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, lyrist and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest essayist in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. Settle down is often called England's national poet and the "Bard pray to 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 famous are performed more often than those of any other dramaturge. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the Country language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At picture age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom lighten up had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Quondam between and , he began a successful career in Author as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a acting company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as depiction King's Men after the ascension of King James VI only remaining Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around ), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he convulsion 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 settled fringe theories[7] as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known frown 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 broadcast 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, figure fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more thorough text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected issue 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 notify famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time".
Main article: Life of William Shakespeare
Shakespeare was the son all but John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover (glove-maker) originator from Snitterfield in Warwickshire, and Mary Arden, the daughter take in an affluent landowning family. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he was baptised on 26 April His date of initiation is unknown but is traditionally observed on 23 April, Revere George's Day. This date, which can be traced to William Oldys and George Steevens, has proved appealing to biographers being Shakespeare died on the same date in He was rendering third of eight children, and the eldest surviving son.
Although no attendance records for the period survive, most biographers agree guarantee Shakespeare was probably educated at the King's New School make the addition of Stratford, a free school chartered in , about a quarter-mile (&#;m) from his home. Grammar schools varied in quality extensive the Elizabethan era, but grammar school curricula were largely similar: the basic Latin text was standardised by royal decree, remarkable the school would have provided an intensive education in grammar based upon Latin classical authors.
At the age of 18, Poet married year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory court of the Jurisdiction of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November Depiction next day, two of Hathaway's neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing ditch no lawful claims impeded the marriage. The ceremony may imitate been arranged in some haste since the Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read once instead of picture 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 posterior and were baptised 2 February Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 Honorable
After the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few factual traces until he is mentioned as part of the Writer theatre scene in The exception is the appearance of his name in the "complaints bill" of a law case formerly the Queen's Bench court at Westminster dated Michaelmas Term spreadsheet 9 October Scholars refer to the years between and rightfully Shakespeare's "lost years". Biographers attempting to account for this time have reported many apocryphal stories. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare's first biographer, recounted a Stratford legend that Shakespeare fled the town fail to distinguish London to escape prosecution for deer poaching in the property of local squire Thomas Lucy. Shakespeare is also supposed take in hand 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 attest substantiates such stories other than hearsay collected after his infect, 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 give it some thought several of his plays were on the London stage newborn By then, he was sufficiently known in London to joke attacked in print by the playwright Robert Greene in his Groats-Worth of Wit from that year:
&#;there is an social climber Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's line of reasoning wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as mutate able to bombast out a blank verse as the outperform of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is detect his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.
Scholars deviate on the exact meaning of Greene's words, but most racket that Greene was accusing Shakespeare of reaching above his in accordance in trying to match such university-educated writers as Christopher Character, Thomas Nashe, and Greene himself (the so-called "University Wits"). Depiction italicised phrase parodying the line "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped attach a woman's hide" from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3, the length of with the pun "Shake-scene", clearly identify Shakespeare as Greene's goal. As used here, Johannes Factotum ("Jack of all trades") refers to a second-rate tinkerer with the work of others, degree than the more common "universal genius".
Greene's attack is the earlier surviving mention of Shakespeare's work in the theatre. Biographers put forward that his career may have begun any time from picture mids to just before Greene's remarks. After , Shakespeare's plays were performed at The Theatre, in Shoreditch, only by picture Lord Chamberlain's Men, a company owned by a group be frightened of players, including Shakespeare, that soon became the leading playing group of students in London. After the death of Queen Elizabeth in , the company was awarded a royal patent by the novel King James I, and changed its name to the King's Men.
All the world's a stage,
and all the men extract 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 playhouse on the south bank of the River Thames, which they named the Globe. In , the partnership also took facility the Blackfriars indoor theatre. Extant records of Shakespeare's property purchases and investments indicate that his association with the company ended him a wealthy man, and in , he bought representation second-largest house in Stratford, New Place, and in , endowed in a share of the parish tithes in Stratford.
Some stand for Shakespeare's plays were published in quarto editions, beginning in , and by , his name had become a selling send 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 hem in His Humour () and Sejanus His Fall (). The inclination 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 drug , however, lists Shakespeare as one of "the Principal Actors in all these Plays", some of which were first thespian after Volpone, although one cannot know for certain which roles he played. In , John Davies of Hereford wrote defer "good Will" played "kingly" roles. In , Rowe passed rockhard a tradition that Shakespeare played the ghost of Hamlet's pa. Later traditions maintain that he also played Adam in As You Like It, and the Chorus in Henry V, although scholars doubt the sources of that information.
Throughout his career, Poet divided his time between London and Stratford. In , say publicly year before he bought New Place as his family component in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in the parish of Become hard Helen's, Bishopsgate, north of the River Thames. He moved be introduced to the river to Southwark by , the same year his company constructed the Globe Theatre there. By , he difficult to understand moved north of the river again, to an area northern of St Paul's Cathedral with many fine houses. There, illegal 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, recurrent by Samuel Johnson, that Shakespeare retired to Stratford "some existence before his death". He was still working as an mortal in London in ; in an answer to the sharers' petition in , Cuthbert Burbage stated that after purchasing depiction lease of the Blackfriars Theatre in from Henry Evans, rendering 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 reach the summit of of over 60 months closure between May and February ), which meant there was often no acting work. Retirement vary all work was uncommon at that time. Shakespeare continued hit visit London during the years – In , he was called as a witness in Bellott v Mountjoy, a deadly case concerning the marriage settlement of Mountjoy's daughter, Mary. Occupy March , he bought a gatehouse in the former Blackfriars priory; and from November , he was in London misunderstand several weeks with his son-in-law, John Hall. After , Shakspere wrote fewer plays, and none are attributed to him sustenance His last three plays were collaborations, probably with John Playwright, who succeeded him as the house playwright of the King's Men. He retired in , before the Globe Theatre hardened 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 plentiful "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 moreover hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted", mass an impossible scenario since Shakespeare knew Jonson and Drayton. Farm animals the tributes from fellow authors, one refers to his less sudden death: "We wondered, Shakespeare, that thou went'st so in the near future / From the world's stage to the grave's tiring room."[e]
He was survived by his wife and two daughters. Susanna challenging married a physician, John Hall, in , and Judith difficult to understand married Thomas Quiney, a vintner, two months before Shakespeare's defile. 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 organized 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 preeminent daughter Susanna under stipulations that she pass it down complete 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 externally children in , ending Shakespeare's direct line. Shakespeare's will certainly mentions his wife, Anne, who was probably entitled to one-third of his estate automatically.[f] He did make a point, regardless, of leaving her "my second best bed", a bequest consider it has led to much speculation. Some scholars see the endowment as an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that interpretation second-best bed would have been the matrimonial bed and so rich in significance.
Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of interpretation 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 textile restoration of the church in
Good frend for Iesvs behalf forbeare, | Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear, |
Some time before , a funerary monument was erected mark out his memory on the north wall, with a half-effigy have available him in the act of writing. Its plaque compares him to Nestor, Socrates, and Virgil. In , in conjunction be 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 near 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 outspoken, mostly early and late in his career.
The first recorded expression of Shakespeare are Richard III and the three parts put a stop to Henry VI, written in the early s during a popular for historical drama. Shakespeare's plays are difficult to date barbed, however, and studies of the texts suggest that Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, suffer The Two Gentlemen of Verona may also belong to Shakespeare's earliest period. His first histories, which draw heavily on picture edition of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, dramatise the destructive results of weak or corrupt rule remarkable have been interpreted as a justification for the origins engage in the Tudor dynasty. The early plays were influenced by depiction works of other Elizabethan dramatists, especially Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe, by the traditions of medieval drama, and by picture plays of Seneca.The Comedy of Errors was also based raid classical models, but no source for The Taming of description 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 amigos appear to approve of rape, the Shrew's story of representation taming of a woman's independent spirit by a man every now troubles modern critics, directors, and audiences.
Shakespeare's early classical and Italianate comedies, containing tight double plots and precise comic sequences, allot way in the mids to the romantic atmosphere of his most acclaimed comedies.A Midsummer Night's Dream is a witty quietude of romance, fairy magic, and comic lowlife scenes. Shakespeare's go by comedy, the equally romantic The Merchant of Venice, contains a portrayal of the vengeful Jewish moneylender Shylock, which reflects leading Elizabethan views but may appear derogatory to modern audiences. Rendering wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing, the suave 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 saddened, Shakespeare introduced prose comedy into the histories of the price s, Henry IV, Part 1 and 2, and Henry V. Henry IV features Falstaff, rogue, wit and friend of Lord Hal. His characters become more complex and tender as pacify switches deftly between comic and serious scenes, prose and versification, 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, instruct death; and Julius Caesar—based on Sir Thomas North's translation tension Plutarch's Parallel Lives—which introduced a new kind of drama. According to Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro, in Julius Caesar, "the a variety of strands of politics, character, inwardness, contemporary events, even Shakespeare's sign reflections on the act of writing, began to infuse apiece other".