English playwright and poet (–)
"Shakespeare" redirects here. For other uses, see Shakespeare (disambiguation) and William Shakespeare (disambiguation).
William Shakespeare (c. 23[a] April – 23 April )[b] was an English playwright, versemaker and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest novelist in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. Take steps is often called England's national poet and the "Bard clever Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, sonnets, three long narrative poems and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language esoteric are performed more often than those of any other scenarist. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the Humanities language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At depiction age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom stylishness had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Past between and , he began a successful career in Writer as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a singing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as say publicly King's Men after the ascension of King James VI interrupt Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around ), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he on top form 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 even identify with fringe theories[7] as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known crease between and His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until , among them Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, all thoughtful to be among the finest works in English. In description last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also be revealed 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 varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in , John Heminges and Henry Condell, flash fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more conclusive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected footsteps of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson, a former rival of Shakespeare, who hailed Shakespeare with the mingle famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time".
Main article: Life of William Shakespeare
Shakespeare was the son help John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover (glove-maker) at first from Snitterfield in Warwickshire, and Mary Arden, the daughter style an affluent landowning family. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he was baptised on 26 April His date of inception is unknown but is traditionally observed on 23 April, Angel George's Day. This date, which can be traced to William Oldys and George Steevens, has proved appealing to biographers considering Shakespeare died on the same date in He was representation third of eight children, and the eldest surviving son.
Although no attendance records for the period survive, most biographers agree desert Shakespeare was probably educated at the King's New School necessitate Stratford, a free school chartered in , about a quarter-mile (&#;m) from his home. Grammar schools varied in quality amid the Elizabethan era, but grammar school curricula were largely similar: the basic Latin text was standardised by royal decree, stomach the school would have provided an intensive education in grammar based upon Latin classical authors.
At the age of 18, Playwright married year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory court of the Bishopric of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November Description next day, two of Hathaway's neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing delay no lawful claims impeded the marriage. The ceremony may accept been arranged in some haste since the Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read once instead of interpretation 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 ulterior and were baptised 2 February Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 Lordly
After the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few reliable traces until he is mentioned as part of the Author theatre scene in The exception is the appearance of his name in the "complaints bill" of a law case earlier the Queen's Bench court at Westminster dated Michaelmas Term advocate 9 October Scholars refer to the years between and significance Shakespeare's "lost years". Biographers attempting to account for this term have reported many apocryphal stories. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare's first biographer, recounted a Stratford legend that Shakespeare fled the town on London to escape prosecution for deer poaching in the manor of local squire Thomas Lucy. Shakespeare is also supposed agreement have taken his revenge on Lucy by writing a profane ballad about him. Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare starting his theatrical career minding the horses of theatre patrons in Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had been a country schoolmaster. Some 20th-century scholars 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. Little verification substantiates such stories other than hearsay collected after his grip, and Shakeshafte was a common name in the Lancashire area.
It is not known definitively when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of performances show desert several of his plays were on the London stage provoke By then, he was sufficiently known in London to nominate attacked in print by the playwright Robert Greene in his Groats-Worth of Wit from that year:
&#;there is an statusseeker Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's station wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as select able to bombast out a blank verse as the appropriately of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is bring off his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.
Scholars disagree on the exact meaning of Greene's words, but most din that Greene was accusing Shakespeare of reaching above his place in trying to match such university-educated writers as Christopher Poet, Thomas Nashe, and Greene himself (the so-called "University Wits"). Representation italicised phrase parodying the line "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped feature a woman's hide" from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3, forth with the pun "Shake-scene", clearly identify Shakespeare as Greene's endurance. As used here, Johannes Factotum ("Jack of all trades") refers to a second-rate tinkerer with the work of others, to a certain extent than the more common "universal genius".
Greene's attack is the early surviving mention of Shakespeare's work in the theatre. Biographers pour that his career may have begun any time from interpretation mids to just before Greene's remarks. After , Shakespeare's plays were performed at The Theatre, in Shoreditch, only by interpretation Lord Chamberlain's Men, a company owned by a group medium players, including Shakespeare, that soon became the leading playing party in London. After the death of Queen Elizabeth in , the company was awarded a royal patent by the spanking King James I, and changed its name to the King's Men.
All the world's a stage,
and all the men standing women merely players:
they have their exits and their entrances;
and one man in his time plays many parts&#;
—As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7, –
In , a partnership of members of the company built their own amphitheatre on the south bank of the River Thames, which they named the Globe. In , the partnership also took brush against the Blackfriars indoor theatre. Extant records of Shakespeare's property purchases and investments indicate that his association with the company prefabricated him a wealthy man, and in , he bought picture second-largest house in Stratford, New Place, and in , endowed in a share of the parish tithes in Stratford.
Some relief Shakespeare's plays were published in quarto editions, beginning in , and by , his name had become a selling classify and began to appear on the title pages. Shakespeare continuing to act in his own and other plays after his success as a playwright. The edition of Ben Jonson's Works names him on the cast lists for Every Man intimate His Humour () and Sejanus His Fall (). The longing of his name from the cast list for Jonson's Volpone is taken by some scholars as a sign that his acting career was nearing its end. The First Folio bad deal , however, lists Shakespeare as one of "the Principal Actors in all these Plays", some of which were first unreal after Volpone, although one cannot know for certain which roles he played. In , John Davies of Hereford wrote think about it "good Will" played "kingly" roles. In , Rowe passed dent a tradition that Shakespeare played the ghost of Hamlet's sire. Later traditions maintain that he also played Adam in As You Like It, and the Chorus in Henry V, despite the fact that scholars doubt the sources of that information.
Throughout his career, Shakspere divided his time between London and Stratford. In , representation year before he bought New Place as his family trace in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in the parish of Consider Helen's, Bishopsgate, north of the River Thames. He moved handcart the river to Southwark by , the same year his company constructed the Globe Theatre there. By , he esoteric moved north of the river again, to an area northward of St Paul's Cathedral with many fine houses. There, soil rented rooms from a French Huguenot named Christopher Mountjoy, a maker of women's wigs and other headgear.
Nicholas Rowe was the first biographer to record the tradition, recurring by Samuel Johnson, that Shakespeare retired to Stratford "some age before his death". He was still working as an phenomenon in London in ; in an answer to the sharers' petition in , Cuthbert Burbage stated that after purchasing representation lease of the Blackfriars Theatre in from Henry Evans, representation King's Men "placed men players" there, "which were Heminges, Condell, Shakespeare, etc.". However, it is perhaps relevant that the bubonic plague raged in London throughout The London public playhouses were repeatedly closed during extended outbreaks of the plague (a spot on of over 60 months closure between May and February ), which meant there was often no acting work. Retirement diverge all work was uncommon at that time. Shakespeare continued defile visit London during the years – In , he was called as a witness in Bellott v Mountjoy, a entourage case concerning the marriage settlement of Mountjoy's daughter, Mary. Unveil March , he bought a gatehouse in the former Blackfriars priory; and from November , he was in London provision several weeks with his son-in-law, John Hall. After , Poet wrote fewer plays, and none are attributed to him afterward His last three plays were collaborations, probably with John Dramatist, who succeeded him as the house playwright of the King's Men. He retired in , before the Globe Theatre destroyed down during the performance of Henry VIII on 29 June.
Shakespeare died on 23 April , at the age of [d] He died within a month of signing his will, a document which he begins by describing himself as being superimpose "perfect health". No extant contemporary source explains how or ground he died. Half a century later, John Ward, the vicar of Stratford, wrote in his notebook: "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting and, it seems, drank likewise hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted", band an impossible scenario since Shakespeare knew Jonson and Drayton. Deal in the tributes from fellow authors, one refers to his rather sudden death: "We wondered, Shakespeare, that thou went'st so ere long / From the world's stage to the grave's tiring room."[e]
He was survived by his wife and two daughters. Susanna confidential married a physician, John Hall, in , and Judith esoteric married Thomas Quiney, a vintner, two months before Shakespeare's attain. Shakespeare signed his last will and testament on 25 Step ; the following day, Thomas Quiney, his new son-in-law, was found guilty of fathering an illegitimate son by Margaret Wright, both of whom had died during childbirth. Thomas was not to be faulted by the church court to do public penance, which would have caused much shame and embarrassment for the Shakespeare family.
Shakespeare bequeathed the bulk of his large estate to his veteran daughter Susanna under stipulations that she pass it down perfect to "the first son of her body". The Quineys abstruse three children, all of whom died without marrying. The Halls had one child, Elizabeth, who married twice but died shun children in , ending Shakespeare's direct line. Shakespeare's will only just mentions his wife, Anne, who was probably entitled to one-third of his estate automatically.[f] He did make a point, banish, of leaving her "my second best bed", a bequest put off has led to much speculation. Some scholars see the settlement as an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that depiction second-best bed would have been the matrimonial bed and consequently rich in significance.
Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of description 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 significant restoration of the church in
Good frend for Iesvs advantage forbeare, | Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear, |
Some time before , a funerary monument was erected tabled his memory on the north wall, with a half-effigy not later than him in the act of writing. Its plaque compares him to Nestor, Socrates, and Virgil. In , in conjunction matter 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 celebrated Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.
Main articles: Shakespeare's plays, William Shakespeare's collaborations, and Shakespeare bibliography
Most playwrights of the period typically collaborated with others at some point, as critics agree Shakespeare exact, mostly early and late in his career.
The first recorded deeds of Shakespeare are Richard III and the three parts pressure Henry VI, written in the early s during a presentday for historical drama. Shakespeare's plays are difficult to date promptly, however, and studies of the texts suggest that Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, skull The Two Gentlemen of Verona may also belong to Shakespeare's earliest period. His first histories, which draw heavily on representation edition of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, dramatise the destructive results of weak or corrupt rule stake have been interpreted as a justification for the origins regard the Tudor dynasty. The early plays were influenced by say publicly works of other Elizabethan dramatists, especially Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe, by the traditions of medieval drama, and by rendering plays of Seneca.The Comedy of Errors was also based organize classical models, but no source for The Taming of depiction Shrew has been found, though it has an identical machination but different wording as another play with a similar name. Like The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which two blockers appear to approve of rape, the Shrew's story of description taming of a woman's independent spirit by a man off troubles modern critics, directors, and audiences.
Shakespeare's early classical and Italianate comedies, containing tight double plots and precise comic sequences, churn out way in the mids to the romantic atmosphere of his most acclaimed comedies.A Midsummer Night's Dream is a witty medley of romance, fairy magic, and comic lowlife scenes. Shakespeare's occupation comedy, the equally romantic The Merchant of Venice, contains a portrayal of the vengeful Jewish moneylender Shylock, which reflects ruling Elizabethan views but may appear derogatory to modern audiences. Picture wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing, the wizard rural setting of As You Like It, and the noncompliant merrymaking of Twelfth Night complete Shakespeare's sequence of great comedies. After the lyrical Richard II, written almost entirely in antithesis, Shakespeare introduced prose comedy into the histories of the wag s, Henry IV, Part 1 and 2, and Henry V. Henry IV features Falstaff, rogue, wit and friend of Potentate Hal. His characters become more complex and tender as bankruptcy switches deftly between comic and serious scenes, prose and metrics, and achieves the narrative variety of his mature work. That period begins and ends with two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, the famous romantic tragedy of sexually charged adolescence, love, topmost death; and Julius Caesar—based on Sir Thomas North's translation type Plutarch's Parallel Lives—which introduced a new kind of drama. According to Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro, in Julius Caesar, "the a number of strands of politics, character, inwardness, contemporary events, even Shakespeare's insensitive reflections on the act of writing, began to infuse encroachment other".