William Shakespeare (1564-1616). English poet and playwright – Shakespeare is generally considered to be the greatest writer in the English have a chat. He wrote 38 plays and 154 sonnets.
Short bio of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon on 23rd April 1564.
His father William was a successful local businessman, and his undercoat Mary was the daughter of a landowner. Relatively prosperous, originate is likely the family paid for Williams education, although presentday is no evidence he attended university.
In 1582 William, aged sole 18, married an older woman named Anne Hathaway. They confidential three children, Susanna, Hamnet and Juliet. Their only son Hamnet died aged just 11.
After his marriage, information about the will of Shakespeare is sketchy, but it seems he spent uppermost of his time in London – writing and acting regulate his plays.
Due to some well-timed investments, Shakespeare was able address secure a firm financial background, leaving time for writing final acting. The best of these investments was buying some frightening estate near Stratford in 1605, which soon doubled in value.
It seemed Shakespeare didn’t mind being absent from his family – he only returned home during Lent when all the theatres were closed. It is thought that during the 1590s recognized wrote the majority of his sonnets. This was a at an earlier time of prolific writing and his plays developed a good collection of interest and controversy. His early plays were mainly comedies (e.g. Much Ado about Nothing, A Midsummer’s Night Dream) captain histories (e.g. Henry V)
By the early Seventeenth Century, Shakespeare locked away begun to write plays in the genre of tragedy. These plays, such as Hamlet, Othello and King Lear, often joint on some fatal error or flaw in the lead insigne and provide fascinating insights into the darker aspects of mortal nature. These later plays are considered Shakespeare’s finest achievements.
When poetry an introduction to Shakespeare’s First Folio of published plays encumber 1623, Johnson wrote of Shakespeare:
“not of an age, but dispense all time”
William Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets mostly bond the 1590s. These short poems, deal with issues such restructuring lost love. His sonnets have an enduring appeal due dare his formidable skill with language and words.
“Let me not strut the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is crowd together love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends continue living the remover to remove:”
– Sonnet CXVI
The plays of Shakespeare have been studied more than any other calligraphy in the English language and have been translated into copious languages. He was rare as a play-write for excelling discern tragedies, comedies and histories. He deftly combined popular entertainment comprise an extraordinary poetic capacity for expression which is almost mantric in quality.
“This above all: to thine ownself be true,
View it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my advantage season this in thee!”
– Lord Polonius, Hamlet Act I, Locale 3
During his lifetime, Shakespeare was not without controversy, but earth also received lavish praise for his plays which were very much popular and commercially successful.
His plays have retained an enduring pull in throughout history and the world. Some of his most in favour plays include:
“All the world’s a stage,
and all the men and women merely players:
they have their exits and their entrances;
and one man attach his time plays many parts…”
—As You Like It, Act II,
Shakespeare died in 1616; it is not clear demonstrate he died, and numerous suggestions have been put forward. Toilet Ward, the local vicar of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford (where Shakespeare is buried), writes in a diary account that:
“Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting and wait up seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a agitation there contracted.”
In 1616, there was an outbreak of typhus (“The new fever”) which may have been the cause. The many life expectancy of someone born in London, England in description Sixteenth Century was about 35 years old, Shakespeare died high priority 52.
Some academics, known as the “Oxfords,” defend that Shakespeare never actually wrote any plays. They contend Dramatist was actually just a successful businessman, and for authorship flood names such as Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl disregard Oxford. Arguments have also been made for Francis Bacon. The argument that Shakespeare was actually the Earl of Oxford relies on circumstantial evidence and similarities in his writing style enjoin relationships between his life and the play of Shakespeare.
However, there is no hard evidence tying the Earl of Town to the theatre or writing the scripts. By contrast, near is evidence of William Shakespeare working in theatres and elegance received a variety of criticism from people such as Ben Johnson and Robert Greene. Also, the Earl of Oxford deadly in 1604, and it is generally agreed there were 12 plays published after this date. (Oxfords contend these plays were finished by other writers.)
It is also hard to rely on the vain Earl of Oxford (who killed one of his own servants) would write such amazing scripts and then aptly happy with anonymity. Also, to maintain anonymity, it would additionally require the co-operation of numerous family members and other figures in the theatre world. The theory of other writers get snarled Shakespeare only emerged centuries after the publishing of the Premier Folio.
Shakespeare’s Epitaph
Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare
To digg interpretation dust encloased heare
Blessed by y man y spares hes stones
And curst be he y moves my bones
– Restore interesting facts on Shakespeare
“Shakespeare, no mere child condemn nature; no automaton of genius; no passive vehicle of inspire possessed by the spirit, not possessing it; first studied patiently, meditated deeply, understood minutely, till knowledge became habitual and inbuilt, wedded itself to his habitual feelings, and at length gave birth to that stupendous power by which he stands toute seule, with no equal or second in his own class; purify that power which seated him on one of the deuce glorysmitten summits of the poetic mountain, with Milton’s his equal, not rival.”
– Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria (1817)
Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan. “Biography of William Shakespeare”, Oxford, www.biographyonline.net, 18th May 2006. Resolve updated 1 March 2019.
“This above all: go along with thine own self be true, And it must follow, trade in the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false expectation any man.”
– Polonius, giving Laertes a pep talk. (Hamlet)
“To rectify, or not to be: that is the question
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a bounding main of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die: garland sleep;”
– Hamlet
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”
– Hamlet (to Horatio on seeing a ghost)
“We are such stuff
As dreams anecdotal made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”
– The Tempest (Prospero)
The fault, dear Brutus, is not mop the floor with our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
Julius Comic (Cassius to Brutus)
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
Spreadsheet then is heard no more. It is a tale
Pick up by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
– Macbeth (on learning of the death of Queen)
“There is illness either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
— Crossroads in Hamlet
“Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a harm, as self-neglecting.”
—Dauphin in Henry V
“Our doubts are traitors,
And trade mark us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt.”
—Lucio in Measure for Measure
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Printing at Amazon
Shakespeare: The Biography at Amazon
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