Life:

William Shakespeare is considered to be the greatest of all dramatists all over the world. He was born on 23rd April 1564, at Stratford-upon-Avon in Henley Street as the oldest son of a glove maker John Shakespeare and his wife Mary Arden. He had one sister and one brother. William attended the local grammar school. When he was 18, he married Anne Hathaway from the nearby village of Shottery. She was eight years older than he and already pregnant. They had two daughters – Susan and Judith and a son Hamnet. Hamnet and Judith were twins, but Hamnet died at the age of eleven. There are nearly no records of Shakespeare’s life during the seven years that followed except one mention that they probably still stayed at Stratford-upon-Avon. But in 1592 he came to London and joined a group of actors known as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Eight years later he bought his own theatre with six more members of the company. It was called the Globe Theatre and it was an outdoor theatre where the actors played in the open air. It is also important to remember that in Shakespeare’s time there were no actresses and all women’s roles were played by men. Also one actor played more roles than one. First Shakespeare helped adapt or re-write older plays but later he started to write his own plays and he was very successful. Both the Queen Elizabeth I. and James I. liked him very much. One day, during a performance of Henry VIII the Globe was destroyed by fire. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men became the King’s Men under the patronage of James I. His plays were first published in 1623.

The success of his plays increased from year to year, so that at about the end of the century Shakespeare was both famous and wealthy. In 1610 he went back to his home town where he bought a house called New Place and lived a quiet life with his family. The strange thing is that he died on the same day as he was born in the age of 52. The legend says that he died after a loud and noisy birthday celebration with his friends. He is buried at local Trinity Church. Here his wife and other members of this family are also buried. There are only two portraits of Shakespeare, which are authentic and one of them is the bust in Stratford-upon-Avon at Trinity Church. A memorial to him is also in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey. Today there is the Royal Shakespeare (or Swan) Theatre, which is visited by tourists from all over the world.

Work:

Shakespeare was a big poet and wrote some nice sonnets, but he is best know for his plays. He wrote 37 plays, tragedies, comedies, historical plays and romances, which is something between tragedy and comedy:

Tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth and plays which are something between tragedy and a historical play – Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus.

Comedies: The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, As You Like It, Twelfth Night.

Romances: Pericles, The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest.

Historical plays: Richard II, Richard III, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI.

In his plays Shakespeare ignores the three unities of the classic drama, that of place, time and action. The place of action changes from scene to scene, there are usually two or three plots, tragedy is mingled with comedy, and rhymed and blank verse and prose are used in turns. The plots are not original but their performance is. His plays are still popular because his dramas express general truths, those which are permanent in human life and nature.

Romeo and Juliet:

is a tragedy of love. The story tells about the long vendetta between the two rich families of Verona. Romeo, the son of Lord Montague, and Juliet, the daughter of Lord Capulet, fall in love and get married secretly. But then Tybalt, who is Juliet’s cousin, kills Romeo’s friend Mercutio and in anger Romeo revenges Mercutio. He must escape and while he is not in Verona, Juliet is forced by her family to marry Paris, a nobleman, but she refuses and asks Friar Laurence, who had secretly married Juliet to Romeo, for help again and he gives her magic drops after which she falls asleep for a month and looks as if she were dead. Romeo learns about Juliet’s death and he doesn’t know about the trick. He hurries to the crypt where she lies, and commits suicide with poison at her feet. Juliet wakes up only a moment after and when she sees her young husband dead, she kills herself with his sword. Both Montague and Capulet families reconcile over the dead bodies of their beloved children.

Hamlet:

is a tragedy of the suffering and hesitation of an honest man who is not able to kill without having clear proof of guilt. Hamlet is the Prince of Denmark. His mother, a Queen, is a widow and marries Hamlet’s uncle Claudius. But the ghost of Hamlet’s dead father appears and tells him, that it was the Queen and Claudius who killed him. But to make sure Hamlet pretends madness in order to prove his stepfather’s guilt. When a group of actors visits the castle, Hamlet asks them to perform a play about a murdered king, very similar to the murder of his own father. The new king recognises himself in the story and sends Hamlet to England to be killed. But Hamlet returns and the play ends in bloody vengeance, when Hamlet kills the whole family and he is also killed. I don’t like this end because it seems to me like modern action. But I love Hamlets monologue:

King Lear:

King Lear asks his three daughters how much they love him. Two older daughters say that they love him very, very much but the youngest daughter Cordelia says that she loves him according to her duty. He punishes her by giving her no property and banishes her out of his kingdom. A kind Prince marries her, although she is poor. The old king divides his kingdom and all his property between his two daughters. Now he has nothing and one daughter sends him to the other because he is old and makes troubles. Finally they order to him not to visit their houses again. He is left in a cruel storm alone and he becomes a fool. Cordelia learns about that and with her army she comes to help him. But she is put in prison and hanged a day later. King Lear dies of terrible grief.

Macbeth:

is a tragedy of ambition, in which ambition is so great that it does not shrink from murder and is then condemned as a deadly sin. Macbeth is a tragic story of a noble and brave Scottish soldier who, because of ambition, became a murdering despot. With their double meanings, the prophesies of three old witches gave him grounds for hope that one day he would become king. He told his wife about his meeting with the witches. Lady Macbeth, who was even more ambitious than her husband, urged him to kill the present king Duncan, who was visiting them in their castle. Two of the evil prophecies had then come true. The third had said that the sons of Banquo, a fellow-soldier, would become kings. So Macbeth and his wife hired murderers to kill Banquo. Still they did not feel safe, and Macbeth consulted the witches again. They told him he would never be defeated until Birnam Wood came to Dunsinane. This seemed an unlikely happening. But it came about in an unexpected way and all the prophesies of the witches came true.

Othello:

is a tragedy of jealousy. Othello, a heroic Moor of Venice, and his wife Desdemona, are in fact destroyed by the intrigues of Iago, who hates Othello. Iago manages to convince Othello that his wife is unfaithful. Othello is so jealous that he becomes desperate and throttles Desdemona in her bed. But soon after he finds out the real truth and he commits the suicide.

The Merchant of Venice:

is one of his best dramas. Antonio, a wealthy merchant of Venice, makes a strange contract in order to borrow money for his friend Bassanio. His creditor, the Jewish money-lender Shylock, makes it a condition of the loan that Antonio, if unable to repay the sum, will have to give him a pound of his flesh. Unfortunately, Antonio's ships suffer shipwreck, all his riches are lost with the ships, and Shylock, who hates Antonio because he has humiliated him many times, demands his due in court. Shylock is about to cut his pound of flesh when Portia, Bassanio's wife disguised as a lawyer, intervenes and cleverly outwits Shylock by a literal reading of the text of the contract. He may take a pound of flesh, but not a drop of blood.

Henry V:

is Shakespeare's best historical play. Henry V was associated with England's victories in the Hundred Years' War, but he was attractive also because his character changed. As a young man, he is portrayed as a man who makes merry with Sir John Falstaff, a feudal knight, who has lost his estates and has become a parasite. Falstaff boasts about his adventures, is cynical, but at the same time witty and this also makes him very attractive. He is critical of feudal principles and of all conventions and he mocks not only at the people around him, but also at himself. So young Henry learns about life, the country, all sorts of people and this is a good school for a future king. He turns out to be a better man than all those who always seem to have the best reputations.

Quotations from Shakespeare:

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. (Hamlet)
Frailty, thy name is woman! (Hamlet)
My kingdom for a horse! (Richard II)
All the world's a stage
And all the men and women merely players. (As You Like It)
The worst is not;
So long as we can say, "This is the worst." (King Lear)
When we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools. (King Lear)