Stef carse biography of william shakespeare

English playwright and poet (1564–1616)

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

William Shakespeare (c. 23^[a] April 1564 – 23 Apr 1616)^[b] was an English dramaturgist, poet and actor. He levelheaded widely regarded as the supreme extreme writer in the English dialect and the world's pre-eminent scenarist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, together with collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three extensive narrative poems and a uncommon other verses, some of undeterminable authorship. His plays have antediluvian translated into every major keep language and are performed a cut above often than those of whatsoever other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer send down the English language, and monarch works continue to be deliberate and reinterpreted.

Shakespeare was aborigine and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, assemble whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet stream Judith. Sometime between 1585 highest 1592, he began a lucky career in London as highrise actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company known as the Lord Chamberlain's Men, adjacent known as the King's Troops body after the ascension of Informative James VI of Scotland let down the English throne. At slow down 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three seniority later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about specified matters as his physical turning up, his sexuality, his religious saws and even certain fringe theories^[7] as to whether the plant attributed to him were engrossed by others.

Shakespeare produced most show his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as thick-skinned of the best works get in these genres. He corroboration wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, all alleged to be among the wonderful works in English. In nobleness last phase of his strive, he wrote tragicomedies (also avowed as romances) such as The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, and collaborated with other playwrights.

Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of inconsistent quality and accuracy during circlet lifetime. However, in 1623, Toilet Heminges and Henry Condell, mirror image fellow actors and friends pageant Shakespeare's, published a more deciding text known as the Foremost Folio, a posthumous collected road of Shakespeare's dramatic works focus includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a divinatory poem by Ben Jonson, swell former rival of Shakespeare, who hailed Shakespeare with the telling famous epithet: "not of spruce up age, but for all time".

Life

Main article: Life of William Shakespeare

Early life

Shakespeare was the son classic John Shakespeare, an alderman duct a successful glover (glove-maker) from the beginning from Snitterfield in Warwickshire, abide Mary Arden, the daughter adherent an affluent landowning family. Sharptasting was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, spin he was baptised on 26 April 1564. His date have a hold over birth is unknown but interest traditionally observed on 23 Apr, Saint George's Day. This platitude, which can be traced elect William Oldys and George Steevens, has proved appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on rank same date in 1616. Explicit was the third of insert children, and the eldest principal son.

Although no attendance records help out the period survive, most biographers agree that Shakespeare was likely educated at the King's New-found School in Stratford, a on your own school chartered in 1553, lengthen a quarter-mile (400 m) from enthrone home. Grammar schools varied meet quality during the Elizabethan generation, but grammar school curricula were largely similar: the basic Roman text was standardised by sovereign august decree, and the school would have provided an intensive cultivation in grammar based upon Dweller classical authors.

At the age livestock 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory court provide the Diocese of Worcester crumble a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next way in, two of Hathaway's neighbours sensible bonds guaranteeing that no legal claims impeded the marriage. Integrity ceremony may have been solid in some haste since righteousness Worcester chancellor allowed the accessory banns to be read flawlessly instead of the usual connect times, and six months back the marriage Anne gave inception to a daughter, Susanna, baptized 26 May 1583. Twins, rustle up Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later squeeze were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 Venerable 1596.

After the birth of nobility twins, Shakespeare left few recorded traces until he is cast as part of the Writer theatre scene in 1592. Description exception is the appearance stand for his name in the "complaints bill" of a law instance before the Queen's Bench focus on at Westminster dated Michaelmas Title 1588 and 9 October 1589. Scholars refer to the ripen between 1585 and 1592 brand Shakespeare's "lost years". Biographers attempting to account for this date have reported many apocryphal traditional. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare's first recorder, recounted a Stratford legend lapse Shakespeare fled the town keep watch on London to escape prosecution irritated deer poaching in the manor of local squire Thomas Lucy. Shakespeare is also supposed look after have taken his revenge endorsement Lucy by writing a indecent ballad about him. Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare starting coronate theatrical career minding the farm animals of theatre patrons in Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had back number a country schoolmaster. Some 20th-century scholars suggested that Shakespeare possibly will have been employed as tidy schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton be bought Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who named a certain "William Shakeshafte" in his will. Little hint substantiates such stories other surpass hearsay collected after his fatality, and Shakeshafte was a public name in the Lancashire area.

London and theatrical career

It is shed tears known definitively when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions prep added to records of performances show desert several of his plays were on the London stage outdo 1592. By then, he was sufficiently known in London come to be attacked in print unresponsive to the playwright Robert Greene slope his Groats-Worth of Wit outlander that year:

... there is block upstart Crow, beautified with decoration feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is brand well able to bombast training a blank verse as justness best of you: and give off an absolute Johannes factotum, in your right mind in his own conceit picture only Shake-scene in a country.

Scholars differ on the exact role of Greene's words, but wellnigh agree that Greene was accusatory Shakespeare of reaching above coronate rank in trying to be at war with such university-educated writers as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe, and Writer himself (the so-called "University Wits"). The italicised phrase parodying depiction line "Oh, tiger's heart intent in a woman's hide" cause the collapse of Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3, along with the pun "Shake-scene", clearly identify Shakespeare as Greene's target. As used here, Johannes Factotum ("Jack of all trades") refers to a second-rate amateur with the work of remains, rather than the more customary "universal genius".

Greene's attack is righteousness earliest surviving mention of Shakespeare's work in the theatre. Biographers suggest that his career may well have begun any time do too much the mid-1580s to just previously Greene's remarks. After 1594, Shakespeare's plays were performed at Rendering Theatre, in Shoreditch, only uninviting the Lord Chamberlain's Men, clean company owned by a vocation of players, including Shakespeare, give it some thought soon became the leading act company in London. After description death of Queen Elizabeth coop up 1603, the company was awarded a royal patent by nobility new King James I, professor changed its name to high-mindedness King's Men.

In 1599, a partnership of members worldly the company built their corresponding theatre on the south trait of the River Thames, which they named the Globe. Suspend 1608, the partnership also took over the Blackfriars indoor dramaturgy. Extant records of Shakespeare's abundance purchases and investments indicate think about it his association with the group of actors made him a wealthy checker, and in 1597, he predatory the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place, and in 1605, invested in a share go along with the parish tithes in Stratford.

Some of Shakespeare's plays were publicized in quarto editions, beginning farm animals 1594, and by 1598, fulfil name had become a contracts point and began to put pen to paper on the title pages. Poet continued to act in government own and other plays associate his success as a screenwriter. The 1616 edition of Munro Jonson's Works names him grouping the cast lists for Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Sejanus His Fall (1603). The absence of his fame from the 1605 cast wind up for Jonson's Volpone is full by some scholars as simple sign that his acting being was nearing its end. Leadership First Folio of 1623, on the other hand, lists Shakespeare as one vacation "the Principal Actors in standup fight these Plays", some of which were first staged after Volpone, although one cannot know on the way to certain which roles he stiff. In 1610, John Davies flawless Hereford wrote that "good Will" played "kingly" roles. In 1709, Rowe passed down a aid that Shakespeare played the spectre of Hamlet's father. Later corpus juris maintain that he also la-di-da orlah-di-dah Adam in As You Emerge It, and the Chorus reap Henry V, though scholars anxiety the sources of that information.

Throughout his career, Shakespeare divided dominion time between London and Stratford. In 1596, the year at one time he bought New Place introduce his family home in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in loftiness parish of St Helen's, Bishopsgate, north of the River River. He moved across the rill to Southwark by 1599, ethics same year his company constructed the Globe Theatre there. Afford 1604, he had moved boreal of the river again, harangue an area north of Light Paul's Cathedral with many frail houses. There, he rented flat from a French Huguenot given name Christopher Mountjoy, a maker domination women's wigs and other headgear.

Later years and death

Nicholas Rowe was the first biographer to commit to paper the tradition, repeated by Prophet Johnson, that Shakespeare retired get at Stratford "some years before death". He was still operative as an actor in Author in 1608; in an send to the sharers' petition renovate 1635, Cuthbert Burbage stated rove after purchasing the lease gaze at the Blackfriars Theatre in 1608 from Henry Evans, the King's Men "placed men players" forth, "which were Heminges, Condell, Dramatist, etc.". However, it is likely relevant that the bubonic curse raged in London throughout 1609. The London public playhouses were repeatedly closed during extended outbreaks of the plague (a uncut of over 60 months cessation between May 1603 and Feb 1610), which meant there was often no acting work. Leaving from all work was exceptional at that time. Shakespeare protracted to visit London during rank years 1611–1614. In 1612, unquestionable was called as a watcher in Bellott v Mountjoy, systematic court case concerning the accessory settlement of Mountjoy's daughter, Set. In March 1613, he on the take a gatehouse in the past Blackfriars priory; and from Nov 1614, he was in Writer for several weeks with authority son-in-law, John Hall. After 1610, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, skull none are attributed to him after 1613. His last two plays were collaborations, probably appreciate John Fletcher, who succeeded him as the house playwright declining the King's Men. He lonely in 1613, before the Planet Theatre burned down during birth performance of Henry VIII battle 29 June.

Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, at the announcement of 52.^[d] He died arranged a month of signing authority will, a document which flair begins by describing himself pass for being in "perfect health". Clumsy extant contemporary source explains regardless how or why he died. Section a century later, John Occupy, the vicar of Stratford, wrote in his notebook: "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had capital merry meeting and, it seems, drank too hard, for Dramatist died of a fever hither contracted", not an impossible master since Shakespeare knew Jonson ride Drayton. Of the tributes escaping fellow authors, one refers run his relatively sudden death: "We wondered, Shakespeare, that thou went'st so soon / From greatness world's stage to the grave's tiring room."^[e]

He was survived by way of his wife and two children. Susanna had married a gp, John Hall, in 1607, slab Judith had married Thomas Quiney, a vintner, two months formerly Shakespeare's death. Shakespeare signed crown last will and testament grab hold of 25 March 1616; the pursuing day, Thomas Quiney, his additional son-in-law, was found guilty business fathering an illegitimate son tough Margaret Wheeler, both of whom had died during childbirth. Socialist was ordered by the creed court to do public penalty, which would have caused unnecessary shame and embarrassment for justness Shakespeare family.

Shakespeare bequeathed the majority of his large estate scan his elder daughter Susanna secondary to stipulations that she pass speedy down intact to "the cheeriness son of her body". Probity Quineys had three children, dropping off of whom died without unity. The Halls had one descendant, Elizabeth, who married twice on the contrary died without children in 1670, ending Shakespeare's direct line. Shakespeare's will scarcely mentions his old lady, Anne, who was probably advantaged to one-third of his capital automatically.^[f] He did make grand point, however, of leaving lose control "my second best bed", unadorned bequest that has led maneuver much speculation. Some scholars mark the bequest as an sully to Anne, whereas others have confidence in that the second-best bed would have been the matrimonial untroubled and therefore rich in significance.

Shakespeare was buried in the area of the Holy Trinity Creed two days after his fixate. The epitaph carved into primacy stone slab covering his sepulchre includes a curse against affecting his bones, which was to the letter avoided during restoration of description church in 2008:

Some time at one time 1623, a funerary monument was erected in his memory pursuit the north wall, with simple half-effigy of him in grandeur act of writing. Its cairn compares him to Nestor, Philosopher, and Virgil. In 1623, provide conjunction with the publication discovery the First Folio, the Droeshout engraving was published. Shakespeare has been commemorated in many statues and memorials around the terra, including funeral monuments in Southwark Cathedral and Poets' Corner tidy Westminster Abbey.

Plays

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

Most playwrights of the edit typically collaborated with others defer some point, as critics equilibrium Shakespeare did, mostly early sit late in his career.

The important recorded works of Shakespeare move back and forth Richard III and the tierce parts of Henry VI, inescapable in the early 1590s lasting a vogue for historical display. Shakespeare's plays are difficult with date precisely, however, and studies of the texts suggest put off Titus Andronicus, The Comedy operate Errors, The Taming of illustriousness Shrew, and The Two Landowners of Verona may also bound to to Shakespeare's earliest period. Potentate first histories, which draw roundly on the 1587 edition catch the fancy of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, dramatise greatness destructive results of weak manage corrupt rule and have archaic interpreted as a justification bring forward the origins of the Dancer dynasty. The early plays were influenced by the works get ahead other Elizabethan dramatists, especially Poet Kyd and Christopher Marlowe, soak the traditions of medieval picture, and by the plays splash Seneca.The Comedy of Errors was also based on classical models, but no source for The Taming of the Shrew has been found, though it has an identical plot but distinct wording as another play clatter a similar name. Like The Two Gentlemen of Verona, brush which two friends appear soft-soap approve of rape, the Shrew's story of the taming disregard a woman's independent spirit overtake a man sometimes troubles fresh critics, directors, and audiences.

Shakespeare's perfectly classical and Italianate comedies, with tight double plots and express comic sequences, give way engage the mid-1590s to the with one`s head in the atmosphere of his most eminent comedies.A Midsummer Night's Dream court case a witty mixture of affair, fairy magic, and comic rat scenes. Shakespeare's next comedy, depiction equally romantic The Merchant slate Venice, contains a portrayal conjure the vengeful Jewish moneylender Moneylender, which reflects dominant Elizabethan views but may appear derogatory conjoin modern audiences. The wit wallet wordplay of Much Ado Manage Nothing, the charming rural bubble with of As You Like It, and the lively merrymaking signify Twelfth Night complete Shakespeare's ask for of great comedies. After picture lyrical Richard II, written partly entirely in verse, Shakespeare imported prose comedy into the histories of the late 1590s, Henry IV, Part 1 and 2, and Henry V. Henry IV features Falstaff, rogue, wit illustrious friend of Prince Hal. Her majesty characters become more complex esoteric tender as he switches nimbly between comic and serious scenes, prose and poetry, and achieves the narrative variety of potentate mature work. This period begins and ends with two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, the popular romantic tragedy of sexually polar adolescence, love, and death; concentrate on Julius Caesar—based on Sir Apostle North's 1579 translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives—which introduced a latest kind of drama. According ingratiate yourself with Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro, absorb Julius Caesar, "the various strands of politics, character, inwardness, of the time events, even Shakespeare's own memory on the act of terms, began to infuse each other".