English project work
Made on topic:- William Shakespeare
by :- amit shah
class :- ‘’10’’ section ‘’c’’
1564-1616
Introduction :-
William Shakespeare, often called the English national poet, is
widely considered the greatest dramatist of all time. He is the poet
or I should say the port who gave us very good poems and other
drams to read to understand . his more information is given in the
up coming pages so please turn over .
Content :-
1. About willaim Shakespeare.
2. Early life of Shakespeare.
3. London and theatrical career.
About William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616)] was an
English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the
greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-
eminent dramatist.He is often called England's national poet,
and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works,
including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays 154
sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some
of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into
every major living language and are performed more often than
those of any other playwright.
Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-
Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne
Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and
twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he
began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and
part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's
Men, later known as theKing's Men. He appears to have retired
to Stratford around 1613, at age 49, where he died three years
later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, which
has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters
as his physical appearance,sexuality, and religious beliefs, and
whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589
and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies andhistories,
and these are regarded as some of the best work ever produced
in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about
1608, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth,
considered some of the finest works in the English language In
his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances,
and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality
and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, John
Heminges and Henry Condell, two friends and fellow actors of
Shakespeare, published the First Folio, a posthumous collected
edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the
plays now recognised as Shakespeare's It was prefaced with a
poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed,
presciently, as "not of an age, but for all time" In the 20th and
21st centuries, his works have been repeatedly adapted and
rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and
performance. His plays remain highly popular, and are
constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse
cultural and political contexts throughout the world.
Early life of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare,
an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield,
and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning
farmer. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there
on 26 April 1564. His actual date of birth remains unknown, but
is traditionally observed on 23 April, Saint George's Day. This
date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholar's
mistake, has proved appealing to biographers, since Shakespeare
died 23 April 1616. He was the third child of eight and the eldest
surviving son.
Although no attendance records for the period survive, most
biographers agree that Shakespeare was probably educated at
the King's New School in Stratford, a free school chartered in
1553, about a quarter-mile (400 m) from his home. Grammar
schools varied in quality during the Elizabethan era, but
grammar school curricula were largely similar, the
basic Latin text was standardised by royal decree,and the school
would have provided an intensive education in grammar based
upon Latin classical authors.
At the age of 18, Shakespeare married the 26-year-old Anne
Hathaway. The consistory court of the Diocese of
Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The
next day, two of Hathaway's neighbours posted bonds
guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage. The
ceremony may have been arranged in some haste, since the
Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read
once instead of the usual three times, and six months after the
marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, baptised 26
May 1583. Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed
almost two years later and were baptised 2 February
1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was
buried 11 August 1596.
London and theatrical career
It is not known exactly when Shakespeare began writing, but
contemporary allusions and records of performances show that
several of his plays were on the London stage by 1592. By then,
he was sufficiently well known in London to be attacked in print
by the playwrightRobert Greene in his Groats-Worth of Wit
there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with
his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as
well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and
being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the
only Shake-scene in a country.
Scholars differ on the exact meaning of these words, but most
agree that Greene is accusing Shakespeare of reaching above his
rank in trying to match university-educated writers such
as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe and Greene himself
(the "university wits"). The italicised phrase parodying the line
"Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide" from
Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3, along with the pun "Shake-
scene", identifies Shakespeare as Greene's target. Here Johannes
Factotum—"Jack of all trades"— means a second-rate tinkerer
with the work of others, rather than the more common "universal
genius".
Greene's attack is the earliest surviving mention of
Shakespeare's career in the theatre. Biographers suggest that his
career may have begun any time from the mid-1580s to just
before Greene's remarks. From 1594, Shakespeare's plays were
performed by only the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a company
owned by a group of players, including Shakespeare, that soon
became the leading playing company in London. After the death
of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, the company was awarded a royal
patent by the new king, James I, and changed its name to
the King's Men.
In 1599, a partnership of company members built their own
theatre on the south bank of the River Thames, which they
called the Globe. In 1608, the partnership also took over
the Blackfriars indoor theatre. Records of Shakespeare's
property purchases and investments indicate that the company
made him a wealthy man. In 1597, he bought the second-largest
house in Stratford, New Place, and in 1605, he invested in a
share of the parish tithes in Stratford.
Some of Shakespeare's plays were published in quarto editions
from 1594. By 1598, his name had become a selling point and
began to appear on the title pages. Shakespeare continued to act
in his own and other plays after his success as a playwright. The
1616 edition of Ben Jonson's Works names him on the cast lists
for Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Sejanus His
Fall (1603).The absence of his name from the 1605 cast list for
Jonson's Volpone is taken by some scholars as a sign that his
acting career was nearing its end. The First Folio of 1623,
however, lists Shakespeare as one of "the Principal Actors in all
these Plays", some of which were first staged afterVolpone,
although we cannot know for certain which roles he played. In
1610, John Davies of Hereford wrote that "good Will" played
"kingly" roles. In 1709, Rowe passed down a tradition that
Shakespeare played the ghost of Hamlet's father. Later traditions
maintain that he also played Adam in As You Like It and the
Chorus in Henry V,though scholars doubt the sources of the
information.
Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford
during his career. In 1596, the year before he bought New Place
as his family home in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in the
parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, north of the River
Thames. He moved across the river to Southwark by 1599, the
year his company constructed the Globe Theatre there. By 1604,
he had moved north of the river again, to an area north of St
Paul's Cathedral with many fine houses. There he rented rooms
from a FrenchHuguenot named Christopher Mountjoy, a maker
of ladies' wigs and other headgear.
