FOREWORD

The following paper depicts the life and work of the greatest dramatist and finest poet that
England has ever had, William Shakespeare. His entire work can be considered as a masterpiece
which lasts for a lifetime.
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-Upon-Avon and lived in England during the
reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It was considered by the historians that those times were the peak of
English culture and they called it the Elizabethan Age.
The English playwright, poet, and actor William Shakespeare was a popular dramatist.
He was born six years after Queen Elizabeth I (15331603) ascended the throne, in the height of
the English Renaissance. He found in the theater of London a medium just coming into its own
and an audience eager to reward talents of the sort he possessed. He is generally acknowledged
to be the greatest of English writers and one of the most extraordinary creators in human history.
I, personally, chose to write about Shakespeare because I am attracted to English culture
and history. Throughout my journey of reading books, I discovered Sonnet 18 and then Romeo
and Juliet. That was the moment when I decided I had to read more Shakespeare.
The first chapter brings into light the life of William Shakespeare, the place where he was
born, his childhood, details about his family, his career, his marriage and his death.
The second chapter is the most important one because it is about Shakespeare s writing
activity. We can find out details about his poems, sonnets, dramas and plays.
In the last chapter, I tried to write some interesting facts that I discovered about William
Shakespeare. I hope you will enjoy them and maybe there are some new pieces of information
about him and about his work.

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.

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 The English playwright, poet, and actor William Shakespeare was a popular dramatist.
He was born six years after Queen Elizabeth I (15331603) ascended the throne, in the height of
the English Renaissance. He found in the theater of London a medium just coming into its own
and an audience eager to reward talents of the sort he possessed. He is generally acknowledged
to be the greatest of English writers and one of the most extraordinary creators in human history.
Records showed that Shakespeare apparently arrived in London and began his career as
an actor around 1588, within a few years, by 1592 he had attained success as an actor and
playwright. In 1594, he became a shareholder of his acting company, Lord Chamberlain's Men,
later called the King's Men for which he wrote many successful and popular plays, and in 1599,
he became a partner in the Globe Theatre and subsequently the Blackfriars Theatre. All these
financially advantageous arrangements secured his financial success and enabled him to enjoy
his large fortune during his lifetime.
There are no complete or authoritative records on the life of William Shakespeare, we
can only gather information on his life from public records such as tax registers, legal papers
etc., or references to his work in various letters and diaries of his day. To a certain extent, his life
is an enigma to some scholars and critics, they have theorized that some of Shakespeare's works
might have been written by other authors, such as the philosopher and politician Sir Francis
Bacon; or the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere; or the young and genius Christopher
Marlow. These critics have the conjecture that the actor and playwright Shakespeare, who was
given only an average education and was born a son of a tradesman, could not have been the
brilliant author of the splendid work found in the First Folio that was published in 1623.
Documentation on the precise date of Shakespeare's plays is lacking, none of his
manuscript survived, scholars and critics generally divide his dramatic career into four periods:
the Early Period, the Period of Comedies and Histories, the Period of Tragedies, and the Period
of Romances.
Shakespeare achieved recognition and earned his reputation as a popular poet after he
wrote his two erotic narrative poems: Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594),
although these poems were not published until 1609. He wrote at least 37 plays and 154 sonnets.
By 1612, he returned permanently to Stratford, partially retired there and wrote his last play.
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

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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.

CHAPTER I:
A SHORT OUTLINE OF WILLIAM
SHAKESPEARES LIFE

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William Shakespeare, the great English dramatist and poet, was born in Stratford-on-Avon on
April 23, 1564. It is impossible to be certain the exact day on which he was born, but church
records show that he was baptized on April 26, and three days was a customary amount of time
to wait before baptizing a newborn. Shakespeares date of death is conclusively known,
however: it was April 23, 1616. He was 52 years old and had retired to Stratford three years
before.
Although few plays have been performed or analyzed as extensively as the 38 plays
ascribed to William Shakespeare, there are few surviving details about the playwrights life. This
dearth of biographical information is due primarily to his station in life; he was not a noble, but
the son of John Shakespeare, a leather trader and the town bailiff. The events of William
Shakespeares early life can only be gleaned from official records, such as baptism and marriage
records.

He probably attended the grammar school in Stratford, where he would have studied
Latin and read classical literature. He did not go to university but at age 18 married Anne
Hathaway, who was eight years his senior and pregnant at the time of the marriage.

Their first daughter, Susanna, was born six months later, and in 1585 William and Anne
had twins, Hamnet and Judith. Hamnet, Shakespeares only son, died 11 years later, and Anne
Shakespeare outlived her husband, dying in 1623. Nothing is known of the period between the
birth of the twins and Shakespeares emergence as a playwright in London in the early 1590s,
but unfounded stories have him stealing deer, joining a group of traveling players, becoming a
schoolteacher, or serving as a soldier in the Low Countries.

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 The first evidence to Shakespeare as a London playwright came in 1592, when a fellow
dramatist, Robert Greene, wrote derogatorily of him on his deathbed. It is believed that
Shakespeare had written the three parts of Henry VI by that point.
In 1593, Venus and Adonis was Shakespeares first published poem, and he dedicated it
to the young Henry Wriothesley, the 3rd earl of Southampton. In 1594, having probably
composed, among other plays, Richard III, The Comedy of Errors, and The Taming of the
Shrew, he became an actor and playwright for the Lord Chamberlains Men, which became the
Kings Men after James Is ascension in 1603. The company grew into Englands finest, in no
small part because of Shakespeare, who was its principal dramatist.
It also had the finest actor of the day, Richard Burbage, and the best theater, the Globe,
which was located on the Thames south bank. Shakespeare stayed with the Kings Men until his
retirement and often acted in small parts.
By 1596, the company had performed the classic Shakespeare plays Romeo and Juliet,
Richard II, and A Midsummer Nights Dream. That year, John Shakespeare was granted a coat
of arms, a testament to his sons growing wealth and fame. In 1597, William Shakespeare bought
a large house in Stratford. In 1599, after producing his great historical series, the first and second
part of Henry IV and Henry V, he became a partner in the ownership of the Globe Theatre.

The beginning of the 17th century saw the performance of the first of his great tragedies,
Hamlet. The next play, The Merry Wives of Windsor, was written at the request of Queen
Elizabeth I, who wanted to see another play that included the popular character Falstaff. During
the next decade, Shakespeare produced such masterpieces as Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and
The Tempest. In 1609, his sonnets, probably written during the 1590s, were published. The 154

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sonnets are marked by the recurring themes of the mutability of beauty and the transcendent
power of love and art.
Shakespeare died in Stratford-on-Avon on April 23, 1616. Today, nearly 400 years later,
his plays are performed and read more often and in more nations than ever before. In a million
words written over 20 years, he captured the full range of human emotions and conflicts with a
precision that remains sharp today. As his great contemporary the poet and dramatist Ben Jonson
said, He was not of an age, but for all time.

CHAPTER II:
SHAKESPEARES LITERARY ACTIVITY

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Shakespeare wrote at least 38 plays and over 150 short and long poems, many of which are
considered to be the finest ever written in English. His works have been translated into every
major living language, and some others besides and nearly 400 years after his death, they
continue to be performed around the world.
Shakespeare's literary work may be divided into several periods. The plays are dated
according to the theatrical season in which they were first staged. Shakespeare wrote 37 plays,
and they fall into 4 periods.
2.1. Shakespeares plays

2.1.1. The first period

The 1st period (the period of apprenticeship) includes the plays that were written under the
influence of the University Wits:
Henry VI, part II
Henry VI, part III
Henry VI, part I
Richard III
The Comedy of Errors
Titus Andronicus
The Taming of the Shrew

2.1.2. The second period

During the 2nd period Shakespeare mainly wrote histories (historical plays, chronicles) and
comedies:

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 The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Love's Labour Lost
Romeo and Juliet
Richard II
A Midsummer Night's Dream
King John
The Merchant of Venice
Henry IV, part I
Henry IV, part II
Much Ado About Nothing
Henry V
Julius Caesar
As You Like It
Twelfth Night

2.1.3. The third period

The 3rd period is marked by Shakespeare's great tragedies that were the peak of his achievement
and made him truly immortal:
Hamlet
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Troilus and Cressida
All's Well That Ends Well
Measure for Measur
Othello
King Lear
Macbeth
Antony and Cleopatra
Corioianus
Timon of Athens

2.1.4. The fourth period

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The 4th period of Shakespeare's creative activity is mainly constituted by the romantic dramas -
plays written around a dramatic conflict, but the tension in them is not so great as in the
tragedies, all of them have happy endings:
Pericles
Cymbeline
The Winter's Tale
The Tempest
Henry VIII

2.2. Shakespeare's comedies

The comedies by Shakespeare did not establish a lasting literary tradition in the theatre, as did
those of Ben Jonson or Moliere, in which the authors portrayed the everyday life of their time,
and the characters were exaggerated almost into satirical grotesque. Shakespeare's comedies are
based on different principles: the scene is usually in some imaginary country, but in this fairy-
tale setting we find characters that are true to life, and they are depicted with deep insight into
human psychology for which Shakespeare is distinguished. In each comedy there is the main plot
and one or more subplots. The comic characters always have the English flavour, even if the
scene is laid in some distant or imaginary place.
All these plays are written in easy-flowing verse and light prose; the texts are full of jokes and
puns. The comedies tell of love and harmony, at first distributed, finally restored.

2.3. Shakespeare's histories

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The histories, or historical plays, or chronicles, are more closely related to Shakespeare's
tragedies than to comedies. They can be regarded as a profound and detailed treatise upon the
nature of monarchy. Shakespeare shows all types of autocratic rulers in them.

2. 4.Shakespeare's tragedies

Shakespeare brought something new to the genre of tragedy: the hero of any of his tragedies
perishes by reason of some trait of character that makes him either prefer some positive ideal to
life, or make him betray an ideal and meet his doom. All the tragic characters of Shakespeare are
shown in their development: a hero at the end of the tragedy is not the man in the beginning. The
development of the character is explained by social factors that form their psychology and
influence their lives. In some of the tragedies Shakespeare treats important ethical problems.

2.5. Shakespeare's sonnets

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Shakespeare's sonnets cannot be considered absolutely autobiographical, we can see variations
on themes traditional in renaissance poetry in them; but they occupy a unique place in
Shakespearean heritage, because they are his only lyrical pieces, the only things he has written
about himself.
In many of his views Shakespeare was far ahead of his time. He could not give concrete
answers to the problems he put forth, but he was a truly great inquirer, and his penetration into
life gives us an opportunity to try and answer his questions better than he could have done it
himself.

CHAPTER III

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 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT WILLIAM
SHAKESPEARE

Shakespeare was born 26 April 1564, Stratford. (only later changed to Stratford Upon Avon)
Shakespeare is widely considered the worlds greatest dramatist.
He wrote 38 play and 154 sonnets
Shakespeare is most likely to have received a classical Latin education at Kings New School
in Stratford.
He married Anne Hathaway when he was only 18;
Anne (26) was 3 months pregnant when they married.
Their first child, Susanna was born six months after their marriage.
They later had two twins Hamnet and Judith.
Shakespeare had seven brothers and sisters
Shakespeare worked as an actor, writer and co-owner of a drama company called the Lord
Chamberlains Men- Later known as the Kings Men.
His greatest plays include Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet.
The first publishing of Shakespeares works is the First Folio published in 1623.
In the introduction to the First Folio, playwright Ben Johnson wrote a preface to
Shakespeares work with the quote (Shakespeare) is not of an age, but for all time.
Shakespeares popularity blossomed after the Romantic period and during the Victorian
period receiving the praise of poets, such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Victor Hugo and
Voltaire.
Romantic poet John Keats kept a bust of Shakespeare near his desk in the hope that
Shakespeare would spark his creativity
Bardolatry was a term coined by George Bernard Shaw to illustrate the reverence held by
many Victorians for anything Shakespeare.
By 1592, Shakespeare was receiving his first literary criticism with playwright Robert
Greene, criticising Shakespeare for being a Jack of all trades a second rate tinkerer with
the work of others.

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 This criticism may may be motivated by the fact Shakespeare was not university educated
like contemporary writers such as Christopher Marlowe.
Early praise for Shakespeare came from writers such as Ben Johnson. Jonson remarked of
Shakespeare he was the Soul of the age, the applause, delight, the wonder of our stage
Shakespeare acted in many of his plays.
Shakespeare was acquainted with Queen Elizabeth I.
After the death of Queen Elizabeth I, Shakespeares company was awarded a royal patent by
the new King James I and changed its name to the Kings Men.
Shakespeare is often referred to as Elizabethan playwright, but most of his players were
written in the Jacobean period.
In 1599, the company built their own theatre, The Globe on the south banks of the River
Thames.
Shakespeare lived through an outbreak of the bubonic plague in London (1524-94) and 1609.
The plague also came to Stratford, when Shakespeare was just 3 months old
Many of Shakespeares plays were based on historical accounts, dramatised by Shakespeare.
He also dramatised stories from classical writers such as Plutarch and Holinshed.
Hamlet was based on a well- known Scandinavian legend called -Amleth,
Shakespeares plays contain 200 references to dogs and 600 references to birds.
In 1890, Eugene Schiffelin an American Bardolator decided to import every kind of bird
mentioned in Shakespeare but not native to America. This included a flock of 60 starlings
released in New York. Starlings have now driven many native birds to the edge of extinction.
Shakespeares plays are usually separated into three main divisions
Comedies Alls well that Ends Well, Much Ado About Nothing
Histories Henry V
Tragedies Romeo and Juliet , Hamlet, and Othello.
There are those who question whether William Shakespeare was actually the author of the
plays, attributed to him. Other contenders include the Oxford school suggesting Edward
de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was a better contender.
Shakespeare was the most quoted author in Samuel Johnsons early Dictionary of the
English Language

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 Before Shakespeare, the English language was much less codified with no official dictionary
and many variations on spelling.
Shakespeare has given many words (estimate of 1,700 3,000) to the English language.
Estimations of Shakespeares vocabulary range from 17,000 to 29,000 words.
Shakespeare has given many memorable phrases to the English language, such as wild
goose chase, foregone conclusion in a pickle
Shakespeare has given many memorable insults, Thou art like a toad; ugly and venomous.,
You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! Ill tickle your catastrophe!, Thou clay-
brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch!
Shakespeare never seemed to spell his name properly, often signing his name Willm
Shakp,
By others, he was referred to by over 80 different names, such as Shaxberd. and Shappere
Macbeth was often unpopular for its reference to witches which created fear in the middle
ages. There remains a long theatre superstition of saying aloud the name Macbeth
In his will, he appeared to only give his wife (Anne) a bed.
Shakespeares grave includes a curse against moving his bones.

CONCLUSION
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Shakespeare wrote at a time when the feudal, aristocratic world was being replaced by a new one
based on commercial expansionism and individualism. Although he often wrote about kings and
queens, these were not the God-appointed, mystically guided monarchs of ethereal thoughts and
lofty morals found in medieval literature. Rather they were flesh-and-blood individuals with very
human greeds and ambitions. The best of them are portrayed as ruling on behalf of the nation
(the unified nation state being a recent development, replacing the fiefdoms of the Middle Ages
and the city states of the ancients), rather than by divine pleasure or inherited right as previously.
Many of the questions raised in Shakespeare's works deal with the changes of mores
that resulted from the historical transformation taking place.
For example, the old notion of honourassociated with chivalry and blood relations in
the Middle Ageshas to be given a new meaning. Is it mere "air", as Falstaff proclaims, or
something tied to taking up one's social responsibilities, as Prince Hal comes to accept?
Is there a place for compassion and forgiveness in a voracious profit-before-all-else
system represented by Shylock? Do individuals have the right to choose their own happiness
over traditions, as Romeo and Juliet attempt? Does a wife belong to a husband? Is wealth a
guarantor of happiness? Should financial relations control familial relations, or vice versa? Do
we choose our own destinies or are they fixed in the stars?
I could go on, listing the issues raised by Shakespeare that would have seemed
ludicrous in older times. An 11th-century lord or peasant would not have found these to be
questions even worth considering, any more than we are interested today in pondering how many
angels can dance on the head of a pin.
I'm not saying Shakespeare always sided with the rising bourgeoisie on these issues or
always opposed feudal values. He was dealing with conflicts that arose in a mind shaped, as the
minds of most people of his time, by the stories and glories of the past, as well as excited by the
forward-looking society that was forming around new economic relations and new ideas. In the
exhilarating tumult, he was trying to sort out how people should act. He was seeking the
constants that go beyond the immediate, changing fashions. Not always successfully, though
always engagingly.

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I doubt Shakespeare ever said, "In this play, I'll settle the issue of a child's obligations to a parent
in the context of a society increasingly dominated by mercantilism." More likely he chose stories
that he or his audience liked, and wrote them from his heart. But it is inevitable he and his
audience would focus on the moral quandaries of the time, given life by the changing social
conditions.
Shakespeare isn't great because he dealt with these issues when no one else did. Others
certainly did. I imagine most artists of the time did to some degree. Shakespeare is great because
he just wrote better than anyone else on these mattersdelving more deeply, exploring more
nuance, writing more eloquently and movingly than any other playwright then or since.
To put it in a single sentence, Shakespeare was writing "Arise, the new human." Or as
he put it in The Tempest, "O brave new world that has such people in't."
Today the young, new humanity he heralded is mature, if not outright old. But there
resides in memory enough of youth to excite. There remains enough of our early character that
we can still gain insight and comfort from Shakespeare, the sage of the old new human's youth. It
is especially comforting now to think that those words and ideas from our adolescence, which
once were challenging, are relevant stillappear still as universals for all time. At a time when
we are casting about for new "universals" for all time.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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 Ackroyd, Peter (2006), Shakespeare: The Biography, London: Vintage,ISBN
9780749386559.
Adams, Joseph Quincy (1923), A Life of William Shakespeare, Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, OCLC 1935264.
Baldwin, T. W. (1944), William Shakspere's Small Latine & Lesse Greek, 1,
Urbana, Ill: University of Illinois Press, OCLC 359037.
College English 25.7.
Bate, Jonathan (2008), The Soul of the Age, London: Penguin,ISBN 978-0-670-
91482-1.
Berry, Ralph (2005), Changing Styles in Shakespeare, London: Routledge, ISBN
0415353165.
Clemen, Wolfgang (1987), Shakespeare's Soliloquies, London: Routledge, ISBN
0415352770.
Wells, Stanley (1997), Shakespeare: A Life in Drama, New York: W. W. Norton,
ISBN 0393315622.
Werner, Sarah (2001), Shakespeare and Feminist Performance, London:
Routledge, ISBN 0415227291.
Wilson, Richard (2004), Secret Shakespeare: Studies in Theatre, Religion and
Resistance, Manchester: Manchester University Press,ISBN 0719070244.
Wright, George T. (2004), "The Play of Phrase and Line", in McDonald, Russ,
Shakespeare: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory, 19452000, Oxford:
Blackwell, ISBN 0631234888.

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