Acknowledgment:
I would like to thank my friend Mary, who helped me in finishing this research paper. I would like also to thank my instructor. who has been always helping in providing references and useful comments
Summary
In this research paper I touched some of his life as his birth, family, marriage and education. Furthermore, I talked in some details about his works , plays and how did he start. And of course at the end I mentioned his death.
1) Introduction:iv
2) Shakespeare’s Life…………………………………………iv
2.1) His Birthiv
2.2) Parents/Familyiv
2.3) Educationv
2.4) Marriagev
3) Works v
4) Early Careervi
5) Growing Success: Man of Propertyvi
6) The Theatresvii
7) Shakespeare’s death:viii
Conclusion:ix
9) References:ix
1-Introduction:
William Shakespeare is universally regarded as the greatest dramatist and the finest poet of the English language. He lived in England during the era of Queen Elizabeth I of which historian consider the Elizabethan Age as a peak of English culture.
2-Shakespeare’s Life:
2.1) His Birth:
Shakespeare was born in a small English town named Stratford-upon-Avon, located in Warwickshire. Although the exact date of Shakespeare’s birth cannot be confirmed, the consensus is that Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564. Shakespeare is buried in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church in his hometown of Stratford, Warwickshire.
2.2)Parents/Family:
His father, John, trained as a glove-maker and married Mary Arden, the daughter of Robert Arden, a farmer from the nearby village of Wilmcote. John and Mary set up home in Henley Street, Stratford, in the house now known as Shakespeare’s Birthplace.
John Shakespeare was a prominent citizen, serving on the town council for many years and becoming Bailiff, or Mayor, in 1568. Besides his craft as a glover, he traded as a wool dealer and was also involved in money-lending.
John and Mary lost two children before William was born. They had five more children, another of whom died young.
2.3)Education:
As the son of a leading townsman, William almost certainly attended Stratford’s ‘petty’ or junior school before progressing, perhaps at the age of seven, to the Grammar School, which still stands. The grammar school’s curriculum was geared to teaching pupils Latin, both spoken and written. The classical writers studied in the classroom influenced Shakespeare’s plays and poetry; for example, some of his ideas for plots and characters came from Ovid’s tales, the plays of Terence and Plautus, and Roman history.
2.4) Marriage
It is not known what Shakespeare did when he left school, probably at the age of fourteen, as was usual. In November 1582 he married Anne Hathaway, the daughter of Richard Hathaway, a local farmer. Her home, now known as Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, still stands in the village of Shottery, a mile from Stratford.
Anne Hathaway was twice William’s age; she was 26 years old when William married her at age 18. At the time of their marriage William was eighteen and Anne was twenty-six. Their first-born child, Susanna, was baptised on 26 May 1583. Two years later twins followed, Hamnet and Judith. Shakespeare’s elder daughter, Susanna, married John Hall a Stratford physician, in 1607, and gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth, the following year. Shakespeare’s other daughter, Judith, married Thomas Quiney.
Works:
Shakespeare was a dramatist and a poet. None of his own manuscripts of his works survive, so we have only those of his plays and poems that were printed. Scholars have worked closely with these editions for more than 350 years, trying to establish what Shakespeare originally wrote.
Thirty-seven plays are now regarded as by Shakespeare, and he collaborated with other dramatists on at least four more. He created his plays between about 1590 and 1614, and they began to be printed in cheap quarto editions in 1594. Eighteen of Shakespeare’s plays had appeared in quarto by the year of his death, 1616.
In 1623, Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies appeared in an expensive folio volume. This contained 36 plays and is now universally referred to as the First Folio. The quartos and the First Folio ensured that Shakespeare’s plays survived when they were no longer performed. These printed editions have been used since the 17th century by actors and directors to return Shakespeare’s plays to the stage. There is much debate among scholars about how the printed texts represent Shakespeare’s original plays.
Between about 1592 and 1604, Shakespeare wrote four poems as well as creating a collection of sonnets. These were printed in quarto editions between 1593 and 1609. Scholarly debate about the printed editions of the poems has focussed particularly on The Sonnets.
Poems and sonnets :
Shakespeare’s earliest poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, were probably composed when the theatres were closed because of the plague. Both were written to be printed, perhaps reflecting Shakespeare’s need of the patronage of the 3rd Earl of Southampton or his intention to become known as a poet. The use of his name on the title-page of The Passionate Pilgrim (in which only a few of the poems are his) indicates that by 1599 he was already famous for his poetry.
It was once thought that the edition of The Sonnets which appeared in 1609 was unauthorised. More recently, it has been suggested that the collection was printed according to Shakespeare’s wishes.
•Venus and Adonis, created in about 1592-1593. First printed in quarto in 1593. Venus and Adonis was dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton. The poem was regularly reprinted. In all, it appeared in 17 quarto editions before 1641.
Titlepage. William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis, 1594. British Library, G.11180. Larger image
•The Rape of Lucrece, created in about 1593-1594. First printed in quarto in 1594. The title-page calls the poem Lucrece, although the longer title appears on the half-title. The Rape of Lucrece was also dedicated to the 3rd Earl of Southampton. The poem was successful, but never as popular as Venus and Adonis. It appeared in a total of eight quarto editions before 1641.
•The Passionate Pilgrim. First printed in octavo in 1599. This first edition survives only in a two-sheet fragment. The second edition was also printed in 1599 and survives complete. A third edition of The Passionate Pilgrim appeared in 1612. Of the 20 poems in the volume, only five are by Shakespeare. They include early versions of two of his sonnets, as well as verses from Love’s Labour’s Lost.
•The Phoenix and Turtle, perhaps created in about 1601. First printed in Robert Chester’s Loves Martyr, which appeared in quarto in 1601. This work was reissued with a new title-page in 1611. The poem, which begins ‘Let the bird of loudest lay’, acquired its title only in 1807.
•The Sonnets, perhaps created during the 1590s and early 1600s. Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets were first printed in quarto in 1609. The dedication ‘to Mr W. H.’ is signed by the publisher Thomas Thorpe. The identity of the dedicatee has been suggested as the 3rd Earl of Southampton, or William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, among others. A second edition of The Sonnets appeared in 1640, with the poems in a different order.
•A Lover’s Complaint, created in about 1603-1604. First printed in quarto alongside Shakespeare’s sonnets in 1609. A Lover’s Complaint was also included in the edition of The Sonnets of 1640.
Shakespeare death:
Shakespeare died at the age of 52 on 23 April 1616. This date is based on the Old Style, or Julian calendar of his time. The New Style, or Gregorian calendar date is 3 May 1616. Undoubtedly Shakespeare’s son-in-law, Dr. Hall attended him, but the nature of his final illness is unknown. A legend has grown up, based on a diary entry by a John Ward – a Stratford vicar. Ward wrote that "Shakspear Drayton and Ben Jhonson had a merry meeting and it seems drank too hard for Shakespear died of a feavour there contracted." This is difficult to believe as the diary entry was written fifty years after Shakespeare’s death although as vicar, Ward would have listened to local gossip and knew Judith Shakespeare in her later years; whether this is based upon fact again is open to debate.
The Theatres:
Drama was a nation-wide activity in Shakespeare’s time but only in London were there buildings designed specifically for performing plays. Most public theatres were tall, roughly circular structures, open to the sky, with a cover over part of the stage and a roof running round the edge to protect the galleries. Performances took place in the afternoons, with the actors playing on a raised stage which projected halfway into the theatre. All the women’s roles were performed by boys. The audience, which either stood in the yard around the stage or sat in the galleries, represented a wide social mix of people.
In 1599 the acting company with which Shakespeare was involved, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, built a new theatre, the Globe . Situated on the south bank of the Thames, in the suburb of Southwark, it is the theatre most closely associated with Shakespeare’s plays, and he was one of the shareholders in the enterprise. Two of his plays, Henry V and Julius Caesar, were almost certainly written during the year in which the Globe opened. In 1613, during a performance of Henry VIII, a fire broke out and destroyed the Globe, but it was rebuilt the following year.
Conclusion:
All in all, Shakespeare is not only the greatest but also the most powerful and influential of the English writers and poets, he is the master of early modern English, with his profound understanding of human nature and his ability to create such vivid and interesting characters, Shakespeare definitely has had a direct significant influence in the shaping of English literature and the development of the English language.
ITS FINE!!!!