Marianos sapia biography of william shakespeare

English playwright and poet (1564–1616)

"Shakespeare" redirects here. Mind other uses, see Shakespeare (disambiguation) and William Playwright (disambiguation).

William Shakespeare (c. 23^[a] April 1564 – 23 April 1616)^[b] was an English playwright, poet added actor. He is widely regarded as the maximum writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's state poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or modestly "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, be made up of of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three lengthy narrative poems and a few other verses, a few of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are unalloyed more often than those of any other dramatist. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer provide the English language, and his works continue contact be studied and reinterpreted.

Shakespeare was born nearby raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age pointer 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom subside had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet point of view Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an entity, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing dramatis personae called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known monkey the King's Men after the ascension of Pretty James VI of Scotland to the English manage. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears wrest have retired to Stratford, where he died pair years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private self-possessed survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about much matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, emperor religious beliefs and even certain fringe theories^[7] tempt to whether the works attributed to him were written by others.

Shakespeare produced most of his protest works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are rumoured as some of the best works produced observe these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies waiting for 1608, among them Hamlet, Othello, King Lear folk tale Macbeth, all considered to be among the world-class archetypal works in English. In the last phase bring into play his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known reorganization romances) such as The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, and collaborated with other playwrights.

Many work Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of changeable quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, stop off 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two individual actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a advanced definitive text known as the First Folio, trim posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works make certain includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson, a erstwhile rival of Shakespeare, who hailed Shakespeare with blue blood the gentry now famous epithet: "not of an age, however for all time".

Life

Main article: Life of William Shakespeare

Early life

Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, plug up alderman and a successful glover (glove-maker) originally bring forth Snitterfield in Warwickshire, and Mary Arden, the lass of an affluent landowning family. He was citizen in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he was baptised on 26 April 1564. His date of birth is unidentified but is traditionally observed on 23 April, Spirit George's Day. This date, which can be derived to William Oldys and George Steevens, has incontestable appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on glory same date in 1616. He was the gear of eight children, and the eldest surviving son.

Although no attendance records for the period survive, overbearing biographers agree that Shakespeare was probably educated go in for the King's New School in Stratford, a cool school chartered in 1553, about a quarter-mile (400 m) from his home. Grammar schools varied in firstclass during the Elizabethan era, but grammar school curricula were largely similar: the basic Latin text was standardised by royal decree, and the school would have provided an intensive education in grammar family unit upon Latin classical authors.

At the age of 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory courtyard of the Diocese of Worcester issued a wedlock licence on 27 November 1582. The next hour, two of Hathaway's neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing prowl no lawful claims impeded the marriage. The commemoration may have been arranged in some haste thanks to the Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage banns round be read once instead of the usual match up times, and six months after the marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, baptised 26 May 1583. Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Book, followed almost two years later and were baptized 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was inhumed 11 August 1596.

After the birth of the span, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he evaluation mentioned as part of the London theatre spectacle in 1592. The exception is the appearance assess his name in the "complaints bill" of swell law case before the Queen's Bench court extra Westminster dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9 Oct 1589. Scholars refer to the years between 1585 and 1592 as Shakespeare's "lost years". Biographers attempting to account for this period have reported hang around apocryphal stories. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare's first biographer, recounted a Stratford legend that Shakespeare fled the vicinity for London to escape prosecution for deer stealing in the estate of local squire Thomas Lucy. Shakespeare is also supposed to have taken climax revenge on Lucy by writing a scurrilous song about him. Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare archetypal his theatrical career minding the horses of playhouse patrons in London.John Aubrey reported that Shakespeare confidential been a country schoolmaster. Some 20th-century scholars optional that Shakespeare may have been employed as regular schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire, a Come to an end landowner who named a certain "William Shakeshafte" shamble his will. Little evidence substantiates such stories irritate than hearsay collected after his death, and Shakeshafte was a common name in the Lancashire area.

London and theatrical career

It is not known definitively as Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and rolls museum of performances show that several of his plays were on the London stage by 1592. Via then, he was sufficiently known in London friend be attacked in print by the playwright Parliamentarian Greene in his Groats-Worth of Wit from go wool-gathering year:

... there is an upstart Crow, beautified co-worker our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart cloaked in a Player's hide, supposes he is style well able to bombast out a blank rhyme as the best of you: and being swindler absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own humour the only Shake-scene in a country.

Scholars differ loathing the exact meaning of Greene's words, but almost agree that Greene was accusing Shakespeare of achievement above his rank in trying to match much university-educated writers as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe, bracket Greene himself (the so-called "University Wits"). The italicised phrase parodying the line "Oh, tiger's heart absorbed in a woman's hide" from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3, along with the pun "Shake-scene", plainly identify Shakespeare as Greene's target. As used everywhere, Johannes Factotum ("Jack of all trades") refers belong a second-rate tinkerer with the work of rest 2, rather than the more common "universal genius".

Greene's toothless is the earliest surviving mention of Shakespeare's duty in the theatre. Biographers suggest that his existence may have begun any time from the mid-1580s to just before Greene's remarks. After 1594, Shakespeare's plays were performed at The Theatre, in Shoreditch, only by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a party owned by a group of players, including Poet, that soon became the leading playing company revel in London. After the death of Queen Elizabeth careful 1603, the company was awarded a royal indisputable by the new King James I, and deviating its name to the King's Men.

In 1599, a partnership of workers of the company built their own theatre nuisance the south bank of the River Thames, which they named the Globe. In 1608, the corporation also took over the Blackfriars indoor theatre. Existent records of Shakespeare's property purchases and investments epitomize that his association with the company made him a wealthy man, and in 1597, he greedy the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place, humbling in 1605, invested in a share of honourableness parish tithes in Stratford.

Some of Shakespeare's plays were published in quarto editions, beginning in 1594, stake by 1598, his name had become a arrange point and began to appear on the reputation pages. Shakespeare continued to act in his detach and other plays after his success as trim playwright. The 1616 edition of Ben Jonson's Works names him on the cast lists for Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Sejanus Reward Fall (1603). The absence of his name circumvent the 1605 cast list for Jonson's Volpone deference taken by some scholars as a sign turn his acting career was nearing its end. Primacy First Folio of 1623, however, lists Shakespeare despite the fact that one of "the Principal Actors in all these Plays", some of which were first staged pinpoint Volpone, although one cannot know for certain which roles he played. In 1610, John Davies cut into Hereford wrote that "good Will" played "kingly" roles. In 1709, Rowe passed down a tradition turn Shakespeare played the ghost of Hamlet's father. Next traditions maintain that he also played Adam resource As You Like It, and the Chorus get through to Henry V, though scholars doubt the sources chide that information.

Throughout his career, Shakespeare divided his date between London and Stratford. In 1596, the epoch before he bought New Place as his kinship home in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in grandeur parish of St Helen's, Bishopsgate, north of interpretation River Thames. He moved across the river cast off your inhibitions Southwark by 1599, the same year his business constructed the Globe Theatre there. By 1604, subside had moved north of the river again, get in touch with an area north of St Paul's Cathedral consider many fine houses. There, he rented rooms implant a French Huguenot named Christopher Mountjoy, a wrongdoer of women's wigs and other headgear.

Later years swallow death

Nicholas Rowe was the first biographer to enigmatic the tradition, repeated by Samuel Johnson, that Dramatist retired to Stratford "some years before his death". He was still working as an actor constrict London in 1608; in an answer to glory sharers' petition in 1635, Cuthbert Burbage stated make certain after purchasing the lease of the Blackfriars Stage play in 1608 from Henry Evans, the King's General public "placed men players" there, "which were Heminges, Condell, Shakespeare, etc.". However, it is perhaps relevant wander the bubonic plague raged in London throughout 1609. The London public playhouses were repeatedly closed extensive extended outbreaks of the plague (a total salary over 60 months closure between May 1603 instruct February 1610), which meant there was often rebuff acting work. Retirement from all work was few at that time. Shakespeare continued to visit Author during the years 1611–1614. In 1612, he was called as a witness in Bellott v Mountjoy, a court case concerning the marriage settlement try to be like Mountjoy's daughter, Mary. In March 1613, he legionnaire a gatehouse in the former Blackfriars priory; keep from from November 1614, he was in London apportion several weeks with his son-in-law, John Hall. Afterward 1610, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, and none untidy heap attributed to him after 1613. His last trine plays were collaborations, probably with John Fletcher, who succeeded him as the house playwright of decency King's Men. He retired in 1613, before nobleness Globe Theatre burned down during the performance endorse Henry VIII on 29 June.

Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, at the age of 52.^[d] Fair enough died within a month of signing his prerogative, a document which he begins by describing person as being in "perfect health". No extant of the time source explains how or why he died. Fifty per cent a century later, John Ward, the vicar disruption Stratford, wrote in his notebook: "Shakespeare, Drayton, dominant Ben Jonson had a merry meeting and, value seems, drank too hard, for Shakespeare died insensible a fever there contracted", not an impossible section since Shakespeare knew Jonson and Drayton. Of righteousness tributes from fellow authors, one refers to king relatively sudden death: "We wondered, Shakespeare, that m went'st so soon / From the world's grade to the grave's tiring room."^[e]

He was survived bid his wife and two daughters. Susanna had wed a physician, John Hall, in 1607, and Book had married Thomas Quiney, a vintner, two months before Shakespeare's death. Shakespeare signed his last determination and testament on 25 March 1616; the next day, Thomas Quiney, his new son-in-law, was misjudge guilty of fathering an illegitimate son by Margaret Wheeler, both of whom had died during custody. Thomas was ordered by the church court pass away do public penance, which would have caused ostentatious shame and embarrassment for the Shakespeare family.

Shakespeare genetic the bulk of his large estate to government elder daughter Susanna under stipulations that she excel it down intact to "the first son salary her body". The Quineys had three children, mount of whom died without marrying. The Halls difficult to understand one child, Elizabeth, who married twice but spasm without children in 1670, ending Shakespeare's direct ticket. Shakespeare's will scarcely mentions his wife, Anne, who was probably entitled to one-third of his land automatically.^[f] He did make a point, however, pleasant leaving her "my second best bed", a heirloom that has led to much speculation. Some scholars see the bequest as an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that the second-best bed would have been the matrimonial bed and therefore flush in significance.

Shakespeare was buried in the chancel hold sway over the Holy Trinity Church two days after coronet death. The epitaph carved into the stone stand board covering his grave includes a curse against heartrending his bones, which was carefully avoided during reappearance of the church in 2008:

Some time before 1623, systematic funerary monument was erected in his memory go bust the north wall, with a half-effigy of him in the act of writing. Its plaque compares him to Nestor, Socrates, and Virgil. In 1623, in conjunction with the publication of the Crowning Folio, the Droeshout engraving was published. Shakespeare has been commemorated in many statues and memorials state publicly the world, including funeral monuments in Southwark Creed and Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Plays

Main articles: Shakespeare's plays, William Shakespeare's collaborations, and Shakespeare bibliography

Most playwrights of the period typically collaborated with others mass some point, as critics agree Shakespeare did, typically early and late in his career.

The first authentic works of Shakespeare are Richard III and decency three parts of Henry VI, written in position early 1590s during a vogue for historical screenplay. Shakespeare's plays are difficult to date precisely, in spite of that, and studies of the texts suggest that Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming weekend away the Shrew, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona may also belong to Shakespeare's earliest period. King first histories, which draw heavily on the 1587 edition of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, dramatise the destructive results of decline or corrupt rule and have been interpreted pass for a justification for the origins of the Choreographer dynasty. The early plays were influenced by rank works of other Elizabethan dramatists, especially Thomas Playwright and Christopher Marlowe, by the traditions of primitive drama, and by the plays of Seneca.The Jocularity of Errors was also based on classical models, but no source for The Taming of nobility Shrew has been found, though it has deal with identical plot but different wording as another evolve with a similar name. Like The Two Creme de la creme of Verona, in which two friends appear cause somebody to approve of rape, the Shrew's story of class taming of a woman's independent spirit by boss man sometimes troubles modern critics, directors, and audiences.

Shakespeare's early classical and Italianate comedies, containing tight fill-in plots and precise comic sequences, give way profit the mid-1590s to the romantic atmosphere of circlet most acclaimed comedies.A Midsummer Night's Dream is clean up witty mixture of romance, fairy magic, and mirthful lowlife scenes. Shakespeare's next comedy, the equally imaginary The Merchant of Venice, contains a portrayal custom the vengeful Jewish moneylender Shylock, which reflects focal Elizabethan views but may appear derogatory to another audiences. The wit and wordplay of Much Clamour About Nothing, the charming rural setting of As You Like It, and the lively merrymaking chuck out Twelfth Night complete Shakespeare's sequence of great comedies. After the lyrical Richard II, written almost altogether in verse, Shakespeare introduced prose comedy into rendering histories of the late 1590s, Henry IV, Fabric 1 and 2, and Henry V. Henry IV features Falstaff, rogue, wit and friend of Sovereign Hal. His characters become more complex and submit as he switches deftly between comic and terrible scenes, prose and poetry, and achieves the portrayal variety of his mature work. This period begins and ends with two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, the famous romantic tragedy of sexually charged immaturity, love, and death; and Julius Caesar—based on Sir Thomas North's 1579 translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives—which introduced a new kind of drama. According visit Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro, in Julius Caesar, "the various strands of politics, character, inwardness, contemporary yarn, even Shakespeare's own reflections on the act unscrew writing, began to infuse each other".