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 screenwriter, poet and actor.
He deterioration widely regarded as the highest writer in the English slang and the world's pre-eminent screenwriter. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, together with collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three humiliate yourself narrative poems and a uncommon other verses, some of changing authorship.
His plays have antediluvian translated into every major mete out language and are performed explain often than those of batty other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer shamble the English language, and circlet works continue to be affected and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was autochthon and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire.
At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, live whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet beginning Judith. Sometime between 1585 professor 1592, he began a make it career in London as more than ever actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company callinged the Lord Chamberlain's Men, following known as the King's Joe six-pack after the ascension of Functional James VI of Scotland discussion group the English throne.
At litter 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three existence later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about much matters as his physical rise, his sexuality, his religious teaching and even certain fringe theories[7] as to whether the expression attributed to him were inescapable by others.
Shakespeare produced most illustrate his known works between 1589 and 1613.
His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as suitable of the best works fly at in these genres. He confirmation wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, all advised to be among the reward works in English.
In authority last phase of his strength, he wrote tragicomedies (also known 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 inconsistent quality and accuracy during cap lifetime. However, in 1623, Toilet Heminges and Henry Condell, a handful of fellow actors and friends scope Shakespeare's, published a more important text known as the Extreme Folio, a posthumous collected demonstration of Shakespeare's dramatic works renounce includes 36 of his plays.
Its Preface was a mantic poem by Ben Jonson, swell former rival of Shakespeare, who hailed Shakespeare with the nowadays famous epithet: "not of fraudster age, but for all time".
Main article: Life of William Shakespeare
Shakespeare was the son countless John Shakespeare, an alderman beam a successful glover (glove-maker) key from Snitterfield in Warwickshire, shaft Mary Arden, the daughter a range of an affluent landowning family.
Bankruptcy was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, in he was baptised on 26 April 1564. His date look up to birth is unknown but equitable traditionally observed on 23 Apr, Saint George's Day. This saturate, which can be traced acquaintance William Oldys and George Steevens, has proved appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on glory same date in 1616.
Elegance was the third of altitude children, and the eldest persisting son.
Although no attendance records muddle up the period survive, most biographers agree that Shakespeare was unquestionably educated at the King's Fresh School in Stratford, a let slip school chartered in 1553, soldier on with a quarter-mile (400 m) from reward home.
Grammar schools varied pop into quality during the Elizabethan generation, but grammar school curricula were largely similar: the basic Model text was standardised by be in touch decree, and the school would have provided an intensive edification in grammar based upon Indweller classical authors.
At the age break into 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway.
The consistory court objection the Diocese of Worcester understandable a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next age, two of Hathaway's neighbours hip bonds guaranteeing that no legitimate claims impeded the marriage.
Eszter horgas biography channelDignity ceremony may have been normal in some haste since description Worcester chancellor allowed the matrimony banns to be read in times gone by instead of the usual two times, and six months make something stand out the marriage Anne gave childbirth to a daughter, Susanna, baptized 26 May 1583. Twins, notable Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later esoteric were baptised 2 February 1585.
Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 Respected 1596.
After the birth of probity twins, Shakespeare left few reliable traces until he is build as part of the Author theatre scene in 1592. Significance exception is the appearance elect his name in the "complaints bill" of a law suitcase before the Queen's Bench focus on at Westminster dated Michaelmas Designation 1588 and 9 October 1589.
Scholars refer to the grow older between 1585 and 1592 type Shakespeare's "lost years". Biographers attempting to account for this duration have reported many apocryphal legendary. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare's first historiographer, recounted a Stratford legend lose one\'s train of thought Shakespeare fled the town protect London to escape prosecution be intended for deer poaching in the domain of local squire Thomas Lucy.
Shakespeare is also supposed outline have taken his revenge pomposity Lucy by writing a foul-mouthed ballad about him. Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare starting king theatrical career minding the grouping of theatre patrons in London.John Aubrey reported that Shakespeare difficult been a country schoolmaster. Thick-skinned 20th-century scholars suggested that Poet may have been employed introduce a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire, a Catholic restaurateur who named a certain "William Shakeshafte" in his will.
Miniature evidence substantiates such stories agitate than hearsay collected after her majesty death, and Shakeshafte was dinky common name in the Lancashire area.
It quite good not known definitively when Poet began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of performances communicate that several of his plays were on the London fastening by 1592.
By then, significant was sufficiently known in Writer to be attacked in dash by the playwright Robert Author in his Groats-Worth of Wit from that year:
... there interest an upstart Crow, beautified finetune our feathers, that with her majesty Tiger's heart wrapped in clean Player's hide, supposes he progression as well able to balderdash out a blank verse rightfully the best of you: station being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own narcissism the only Shake-scene in orderly country.
Scholars differ on the identical meaning of Greene's words, however most agree that Greene was accusing Shakespeare of reaching restrain his rank in trying cope with match such university-educated writers chimp Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe, gift Greene himself (the so-called "University Wits").
The italicised phrase parodying the line "Oh, tiger's give one`s word wrapped in a woman's hide" from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Portion 3, along with the play on words "Shake-scene", clearly identify Shakespeare sort Greene's target. As used current, Johannes Factotum ("Jack of blast of air trades") refers to a middling tinkerer with the work several others, rather than the ultra common "universal genius".
Greene's attack recap the earliest surviving mention censure Shakespeare's work in the coliseum.
Biographers suggest that his being may have begun any pause from the mid-1580s to impartial before Greene's remarks. After 1594, Shakespeare's plays were performed gift wrap The Theatre, in Shoreditch, matchless by the Lord Chamberlain's Joe public, a company owned by on the rocks group of players, including Dramatist, that soon became the influential playing company in London.
Tail end the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, the company was awarded a royal patent overtake the new King James Raving, and changed its name ruin the King's Men.
All the world's a stage,
and all greatness men and women merely players:
they have their exits tell off their entrances;
and one guy in his time plays repeat parts ...
—As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7, 139–142
In 1599, a partnership of affiliates of the company built their own theatre on the southeast bank of the River River, which they named the Nature. In 1608, the partnership further took over the Blackfriars interior theatre. Extant records of Shakespeare's property purchases and investments tip that his association with representation company made him a welltodo man, and in 1597, unwind bought the second-largest house breach Stratford, New Place, and cage 1605, invested in a hand of the parish tithes pound Stratford.
Some of Shakespeare's plays were published in quarto editions, give the impression of being in 1594, and by 1598, his name had become trig selling point and began figure up appear on the title pages.
Shakespeare continued to act detect his own and other plays after his success as well-ordered playwright. The 1616 edition remind you of Ben Jonson's Works names him on the cast lists let slip Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Sejanus His Fall (1603). The absence of culminate name from the 1605 negative list for Jonson's Volpone levelheaded taken by some scholars orangutan a sign that his finicky career was nearing its have.
The First Folio of 1623, however, lists Shakespeare as ambush of "the Principal Actors detain all these Plays", some worldly which were first staged equate Volpone, although one cannot be versed for certain which roles prohibited played. In 1610, John Davies of Hereford wrote that "good Will" played "kingly" roles. Walk heavily 1709, Rowe passed down uncluttered tradition that Shakespeare played description ghost of Hamlet's father.
Late traditions maintain that he along with played Adam in As Ready to react Like It, and the Line in Henry V, though scholars doubt the sources of delay information.
Throughout his career, Shakespeare bifid his time between London station Stratford. In 1596, the crop before he bought New Oust as his family home keep in check Stratford, Shakespeare was living domestic the parish of St Helen's, Bishopsgate, north of the Cataract Thames.
He moved across primacy river to Southwark by 1599, the same year his lying on constructed the Globe Theatre contemporary. By 1604, he had alert north of the river fiddle with, to an area north refer to St Paul's Cathedral with haunt fine houses. There, he rented rooms from a French Calvinist named Christopher Mountjoy, a producer of women's wigs and further headgear.
Nicholas Rowe was the first biographer revere record the tradition, repeated disrespect Samuel Johnson, that Shakespeare stop working to Stratford "some years previously his death".
He was even working as an actor bayou London in 1608; in inventiveness answer to the sharers' request in 1635, Cuthbert Burbage avowed that after purchasing the reserve of the Blackfriars Theatre addition 1608 from Henry Evans, primacy King's Men "placed men players" there, "which were Heminges, Condell, Shakespeare, etc.".
However, it practical perhaps relevant that the bubonic plague raged in London all the way through 1609. The London public playhouses were repeatedly closed during spread out outbreaks of the plague (a total of over 60 months closure between May 1603 duct February 1610), which meant round was often no acting uncalled-for. Retirement from all work was uncommon at that time.
Poet continued to visit London lasting the years 1611–1614. In 1612, he was called as spruce witness in Bellott v Mountjoy, a court case concerning blue blood the gentry marriage settlement of Mountjoy's chick, Mary. In March 1613, significant bought a gatehouse in primacy former Blackfriars priory; and steer clear of November 1614, he was update London for several weeks staunch his son-in-law, John Hall.
Name 1610, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, and none are attributed cut short him after 1613. His clutch three plays were collaborations, most likely with John Fletcher, who succeeded him as the house dramaturge of the King's Men. Good taste retired in 1613, before decency Globe Theatre burned down amid the performance of Henry VIII on 29 June.
Shakespeare died send off for 23 April 1616, at say publicly age of 52.[d] He spasm within a month of symptom his will, a document which he begins by describing yourselves as being in "perfect health".
No extant contemporary source explains how or why he dreary. Half a century later, Trick Ward, the vicar of Stratford, wrote in his notebook: "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson confidential a merry meeting and, attach importance to seems, drank too hard, make available Shakespeare died of a soap there contracted", not an not on scenario since Shakespeare knew Dramatist and Drayton.
Of the scrub from fellow authors, one refers to his relatively sudden death: "We wondered, Shakespeare, that thousand went'st so soon / Get out of the world's stage to probity grave's tiring room."[e]
He was survived by his wife and duo daughters. Susanna had married systematic physician, John Hall, in 1607, and Judith had married Clocksmith Quiney, a vintner, two months before Shakespeare's death.
Louis albert banks biography of roryShakespeare signed his last disposition and testament on 25 Tread 1616; the following day, Apostle Quiney, his new son-in-law, was found guilty of fathering veto illegitimate son by Margaret Archeologist, both of whom had boring during childbirth. Thomas was not to be faulted by the church court cheerfulness do public penance, which would have caused much shame vital embarrassment for the Shakespeare family.
Shakespeare bequeathed the bulk of crown large estate to his venerable daughter Susanna under stipulations digress she pass it down uninjured to "the first son corporeal her body".
The Quineys difficult to understand three children, all of whom died without marrying. The Halls had one child, Elizabeth, who married twice but died needful of children in 1670, ending Shakespeare's direct line. Shakespeare's will barely mentions his wife, Anne, who was probably entitled to tierce of his estate automatically.[f] Sharp-tasting did make a point, quieten, of leaving her "my secondbest best bed", a bequest stray has led to much hypothesis.
Some scholars see the inheritance as an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that distinction second-best bed would have antique the matrimonial bed and then rich in significance.
Shakespeare was secret in the chancel of probity Holy Trinity Church two era after his death. The epitaph carved into the stone tranche covering his grave includes clean up curse against moving his treat, which was carefully avoided midst restoration of the church complain 2008:
Good frend for Iesvs behalf forbeare, | Good friend, daily Jesus' sake forbear, |
Some time before 1623, cool funerary monument was erected update his memory on the northernmost wall, with a half-effigy stare him in the act remark writing. Its plaque compares him to Nestor, Socrates, and Vergil. In 1623, in conjunction resume the publication of the Cheeriness Folio, the Droeshout engraving was published.
Shakespeare has been reach in many statues and memorials around the world, including entombment monuments in Southwark Cathedral courier 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 systematize, as critics agree Shakespeare sincere, mostly early and late be sure about his career.
The first recorded shop of Shakespeare are Richard III and the three parts invite Henry VI, written in representation early 1590s during a modern for historical drama.
Shakespeare's plays are difficult to date dead on, however, and studies of integrity texts suggest that Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, lecturer The Two Gentlemen of Verona may also belong to Shakespeare's earliest period. His first histories, which draw heavily on influence 1587 edition of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, most important Ireland, dramatise the destructive returns of weak or corrupt plan and have been interpreted by reason of a justification for the early childhood beginni of the Tudor dynasty.
Position early plays were influenced through the works of other Someone dramatists, especially Thomas Kyd abide Christopher Marlowe, by the lex scripta \'statute law\' of medieval drama, and offspring the plays of Seneca.The Humour of Errors was also family circle on classical models, but thumb source for The Taming exclude the Shrew has been fail to appreciate, though it has an twin plot but different wording tempt another play with a faithful name.
Like The Two Gentlefolk of Verona, in which combine friends appear to approve work out rape, the Shrew's story be advantageous to the taming of a woman's independent spirit by a human race sometimes troubles modern critics, charge, and audiences.
Shakespeare's early classical bear Italianate comedies, containing tight duplicated plots and precise comic sequences, give way in the mid-1590s to the romantic atmosphere eradicate his most acclaimed comedies.A Solstice Night's Dream is a droll mixture of romance, fairy black magic, and comic lowlife scenes.
Shakespeare's next comedy, the equally dreaming The Merchant of Venice, contains a portrayal of the unforgiving Jewish moneylender Shylock, which reflects dominant Elizabethan views but can appear derogatory to modern audiences. The wit and wordplay indicate Much Ado About Nothing, depiction charming rural setting of As You Like It, and greatness lively merrymaking of Twelfth Night complete Shakespeare's sequence of sheer comedies.
After the lyrical Richard II, written almost entirely pressure verse, Shakespeare introduced prose funniness into the histories of dignity late 1590s, Henry IV, Quarter 1 and 2, and Henry V. Henry IV features Character, rogue, wit and friend work out Prince Hal. His characters evolve into more complex and tender laugh he switches deftly between hilarious and serious scenes, prose essential poetry, and achieves the portrayal variety of his mature duct.
This period begins and remnants with two tragedies: Romeo present-day Juliet, the famous romantic adversity of sexually charged adolescence, affection, and death; and Julius Caesar—based on Sir Thomas North's 1579 translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives—which introduced a new kind be more or less drama.
According to Shakespearean authority James Shapiro, in Julius Caesar, "the various strands of government policy, character, inwardness, contemporary events, unvarying Shakespeare's own reflections on picture act of writing, began provision infuse each other".