Shakespeare’s literary achievement is not confined to his mastery of the poetic and dramatic form; his ability to capture and convey the most profound aspects of human nature is considered by many scholars to be unequalled, due to his understanding of the range and depth of human emotions. A colossal figure in world literature, Shakespeare’s legacy and influence continues to be felt in all parts of the globe. He has been translated into every major living language, and his plays are continually performed all around the world. Shakespeare was among the very few playwrights who have excelled in both tragedy and comedy.
Shakespeare wrote his works between 1588 and 1616, although the exact dates and chronology of the plays attributed to him are often uncertain. His prolific output is especially impressive in light of the fact that he lived only 52 years.
Shakespeare’s influence on the English-speaking world shows in the widespread use of quotations from Shakespearean plays the titles of works based on Shakespearean phrases, and the many adaptations of his.
Biography
Most historians agree that William Shakespeare1—actor, playwright and poet—was one individual whose life can be clearly mapped out through the study of considerable historical evidence.
Shakespeare was born in
Stratford-upon-Avon, England, in April 1564, the son of John Shakespeare, a glove-maker, and of Mary Arden, a gentry daughter. His baptismal record dates to April 26 of that year. Because baptisms were performed within a few days of birth, tradition has settled on April 23 as his birthday. It provides a convenient symmetry: he died on that day in 1616, and, perhaps appropriately for a playwright commonly considered to be
England’s greatest, it is also the Feast Day of
Saint George, patron saint of
England.
The house in
Stratford known as ‘Shakespeare’s Birthplace’ (although this status is uncertain). It is claimed that the poet was born in the room with the checked windows.
Shakespeare’s father, prosperous at the time of William’s birth, was prosecuted for participating in the
black market in wool, and later lost his position as an alderman. Some evidence exists that both sides of the family had Roman Catholic sympathies.
As the son of a prominent town official, William Shakespeare probably attended the
Stratford grammar school, which may have provided an intensive
education in Latin grammar and literature. The quality of Elizabethian era grammar schools was uneven. It is presumed that the young Shakespeare attended this school, since he was entitled to, although this cannot be confirmed because the school’s records have not survived. There is no evidence that his formal education extended beyond grammar school.
Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior, on November 28, 1582 at
Temple Grafton, near
Stratford. Two neighbors of Anne, Fulk Sandalls and John Richardson, posted bond that there were no impediments to the marriage. There appears to have been some haste in arranging the ceremony: Anne was three months pregnant. After his marriage, William Shakespeare left few traces in the historical record until he appeared on the
London literary scene.
On May 26, 1583 Shakespeare’s first child, Susanna, was baptised at
Stratford. A son, Hamnet, and a daughter, Judith, were baptized soon after on February 2, 1585.
By 1592 Shakespeare had enough of a reputation for Robert Greene to denounce him as “an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey.” (The italicised line parodies the phrase, “Oh, tiger’s heart wrapped in a woman’s hide” which Shakespeare used in Henry VI, part 3.)
In 1596 Hamnet died; he was buried on August 11, 1596. Because of the similarities of their names, some suspect that his death was part of the inspiration behind The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (c.1601), a reworking of an older, lost play.
By 1598 Shakespeare had moved to the parish of St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate, and appeared at the top of a list of actors in Every man in his Humour written by Ben Jonson.
Shakespeare’s signature, from his will
Shakespeare became an actor, writer and finally part-owner of a playing company, known as The Lord Chamberlain’s Men — the company took its name, like others of the period, from its aristocratic sponsor, the Lord Chamberlain. The group became popular enough that after the death of Elizabeth I and the coronation of James I (1603), the new monarch adopted the company and it became known as the King’s Men.
In 1604, Shakespeare acted as a
matchmaker for his landlord’s daughter.
Legal documents from 1612, when the case was brought to trial, show that in 1604, Shakespeare was a tenant of Christopher Mountjoy, a Huguenot tire-maker (a maker of ornamental headdresses) in the northwest of
London. Mountjoy’s apprentice Stephen Belott wanted to marry Mountjoy’s daughter. Shakespeare was enlisted as a go-between, to help negotiate the details of the dowry. On Shakespeare’s assurances, the couple married. Eight years later, Belott sued his father-in-law for delivering only part of the dowry. Shakespeare was called to testify, but remembered little of the circumstances.
New Place, Stratford-on-Avon, built on the site of Shakespeare’s home
Various documents recording legal affairs and commercial transactions show that Shakespeare grew rich enough during his stay in
London years to buy a property in Blackfriars,
London and own the second-largest house in
Stratford,
New Place.
In 1609 his sonnets were published, love poems variously addressed: most to a youth (or ‘fair lord’); the remainder to a ‘dark lady’. Some regard the former set as being homoerotic, but that characterization remains in debate.
Shakespeare retired in about 1611. His retirement was not entirely without controversy. He was drawn into a legal quarrel regarding the enclosure of common lands. (Enclosure enabled land to be converted to pasture for sheep, but removed it as a resource for the poor.) Shakespeare had a financial interest in the land, and to the chagrin of some, he took a neutral position, making sure only that his own income from the land was protected.
In the last few weeks of Shakespeare’s life, the man who was to marry his younger daughter Judith – a tavern-keeper named Thomas Quiney – was charged in the local church court with “fornication.” A woman named Margaret
Wheeler had given birth to a child and claimed it was Quiney’s; she and the child both died soon after. Quiney was disgraced, and Shakespeare revised his will to ensure that Judith’s interest in his estate was protected from possible malfeasance on Quiney’s part.
Shakespeare died in 1616, on April 23. He remained married to Anne until his death and was survived by his two daughters Susannah and Judith. Susannah married Dr John Hall, and later became the subject of a
court case.
Shakespeare is buried in the chancel of
Holy in Stratford-upon-Avon. He was granted the honor of burial in the chancel not on account of his fame as a playwright, but for purchasing a share of the tithe of the church for £440 (a considerable sum of money at the time). A bust of him placed by his family on the wall nearest his grave shows him posed as writing. Each year on his claimed birthday, a new quill pen is placed in the writing hand of the bust. It was common in his time for graves in the chancel of the church to later be emptied with the contents removed to a nearby charnel house as room in the chancel was required. As a result, his grave carries a well-known epitaph:
Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear, Trinity Church
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
But cursed be he that moves my bones.
Popular legend claims that unpublished works by Shakespeare may lie inside his tomb, but no-one has ever verified these claims, perhaps for fear of the curse included in the quoted epitaph.
Works
Canonical works
The plays and their categories
Shakespeare’s plays first appeared in print as a series of folios and quartos, and scholars, actors and directors continue to study and perform them extensively. They form an established part of the Western canon of literature.
The plays are traditionally divided into tragedies, comedies and histories, following the logic of the original publications; however, modern criticism has labelled some of them “problem plays” as they elude easy categorization, or perhaps purposefully break generic conventions. In addition, Shakespeare’s later comedies are commonly known as “romances”.
The following list gives the plays in the order and categorization of the 1623 First Folio (the first collected edition of the plays). A single asterisk indicates a play commonly classified as a ‘romance’ today; two asterisks indicates those generally accepted as ‘problem plays’ – though other comedies still occasion critical dispute. To see the plays in the order in which they were written, see Chronology of Shakespeare plays.
Comedies
The Tempest *
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Measure for Measure **
The Comedy of Errors
Much Ado About Nothing
Love’s Labour’s Lost
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The Merchant of Venice **
As You Like It
Taming of the Shrew
All’s Well That Ends Well
Twelfth Night or What You Will
The Winter’s Tale *
Pericles, Prince of Tyre * (not included in the First Folio)
The Two Noble Kinsmen * (not included in the First Folio)
Histories
King John
Richard II
Henry IV, part 1
Henry IV, part 2
Henry V
Henry VI, part 1
Henry VI, part 2
Henry VI, part 3
Richard III
Henry VIII
Tragedies
Troilus and Cressida **
Coriolanus
Titus Andronicus
Romeo and Juliet
Timon of Athens
Julius Caesar
Macbeth
Hamlet
King Lear
Othello
Antony and Cleopatra
Cymbeline * (normally classed as a comedy today)
Dramatic collaborations
Like most playwrights of his period, Shakespeare did not always write alone and a number of his plays were collaborative, although the exact number is open to debate. Some of the following attributions, such as for The Two Noble Kinsmen, have well-attested contemporary documentation; others, such as for Titus Andronicus, remain more controversial, and are dependant on linguistic analysis by modern scholars.
Cardenio, a lost play; contemporary reports say that Shakespeare collaborated on it with John Fletcher.
Henry VI, part 1, possibly the work of a team of playwrights, whose identities we can only guess at. Some scholars argue that Shakespeare wrote less than 20% of the text.
Henry VIII, generally considered a collaboration between Shakespeare and John Fletcher.
Macbeth: Thomas Middleton may have revised this tragedy in 1615 to incorporate extra musical sequences.
Measure for Measure may have undergone a light revision by Thomas Middleton at some point after its original composition.
Pericles Prince of Tyre may include the work of George Wilkins, either as collaborator, reviser, or revisee.
Timon of Athens may result from collaboration between Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton; this might explain its incoherent plot and unusually cynical tone.
Titus Andronicus may be a collaboration with, or revision of, George Peele.
The Two Noble Kinsmen, published in quarto in 1654 and attributed to John Fletcher and William Shakespeare; each playwright appears to have written about half of the text.
Lost plays by Shakespeare
Love’s Labour’s Won A late sixteenth-century writer, Francis Meres, and a scrap of paper (apparently from a bookseller), both list this title among Shakespeare’s recent works, but no play of this title has survived. It may have become lost, or it may represent an alternate title of one of the plays listed above, such as Much Ado About Nothing or All’s Well That Ends Well.
Cardenio, a late play by Shakespeare and Fletcher, referred to in several documents, has not survived. It re-worked a tale in Cervantes’ Don Quixote. In 1727, Lewis Theobald produced a play he called Double Falshood, which he claimed to have adapted from three manuscripts of a lost play by Shakespeare that he did not name. Double Falshood does re-work the Cardenio story, and modern scholarship generally agrees that Double Falshood represents all we have of the lost play.
Poems
Shakespeare’s other literary works include:
Shakespeare’s Sonnets.
Longer poems:
Venus and Adonis
The Rape of Lucrece
The Passionate Pilgrim
The
Phoenix and the Turtle
