Biography
Over his lifetime, Shakespeare authored at least 37 plays, sonnets, and two narrative poems, exploring the depths of human emotion and conflict. His works, which include timeless classics like "Hamlet," "Romeo and Juliet," and "Macbeth," have been celebrated across the globe for more than four centuries, solidifying his legacy in the literary canon.
Shakespeare's early life remains shrouded in mystery, with limited records detailing his childhood, marriage, and professional journey. He married Anne Hathaway in and had three children, including twins Hamnet and Judith. After a seemingly lost seven years in his early adulthood, evidence suggests that he emerged in London by as a versatile actor and playwright.
His keen insight into human nature and masterful command of language allowed him to transcend the standard conventions of his day, leading to a profound influence on English literature and drama. Today, Shakespeare's works continue to resonate, inspiring countless adaptations and interpretations worldwide. William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon around April 23, , to John Shakespeare, a glove-maker and local official, and Mary Arden, a land heiress.
He was the third child in the family, with seven siblings, although three died in infancy. His father held various municipal positions, which offered the family a respectable status in their community. However, John's financial troubles during Shakespeare's childhood raised questions about their economic stability. Despite these challenges, Shakespeare's early environment in a market town flourishing with arts and commerce likely influenced his future literary career.
Regarding education, records about Shakespeare's schooling are scarce. Scholars speculate he attended the King's New School in Stratford, where he would have been exposed to a curriculum that included reading, writing, and Latin—an essential foundation for a budding playwright. Shakespeare likely attended this school until approximately age 15, after which he did not continue to university.
He attended until he was 14 or 15 and did not continue to university. The uncertainty regarding his education has led some people question the authorship of his work. Hathaway was from Shottery, a small village a mile west of Stratford. Shakespeare was 18, and Anne was 26 and, as it turns out, pregnant. Their first child, a daughter they named Susanna, was born on May 26, Two years later, on February 2, , twins Hamnet and Judith were born.
Hamnet died of unknown causes at age One theory is that he might have gone into hiding for poaching game from local landlord Sir Thomas Lucy. Another possibility is that he might have been working as an assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire. By , there is evidence Shakespeare earned a living as an actor and a playwright in London and possibly had several plays produced.
Early in his career, Shakespeare was able to attract the attention and patronage of Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his first and second published poems: Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece Scholars broadly categorize the sonnets in groups based on two unknown subjects that Shakespeare addresses: the Fair Youth sonnets the first and the Dark Lady sonnets the last The identities of the aristocratic young man and vexing woman continue to be a source of speculation.
Some sources describe Shakespeare as a founding member of the company, but whatever the case, he became central to its success. Initially, he was an actor and eventually devoted more and more time to writing. Records show that Shakespeare, who was also a company shareholder, had works published and sold as popular literature.
They were printed in in quarto, an eight-page pamphlet-like book. By the end of , Shakespeare had likely written 16 of his 37 plays and amassed some wealth. At this time, civil records show Shakespeare purchased one of the largest houses in Stratford, called New Place, for his family. However, Shakespeare expert and professor Sir Stanley Wells posits that the playwright might have spent more time at home in Stratford than previously believed, only commuting to London when he needed to for work.
Although the theater culture in 16 th century England was not greatly admired by people of high rank, some of the nobility were good patrons of the performing arts and friends of the actors. By , Shakespeare and several fellow actors built their own theater on the south bank of the Thames River, which they called the Globe Theater. Julius Caesar is thought to be the first production at the new open-air theater.
Owning the playhouse proved to be a financial boon for Shakespeare and the other investors. The company quickly rebuilt it, and it reopened the next year. In particular, he expanded the dramatic potential of characterisation , plot, language , and genre. The Romantic poets attempted to revive Shakespearean verse drama, though with little success.
Critic George Steiner described all English verse dramas from Coleridge to Tennyson as "feeble variations on Shakespearean themes. His work has inspired several operas, among them Giuseppe Verdi 's Macbeth , Otello and Falstaff , whose critical standing compares with that of the source plays. In Shakespeare's day, English grammar, spelling, and pronunciation were less standardised than they are now, [ ] and his use of language helped shape modern English.
Shakespeare's influence extends far beyond his native England and the English language. His reception in Germany was particularly significant; as early as the 18th century Shakespeare was widely translated and popularised in Germany, and gradually became a "classic of the German Weimar era ;" Christoph Martin Wieland was the first to produce complete translations of Shakespeare's plays in any language.
Some of the most deeply affecting productions of Shakespeare have been non-English, and non-European. He is that unique writer: he has something for everyone. According to Guinness World Records , Shakespeare remains the world's best-selling playwright, with sales of his plays and poetry believed to have achieved in excess of four billion copies in the almost years since his death.
He is also the third most translated author in history. Shakespeare was not revered in his lifetime, but he received a large amount of praise.
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Between the Restoration of the monarchy in and the end of the 17th century, classical ideas were in vogue. But during the 18th century, critics began to respond to Shakespeare on his own terms and, like Dryden, to acclaim what they termed his natural genius. A series of scholarly editions of his work, notably those of Samuel Johnson in and Edmond Malone in , added to his growing reputation.
During the Romantic era , Shakespeare was praised by the poet and literary philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge , and the critic August Wilhelm Schlegel translated his plays in the spirit of German Romanticism. The modernist revolution in the arts during the early 20th century, far from discarding Shakespeare, eagerly enlisted his work in the service of the avant-garde.
The Expressionists in Germany and the Futurists in Moscow mounted productions of his plays. Marxist playwright and director Bertolt Brecht devised an epic theatre under the influence of Shakespeare. The poet and critic T. Eliot argued against Shaw that Shakespeare's "primitiveness" in fact made him truly modern. Wilson Knight and the school of New Criticism , led a movement towards a closer reading of Shakespeare's imagery.
In the s, a wave of new critical approaches replaced modernism and paved the way for post-modern studies of Shakespeare. He encloses us because we see with his fundamental perceptions. Around years after Shakespeare's death, doubts began to be expressed about the authorship of the works attributed to him. Shakespeare conformed to the official state religion, [ j ] but his private views on religion have been the subject of debate.
Shakespeare's will uses a Protestant formula, and he was a confirmed member of the Church of England , where he was married, his children were baptised, and where he is buried. Some scholars are of the view that members of Shakespeare's family were Catholics, at a time when practising Catholicism in England was against the law.
The strongest evidence might be a Catholic statement of faith signed by his father, John Shakespeare , found in in the rafters of his former house in Henley Street. However, the document is now lost and scholars differ as to its authenticity. Other authors argue that there is a lack of evidence about Shakespeare's religious beliefs.
Scholars find evidence both for and against Shakespeare's Catholicism, Protestantism, or lack of belief in his plays, but the truth may be impossible to prove. Few details of Shakespeare's sexuality are known. At 18, he married year-old Anne Hathaway , who was pregnant. Susanna, the first of their three children, was born six months later on 26 May Over the centuries, some readers have posited that Shakespeare's sonnets are autobiographical, [ ] and point to them as evidence of his love for a young man.
Others read the same passages as the expression of intense friendship rather than romantic love. No written contemporary description of Shakespeare's physical appearance survives, and no evidence suggests that he ever commissioned a portrait.
Tatmain ul qulb biography of william shakespeare pdf
From the 18th century, the desire for authentic Shakespeare portraits fuelled claims that various surviving pictures depicted Shakespeare. Some scholars suggest that the Droeshout portrait , which Ben Jonson approved of as a good likeness, [ ] and his Stratford monument provide perhaps the best evidence of his appearance. After a three-year study supported by the National Portrait Gallery, London , the portrait's owners, Cooper contended that its composition date, contemporary with Shakespeare, its subsequent provenance, and the sitter's attire, all supported the attribution.
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English playwright and poet — For other uses, see Shakespeare disambiguation and William Shakespeare disambiguation. The Chandos portrait , likely depicting Shakespeare, c. Stratford-upon-Avon , Warwickshire, England. Elizabethan Jacobean. Lord Chamberlain's Men King's Men. Anne Hathaway. John Shakespeare Mary Arden. Play comedy history tragedy.
Poetry sonnet narrative poem epitaph. Main article: Life of William Shakespeare. London and theatrical career. Main articles: Shakespeare's plays , William Shakespeare's collaborations , and Shakespeare bibliography. Further information: Chronology of Shakespeare's plays. Main article: Shakespeare in performance. Main article: Shakespeare's sonnets.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate Main article: Shakespeare's writing style. Main article: Shakespeare's influence. He was not of an age, but for all time. Main article: Shakespeare authorship question. Main article: Religious views of William Shakespeare. Main article: Sexuality of William Shakespeare.
Main article: Portraits of Shakespeare.
Biography of william shakespeare pdf: Poet and playwright William Shakespeare is considered the greatest dramatist of all time. Read about his birthday, wife, plays, poems, quotes, and more facts.
He was baptised 26 April. Under the Gregorian calendar , adopted in Catholic countries in , Shakespeare died on 3 May. This motto is still used by Warwickshire County Council , in reference to Shakespeare. In addition to presenting the town with a statue of Shakespeare, Garrick composed a doggerel verse, lampooned in the London newspapers, naming the banks of the Avon as the birthplace of the "matchless Bard".
Rowse , the 20th-century Shakespeare scholar, was emphatic: "He died, as he had lived, a conforming member of the Church of England. His will made that perfectly clear—in facts, puts it beyond dispute, for it uses the Protestant formula.
Tatmain ul qulb biography of william shakespeare in 400 words
Archived from the original on 8 February Retrieved 8 February Eliot Tradition and the Individual Talent. Archived from the original on 7 May Retrieved 7 May Poetry Foundation. Archived from the original on 6 January Retrieved 6 January The Oxford Handbook of the Georgian Theatre — Oxford University Press. The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 3 February Retrieved 3 February Broadcast 18 May Archived from the original on 3 March Retrieved 29 November The Local Germany.
Well, William Shakespeare was the greatest after all Archived from the original on 14 April Retrieved 2 September Guinness World Records. Beaumont and Fletcher. Ben Jonson. Seventeenth Century. Henry Craik, ed. English Prose". Archived from the original on 20 July Retrieved 20 July May Metropolitan Museum of Art. Archived from the original on 10 September Retrieved 16 April CBS News.
Archived from the original on 19 April The Guardian. Retrieved 15 April Ackroyd, Peter Shakespeare: The Biography. London: Vintage. ISBN OCLC Adams, Joseph Quincy A Life of William Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Baldwin, T. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Archived from the original on 5 May Retrieved 5 May Barroll, Leeds Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Bate, Jonathan The Soul of the Age. London: Penguin. Bednarz, James P. In Cheney, Patrick Gerard ed. The Cambridge Companion to Christopher Marlowe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bentley, G. Shakespeare: A Biographical Handbook. New Haven: Yale University Press. Berry, Ralph Changing Styles in Shakespeare. London: Routledge.
Bevington, David Oxford: Blackwell. Bloom, Harold New York: Riverhead Books. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. Heims, Neil ed. King Lear. Bloom's Shakespeare Through the Ages. Bloom's Literary Criticism. Boas, Frederick S. Shakspere and His Predecessors. The University series. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
OL M. Bowers, Fredson On Editing Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Dramatists. For this reason, some theorists have suggested that one or several authors wishing to conceal their true identity used the person of William Shakespeare as a front.
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Most scholars and literary historians dismiss this hypothesis, although many suspect Shakespeare sometimes collaborated with other playwrights. Shakespeare was likely affiliated with several different theater companies when these early works debuted on the London stage. His works weave together and reinvent theatrical conventions dating back to ancient Greece, featuring assorted casts of characters with complex psyches and profoundly human interpersonal conflicts.
It has been suggested that he intended them for his intimate circle only, not the general public. Shakespeare died at age 52 of unknown causes on April 23, , leaving the bulk of his estate to his daughter Susanna. Furthermore, Shakespeare is believed to have influenced the English language more than any other writer in history, coining—or, at the very least, popularizing—terms and phrases that still regularly crop up in everyday conversation.