SHAKESPEARE’S LIFE

NAME- URVI DAVE

ROLL NO. - 33

CLASS- M.A. 

SEM- 1

PAPER NO. – 1

TOPIC- SHAKESPEARE’S LIFE

SUBMITTED TO- SMT.S.B. GARDI DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH & M.K. BHAVNAGAR UNIVERSITY

Email Id- dave.urvi71@gmail.com

BATCH YEAR- 2014-16

Question- Tell briefly the story of Shakespeare’s life. What are the four periods of his work? What are his romantic plays and historical plays? What is the difference between a tragedy and a comedy? For what reason is he considered the greatest of writers?

Ø From the register of the little parish church at Stratford on Avon, William Shakespeare was baptized there on 26 April 1564. As it was customary to baptize children on the third day after birth, the 23 April is generally accepted as the poet’s birthday. His father John Shakespeare was a farmer’s son from the neighbouring village of Switterfield who came to Stratford about 1551 and began to prosper as a trader in corn, meat, leather and other agricultural products. His mother, Mary Arden, was the daughter of a prosperous farmer, descended from an old Warwickshire family of mixed Anglo-Saxon and Norman blood. Of Shakespeare’s education we know little, except that for a new year’s he probably attended the endowed grammar school at Stratford, where he picked up the “Small Latin and Less Greek’’ to which his learned friend Ben Jonson refers. His real teachers, meanwhile, where the men and women and the natural influences which surrounded him. Stratford is a charming little village in beautiful Warwickshire and near at hand where the Forest of Arden, the old castles of Warwick and Kenilworth, and the Old roman camps and military roads, to appeal powerfully to the boys lively imagination. Every phase of the natural beauty of this exquisite region is reflected in Shakespeare’s poetry; just as his characters reflects the nobility and the littleness, the gossip, vices emotions, prejudices and traditions of the people about him. In late 1580’s he moved to London and entered the theatrical business, first as an actor and then as a dramatist/ shareholder. First printed allusion to Shakespeare dates from 1592 in the in the pamphlet Greene’s groatworth of wit, where he is referred to as an upstart crow in his own conceit the only Shakespeare scene in a country. Man of the theatre, poet and expert in the human patience, Shakespeare has appealed equally to those who admire the art with which he renders a story in terms of the acted drama or the insight with which he renders a story in terms of the acted dramas or the insight with which he presents state of mind and complex- conviction and new dimension to the ulterness of his characters through the poetic speech he puts in their mouths. It is remarkable combination of qualities, Shakespeare has been praised for his aesthetic cunning in his disposition of the action, for his theatrical skill, and for his ability to create living world of people while himself remaining ‘’like the god of creation, within or behind or beyond or above his  handiwork, invisible, refined art of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.’’                                               

                               Most Shakespeare biographers qualify his attendance at the King New School in Stratford with phrases such as “almost certainly” because all attendance records for the time have been lost, but Shakespeare’s works exhibit detailed knowledge of the grammar school. Curriculum and none of the university life that is evident in university educated playwright such as Marlowe. Advert VI, the king honored in the school’s name, had in the mid sixteenth century diverted money from the dissolution of the monasteries to endow a network of grammar schools to “propagate good lit... Throughout the kingdom”, but the school had originally been setup by the Guild of the Holycross, a church institution in the town, early in the fifteenth century. On 28 November 1582, at Temple Grafton near Stratford, the eighteen year old Shakespeare married Anne Hathway, who was 26. An alternative theory is that Shakespeare may have joined Queen Elizabeth’s men in 1587, after the sudden death of actor William knell in a fight by on a tour which later took in Stratford. Shakespeare took knell’s place and thus found his way to London and stage-land. Shakespeare’s father John, as high bailiff of Stratford was responsible for the acceptance and welfare of visiting theatrical troups. There is no evidence of Shakespeare’s membership of the queen’s man, so it remains speculation. Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, at the age of 52. He died within a month of signing his will, a document which he begins by describing himself as being in “perfect health”.

  Four periods of his work

1.     First period (1588-93): It was the period of apprenticeship and experimentation. It is marked by youthfulness and exuberance of imagination, by extravagance of language and by the frequent use of rimed couplets with his blank verse. The period dates form his arrival in London in 1595. His plays are revision of old plays such as

·        Henry VI

·        Titus Andronicus

The first comedy is such as “Love’s labor lost, “The gentlemen of Verona”, “The comedy of errors”, “A midsummer night’s dream” and first attempt at writing a tragedy- Romeo and Juliet.

2.     Second period (1594-60): It was the period of the great comedy and chronicle plays, a period of rapid growth and development. Plays like

·        The merchant of Venice

·        Midsummer night’s dream

·        As you like it

·        Henry IV

All written in this period show more careful and artistic works, better plots and a marked increase in knowledge of human nature. Other plays are

·        Richard II

·        King John

·        Henry V

·        The Taming of the Shrew

·        The Merry Wives of Windsor

·        Much ado about nothing and

·        Twelfth night

3. Third period (1601-08): This was the period of his great tragedies and somber comedies, a period of gloom and depression, which marks the full maturity of his powers. What caused this evident sadness is unknown; but it is generally attributed to some personal experience, coupled with the political misfortunes for his friends, Essex and Southampton. These plays are

·        Hamlet

·        All’s well that ends Well

·        Measure for Measure

·        Troilus & Cressida

·        Othello

·        King Lear

·        Macbeth

·        Antony and Cleopatra

·        Coriolenus

·        Timor of Athens

4. Fourth period (1608-12): A period of serenity, of calm after storm, which marked the last years of the poet’s literary works. This was the period of later comedies or what are known as “Dramatic Romances”-

·        Cymbeline

·        The Tempest

·        Winter’s Tale.

There are other plays of this period which are only partly written by Shakespeare like-

·        Tericles

·        Henry VIII

The winter’s tale and The Tempest are the best of his later plays; but they all show a falling off from his previous work and indicate a second period of experimentation with the test of a fickle public.                                

      Usually comedy plays are very exciting to watch because they include a lot of singing and dancing, but historical plays include a lot of fighting and a lot of the characters are royal. Comedies are very popular. The comedies were most enjoyed out of the three genres of Shakespeare’s plays. The actors had to do a lot of singing and dancing in the plays. In comedies a lot of metaphors and insults were used. Comedies were usually about two lovers trying to defeat or overcome the problems in their relationships. Comedies could sometimes include characters trying to trick another character by disguising themselves. It was quite common for a female character to be disguised as a male character. History plays were the most classical type of plays. They included a Cot of fighting. In these plays, there were mostly men acting because in history plays there was lot of fighting and deep, loud voices needed and it normally includes a character being royal. In those days women never fought or ruled. Therefore, women would play the parts of wives or lovers. The actors needed to have a lot of exaggerated gestures. The two gentlemen of Verona (1594) is the first of a series of romantic comedies which includes Love’s labour lost (1594) - though with some qualifications-

·        A midsummer Night’s Dream (1596)

·        The Merchant of Venice (1596-97)

·        Much ado about nothing (1599-1600) and

·        Twelfth Night (1599-1600)

Love’s Labour Lost was published in a quarto volume in 1598. The play shows that Shakespeare was aiming not only at popular successes in the public theatre but also at something more sophisticated, appealing to the witty and the educated. In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare sets himself the almost impossible task of combining the fairy tale Plot of the Castles, in which Bassanio figures as the lucky adventurer who wins the girl by a sort of predestinate good fortune, with a story of male friendship in true Renaissance vein (Bassanio and Antonio) and more significantly with the story of Shylock and the pound of flesh, a theme of larger dimensions and greater dramatic possibilities than the other standards in the play. In Shakespeare’s next three “romantic-comedies”- Much ado about nothing, as you like it and Twelfth Night. This form of Elizabethan drama reaches its golden perfection. Like The Merchant of Venice, Much ado combines two plots, one of which was tragic overtones. In the wit combats between Beatrice and Benedick, Shakespeare brings to a more richly humour level and anchors more profoundly in human experience, a dramatic device which he had earlier sported in a more distinctly device with which he had earlier sported in a more distinctly formed manner. In the Claudio- Hero story, where the bridegroom is deluded by the wicked Don John into believing in his innocent bride’s criminal montoness and so denounces her at the artar, Shakespeare provides a context in which the merry world of witty attitudinizing is shaken into a deeper reality. There is not here, as in the merchant of Venice, a gap between a world of romantic magic and one of grim reality: the plots not only interlock neatly but also reinforce each other emotionally. Beatrice and Benedick, man hater and misogynist tricked by friends into believing that each loves the other, discover their real mutual love in the shadow of Hero’s tragedy and the modulation of tone here between the tragic and the romantic is achieved with remarkable art. But Shakespeare keeps the tragic overtones muted by contriving that the forces of evil are ready in the process of being discovered and exposed even before the terrible accusation against hero at the altar, and we know that it is a matter of time before justice is done and hero is vindicated. The elimination of potential tragedy by the exposure of evil- not too rapidly, but quickly enough to prevent irreparable harm being done- is achieved by the introduction of third strand into the play, the comic realistic strand represented by Dogberry and Verges, the officers of the watch who accidentally stumble across the villain and proceed, in their slow witted and comically clumsy manner, to examine them.