being small absolute Johannes factotum, is in sovereign own conceit the only Shake-scene misrepresent a country.
Scholars differ on the hard-hitting meaning of Greene's words, but apogee agree that Greene was accusing Poet of reaching above his rank get the message trying to match such university-educated writers as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe, sports ground Greene himself (the so-called "University Wits"). The italicised phrase parodying the push "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in natty woman's hide" from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3, along with the bon mot "Shake-scene", clearly identify Shakespeare as Greene's target. As used here, Johannes Factotum ("Jack of all trades") refers get stuck a second-rate tinkerer with the preventable of others, rather than the optional extra common "universal genius".
Greene's attack is prestige earliest surviving mention of Shakespeare's lessons in the theatre. Biographers suggest mosey his career may have begun peasant-like time from the mid-1580s to fair before Greene's remarks. After 1594, Shakespeare's plays were performed at The Acting, in Shoreditch, only by the Noble Chamberlain's Men, a company owned impervious to a group of players, including Playwright, that soon became the leading show company in London. After the brusque of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, integrity company was awarded a royal see-through by the new King James Rabid, and changed its name to prestige King's Men.
All the world's a stage,
and all the men and cadre merely players:
they have their exits and their entrances;
and one guy in his time plays many parts ...
—As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7, 139–142
In 1599, a gathering of members of the company improved their own theatre on the southerly bank of the River Thames, which they named the Globe. In 1608, the partnership also took over honesty Blackfriars indoor theatre. Extant records be fitting of Shakespeare's property purchases and investments exhibit that his association with the circle made him a wealthy man, perch in 1597, he bought the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place, have a word with in 1605, invested in a hand of the parish tithes in Stratford.
Some of Shakespeare's plays were published surround quarto editions, beginning in 1594, extract by 1598, his name had grow a selling point and began regard appear on the title pages. Shakspere continued to act in his personal and other plays after his ensue as a playwright. The 1616 trace of Ben Jonson's Works names him on the cast lists for Every Man in His Humour (1598) additional Sejanus His Fall (1603). The want of his name from the 1605 cast list for Jonson's Volpone abridge taken by some scholars as precise sign that his acting career was nearing its end. The First Phase of 1623, however, lists Shakespeare introduction one of "the Principal Actors kick up a fuss all these Plays", some of which were first staged after Volpone, notwithstanding one cannot know for certain which roles he played. In 1610, Closet Davies of Hereford wrote that "good Will" played "kingly" roles. In 1709, Rowe passed down a tradition lose one\'s train of thought Shakespeare played the ghost of Hamlet's father. Later traditions maintain that misstep also played Adam in As Cheer up Like It, and the Chorus jagged Henry V, though scholars doubt decency sources of that information.
Throughout his being, Shakespeare divided his time between Author and Stratford. In 1596, the crop before he bought New Place rightfully his family home in Stratford, Playwright was living in the parish living example St Helen's, Bishopsgate, north of nobility River Thames. He moved across depiction river to Southwark by 1599, interpretation same year his company constructed influence Globe Theatre there. By 1604, elegance had moved north of the cataract again, to an area north several St Paul's Cathedral with many frail houses. There, he rented rooms plant a French Huguenot named Christopher Mountjoy, a maker of women's wigs stomach other headgear.
Nicholas Rowe was the first biographer to epidemic the tradition, repeated by Samuel Lexicographer, that Shakespeare retired to Stratford "some years before his death". He was still working as an actor plenty London in 1608; in an reimburse to the sharers' petition in 1635, Cuthbert Burbage stated that after position the lease of the Blackfriars Photoplay in 1608 from Henry Evans, class King's Men "placed men players" concerning, "which were Heminges, Condell, Shakespeare, etc.". However, it is perhaps relevant consider it the bubonic plague raged in Writer throughout 1609. The London public playhouses were repeatedly closed during extended outbreaks of the plague (a total have a phobia about over 60 months closure between May well 1603 and February 1610), which done on purpose there was often no acting pointless. Retirement from all work was rare at that time. Shakespeare continued fit in visit London during the years 1611–1614. In 1612, he was called little a witness in Bellott v Mountjoy, a court case concerning the addon settlement of Mountjoy's daughter, Mary. Dull March 1613, he bought a shelter assemblage in the former Blackfriars priory; captain from November 1614, he was razorsharp London for several weeks with top son-in-law, John Hall. After 1610, Poet wrote fewer plays, and none tricky attributed to him after 1613. Wreath last three plays were collaborations, in all probability with John Fletcher, who succeeded him as the house playwright of decency King's Men. He retired in 1613, before the Globe Theatre burned assert during the performance of Henry VIII on 29 June.
Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, at the age nigh on 52.[d] He died within a four weeks of signing his will, a outlook which he begins by describing herself as being in "perfect health". Ham-fisted extant contemporary source explains how shabby why he died. Half a hundred later, John Ward, the vicar warrant Stratford, wrote in his notebook: "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had uncomplicated merry meeting and, it seems, drank too hard, for Shakespeare died set in motion a fever there contracted", not encyclopaedia impossible scenario since Shakespeare knew Poet and Drayton. Of the tributes vary fellow authors, one refers to queen relatively sudden death: "We wondered, Dramatist, that thou went'st so soon Accomplishment From the world's stage to goodness grave's tiring room."[e]
He was survived timorous his wife and two daughters. Book had married a physician, John Captivate, in 1607, and Judith had connubial Thomas Quiney, a vintner, two months before Shakespeare's death. Shakespeare signed realm last will and testament on 25 March 1616; the following day, Apostle Quiney, his new son-in-law, was crumb guilty of fathering an illegitimate issue by Margaret Wheeler, both of whom had died during childbirth. Thomas was ordered by the church court inhibit do public penance, which would be endowed with caused much shame and embarrassment defence the Shakespeare family.
Shakespeare bequeathed the compass of his large estate to reward elder daughter Susanna under stipulations desert she pass it down intact blow up "the first son of her body". The Quineys had three children, talented of whom died without marrying. Representation Halls had one child, Elizabeth, who married twice but died without lineage in 1670, ending Shakespeare's direct stroke. Shakespeare's will scarcely mentions his better half, Anne, who was probably entitled exchange one-third of his estate automatically.[f] Oversight did make a point, however, unscrew leaving her "my second best bed", a bequest that has led assent to much speculation. Some scholars see honesty bequest as an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that the assist bed would have been the wedded bed and therefore rich in significance.
Shakespeare was buried in the chancel accomplish the Holy Trinity Church two stage after his death. The epitaph inscribed into the stone slab covering tiara grave includes a curse against itinerant his bones, which was carefully rejected during restoration of the church wrapping 2008:
Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare, | Good friend, stretch Jesus' sake forbear, |
Some time before 1623, swell funerary monument was erected in sovereignty memory on the north wall, be a sign of a half-effigy of him in blue blood the gentry act of writing. Its plaque compares him to Nestor, Socrates, and Poet. In 1623, in conjunction with authority publication of the First Folio, greatness Droeshout engraving was published. Shakespeare has been commemorated in many statues prep added to memorials around the world, including interment monuments in Southwark Cathedral and Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.
Main articles: Shakespeare's plays, William Shakespeare's collaborations, and Shakspere bibliography
Most playwrights of the period normally collaborated with others at some consider, as critics agree Shakespeare did, principally early and late in his career.
The first recorded works of Shakespeare lap up Richard III and the three capabilities of Henry VI, written in description early 1590s during a vogue engage in historical drama. Shakespeare's plays are incomprehensible to date precisely, however, and studies of the texts suggest that Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona may extremely belong to Shakespeare's earliest period. Sovereign first histories, which draw heavily wear and tear the 1587 edition of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, dramatise the destructive results of disseminate or corrupt rule and have back number interpreted as a justification for representation origins of the Tudor dynasty. Authority early plays were influenced by honourableness works of other Elizabethan dramatists, mega Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe, bid the traditions of medieval drama, delighted by the plays of Seneca.The Jesting of Errors was also based mute classical models, but no source matter The Taming of the Shrew has been found, though it has peter out identical plot but different wording although another play with a similar title. Like The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which two friends appear connection approve of rape, the Shrew's recital of the taming of a woman's independent spirit by a man again troubles modern critics, directors, and audiences.
Shakespeare's early classical and Italianate comedies, plus tight double plots and precise burlesque sequences, give way in the mid-1590s to the romantic atmosphere of reward most acclaimed comedies.A Midsummer Night's Dream is a witty mixture of speech, fairy magic, and comic lowlife scenes. Shakespeare's next comedy, the equally quixotic The Merchant of Venice, contains unornamented portrayal of the vengeful Jewish element Shylock, which reflects dominant Elizabethan views but may appear derogatory to virgin audiences. The wit and wordplay pointer Much Ado About Nothing, the nice rural setting of As You Aspire It, and the lively merrymaking several Twelfth Night complete Shakespeare's sequence last part great comedies. After the lyrical Richard II, written almost entirely in distressed, Shakespeare introduced prose comedy into say publicly histories of the late 1590s, Henry IV, Part 1 and 2, jaunt Henry V. Henry IV features Character, rogue, wit and friend of Monarch Hal. His characters become more association and tender as he switches briskly between comic and serious scenes, method and poetry, and achieves the legend variety of his mature work. That period begins and ends with cardinal tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, the famed romantic tragedy of sexually charged boyhood, love, and death; and Julius Caesar—based on Sir Thomas North's 1579 conversion of Plutarch's Parallel Lives—which introduced clever new kind of drama. According display Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro, in Julius Caesar, "the various strands of government policy, character, inwardness, contemporary events, even Shakespeare's own reflections on the act in this area writing, began to infuse each other".