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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564 - 1616)

PLAN:
1. William Shakespeare’s life and other
literary works.
2. William Shakespeare’s Plays.
3. William Shakespeare’s Comedies.
4. William Shakespeare’s Sonnets.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S LIFE AND
LITERARY WORKS.
A poet and playwright William Shakespeare
is the favorite author of millions of readers all
over the world. He had a greater influence on
the world literature than any other author.

William Shakespeare was born in 1564, on
April 23 in Stratford on-Avon, in England. His
father, John Shakespeare, was a glove maker
of Stratford. Shakespeare’s mother. Mary
Arden, came from a family of landowners.
LITERARY WORKS.

In his childhood Shakespeare attended the
Stratford Grammar School. Shakespeare’s
contemporaries first admired him for his long
narrative poems “Venus and Adonis” (1593)
and “The Rape of Lucrece” (1594).
LITERARY WORKS.

In 1599 the best-known of Elizabethan
theatres, the Globe, was built and
Shakespeare became the principal playwright
to the theatre company. He was also an actor,
but not a first-rate one: the parts he played
were the old servant Adam in “As You like It”
and the Ghost in “Hamlet”.
LITERARY WORKS.

THE BEST-KNOWN OF ELIZABETHAN THEATRE
“THE GLOBE”

In 1613, after the Globe had been destroyed
by fire during a performance of “Henry VIII”
he retired and stopped writing. By then he was
very ill. He died on April 23, 1616 and was
buried in the Holy Trinity church in Stratford
where he was christened.
LITERARY WORKS.

Although some of Shakespeare’s plays were
published during his life-time, not until his
death was any attempt made to collect them in
a single volume. The first edition of
Shakespeare’s collected plays appeared in
1623.
LITERARY WORKS.

More than four hundred years the plays of
Shakespeare are performed on the stage, in
the movies, and on television. They are read by
millions of people all over the world.
LITERARY WORKS.

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE ARE PERFORMED ON
THE STAGE, IN THE MOVIES, AND ON TELEVISION.

SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS
Most scholars agree that there exist 37 plays
written by Shakespeare. Traditionally,
Shakespeare’s plays have been divided into
three groups: comedies, histories, and
tragedies. All of the works of the great
playwright are written in four periods of his
literary career.

THE BEST KNOWN TRAGEDIES BY
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The first period includes all the plays written.
His comedies “The Comedy of Errors”, “The
Taming of the Shrew”, “The Two Gentlemen of
Verona”, the histories “Henry VI”, “Richard III”,
“King John”, and the tragedy “Titus
Andronicus” were written during this period.
THE FIRST PERIOD 1590-1594

During the second period Shakespeare
brought historical drama and Elizabethan
romantic comedy to near perfection.
THE SECOND PERIOD 1595-1600

The comedies “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”,
“Love’s Labor’s Lost”, “ The Merchant of
Venice”, “As You Like It”, “Much Ado About
Nothing”, “Twelfth Night”, “The Merry Wives
of Windsor”, the tragedies “Romeo and Juliet”,
“Julius Caesar” and the histories “Richard II”,
“Henry IV”, “Henry V” were written at this
period.
THE SECOND PERIOD 1595-1600

During the third period Shakespeare wrote his
great tragedies (“Hamlet”, “Troilus and
Cressida”, “Othello”, ‘King Lear”, ’’Macbeth”,
“Timon of Athens”, “Anthony and Cleopatra”,
“Coriolanus”), which made him truly immortal.
THE THIRD PERIOD 1601-1608

Every play of this period, except for “Pericles”,
shows Shakespeare’s awareness of the tragic
side of life. Even the two comedies of the
period “All’s Well That Ends Well” and
“Measure for Measure” are more disturbing
than amusing. That is why they are often called
“problem” comedies or “bitter” comedies.

“Pericles” represents Shakespeare’s first
romance - a drama, which is generally serious
in tone but with a happy ending.
Shakespeare’s sonnets were also written during
the third period of his literary career.

During the final fourth period Shakespeare
wrote three comedies (“Cymbeline”, “The
Winter’s Tale”, “The Tempest”) and the history
“Henry VIII”. Some critics state, that the history
“Henry VIII” is written together with John
Fletcher.
THE FOURTH PERIOD 1601-1608

The last years of Shakespeare’s career as a
playwright are characterized by a
considerable change in the style of drama.
Beaumont and Fletcher became the most
popular dramatists of that time, and the plays
of Shakespeare written during the fourth
period are modeled after their dramatic
technique.
THE FOURTH PERIOD 1601-1608

“ROMEO AND JULIET”
“Romeo and Juliet” is a tragedy based on
“Romeus and Juliet”, a poem by the English
author Arthur Brooke. It was first published in
1597 and first performed in 1596. “Romeo
and Juliet” is a story of love and hate. It deals
with two teen-aged lovers in Verona, Italy, who
are caught in a bitter feud between their
families, the Montagues and the Capulets.

It is a story of two young people who fall in
love at first sight, marry secretly because their
families are bitter enemies, and die because
each can not live without the other. It is also a
story of two families whose hatred for each
other drives a son and daughter to destruction.

Only after they have lost their children the
parents agree to end their feud. Love
eventually conquers hate, but at a terrible cost.
It is not a simple story of good and bad
people, for all the major characters bear some
responsibility for the disaster.

“HAMLET, PRINCE OF 顿贰狈惭础搁碍”

“Hamlet” is one of Shakespeare’s greatest
creations, but it is also considered the hardest
of his works to understand. Some critics count it
even mysterious. The source of the plot can be
found in a Danish chronicle written around
1200. The plot of the tragedy is the following:
Claudius murders his brother, the lawful king,
and seizes the throne.

The son of the murdered king Hamlet,
discovering the crime, struggles against
Claudius. But the struggle ends tragically for
him too. As you can see, there is nothing
mysterious in the plot of the tragedy, but
mysterious is the complex character of Hamlet
himself.

Later, after talking to the Ghost, he learns of
the murder of his father. He wants to kill
Claudius, and revenge for his father. But
Hamlet delays and goes on delaying. He even
rejects a chance to kill Claudius while he is on
his knees in prayer.

Why does he delay revenging his father’s
murder? Why can’t he make up his mind? This is
the mystery. Various explanations have been
offered by a number of critics, but still they
have not come to a conclusion. One thing is
obvious - he was not a cold-blooded killer.

Instead of Claudius, Hamlet by mistake, kills
Polonius, Ophelia’s father. Polonius hides
behind a curtain, but Hamlet becomes aware
that someone is there. Hamlet stabs Polonius
through the curtain and kills him.

The king, Claudius, exiles Hamlet to England
for the murder. He also sends secret orders
that the prince be executed after he arrives in
England. But returns to Denmark safe and
sound. He arrives in time and sees with
Ophelia.

Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius and the
girl whom Hamlet loves. Laertes, Ophelia’s
brother, blames Hamlet for his sister’s and
father’s deaths. He agrees to Claudius’s plan
to kill Hamlet with a poisoned sword in a
fencing match.

Laertes wounds Hamlet during the duel, and is
wounded himself by the poisoned weapon.
Hamlet’s mother, watching the match,
accidentally drinks from a cup of poisoned
wine prepared by Claudius for Hamlet. Dying
from the wound, Hamlet kills Claudius. At the
end of the play, Hamlet, his mother, Claudius,
and Laertes all died.

The scenes of Shakespeare’s comedies are
usually set in some imaginary country, and the
action is based on stories that are almost fairy-
tails. But the characters, placed in these non-
realistic settings and plots, are true-to-life for
which Shakespeare is famous.
SHAKESPEARE’S COMEDIES

Each comedy has the main plot and one or two
sub-plots, and sometimes sub-plots attract even
more attention than the main plots. The comic
characters of these plays always have English
coloring or in other countries. All these plays
are written in easy-flowing verse and light
prose.

All the comedies tell of love and harmony, at
first disturbed, and finally restored. In them
Shakespeare supports the right of a human
being to free choice in love, despite the
existing conventions and customs.

In the complicated plots of Shakesperian
comedies the heroes and heroines often select
wrong partners because they have formed
wrong opinions about their own characters,
that is they don’t know or understand their
own-self and feelings.

But their mistakes are treated in good humor
and the comedies end happily, because at the
end of the plays the characters understand
themselves and those they love.

In addition to his plays and two narrative
poems, Shakespeare wrote a sequence of 154
sonnets. His sonnets were probably written in
the 1590s but first published in 1609.
Shakespeare’s sonnets occupy a unique place
in the Shakespearian heritage, because they
are his only lyrical pieces, the only things he
has written about himself.
SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS

The three main characters in the sonnets are:
the poet, his friend and the dark lady. The
poet expresses the warmest admiration for the
friend. The dark lady is the beloved of the
poet, unlike the idealized ladies in the sonnets
of Petrarch, she is false and cold-blooded.

And then comes the tragedy: the friend and
the dark lady betray the poet and fall in love
with each other. By reading between the lines
of the sonnets, we may see a tragedy in
Shakespeare’s life, a tragedy that he might not
have fully understood himself.

Despite the author’s intention, we feel that the
poet’s friend, who is praised so warmly, is a
shallow, cruel man, the dark lady is wicked and
lying. Thus, in the sonnets we may see the great
misfortune of a genius, who wasted his life and
soul for the sake of persons, unworthy of him.

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