William Shakespeare 20 x 16 inches, Acrylic, 2019
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) is considered the greatest dramatist in the English language. He was born in Stratford-on-Avon, in Warwickshire, central England, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. His father, John Shakespeare, was a glove maker and alderman, his mother, Mary Arden, was the daughter of a well-to-do farmer. He was educated in a local school, where he would have at least learned Latin. In 1583 when he was 18, William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, who was 26 at the time. The wedding was a rushed affair: Anne was already pregnant, for she gave birth to their first child, Susana, 6 months later. In 1585, twins, Hamnet and Judith were born. (Hamnet would die at the age of 11). The skimpy public record divulges all that is known of the early life of the Bard of Avon. Little else is known of Shakespeare until, in 1592, when he became part of the theater scene in London.
When Shakespeare began writing plays is uncertain, probably in the early 1590s or before, but his early work did achieve considerable recognition. He was considered something of an upstart, though, for he was an outsider and a marginally educated man, unlike, for instance, his contemporary and rival Christopher Marlowe who graduated from Cambridge University. It is not known what acting company first performed Shakespeare’s plays, perhaps several did. But after 1594 the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, the leading company in London, were the exclusive producers of his plays. Will Shakespeare was part owner of the company and although its leading player was Richard Burbage, Shakespeare was also one of its actors. (What roles in his own plays Shakespeare might have assumed is a matter of conjecture). After the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, the company, now under the patronage of King James I, was renamed The King’s Men. Its most famous acting venue was The Globe Theatre, built on the south bank of the Thames in 1599. (The Globe burned down in 1613, was rebuilt, but closed in 1642 by Puritans who regarded the stage as sinful. In 1997 a replica of the theater, constructed near the original location, opened. The campaign to achieve this restoration had been spearheaded not by the English acting establishment, but, curiously, by Chicago-born actor Sam Wanamaker, who, unfortunately, died before his dream came to full fruition.)
At the beginning of his career Will Shakespeare probably collaborated with other playwrights; his plays were no doubt revised by other hands. Titus Andronicus, a tragedy set in ancient Rome, one of his earliest plays, was likely a result of such collaboration. Conforming with the prevailing fashion on the stage, Shakespeare wrote a series of histories chronicling the reigns of past English kings, such as Richard III, Henry VI, Richard II, Henry V and others. He seemed to have cribbed most of his historical information from a single volume of history. (We know this because he replicated the mistakes found there). Early works also included comedies, a genre he would develop throughout the decade of the ‘90s. There was A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with a cast of bucolic fairies, including the mischievous sprite Puck, The Merchant of Venice with woman-lawyer Portia and Jewish moneylender Shylock, As You Like It and Twelfth Night, which both involved women impersonating men. (It might be noted that women did not appear as performers on the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage. Female parts were always assumed by men or boys).
By the end of the 16th Century Shakespeare was composing his greatest masterpieces. There was Julius Caesar, a study of character and society, much more than a dry retelling of history, and Romeo and Juliet, a tragic tale of adolescent romance in medieval Italy. But Shakespeare is hailed most for the four tragedies written in the first decade of the 17th Century, Hamlet, a prince of Denmark who is torn by indecision whether or not he should avenge the murder of his father, Othello, a Moor (Black) driven to become jealous of his faithful wife Desdemona, King Lear, about an aged king who disastrously tries to apportion his kingdom among his daughters, and MacBeth, a medieval noble egged on by his wife to seize the Scottish throne by murdering the king. Also in his late period Shakespeare returned to ancient Roman history with Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus, and penned the tragi-comedies Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest, as well as working on a few lesser known plays, probably in collaboration with John Fletcher, who would take his place as the company’s chief playwright.
In all, William Shakespeare, over a period of about 25 years, wrote 38 plays, most of them still well-known to the modern public, and many considered classics, if not possessing greatness. The order in which they are written cannot be definitely determined. Many of the plays were printed in his lifetime, some of them with dialogue garbled, revised, even reconstructed from memory, surely none authorized by the playwright. Shakespeare could not have expected that his plays would be preserved for posterity. But in 1623, years after Shakespeare’s death, two members of The King’s Men paid great tribute to their friend and playwright, and took it upon themselves to publish a definitive edition of 36 of his plays, in what is known as the First Folio. A folio book is made from a large sheet of paper folded once, a format used for books of importance. Earlier additions of Shakespeare’s plays were in the cheaper quarto form, made with paper that is folded twice. The First Folio was 12 1/2 inches high. No more than 750 out of an original 1000 printed are existent today. Later, other folio additions appeared.
William Shakespeare is renown as well for his poetical works, When the theaters in London were closed down owing to the plague in 1593 and 1594, Shakespeare wrote and published Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. These were modeled on the poem Metamorphoses written by the Roman poet Ovid, first published in 8 AD. These poems, as well as Shakespeare’s plays, reveal how strongly he and other authors of his time were inspired and influenced by the literature of ancient Greece and Rome. During his life Shakespeare composed a large number of sonnets. (The sonnet is a poetical form that originated in Italy during the Renaissance. The English sonnet consists of 14 lines, usually with 10 syllables per line). Shakespeare shared his poetry only among his friends, but late in life, in 1609, he published a collection of 154 sonnets. They, like his other poems, were well received by the public and several of his sonnets are remembered today; for example Sonnet 18 “Shall I compare thee to a summer day?”
It is assumed that during his career as a playwright Shakespeare took breaks from his sojourn in London to return to Stratford to spend time with his family. A relatively wealthy man, he lived there in the town’s second largest house. He wrote his last important plays in 1612 or so, and it is thought that after that he went into a kind of semi-retirement. He died at the age of 56 on April 23, 1616. The circumstances of his death are not known, but it is reported that he was in good health up until the end. He was buried in the Holy Trinity Church on Stratford. A memorial for him was later established in the Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey in London.
As is not uncommon with great men, William Shakespeare has no living descendants. His daughter Susanna married a physician named John Hall and his other daughter Judith wed a vintner named Thomas Quiney. Susanna Hall had a daughter who married twice, but had no children. Judith Quiney had three children, but none of them married.
That Shakespeare had a profound effect upon dramaturgy would be a gross understatement. His plays have had an impact not only upon the English stage and upon English literature, but upon the theater in practically every country. So many lines from his plays, so many expressions that he employed have found their way into the English lexicon. Many speeches from his plays are in the public memory — Hamlet’s soliloquy, Marc Antony’s funeral oration, Portia’s “The quality of mercy is not strained, “All the world’s a stage,” “This England,” and so forth. Although the language of his plays is for the most part quite formal, as well as poetic, Shakespeare exerted significant influence upon the development of modern English.
Thought well of in his lifetime, Shakespeare fell into some disfavor during the late 17th and 18th Centuries. However, he had his notable champions: John Dryden, who was made English poet laureate in 1688, Dr. Samuel Johnson, whose 1755 dictionary quoted him more than any other author, the French philosopher Voltaire, and the great German writer Johanne von Goethe. In the 19th Century Shakespeares’ stock rose. Major literary figures such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Carlyle, the Romantic poets, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, and many others were inspired by him. The public embraced him even as new playwrights such as Ibsen, Shaw, and others redefined the theater. Into the 21st Century, William Shakespeare retains a god-like stature and, more than that, his plays continue to be performed (and quoted), as well as made into popular movies.
No portrait or drawing of Shakespeare was made during his lifetime and, therefore, what he actually looked like is a moot question. There is not even a written description of his appearance. A rather stilted and stylized engraving of Shakespeare appears in the First Folio, published after his death. It was claimed to be a fair likeness by those who knew the man. A painted carving of Shakespeare made years after his death adorns the monument for him in Stratford. It depicts an older man, balding and bearded. It can probably be taken as a reasonable representation. Over the centuries many portraits have surfaced claiming to be of Shakespeare and painted from life. A few might be, but this is wishful thinking and, alas, they are more likely to be portraits of other subjects.
Owing to the paucity of real knowledge about his private life, there have been persistent suspicions that William Shakespeare did not exist as we know him and that he was not the author of his plays. Several theories have been offered, that Shakespeare wrote in collaboration, that his name was merely a nom de plume for someone else or some group of authors, or that he was conduit for plays written by someone else. Francis Bacon and Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford have been the two most commonly cited as possible authors of Shakespeare’s plays. There is intriguing evidence to fuel all these theories, and Shakespeare critics have included many prominent actors and great and thoughtful men. Nevertheless, the preponderance of evidence suggests that the man from Stratford-on-Avon was the sole author of the Shakespeare canon. Existent writings of Bacon and de Vere do not resemble Shakespeare’s writing at all. De Vere was dead while Shakespeare was still turning out plays. Even if there is sparse evidence of his existence, contemporary figures, such as playwright Ben Jonson knew and spoke of the playwright Shakespeare. And recent computer analysis of the plays concludes that they were the product of a single author and not the result of a group project. The explanation for Shakespeare’s prolific output, his facility with language, his knowledge of history and mythology, his scholarship unhindered by a lack of formal education, his wisdom and humanity, and his profound understanding of human character can partly be explained by an obvious fact — the man was a genius.
When Shakespeare began writing plays is uncertain, probably in the early 1590s or before, but his early work did achieve considerable recognition. He was considered something of an upstart, though, for he was an outsider and a marginally educated man, unlike, for instance, his contemporary and rival Christopher Marlowe who graduated from Cambridge University. It is not known what acting company first performed Shakespeare’s plays, perhaps several did. But after 1594 the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, the leading company in London, were the exclusive producers of his plays. Will Shakespeare was part owner of the company and although its leading player was Richard Burbage, Shakespeare was also one of its actors. (What roles in his own plays Shakespeare might have assumed is a matter of conjecture). After the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, the company, now under the patronage of King James I, was renamed The King’s Men. Its most famous acting venue was The Globe Theatre, built on the south bank of the Thames in 1599. (The Globe burned down in 1613, was rebuilt, but closed in 1642 by Puritans who regarded the stage as sinful. In 1997 a replica of the theater, constructed near the original location, opened. The campaign to achieve this restoration had been spearheaded not by the English acting establishment, but, curiously, by Chicago-born actor Sam Wanamaker, who, unfortunately, died before his dream came to full fruition.)
At the beginning of his career Will Shakespeare probably collaborated with other playwrights; his plays were no doubt revised by other hands. Titus Andronicus, a tragedy set in ancient Rome, one of his earliest plays, was likely a result of such collaboration. Conforming with the prevailing fashion on the stage, Shakespeare wrote a series of histories chronicling the reigns of past English kings, such as Richard III, Henry VI, Richard II, Henry V and others. He seemed to have cribbed most of his historical information from a single volume of history. (We know this because he replicated the mistakes found there). Early works also included comedies, a genre he would develop throughout the decade of the ‘90s. There was A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with a cast of bucolic fairies, including the mischievous sprite Puck, The Merchant of Venice with woman-lawyer Portia and Jewish moneylender Shylock, As You Like It and Twelfth Night, which both involved women impersonating men. (It might be noted that women did not appear as performers on the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage. Female parts were always assumed by men or boys).
By the end of the 16th Century Shakespeare was composing his greatest masterpieces. There was Julius Caesar, a study of character and society, much more than a dry retelling of history, and Romeo and Juliet, a tragic tale of adolescent romance in medieval Italy. But Shakespeare is hailed most for the four tragedies written in the first decade of the 17th Century, Hamlet, a prince of Denmark who is torn by indecision whether or not he should avenge the murder of his father, Othello, a Moor (Black) driven to become jealous of his faithful wife Desdemona, King Lear, about an aged king who disastrously tries to apportion his kingdom among his daughters, and MacBeth, a medieval noble egged on by his wife to seize the Scottish throne by murdering the king. Also in his late period Shakespeare returned to ancient Roman history with Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus, and penned the tragi-comedies Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest, as well as working on a few lesser known plays, probably in collaboration with John Fletcher, who would take his place as the company’s chief playwright.
In all, William Shakespeare, over a period of about 25 years, wrote 38 plays, most of them still well-known to the modern public, and many considered classics, if not possessing greatness. The order in which they are written cannot be definitely determined. Many of the plays were printed in his lifetime, some of them with dialogue garbled, revised, even reconstructed from memory, surely none authorized by the playwright. Shakespeare could not have expected that his plays would be preserved for posterity. But in 1623, years after Shakespeare’s death, two members of The King’s Men paid great tribute to their friend and playwright, and took it upon themselves to publish a definitive edition of 36 of his plays, in what is known as the First Folio. A folio book is made from a large sheet of paper folded once, a format used for books of importance. Earlier additions of Shakespeare’s plays were in the cheaper quarto form, made with paper that is folded twice. The First Folio was 12 1/2 inches high. No more than 750 out of an original 1000 printed are existent today. Later, other folio additions appeared.
William Shakespeare is renown as well for his poetical works, When the theaters in London were closed down owing to the plague in 1593 and 1594, Shakespeare wrote and published Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. These were modeled on the poem Metamorphoses written by the Roman poet Ovid, first published in 8 AD. These poems, as well as Shakespeare’s plays, reveal how strongly he and other authors of his time were inspired and influenced by the literature of ancient Greece and Rome. During his life Shakespeare composed a large number of sonnets. (The sonnet is a poetical form that originated in Italy during the Renaissance. The English sonnet consists of 14 lines, usually with 10 syllables per line). Shakespeare shared his poetry only among his friends, but late in life, in 1609, he published a collection of 154 sonnets. They, like his other poems, were well received by the public and several of his sonnets are remembered today; for example Sonnet 18 “Shall I compare thee to a summer day?”
It is assumed that during his career as a playwright Shakespeare took breaks from his sojourn in London to return to Stratford to spend time with his family. A relatively wealthy man, he lived there in the town’s second largest house. He wrote his last important plays in 1612 or so, and it is thought that after that he went into a kind of semi-retirement. He died at the age of 56 on April 23, 1616. The circumstances of his death are not known, but it is reported that he was in good health up until the end. He was buried in the Holy Trinity Church on Stratford. A memorial for him was later established in the Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey in London.
As is not uncommon with great men, William Shakespeare has no living descendants. His daughter Susanna married a physician named John Hall and his other daughter Judith wed a vintner named Thomas Quiney. Susanna Hall had a daughter who married twice, but had no children. Judith Quiney had three children, but none of them married.
That Shakespeare had a profound effect upon dramaturgy would be a gross understatement. His plays have had an impact not only upon the English stage and upon English literature, but upon the theater in practically every country. So many lines from his plays, so many expressions that he employed have found their way into the English lexicon. Many speeches from his plays are in the public memory — Hamlet’s soliloquy, Marc Antony’s funeral oration, Portia’s “The quality of mercy is not strained, “All the world’s a stage,” “This England,” and so forth. Although the language of his plays is for the most part quite formal, as well as poetic, Shakespeare exerted significant influence upon the development of modern English.
Thought well of in his lifetime, Shakespeare fell into some disfavor during the late 17th and 18th Centuries. However, he had his notable champions: John Dryden, who was made English poet laureate in 1688, Dr. Samuel Johnson, whose 1755 dictionary quoted him more than any other author, the French philosopher Voltaire, and the great German writer Johanne von Goethe. In the 19th Century Shakespeares’ stock rose. Major literary figures such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Carlyle, the Romantic poets, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, and many others were inspired by him. The public embraced him even as new playwrights such as Ibsen, Shaw, and others redefined the theater. Into the 21st Century, William Shakespeare retains a god-like stature and, more than that, his plays continue to be performed (and quoted), as well as made into popular movies.
No portrait or drawing of Shakespeare was made during his lifetime and, therefore, what he actually looked like is a moot question. There is not even a written description of his appearance. A rather stilted and stylized engraving of Shakespeare appears in the First Folio, published after his death. It was claimed to be a fair likeness by those who knew the man. A painted carving of Shakespeare made years after his death adorns the monument for him in Stratford. It depicts an older man, balding and bearded. It can probably be taken as a reasonable representation. Over the centuries many portraits have surfaced claiming to be of Shakespeare and painted from life. A few might be, but this is wishful thinking and, alas, they are more likely to be portraits of other subjects.
Owing to the paucity of real knowledge about his private life, there have been persistent suspicions that William Shakespeare did not exist as we know him and that he was not the author of his plays. Several theories have been offered, that Shakespeare wrote in collaboration, that his name was merely a nom de plume for someone else or some group of authors, or that he was conduit for plays written by someone else. Francis Bacon and Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford have been the two most commonly cited as possible authors of Shakespeare’s plays. There is intriguing evidence to fuel all these theories, and Shakespeare critics have included many prominent actors and great and thoughtful men. Nevertheless, the preponderance of evidence suggests that the man from Stratford-on-Avon was the sole author of the Shakespeare canon. Existent writings of Bacon and de Vere do not resemble Shakespeare’s writing at all. De Vere was dead while Shakespeare was still turning out plays. Even if there is sparse evidence of his existence, contemporary figures, such as playwright Ben Jonson knew and spoke of the playwright Shakespeare. And recent computer analysis of the plays concludes that they were the product of a single author and not the result of a group project. The explanation for Shakespeare’s prolific output, his facility with language, his knowledge of history and mythology, his scholarship unhindered by a lack of formal education, his wisdom and humanity, and his profound understanding of human character can partly be explained by an obvious fact — the man was a genius.
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