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Shakespeare,
William |
I.
Introduction
Shakespeare,
William (1564-1616), English playwright and poet, recognized in
much of the world as the greatest of all dramatists. Shakespeare's plays
communicate a profound knowledge of the wellsprings of human behavior,
revealed through portrayals of a wide variety of characters. His use of
poetic and dramatic means to create a unified aesthetic effect out of a
multiplicity of vocal expressions and actions is recognized as a
singular achievement, and his use of poetry within his plays to express
the deepest levels of human motivation in individual, social, and
universal situations is considered one of the greatest accomplishments
in literary history.
II.
Life
A
complete, authoritative account of Shakespeare's life is lacking, and
thus much supposition surrounds relatively few facts. It is commonly
accepted that he was born in 1564, and it is known that he was baptized
in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. The third of eight children, he
was probably educated at the local grammar school. As the eldest son,
Shakespeare ordinarily would have been apprenticed to his father's shop
so that he could learn and eventually take over the business, but
according to one account he was apprenticed to a butcher because of
declines in his father's financial situation. According to another
account, he became a schoolmaster. In 1582 Shakespeare married Anne
Hathaway, the daughter of a farmer. He is supposed to have left
Stratford after he was caught poaching in the deer park of Sir Thomas
Lucy, a local justice of the peace. Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway had a
daughter, Susanna, in 1583 and twins—Hamnet and Judith—in 1585.
Hamnet did not survive childhood.
Shakespeare
apparently arrived in London about 1588 and by 1592 had attained success
as an actor and a playwright. Shortly thereafter he secured the
patronage of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd earl of Southampton. The publication
of Shakespeare's two fashionably erotic narrative poems Venus and
Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594) and of his Sonnets
(published 1609, but circulated previously in manuscript form)
established his reputation as a gifted and popular poet of the
Renaissance (14th century to 17th century). The Sonnets describe
the devotion of a character, often identified as the poet himself, to a
young man whose beauty and virtue he praises and to a mysterious and
faithless dark lady with whom the poet is infatuated. The ensuing
triangular situation, resulting from the attraction of the poet's friend
to the dark lady, is treated with passionate intensity and psychological
insight. Shakespeare's modern reputation, however, is based primarily on
the 38 plays that he apparently wrote, modified, or collaborated on.
Although generally popular in his time, these plays were frequently
little esteemed by his educated contemporaries, who considered English
plays of their own day to be only vulgar entertainment.
Shakespeare's
professional life in London was marked by a number of financially
advantageous arrangements that permitted him to share in the profits of
his acting company, the Chamberlain's Men, later called the King's Men,
and its two theaters, the Globe Theatre and the Blackfriars. His plays
were given special presentation at the courts of Queen Elizabeth I and
King James I more frequently than those of any other contemporary
dramatist. It is known that he risked losing royal favor only once, in
1599, when his company performed “the play of the deposing and killing
of King Richard II“ at the request of a group of conspirators against
Elizabeth. In the subsequent inquiry, Shakespeare's company was absolved
of complicity in the conspiracy.
After
about 1608, Shakespeare's dramatic production lessened and it seems that
he spent more time in Stratford, where he had established his family in
an imposing house called New Place and had become a leading local
citizen. He died in 1616, and was buried in the Stratford church.
III.
Works
Although
the precise date of many of Shakespeare's plays is in doubt, his
dramatic career is generally divided into four periods: (1) the period
up to 1594, (2) the years from 1594 to 1600, (3) the years from 1600 to
1608, and (4) the period after 1608. Because of the difficulty of dating
Shakespeare's plays and the lack of conclusive facts about his writings,
these dates are approximate and can be used only as a convenient
framework in which to discuss his development. In all periods, the plots
of his plays were frequently drawn from chronicles, histories, or
earlier fiction, as were the plays of other contemporary dramatists.
A.
First Period
Shakespeare's
first period was one of experimentation. His early plays, unlike his
more mature work, are characterized to a degree by formal and rather
obvious construction and by stylized verse.
Chronicle
history plays were a popular genre of the time, and four plays
dramatizing the English civil strife of the 15th century are possibly
Shakespeare's earliest dramatic works (see England: The
Lancastrian and Yorkist Kings). These plays, Henry VI, Parts I,
II, and III (1590?-1592?) and Richard III
(1592-1593?), deal with evil resulting from weak leadership and from
national disunity fostered for selfish ends. The four-play cycle closes
with the death of Richard III and the ascent to the throne of Henry VII,
the founder of the Tudor dynasty, to which Elizabeth belonged. In style
and structure, these plays are related partly to medieval drama and
partly to the works of earlier Elizabethan dramatists, especially
Christopher Marlowe. Either indirectly (through such dramatists) or
directly, the influence of the classical Roman dramatist Seneca is also
reflected in the organization of these four plays, especially in the
bloodiness of many of their scenes and in their highly colored,
bombastic language. The influence of Seneca, exerted by way of the
earlier English dramatist Thomas Kyd, is particularly obvious in Titus
Andronicus (1594?), a tragedy of righteous revenge for heinous and
bloody acts, which are staged in sensational detail.
Shakespeare's
comedies of the first period represent a wide range. The Comedy of
Errors (1592?), a farce in imitation of classical Roman comedy,
depends for its appeal on mistaken identities in two sets of twins
involved in romance and war. Farce is not as strongly emphasized in The
Taming of the Shrew (1593?), a comedy of character. The Two
Gentlemen of Verona (1594?) concerns romantic love. Love's
Labour's Lost (1594?) satirizes the loves of its main male
characters as well as the fashionable devotion to studious pursuits by
which these noblemen had first sought to avoid romantic and worldly
ensnarement. The dialogue in which many of the characters voice their
pretensions ridicules the artificially ornate, courtly style typified by
the works of English novelist and dramatist John Lyly, the court
conventions of the time, and perhaps the scientific discussions of Sir
Walter Raleigh and his colleagues.
B.
Second Period
Shakespeare's
second period includes his most important plays concerned with English
history, his so-called joyous comedies, and two of his major tragedies.
In this period, his style and approach became highly individualized. The
second-period historical plays include Richard II (1595?),
Henry IV, Parts I and II (1597?), and Henry V (1598?).
They encompass the years immediately before those portrayed in the Henry
VI plays. Richard II is a study of a weak, sensitive,
self-dramatizing but sympathetic monarch who loses his kingdom to his
forceful successor, Henry IV. In the two parts of Henry IV, Henry
recognizes his own guilt. His fears for his own son, later Henry V,
prove unfounded, as the young prince displays a responsible attitude
toward the duties of kingship. In an alternation of masterful comic and
serious scenes, the fat knight Falstaff and the rebel Hotspur reveal
contrasting excesses between which the prince finds his proper position.
The mingling of the tragic and the comic to suggest a broad range of
humanity subsequently became one of Shakespeare's favorite devices.
Outstanding
among the comedies of the second period is A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595?), which interweaves several plots involving two pairs of noble
lovers, a group of bumbling and unconsciously comic townspeople, and
members of the fairy realm, notably Puck, King Oberon, and Queen
Titania. Subtle evocation of atmosphere, of the sort that characterizes
this play, is also found in the tragicomedy The Merchant of Venice
(1596?). In this play, the Renaissance motifs of masculine friendship
and romantic love are portrayed in opposition to the bitter inhumanity
of a usurer named Shylock, whose own misfortunes are presented so as to
arouse understanding and sympathy. The character of the quick-witted,
warm, and responsive young woman, exemplified in this play by Portia,
reappears in the joyous comedies of the second period.
The
witty comedy Much Ado About Nothing (1599?) is marred, in the
opinion of some critics, by an insensitive treatment of its female
characters. However, Shakespeare's most mature comedies, As You Like
It (1599?) and Twelfth Night (1600?), are characterized by
lyricism, ambiguity, and beautiful, charming, and strong-minded
heroines. In As You Like It, the contrast between the manners of
the Elizabethan court and those current in the English countryside is
drawn in a rich and varied vein. Shakespeare constructed a complex
orchestration between different characters and between appearance and
reality and used this pattern to comment on a variety of human foibles.
In that respect, As You Like It is similar to Twelfth Night,
in which the comical side of love is illustrated by the misadventures of
two pairs of romantic lovers and of a number of realistically conceived
and clowning characters in the subplot. Another comedy of the second
period is The Merry Wives of Windsor (1599?), a farce about
middle-class life in which Falstaff reappears as the comic victim.
Two
major tragedies, differing considerably in nature, mark the beginning
and the end of the second period. Romeo and Juliet (1595?),
famous for its poetic treatment of the ecstasy of youthful love,
dramatizes the fate of two lovers victimized by the feuds and
misunderstandings of their elders and by their own hasty temperaments. Julius
Caesar (1599?), on the other hand, is a serious tragedy of political
rivalries, but is less intense in style than the tragic dramas that
followed it.
C.
Third Period
Shakespeare's
third period includes his greatest tragedies and his so-called dark or
bitter comedies. The tragedies of this period are considered the most
profound of his works. In them he used his poetic idiom as an extremely
supple dramatic instrument, capable of recording human thought and the
many dimensions of given dramatic situations. Hamlet (1601?),
perhaps his most famous play, exceeds by far most other tragedies of
revenge in picturing the mingled sordidness and glory of the human
condition. Hamlet feels that he is living in a world of horror.
Confirmed in this feeling by the murder of his father and the sensuality
of his mother, he exhibits tendencies toward both crippling indecision
and precipitous action. Interpretation of his motivation and ambivalence
continues to be a subject of considerable controversy.
Othello
(1604?) portrays the growth of unjustified jealousy in the protagonist,
Othello, a Moor serving as a general in the Venetian army. The innocent
object of his jealousy is his wife, Desdemona. In this tragedy,
Othello's evil lieutenant Iago draws him into mistaken jealousy in order
to ruin him. King Lear (1605?), conceived on a more epic scale,
deals with the consequences of the irresponsibility and misjudgment of
Lear, a ruler of early Britain, and of his councillor, the Duke of
Gloucester. The tragic outcome is a result of their giving power to
their evil children, rather than to their good children. Lear's daughter
Cordelia displays a redeeming love that makes the tragic conclusion a
vindication of goodness. This conclusion is reinforced by the portrayal
of evil as self-defeating, as exemplified by the fates of Cordelia's
sisters and of Gloucester's opportunistic son. Antony and Cleopatra
(1606?) is concerned with a different type of love, namely the
middle-aged passion of Roman general Mark Antony for Egyptian queen
Cleopatra. Their love is glorified by some of Shakespeare's most
sensuous poetry. In Macbeth (1606?), Shakespeare depicts the
tragedy of a man who, led on by others and because of a defect in his
own nature, succumbs to ambition. In securing the Scottish throne,
Macbeth dulls his humanity to the point where he becomes capable of any
amoral act.
Unlike
these tragedies, three other plays of this period suggest a bitterness
stemming from the protagonists' apparent lack of greatness or tragic
stature. In Troilus and Cressida (1602?), the most intellectually
contrived of Shakespeare's plays, the gulf between the ideal and the
real, both individual and political, is skillfully evoked. In Coriolanus
(1608?), another tragedy set in antiquity, the legendary Roman hero
Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus is portrayed as unable to bring himself either
to woo the Roman masses or to crush them by force. Timon of Athens
(1608?) is a similarly bitter play about a character reduced to
misanthropy by the ingratitude of his sycophants. Because of the uneven
quality of the writing, this tragedy is considered a collaboration,
quite possibly with English dramatist Thomas Middleton.
The
two comedies of this period are also dark in mood and are sometimes
called problem plays because they do not fit into clear categories or
present easy resolution. All's Well That Ends Well (1602?) and Measure
for Measure (1604?) both question accepted patterns of morality
without offering solutions.
D.
Fourth Period
The
fourth period of Shakespeare's work includes his principal romantic
tragicomedies. Toward the end of his career, Shakespeare created several
plays that, through the intervention of magic, art, compassion, or
grace, often suggest redemptive hope for the human condition. These
plays are written with a grave quality differing considerably from
Shakespeare's earlier comedies, but they end happily with reunions or
final reconciliations. The tragicomedies depend for part of their appeal
upon the lure of a distant time or place, and all seem more obviously
symbolic than most of Shakespeare's earlier works. To many critics, the
tragicomedies signify a final ripeness in Shakespeare's own outlook, but
other authorities believe that the change reflects only a change in
fashion in the drama of the period.
The
romantic tragicomedy Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1608?) concerns
the painful loss of the title character's wife and the persecution of
his daughter. After many exotic adventures, Pericles is reunited with
his loved ones.In Cymbeline (1610?) and The Winter's Tale
(1610?), characters suffer great loss and pain but are reunited. Perhaps
the most successful product of this particular vein of creativity,
however, is what may be Shakespeare's last complete play, The Tempest
(1611?), in which the resolution suggests the beneficial effects of the
union of wisdom and power. In this play a duke, deprived of his dukedom
and banished to an island, confounds his usurping brother by employing
magical powers and furthering a love match between his daughter and the
usurper's son. Shakespeare's poetic power reached great heights in this
beautiful, lyrical play.
Two
final plays, sometimes ascribed to Shakespeare, presumably are the
products of collaboration. A historical drama, Henry VIII (1613?)
was probably written with English dramatist John Fletcher (see Beaumont
and Fletcher), as was The Two Noble Kinsmen (1613?; published
1634), a story of the love of two friends for one woman.
E.
Literary Reputation
Until
the 18th century, Shakespeare was generally thought to have been no more
than a rough and untutored genius. Theories were advanced that his plays
had actually been written by someone more educated, perhaps statesman
and philosopher Sir Francis Bacon or the earl of Southampton, who was
Shakespeare's patron. However, he was celebrated in his own time by
English writer Ben Jonson and others who saw in him a brilliance that
would endure. Since the 19th century, Shakespeare's achievements have
been more consistently recognized, and throughout the Western world he
has come to be regarded as the greatest dramatist ever.
Contributed
By:
A. Kent Hieatt, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of English, University of Western Ontario. Author of Chaucer,
Spenser, Milton: Mythopoeic Continuities and Transformations.
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