Prepared by Ms.

Carmelle Grace Cabaron

World Literature -
Humanities
Who is William Shakespeare?
An English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English
language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national
poet and the "Bard of Avon". His surviving works, including some collaborations,
consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other
poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are
performed more often than those of any other playwright.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he
married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins
Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London
as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord
Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to
Stratford around 1613 at age 49, where he died three years later. Few records of
Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about
such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the
works attributed to him were written by others.
William Shakespeare is..
Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His
early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak
of sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16th century. He then wrote
mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and
Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his
last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and
collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy
during his lifetime. In 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published
the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but
two of the plays now recognized as Shakespeare's.
Shall I compare thee to a summers day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summers lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or natures changing course untrimmd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owst,
Nor shall death brag thou wanderst in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growst;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet 18
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Sonnet 116
The Sonnets are Shakespeare's most popular works, and a few of them, such as Sonnet
18(Shall I compare thee to a summer's day),Sonnet 116 (Let me not to the marriage of
true minds), and Sonnet 73 (That time of year thou mayst in me behold), have become the
most widely-read poems in all of English literature.
Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, likely composed over an extended period from 1592 to
1598, the year in which Francis Meres referred to Shakespeare's "sugred sonnets":
In 1609 Thomas Thorpe published Shakespeare's sonnets, no doubt without the author's
permission, in quarto format, along with Shakespeare's long poem, The Passionate
Pilgrim. The sonnets were dedicated to a W. H., whose identity remains a mystery,
although William Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke, is frequently suggested because
Shakespeare's First Folio (1623) was also dedicated to him.
FACTS
Fiction-written stories about people and events that
are not real; literature that tells stories which are
imagined by the writer.
Fiction
Brief fictional prose narrative that is shorter than a novel and that usually deals with
only a few characters.
The short story is usually concerned with a single effect conveyed in only one or a few
significant episodes or scenes. The form encourages economy of setting, concise
narrative, and the omission of a complex plot; character is disclosed in action and
dramatic encounter but is seldom fully developed. Despite its relatively limited scope,
though, a short story is often judged by its ability to provide a complete or satisfying
treatment of its characters and subject.
The short story as an art from deals with a single incident or situation. It is a coherent
whole with a single line of action and a single intended meaning. Thus, it does not
allow for many themes and sub-plots.

Understanding the Short Story
Plot This is the sequence of events or actions in the story. It is the development of the story in
items of beginning, middle and end. The beginning contains the conflict which rises to a climax
where t story turns before reaching a denouement or resolution. A good plot is not based on
the twist and turn of events but how much is revealed about the characters and the theme of the
story. There are five essential parts of plot.
a.) Introduction The beginning of the story where the characters and the setting is revealed
b.) Rising Action This is where the events in the story become complicated and the conflict
in the story is revealed ( events between the introduction and climax).
c.) Climax This is the highest point of interest and turning point of the story. The reader
wonders what will happen next; will the conflict be resolved or not?
d. Falling action The events and complications begin to resolve themselves. The reader
knows what has happened next and if the conflict was resolved or not (events between climax
and denouement).
e.) Denouement This is the final outcome or untangling of events in the story.


Elements of Short Story
It is helpful to consider climax as three-fold phenomenon:
1) The main character receives new information
2) Accepts this information (realizes it but does not necessarily
agree with it)
3) Acts on this information (makes a choice that will determine
whether or not he/she gains his objective)

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