Lecture 8-10

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Aim: English literature can introduce students to a range of aspects, not only of the English language but also
of English history and culture. Students can also learn the context and meanings of famous literature, quotes,
folk songs, ballads, sonnets and phrases. The study of Literature can provide students with a fresh and creative
angle with which to approach their studies in particular and their lives in general.

I. W. Shakespeare is well known all over the world. He was a marvelous poet, dramatist. Many facts of his
life remain unknown, because subject matter for his biography began to be studied only 100 years after his
death..
He was born in 1564 in Stratford on Avon. His father, John Shakespeare, was at first a farmer, then
he began to be engaged in glove business. He was rather successful in his business and even became a member
of a city-counsel. Though he was an illiterate man and couldn’t write his name by a cross. Stratford on Avon
was a little town in the middle England and his father also had some pasture and also rented a house and land,
belonging to Robert Ardon (a little later W. Shakespeare married his daughter). There was a grammar school in
Stratford on Avon. The priest of the church was also a teacher and there W. Shakespeare learnt to read and spell
and was taught to spell his first Latin. Being a child William began to set and produce plays and though he had
to work hard in his father’s business he didn’t want to leave his hobby. On leaving school William began to
learn languages seriously. Thus the Italian language he learnt from an Italian who lived in their house. Then his
father’s business went bankrupt and Shakespeare had to find a job to support the father’s family and his own
family because in 1582 he married to Ann Hathaway who was 8 years senior. They had 3 children (1 daughter
and twins a boy and a girl). When his father ruined his life and became intolerable to live, Shakespeare decided
to leave for London and in 1585 he left for London. There he hoped to be an actor but he wasn’t very talented
as an actor. Then he tried his pen as a playwright. In 1593 a very serious epidemic of plaque broke out and all
theatrical performances were temporarily stopped and Shakespeare decided to write a poem. He wrote a poem
called “Venus and Adonis”. He dedicated this poem to a very popular young aristocrat Lord Southampton who
presented him 1000 pounds for it. Thus he became acquainted to this circle of young aristocrats. Later
Shakespeare wrote another poem “Loucris” and also dedicated it to Lord Southampton. In 1599 the theatrical
group called “ the Lord Chamberlain’s servants” built and occupied a theatre. It was “The Globe” and
Shakespeare was a dramatist and shareholder of this company. In 1601 all those young aristocrats were accused
of a secret plot against the queen and were taken in prison. Just at that time Shakespeare began to write his great
tragedies. During the last years of his life he wrote less and less and in 1613 when “The Globe” was in fire
Shakespeare left for his native place and there on April 23 1616 he died and was buried in the Holy Trinity
Church (Церковь Святой Троицы).
II. There are some problems connected with the personality of Shakespeare and his creative
activity. Even nowadays there appear many versions concerning if it were that Shakespeare who wrote those
great sonnets and plays. They say that it was somebody else. The fact is that the supporters of this view point
say that Shakespeare wasn’t educated in university couldn’t write such masterpieces. But the talent should be
taken into consideration.
The second problem deals with the time of writing some of his works. Some scholars divide his
works into 3, others into 4 periods.
The 1st period from the beginning of his literary career 1590-1594. During this period which was
greatly influenced by his fellow Shakespeare wrote his historical chronicles (to show the nature of power and
search for ideal monarch) and some comedies: “Henry the 6th” , then it was followed by other parts (part 2,3),
“Richard the 3rd” (1592), “the comedy of errors”. In 1593 he wrote “the Taming of the shrew” ( укрощение
строптивой), in 1594 “Two gentlemen of Verona”, “Love’s labour’s lost” ( бесплодные усилия любви) and in
1594 “Romeo and Juliet”.
The 2nd period (1595-1600). The second period of Shakespeare’s work, extending from about 1594
to about 1601, is occupied chiefly with chronicle−history plays and happy comedies. The chronicle−history
plays begin (probably) with the subtitle and fascinating, though not yet absolutely masterful study of
contrasting characters in 'Richard II'; continue through the two parts of 'Henry IV,' where the realistic comedy
action of Falstaff and his group makes history familiarly vivid; and end with the epic glorification of a typical
English hero−king in 'Henry V.' The comedies include the charmingly fantastic 'Midsummer Night's Dream';
'The Merchant of Venice,' where a story of tragic sternness is strikingly contrasted with the most poetical
idealizing romance and yet is harmoniously blended into it; 'Much Ado About Nothing,' a magnificent example
of high comedy of character and wit; 'As You Like It,' the supreme delightful achievement of Elizabethan and
all English pastoral romance; and 'Twelfth Night,' where again charming romantic sentiment is made believable
by combination with a story of comic realism. Even in the one, unique, tragedy of the period, 'Romeo and
Juliet,' the main impression is not that of the predestined tragedy, but that of ideal youthful love, too gloriously
radiant to be viewed with sorrow even in its fatal outcome. He wrote comedies and histories too. “Richard the
2nd”, a comedy “A midsummer night’s dream”(1595), “The merchant of Venice”, “Much ado about
nothing”(Много шума из ничего- it’s a proverb), “Julius Caesar”, “Twelfth night”.
The 3rd period (1600-1608). He wrote his great tragedies. He was at the peak of his creative activity
and these tragedies made him immortal. His outlook radically changed. The joyous spirit had gone forever. He
became a real master of tragedy. His depicts of human characters are unsurpassed.(непревзойденный). The
soul of the heroes has undergone great changes. This was the 1 st innovation introduced by Shakespeare and his
2nd innovation was his way of explaining the evolution or degradation of his heroes by the social factors. They
form their psychology and influence their lives. In some of his tragedies he expresses ethical problems, such as
“Othello”(1604-1605). This tragedy expresses the crisis of Humanism.
His great tragedies are “Hamlet”(1600), “King Lear”, “Macbeth”(1605-1606). Besides these great
tragedies he wrote some comedies as: “The merry wives of Windsor”, “All is well that end well”(1603-1604),
“Measure for measure”. Shakespeare gave the English language many phrases and sayings which English and
people all over the world still use every day. Often they do not realize these words came from Shakespeare’s
plays or poems, eg: “All the world is stage. And all the men and women merely actors”, “To
be or not to be”, “Brevity is the soul of wit”, “A rose by any other name would smell as
sweet” and others.
The favourite theme developed in these tragedies used in his histories as well, is the theme of state
in society, the nature of power, the institution of monarchy. Using this theme he creates a gallery of non-too-
attractive kings.
Admitting that a good monarch is possible in his great tragedies he comes to the conclusion that
monarchy is an evil in its nature, in its essence. The different aspects of this idea are shown in “Macbeth”. He
was human(Macbeth), a good knight, he wanted to become a king and his wife help him to come to throne by
killing the king Duncan and he become a king, a monster. Here we observe the degradation. King Lear was a
monster and when he stopped being a king, divided his kingdom between his daughters he became a beggar.
(evaluation of his actions).
The 4th period is characterized by a certain change in his outlook and it was reflected in his works.
He was called tragic-comedist or dramatist. All his works are written in dramatic conflict but the tension is not
so great as in tragedies, and what is common that they had “a happy end”. Some fantastic creatures exist in his
work, it makes them romantic (imaginary wood with some supernatural creatures), “Pericles, prince of Tyre”
(1608), “Cymbeline” (1609-1610), “The winter’s tale”(1610-1611), “The Tempest”(1611-1612), “Henry the
8th” (1612-1613).
Shakespeare did not solve the insoluble problems of life, but having presented them as powerfully, perhaps,
as is possible for human intelligence, he turned in his last period, of only two or three years, to the expression of
the serene philosophy of life in which he himself must have now taken refuge. The noble and beautiful
romance−comedies, 'Cymbeline,' 'The Winter's Tale,' and 'The Tempest,' suggest that men do best to forget
what is painful and center their attention on the pleasing and encouraging things in a world where there is at
least an inexhaustible store of beauty and goodness and delight. Shakespeare may now well have felt, as his
retirement to Stratford suggests, that in his nearly forty plays he had fully expressed himself and had earned the
right to a long and peaceful old age. The latter, as we have seen, was denied him; but seven years after his death
two of his fellow−managers assured the preservation of the plays whose unique importance he himself did not
suspect by collecting them in the first folio edition of his complete dramatic works. Shakespeare’s greatness
rests on supreme achievement—the result of the highest genius matured by experience and by careful
experiment and labor—in all phases of the work of a poetic dramatist. The surpassing charm of his rendering of
the romantic beauty and joy of life and the profundity of his presentation of its tragic side we have already
suggested. Equally sure and comprehensive is his portrayal of characters. With the certainty of absolute mastery
he causes men and women to live for us, a vast representative group, in all the actual variety of age and station,
perfectly realized in all the subtle diversities and inconsistencies of protean human nature. Not less notable than
his strong men are his delightful young heroines, romantic Elizabethan heroines, to be sure, with an
unconventionality, many of them, which does not belong to such women in the more restricted world of reality,
but pure embodiments of the finest womanly delicacy, keenness, and vivacity. Shakespeare, it is true, was a
practical dramatist. His background characters are often present in the plays not in order to be entirely real but
in order to furnish amusement; and even in the case of the chief ones, just as in the treatment of incidents, he is
always perfectly ready to sacrifice literal truth to dramatic effect. But these things are only the corollaries of all
successful playwritings and of all art.
To Shakespeare’s mastery of poetic expression similarly strong superlatives must be applied. For his form
he perfected Marlowe's blank verse, developing it to the farthest possible limits of fluency, variety, and melody;
though he retained the riming couplet for occasional use (partly for the sake of variety) and frequently made use
also of prose, both for the same reason and in realistic or commonplace scenes. As regards the spirit of poetry,
it scarcely need be said that nowhere else in literature is there a like storehouse of the most delightful and the
greatest ideas phrased with the utmost power of condensed expression and figurative beauty. In dramatic
structure his greatness is on the whole less conspicuous. Writing for success on the Elizabethan stage, he
seldom attempted to reduce its romantic licenses to the perfection of an absolute standard. 'Romeo and Juliet,
'Hamlet,' and indeed most of his plays, contain unnecessary scenes, interesting to the Elizabethans, which
Sophocles as well as Racine would have pruned away. Yet when Shakespeare chooses, as in 'Othello,' to
develop a play with the sternest and most rapid directness, he proves essentially the equal even of the most rigid
technician. Shakespeare, indeed, although as Ben Jonson said, 'he was not for an age but for all time,' was in
every respect a thorough Elizabethan also, and does not escape the superficial Elizabethan faults. Chief of
these, perhaps, is his fondness for 'conceits,' with which he makes his plays, especially some of the earlier ones,
sparkle, brilliantly, but often inappropriately. In his prose style, again, except in the talk of commonplace
persons, he never outgrew, or wished to outgrow, a large measure of Elizabethan self−conscious elegance.
Scarcely a fault is his other
Elizabethan habit of seldom, perhaps never, inventing the whole of his stories, but drawing the outlines of
them from previous works—English chronicles, poems, or plays, Italian 'novels,' or the biographies of Plutarch.
But in the majority of cases these sources provided him only with bare or even crude sketches, and perhaps
nothing furnishes clearer proof of his genius than the way in which he has seen the human significance in
stories baldly and wretchedly told, where the figures are merely wooden types, and by the power of imagination
has transformed them into the greatest literary masterpieces, profound revelations of the underlying forces of
life. Shakespeare, like every other great man, has been the object of much unintelligent and misdirected
adulation, but his greatness, so far from suffering diminution, grows more apparent with the passage of time
and the increase of study.
III Sonnets. Most of them were written in 1594-1608. He wrote 154 sonnets. Not all of them can be
placed among his best works but his sonnets are considered to be the peak of his poetic career. We don’t know
for certain who were the prototypes of the sonnet’s characters. There are 3 main characters in the sonnets:
1. Poet
2. His friend
3. The dark lady.
The poet expresses the warmest admiration for his friend. The dark lady is the poet’s beloved.
Unlike the idealized ladies in the sonnets of other poets Shakespeare’s dark lady is vicious, not very beautiful
but the poet can’t help loving her. Then comes the tragedy: the dark lady and the friend betrayed the poet.
There is a group of sonnets where Shakespeare raises the most important problems of the society.
These sonnets drew attention of many translators.
In the last decade, especially, of the century, no other lyric form compared in popularity with the sonnet.
Here England was still following in the footsteps of Italy and France; it has been estimated that in the course of
the century over three hundred thousand sonnets were written in Western Europe. In England as elsewhere most
of these poems were inevitably of mediocre quality and imitative in substance, ringing the changes with
wearisome iteration on a minimum of ideas, often with the most extravagant use of conceits.
Petrarch's example was still commonly followed; the sonnets were generally composed in sequences
(cycles) of a hundred or more, addressed to the poet's more or less imaginary cruel lady, though the note of
manly independence introduced by Wyatt is frequent. First of the important English sequences is the 'Astrophel
and Stella' of Sir Philip Sidney, written about 1580, published in 1591. 'Astrophel' is a fanciful half−Greek
anagram for the poet's own name, and Stella (Star) designates Lady Penelope Devereux, who at about this time
married Lord Rich. The sequence may very reasonably be interpreted as an expression of Platonic idealism,
though it is sometimes taken in a sense less consistent with Sidney's high reputation. Of Spenser's 'Amoretti' we
have already spoken. By far the finest of all the sonnets are the best ones (a considerable part) of Shakespeare’s
one hundred and fifty−four, which were not published until 1609 but may have been mostly written before
1600. Their interpretation has long been hotly debated. It is certain, however, that they do not form a connected
sequence.
Some of them are occupied with urging a youth of high rank, Shakespeare’s patron, who may have been
either the Earl of Southampton or William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, to marry and perpetuate his race; others
hint the story, real or imaginary, of Shakespeare’s infatuation for a 'dark lady,' leading to bitter disillusion; and
still others seem to be occasional expressions of devotion to other friends of one or the other sex. Here as
elsewhere Shakespeare’s genius, at its best, is supreme over all rivals; the first recorded criticism speaks of the
'sugared sweetness' of his sonnets; but his genius is not always at its best.

Literature:
1. Michael Alexander. History of English literature. - Macmillan foundation,2000
2.Henry A. Beers. Brief History of English and American Literature.- Blackmask Online, 2007
3. Robert Huntington Fletcher. A History of English Literature. - Blackmask Online, 2002
4. Черноземова Е.Н. История английской литературы: Планы. Разработки. Материалы. Задания.- M.:
Флинта: Наука,2000
5. Seth Lerer. The History of English Literature, 2nd edition, part 1. - The teaching company, 2008
6. Тумбина О.В. Lectures on English literature 5th -20th c. Петербург, 2003
7. Позднякова Л.Р. История английской и Американской литературы. - Ростов-на-Дону, Феникс,
2002
8. Internet resources