William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
William Shakespeare was considered to be the greatest writer of the Elizabethan Age. Shakespearean age changed the face of drama in England. The Elizabethan period was so much dominated by him that many literary figures started calling 'The Elizabethan Age' itself as 'The Shakespearean Age'.
Actually, it was the later part of the Elizabethan Age i.e. 1590-1613 where Shakespeare had a major role to play alongwith some of his contemporaries.
In the meantime, influenced and motivated by the growing popularity of the English Literature, many other authors, besides Shakespeare took the centre-stage to give rise to a sort of new era, called the Jacobean period (1603-1625).
To sum up, the period from 1590 to 1625, witnessing the rise of William Shakespeare and his contemporaries including the Jacobean writers, can be aptly termed as 'The Age of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries' or 'The Later Elizabethan Period'.
It was this period when English Literature scaled new peaks in all forms of writings especially 'drama' and mainly owing to William Shakespeare.
English poet and playwright William Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. He was baptized on 26th April, 1564. His father, John Shakespeare was a burgess of the recently constituted corporation of Stratford. His mother, Mary Arden was a local landed heiress. William Shakespeare had two older sisters, Joan and Judith and three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard and Edmund.
Not much is known of Shakespeare's education. It is generally assumed that he attended the local grammar school, the King's New School. At the age of 18, Shakespeare married 26 years old Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children- Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. Hamnet died at the age of eleven, by which time Shakespeare was already a successful playwright.
Shakespeare's literary career started around 1590. By this time, he started earning a living as an actor and a playwright in London and possibly had several plays produced. Two years later, he became a leading member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, an acting company in London. Shakespeare with his company also built the 'Glove Theater' in 1599. His fame started with it. After the crowning of King James I, in 1603, the company changed its name to the King's Men.
Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. Most of his plays were written as 'quarto texts', on a sheet of paper folded four ways. A few of his plays were printed in his lifetime, though they appeared more voluminously after his death. His first collection of works was printed in 1623.
Shakespeare retired to Stratford a few years before his death. After 1606-1607, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays and none are attributed to him after 1613. His last three plays were collaborations, probably with John Fletcher, who succeeded him as the house playwright for the King's Men. Shakespeare died on the 23rd of April, 1616.
Shakespeare's Literary Life
Shakespeare's literary life can be divided into four main periods-
(i) Pre-1594 (King Richard III, The Comedy of Errors etc.)
(ii) 1594-1600 (King Henry V, A Midsummer Night's Dream etc.)
(iii) 1601-1608 (Macbeth, King Lear etc.)
(iv) Post-1608 (Cymbeline, The Tempest etc.)
First Literary Period (1585-1594)
In his first literary period, Shakespeare wrote 26 sonnets and 7 plays. Reuben Post Halleck states that this was a period 'Showing the exuberance of youthful love and imagination'. Plays of this period also show the influence of Christopher Marlowe. Henry VI (Part I, II and III), Richard III, Titus Andronicus, Comedy of Errors, Taming of the Shrew and Shakespeare's poems Venus and Adonis and Rape of Lucrece were all written during this period.
Second Literary Period (1594-1600)
To Shakespeare's second period is attributed to his chronicle-history plays and joyous comedies. This period constitutes historical plays such as Richard II, Henry IV (Part I and II) and Henry V and comedies such as Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It and Twelfth Night. This period shows progress in Shakespeare's dramatic art.
Third Literary Period (1601-1608)
In the third period of his literary life, Shakespeare mostly wrote tragedies or romances with tragic resonances. Some of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies were written in this period: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra.
His bitter comedies such as All's Well that Ends Well and Measure for Measure also belong to this period. The darkness/bitterness/sadness that characterises the works of this period was perhaps influenced by events in Shakespeare's own life: his father's death in 1601, execution of Earl of Essex by Elizabeth and distressful state of his friends' lives.
Fourth Literary Period (1609-1613)
During the late years of his life, Shakespeare wrote three plays: Winter's Tale, Cymbeline and The Tempest. Plays of this period are characterised by a grave cynicism and resignation. This period also includes works in collaboration such as Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen. The Tempest was Shakespeare's last written play.
Shakespearean Plays
The plays written by English poet, playwright and actor William Shakespeare have the reputation of being among the greatest in the English language and in Western literature. Traditionally, the plays are divided into the genres of comedy, tragedy and history, they have been translated into every major living language, in addition to being continually performed all around the world.
Many of his plays appeared in print as a series of quartos, but approximately half of them remained unpublished until 1623, when the posthumous First Folio was published. The traditional division of his plays into tragedies, comedies, and histories follows the categories used in the First Folio.
However modern criticism has labelled some of these plays 'problem plays' that elude easy categorisation or perhaps purposely break generic conventions and has introduced the term romances for what scholars believe to be his later comedies.
Shakespearean Genres
A literary genre is a classification which includes all those written works which have similar characteristics in terms of form, style or content. Genres can be as broad as novels, drama and poetry or can be further classified as in the breakup of drama into tragedy, comedy, melodrama etc.
When we speak of Shakespearean genres we indicate that Shakespeare's literary output can be classified in various ways and this clarification helps us to understand his work better. For example when a play by Shakespeare is categorised as tragedy, it will have certain features
- Protagonist will usually be of high stature.
- There will be personal and may-be state related problems.
- Eventually the play will end in a number of deaths including those of the main characters.
Shakespeare's plays were printed individually before 1623 from his manuscripts or playcripts for performance called quartos.
The First Folio was brought out in 1623, its editors were Johan Heminges and Henry Condell (Shakespeare's fellows in The King's Men). Other editions brought out during 17th century were called Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Folios.
In 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell included only dramatic works in the compilation, entitled Master William Shakespeare's comedies, histories and tragedies published according to the true original copies, the sonnets of Shakespeare or his longer poems such as the Rape of Lucrece. In addition in the intervening years many scholars have disputed the exclusion of certain plays which did not appear in the First Folio but are held to be written by Shakespeare for example, The Two Noble Kinsmen.
It is generally accepted that William Shakespeare wrote 38 plays (Some of which were collaborative efforts), a sequence of 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems and various other short poems. The two plays which were not included in the First Folio were Pericles, Prince of Tyre and The Two Noble Kinsmen.
Shakespeare's plays can be classified into the following broad categories
- Romantic Comedy
- Shakespearean Tragedies
- Historical Plays
- Problem Plays
- Shakespearean Roman Plays.
Shakespeare perfected the genre of Romantic comedy. Most of his comedies are of the romantic type. The main theme of Shakespeare's comedy is love.
However, even though love is the main ingredient, Shakespeare’s conception of love is never of the Petrarchan kind. In fact, in comedies such as As You Like It, he imparts a realistic touch to love and criticises the Petrarchan idea of love. In his comedies, lovers usually experience a set of obstacles before they get united in a harmonious manner. The play frequently ends with a marriage or a celebration. All conflicts get resolved at the end.
Shakespeare’s romantic comedies are all set in an imaginative world far away from the dull and dreary world of everyday life. Examples of these are the magical forest in A Midsummer Night’s Dream or the Forest of Arden in As You Like It. However, even when the characters depart to a newer fanciful world, Shakespeare adds touches of realism.
Allardyce Nicoll states in this regard that: "There are contemporary figures and contemporary fashions in Love’s Labour Lost; Bottom and his companions mingle with the fairies: Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek are companions of Viola and Olivia, Dogberry and Verges of Hero and Beatrice. This is the cardinal characteristic of Shakespeare’s romantic world—the union of realism and fantasy."
In most of Shakespeare’s mature comedies, there is always addition of a philosophical insight. Through the use of humour, Shakespeare deals with serious issues e.g. As You Like It. It takes up the issue of power, court politics and issue of cross-dressing while Comedy of Errors takes up the issue of insanity.
Works of Shakespearean Comedy
- As You Like It
- Cymbeline
- The Merchant of Venice
- Taming of the Shrew
- Twelfth Night
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- Much Ado About Nothing
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- The Winter’s Tale
- Comedy of Errors
- Love’s Labour’s Lost
- Pericles, Prince of Tyre
- The Tempest
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
Shakespearean Tragedy
According to AC Bradley, a Shakespearean tragedy can be divided into three parts:
An exposition of the state of affairs.
The beginning, growth and vicissitudes of the conflict.
The final catastrophe or tragic outcome.
Shakespearean tragedy is primarily concerned with one person—the tragic hero. The tragic hero is a person of high social estate, raised above the rest. It is he who undergoes suffering as a result of his tragic flaw or error of judgement. In case of Shakespeare’s Othello for instance, tragedy occurs as a result of Othello’s tragic flaw–sexual jealousy.
The tragedy ends with the death of the tragic hero. However, even though the hero dies, moral order is eventually restored at the end. Shakespeare’s tragedies developed out of earlier 16th century tragedies, which had antecedents in the ‘tragedies’ of medieval poetry—verse accounts of disaster, suffering and death, usually of mighty rulers.
Works of Shakespearean Tragedy
- Romeo and Juliet
- King Lear
- Othello
- Julius Caesar
- Coriolanus
- Macbeth
- Hamlet
- Titus Andronicus
- Antony and Cleopatra
- Timon of Athens
Although, there is no uniform consensus about what exactly constitutes a Shakespearean history play, yet the term generally refers to the ten plays that cover English history from the 12th to 16th centuries and each named after and focusing on a reigning monarch.
According to Michael Hattaway, Shakespeare’s historical plays are "Related to history mainly by offering representations of historical figures and the creation of theatre out of historical events". Shakespeare’s primary source for his history plays was Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland.
John M Mercer identifies some significant features of Shakespeare’s historical plays:
Shakespeare’s history plays usually have episodic plots "Unified primarily by their presentation of significant events from the reign of one monarch".
They "Reflect the political ideology of the chronicle history books as well as the personal bias of the playwright".
They may usually contain elements of both tragedy and comedy or exhibit the traits of just one of these genres. For instance, in addition to being history plays, Shakespeare’s Richard II and Richard III are tragedies and Henry IV, Part I and Henry IV, Part V are comedies.
Historical Plays of Shakespeare
- King John
- Richard II
- Henry IV, Part 1
- Henry IV, Part 2
- Henry VI, Part 1
- Henry VI, Part 2
- Henry VI, Part 3
- Richard III (also considered a tragedy)
- Henry VIII
- Edward III
Shakespeare's Problem Plays
While most of Shakespeare's plays fall into the above cited categories of tragedies, comedies or histories, there are some plays of his, which defy the conventions of these genres. These plays of Shakespeare do not neatly fit into any of these categories.
It was the critic Frederick S Boas who first used the term 'problem plays' for some of Shakespeare's plays in 1896, though the term was not his coinage and was already in use before for writers like Ibsen and Shaw. Boas borrowed and adapted the term for Shakespearean problem plays are All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure and Troilus and Cressida. All three of these plays were written between 1599 and 1605.
According to Edward Dowden, these three plays of Shakespeare marked a change from Shakespeare's previous comedy works All's Well that Ends Well was 'grave and earnest', Measure for Measure was 'dark and bitter', while Troilus and Cressida was 'strange and difficult'. However, Frederick S Boas thought that this group of difficult plays/problem plays should also include Hamlet.
He remarked that this play was "Distinguished from the others by its tragic ending, but it was akin to them in its general temper and atmosphere."
Boas believed that these four plays presented problems of classification not just for the critics, but also for the audience. They centered on problems, which demanded attention and broke the conventions of genre.
There is no uniform consensus on Hamlet as a problem play. While critics such as Boas and Tillyard argued that Hamlet was a problem play, others like WW Lawrence and Peter Ure rejected this argument.
Shakespeare's Roman Plays
Though Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus are included under tragedies, yet they are also sometimes considered by critics in a separate category known as Roman plays of Shakespeare.
All these plays are set in Rome, deal with similar subjects and make use of the same source—North's translation of Plutarch's Lives. Dominika Klenova states that Shakespeare uses his source material as a framework, which helps him develop his own conception of creating drama out of biography. He also develops his idea of the Roman character and elaborates on him at both 'national' and individual level.
- Peter J Leithart cites certain common features of Shakespeare's Roman plays:
- They are all set in ancient Rome and were staged in Roman costume and Roman sets.
- Blood, violence and mayhem are important features of these plays.
- Suicide is depicted as an important Roman custom. Brutus and Cassius, Antony and Portia all commit suicide and Coriolanus also submits to death at the hands of the Volscians.
- Shakespeare depicts the Romans as self-conscious, theatrical and historically aware characters.
💬 Soliloquies in Plays
Shakespeare's plays are also notable for their use of soliloquies, in which a character makes a speech to himself or herself so the audience can understand the character's inner motivations and conflict.
Shakespeare's Style of Writing
While many passages in Shakespeare's plays are written in prose, he almost always wrote a large proportion of his plays and poems in iambic pentameter. In some of his early works (like Romeo and Juliet), he even added punctuation at the end of these iambic pentameter lines to make the rhythm even stronger.
He and many dramatists of this period used the form of blank verse extensively in character dialogue, thus heightening poetic effects. To end many scenes in his plays he used a rhyming couplet to give a sense of conclusion, or completion. A typical example is provided in Macbeth: as Macbeth leaves the stage to murder Duncan (to the sound of a chiming clock), he says,
"Hear it is not Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell."
Shakespeare's writing (especially his plays) also feature extensive wordplay in which double entendres and rhetorical flourishes are repeatedly used. Humour is a key element in all of Shakespeare's plays.
Although a large amount of his comical talent is evident in his comedies, some of the most entertaining scenes and characters are found in tragedies such as Hamlet and histories such as Henry IV, Part I. Shakespeare's humour was largely influenced by Plautus.
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