SHAKESPEARE

Shakespeare was the most popular playwright in London.at that time. As centuries have passed, his genius eclipses all others of his age; Jonson, Marlowe, Kyd, Greene, Dekker, Heywoodnone approach the craft or the humanity of character that marks William Shakespeares work. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, on April 23, 1564. Church records from Holy Trinity Church indicate that he was baptized there on April 26, 1564. Young William was born of John Shakespeare, a glover and leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a landed local heiress. William, according to the church register, was the third of eight children in the Shakespeare household three of whom died in childhood. John Shakespeare had a remarkable run of success as a merchant, alderman, and high bailiff of Stratford, during William's early childhood At the age of eighteen Shakespeare got married ; Anne Hathaway, a woman of twenty-six, became his wife. Their first child, Susanna, was born five months after the wedding (baptized May 1583). Twins, Hamnet and Judith, were born in February 1585. Before he was twenty-one, Shakespeare was the father of three young children, with a wife nearing thirty. There were no more children, and, though Stratford remained his home, Shakespeare lived his professional life in London, several days' journey away (unless you were extravagant enough to hire post-horses). His presence in London in 1592 is known from an attack on him by Robert Greene (1558-92), man of letters and playwright, who deeply resented Shakespeare coming from the ranks of the actors to undertake the writing of plays. Greene, six years Shakespeare's senior, came from a background of provincial trade very similar to his, his father being a Norwich saddler. But his distinction from Shakespeare was that he had won his way to Cambridge, and was Master of Arts of that university. He considered Shakespeare as a threat to educated university men like himself as provider of plays to the young professional theatre. Shakespeare took the art of dramatic verse and brought it to perfection. He created the most vivid characters of the Elizabethan stage. His usage of language, both lofty and low, shows a remarkable wit and subtlety. Most importantly, his themes are so universal that they transcend generations to stir the imaginations of audiences everywhere to this day. His plays generally fall into four categories: Pre-1594 Richard III, The Comedy of Errors)

15941600 - Henry V, Midsummer Night's Dream) 16001608 - Macbeth, King Lear) Post-1608 Cymbeline, The Tempest)

The first period has its roots in Roman and medieval drama .The earliest Shakespeare owes a debt to Christopher Marlowe, whose writing probably gave much inspiration at the onset of the Bard's career.

The second period showed more growth in style, and the construction becoming less labored. The histories of this period are Shakespeare's best, portraying the lives of kings and royalty in most human terms. He also begins the interweaving of comedy and tragedy, which would become one of his stylistic signatures. The third period marks the great tragedies, and the principal works which would earn the Bard his fame in later centuries. His tragic figures rival those of Sophocles, and might well have walked off the Greek stage straight onto the Elizabethan. Shakespeare is at his best in these tragedies. The comedies of this period, however, show Shakespeare at a literary crossroads moody and without the clear comic resolution of previous comedies The fourth period encompasses romantic tragicomedy. Shakespeare at the end of his career seemed preoccupied with themes of redemption. The writing is more serious yet more lyrical, and the plays show Shakespeare at his most symbolic; Shakespeare's comedies are called romantic comedies because they typically involve lovers whose hearts are set on each other but whose lives are complicated by disapproving parents, deceptions, jealousies, illusions, confused identities, disguises, or other misunderstandings. Conflicts are present, but they are more amusing than threatening. This lightness is apparent in some of the comedies' titles: the conflict in a play such as A Midsummer Night's Dream is, in a sense, Much Ado About Nothing As You Like It - in a comedy. Shakespeare orchestrates the problems and confusion that typify the initial plotting of a romantic comedy into harmonious wedding arrangements in the final scenes. In these comedies life is a celebration, a feast that always satisfies, because the generosity of the humor leaves us with a revived appetite for life's surprising possibilities. Discord and misunderstanding give way to concord and love. Marriage symbolizes a pledge that life itself is renewable, so we are left with a sense of new beginnings. Although a celebration of life, comedy is also frequently used as a vehicle for criticizing human affairs. Satire casts a critical eye on vices and follies by holding them up to ridicule usually to point out an absurdity so that it can be avoided or corrected. In Twelfth Night Malvolio is satirized for his priggishness and pomposity. He thinks himself better than almost everyone around him, but Shakespeare reveals him to be comic as well as pathetic. We come to understand what Malvolio will apparently never comprehend: that no one can take him as seriously as he takes himself. Polonius is subjected to a similar kind of scrutiny in Hamlet. Malvolio's ambitious efforts to attract Olivia's affections are rendered absurd by Shakespeare's use of both high and low comedy. High comedy consists of verbal wit, while low comedy is generally associated with physical action and is less intellectual. Through puns and witty exchanges,. Shakespeare's high comedy displays Malvolio's inconsistencies of character. His self-importance is deflated by low comedy. We are treated to a farce, a form of humor based on exaggerated, improbable incongruities, when the staid Malvolio is tricked into wearing bizarre clothing and behaving like a fool to win olivia. Our laughter is Malvolio's pain, but though he has been "notoriously abus'd" and he vows in the final scene to be "reveng'd on the whole pack" of laughing conspirators who have tricked him, the play ends on a light note. Indeed, it concludes with a song, the last ine of which reminds us of the predominant tone of the play as well as the nature of comedy: "And we'll strive to please you every day." Shakespeares tragedies usually share several features. Almost all of them begin in an ordered society and move toward chaos, as the hero allows his flaws to rule him. Often, this chaotic change is reflected in the natural world, with storms and strange mists being characteristic. Most importantly, the plays feature heroes whom audiences can identify with and

feel sorry for. The protagonist of Shakespeares tragedies are not villains or saints but generally good people destroyed by their own ego or ill fate. They do not promise peace and contentment. The tragic protagonist is portrayed as a remarkable individual whose unique qualities compel us with their power and complexity. Macbeth is not simply a murderer nor is Othello merely a jealous husband. But despite their extreme passions, behavior, and even crimes, we identify with tragic heroes in ways that we do not with comic characters. We can laugh at pretentious fools, smug hypocrites, clumsy oafs, and thwarted lovers because we see them from a distance. They are amusing precisely because their problems are not ours; we recognize them as types instead of as ourselves (or so we think). No reader of Twelfth Night worries about Sir Toby Belch's excessive drinking; he is a cheerful "sot" whose passion for ale is cause for celebration rather than concern. Shakespeare's comedy is sometimes disturbing - Malvolio's character certainly is - but is never devastating. Tragic heroes do confront devastation; they command our respect and compassion because they act in spite of terrifying risks. Their triumph is not measured by the attainment of what they seek but by the wisdom that defeat imposes on them. As for poetry , Shakespeare wrote famous sonnets .The Shakespearean sonnet is divided into four parts. The first three parts are each four lines long, and are known as quatrains, rhymed ABAB; the fourth part is called the couplet, and is rhymed CC. The Shakespearean sonnet is often used to develop a sequence of metaphors or ideas, one in each quatrain, while the couplet offers either a summary or a new take on the preceding images or ideas. In Shakespeares Sonnet 147, for instance, the speakers love is compared to a disease. In the first quatrain, the speaker characterizes the disease; in the second, he describes the relationship of his love-disease to its physician, his reason; in the third, he describes the consequences of his abandonment of reason; and in the couplet, he explains the source of his mad, diseased lovehis lovers betrayal of his faith: My love is as a fever, longing still For that which longer nurseth the disease, Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, The uncertain sickly appetite to please. My reason, the physician to my love, Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, Hath left me, and I desprate now approve Desire is death, which physic did except. Past cure am I, now reason is past care, And frantic mad with evermore unrest, My thoughts and my discourse as madmens are, At random from the truth vainly expressed; For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night. Shakespeare used his sonnets to explore different themes lust, love, beauty .The sonnets were addressed to stylized women and dedicated to wealthy noblemen, who supported poets with money and other gifts, usually in return for lofty praise in print. Shakespeare dedicated his sonnets to Mr. W. H., and the identity of this man remains unknown. He dedicated an earlier set of poems, Venus and Adonis and Rape of Lucrece, to Henry Wriothesly, earl of Southampton,

but its not known what Wriothesly gave him for this honor. In contrast to tradition, Shakespeare addressed most of his sonnets to an unnamed young man. Addressing sonnets to a young man was unique in Elizabethan England. In many ways, Shakespeares use of the sonnet form is richer and more complex than this relatively simple division into parts might imply. Not only is his sequence largely occupied with subverting the traditional themes of love sonnetsthe traditional love poems in praise of beauty and worth, for instance, are written to a man, while the love poems to a woman are almost all as bitter and negative as Sonnet 147he also combines formal patterns with daring and innovation . Shakespeares ability to summarize the range of human emotions in simple but profoundly eloquent verse or prose is perhaps the greatest reason for his popularity. Shakespeare influenced his age, the ages that passed and probably the ages to come .