William Shakespeare

12/24/23, 10:22 AM William Shakespeare - Wikipedia
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (bapt. 26[a] April 1564 – 23 April 1616)[b] was an English
William Shakespeare
playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English
language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.[3][4][5] He is often called England's
national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works,
including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three 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.[6] Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer
in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was born and raised 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 (sharer) of a playing company
called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. At age 49 (around
1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few
records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable
The Chandos portrait, early 17th century
speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious
beliefs and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.[7][8][9] Born Stratford-upon-Avon,
England
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613.[10][11] His Baptised 26 April 1564
early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the
best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, Died 23 April 1616 (aged 52)
among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all Stratford-upon-Avon,
considered to be among the finest works in the English language.[3][4][5] In the last England
phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated Resting Church of the Holy Trinity,
with other playwrights. place Stratford-upon-Avon
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and Occupations Playwright · poet · actor
accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, Years active c. 1585–1613
two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more definitive text known
Era Elizabethan
as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works
that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson, a Jacobean
former rival of Shakespeare, that hailed Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: Organization Lord Chamberlain's
"not of an age, but for all time".[12] Men/King's Men
Notable work Shakespeare bibliography
Life Movement English Renaissance
This is a list of translations of works
Spouse Anne Hathaway (m. 1582)
by William Shakespeare.
Early life Children Susanna Hall
Shakespeare was the son of John Hamnet Shakespeare

Shakespeare, an alderman and a Judith Quiney
successful glover (glove-maker) Parents John Shakespeare
originally from Snitterfield in
Warwickshire, and Mary Arden, the (father)
daughter of an affluent landowning Mary Arden (mother)
family.[13] He was born in Stratford- Writing career
upon-Avon, where he was baptised on
Language Early Modern English
John Shakespeare's house, believed to be 26 April 1564. His date of birth is
Shakespeare's birthplace, in Stratford-upon- unknown, but is traditionally observed Genres Play (comedy · history ·
Avon on 23 April, Saint George's Day.[1] This tragedy)
date, which can be traced to William Poetry (sonnet · narrative
Oldys and George Steevens, has proved poem · epitaph)
appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on the same date in 1616.[14][15] Signature
He was the third of eight children, and the eldest surviving son.[16]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare 1/18
Although no attendance records for the period survive, most biographers agree that Shakespeare was probably educated at the
King's New School in Stratford,[17][18][19] a free school chartered in 1553,[20] 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,[21][22] and the school would have provided an intensive education in grammar
based upon Latin classical authors.[23]
At the age of 18, Shakespeare married 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.[24] 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,[25][26] and six months after the marriage Anne gave birth
to a daughter, Susanna, baptised 26 May 1583.[27] Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later
and were baptised 2 February 1585.[28] Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596.[29]
After the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as
part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in
the "complaints bill" of a law case before the Queen's Bench court at Westminster dated
Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9 October 1589.[30] Scholars refer to the years between 1585
and 1592 as Shakespeare's "lost years".[31] Biographers attempting to account for this
period have reported many apocryphal stories. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare's first
biographer, recounted a Stratford legend that Shakespeare fled the town for London to
escape prosecution for deer poaching in the estate of local squire Thomas Lucy.
Shakespeare is also supposed to have taken his revenge on Lucy by writing a scurrilous
ballad about him.[32][33] Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare starting his theatrical
career minding the horses of theatre patrons in London.[34] John Aubrey reported that
Shakespeare had been a country schoolmaster.[35] Some 20th-century scholars suggested
that Shakespeare may have been employed as a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of
Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who named a certain "William Shakeshafte" in his
will.[36][37] Little evidence substantiates such stories other than hearsay collected after his
death, and Shakeshafte was a common name in the Lancashire area.[38][39]
Shakespeare's coat of arms, from

London and theatrical career the 1602 book The book of coates
and creasts. Promptuarium
It is not known definitively when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions armorum. It features spears as a
and records of performances show that several of his plays were on the London stage by pun on the family name.[c]
1592.[40] By then, he was sufficiently known in London to be attacked in print by the
playwright Robert Greene in his Groats-Worth of Wit from that year:
... 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.[41]
Scholars differ on the exact meaning of Greene's words,[41][42] but most agree that Greene was accusing Shakespeare of
reaching above his rank in trying to match such university-educated writers as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe, and
Greene himself (the so-called "University Wits").[43] 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", clearly identify Shakespeare as
Greene's target. As used here, Johannes Factotum ("Jack of all trades") refers to a second-rate tinkerer with the work of others,
rather than the more common "universal genius".[41][44]
Greene's attack is the earliest surviving mention of Shakespeare's work in the theatre. Biographers suggest that his career may
have begun any time from the mid-1580s to just before Greene's remarks.[45][46][47] After 1594, Shakespeare's plays were
performed only by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a company owned by a group of players, including Shakespeare, that soon
became the leading playing company in London.[48] 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.[49]
In 1599, a partnership of members of the company built their own theatre

on the south bank of the River Thames, which they named the Globe. In
1608, the partnership also took over the Blackfriars indoor theatre. Extant All the world's a stage,
records of Shakespeare's property purchases and investments indicate that and all the men and women merely players:
his association with the company made him a wealthy man,[51] and in 1597, they have their exits and their entrances;
he bought the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place, and in 1605, and one man in his time plays many parts ...
invested in a share of the parish tithes in Stratford.[52]
Some of Shakespeare's plays were published in quarto editions, beginning —As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7, 139–142[50]
in 1594, and by 1598, his name had become a selling point and began to
appear on the title pages.[53][54][55] 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).[56] 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.[45] The First Folio of 1623,
however, lists Shakespeare as one of "the Principal Actors in all these Plays", some of which were first staged after Volpone,
although one cannot know for certain which roles he played.[57] In 1610, John Davies of Hereford wrote that "good Will"
played "kingly" roles.[58] In 1709, Rowe passed down a tradition that Shakespeare played the ghost of Hamlet's father.[59] Later
traditions maintain that he also played Adam in As You Like It, and the Chorus in Henry V,[60][61] though scholars doubt the
sources of that information.[62]
Throughout his career, Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford. 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.[63][64] He moved across the river to Southwark by 1599, the same year his company constructed the Globe Theatre
there.[63][65] 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 French Huguenot named Christopher Mountjoy, a maker of women's wigs and other
headgear.[66][67]
Later years and death
Nicholas Rowe was the first biographer to record the tradition, repeated by Samuel Johnson, that
Shakespeare retired to Stratford "some years before his death".[68][69] He was still working as an
actor in London in 1608; in an answer to the sharers' petition in 1635, Cuthbert Burbage stated
that after purchasing the lease of the Blackfriars Theatre in 1608 from Henry Evans, the King's
Men "placed men players" there, "which were Heminges, Condell, Shakespeare, etc.".[70] However,
it is perhaps relevant that the bubonic plague raged in London throughout 1609.[71][72] The
London public playhouses were repeatedly closed during extended outbreaks of the plague (a total
of over 60 months closure between May 1603 and February 1610),[73] which meant there was often
no acting work. Retirement from all work was uncommon at that time.[74] Shakespeare continued
to visit London during the years 1611–1614.[68] In 1612, he was called as a witness in Bellott v
Mountjoy, a court case concerning the marriage settlement of Mountjoy's daughter, Mary.[75][76]
In March 1613, he bought a gatehouse in the former Blackfriars priory;[77] and from November
1614, he was in London for several weeks with his son-in-law, John Hall.[78] After 1610,
Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, and none are attributed to him after 1613.[79] His last three plays
were collaborations, probably with John Fletcher,[80] who succeeded him as the house playwright
of the King's Men. He retired in 1613, before the Globe Theatre burned down during the Shakespeare's funerary
performance of Henry VIII on 29 June.[79] monument in Stratford-
upon-Avon
Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, at the age of 52.[d] He died within a month of signing his will, a
document which he begins by describing himself as being in "perfect health". No extant
contemporary source explains how or why he died. Half a century later, John Ward, the vicar of Stratford, wrote in his
notebook: "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting and, it seems, drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of
a fever there contracted",[82][83] not an impossible scenario since Shakespeare knew Jonson and Drayton. Of the tributes from
fellow authors, one refers to his relatively sudden death: "We wondered, Shakespeare, that thou went'st so soon / From the
world's stage to the grave's tiring room."[84][e]
He was survived by his wife and two daughters. Susanna had married a physician, John
Hall, in 1607,[85] and Judith had married Thomas Quiney, a vintner, two months before
Shakespeare's death.[86] Shakespeare signed his last will and testament on 25 March 1616;
the following day, Thomas Quiney, his new son-in-law, was found guilty of fathering an
illegitimate son by Margaret Wheeler, both of whom had died during childbirth. Thomas
was ordered by the church court to do public penance, which would have caused much
shame and embarrassment for the Shakespeare family.[86]
Shakespeare bequeathed the bulk of his large estate to his elder daughter Susanna[87]
Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon- under stipulations that she pass it down intact to "the first son of her body".[88] The
Avon, where Shakespeare was Quineys had three children, all of whom died without marrying.[89][90] The Halls had one
baptised and is buried child, Elizabeth, who married twice but died without children in 1670, ending
Shakespeare's direct line.[91][92] Shakespeare's will scarcely mentions his wife, Anne, who
was probably entitled to one-third of his estate automatically.[f] He did make a point,
however, of leaving her "my second best bed", a bequest that has led to much speculation.[94][95][96] Some scholars see the
bequest as an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that the second-best bed would have been the matrimonial bed and
therefore rich in significance.[97]
Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church two days after his death.[98][99] The epitaph carved into the
stone slab covering his grave includes a curse against moving his bones, which was carefully avoided during restoration of the
church in 2008:[100]
Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare, Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear,
To digg the dvst encloased heare. To dig the dust enclosed here.
Bleste be yͤ man yͭ spares thes stones, Blessed be the man that spares these
And cvrst be he yͭ moves my stones,
bones.[101][g] And cursed be he that moves my bones.
Some time before 1623, a funerary monument was erected in his memory on the north wall,
with a half-effigy of him in the act of writing. Its plaque compares him to Nestor, Socrates,
and Virgil.[102] In 1623, in conjunction with the publication of the First Folio, the
Droeshout engraving was published.[103] Shakespeare has been commemorated in many Shakespeare's grave, next to those
statues and memorials around the world, including funeral monuments in Southwark of Anne Shakespeare, his wife, and
Cathedral and Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.[104][105] Thomas Nash, the husband of his
granddaughter
Plays
Procession of Characters from Shakespeare's Plays by an unknown 19th-century

artist
Most playwrights of the period typically collaborated with others at some point, as critics agree Shakespeare did, mostly early
and late in his career.[106]
The first recorded works of Shakespeare are Richard III and the three parts of Henry VI, written in the early 1590s during a
vogue for historical drama. Shakespeare's plays are difficult to date precisely, however,[107][108] and studies of the texts suggest
that Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona may also belong
to Shakespeare's earliest period.[109][107] His first histories, which draw heavily on the 1587 edition of Raphael Holinshed's
Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland,[110] dramatise the destructive results of weak or corrupt rule and have been
interpreted as a justification for the origins of the Tudor dynasty.[111] The early plays were influenced by the works of other
Elizabethan dramatists, especially Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe, by the traditions of medieval drama, and by the
plays of Seneca.[112][113][114] The Comedy of Errors was also based on classical models, but no source for The Taming of the
Shrew has been found, though it is related to a separate play of the same name and may have derived from a folk story.[115][116]
Like The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which two friends appear to approve of rape,[117][118][119] the Shrew's story of the
taming of a woman's independent spirit by a man sometimes troubles modern critics, directors, and audiences.[120]
Shakespeare's early classical and Italianate comedies, containing tight double plots and
precise comic sequences, give way in the mid-1590s to the romantic atmosphere of his most
acclaimed comedies.[121] A Midsummer Night's Dream is a witty mixture of romance, fairy
magic, and comic lowlife scenes.[122] Shakespeare's next comedy, the equally romantic
Merchant of Venice, contains a portrayal of the vengeful Jewish moneylender Shylock,
which reflects dominant Elizabethan views but may appear derogatory to modern
audiences.[123][124] The wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing,[125] the charming
rural setting of As You Like It, and the lively merrymaking of Twelfth Night complete
Shakespeare's sequence of great comedies.[126] After the lyrical Richard II, written almost
Oberon, Titania and Puck with
entirely in verse, Shakespeare introduced prose comedy into the histories of the late 1590s,
Fairies Dancing. By William Blake,
Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, and Henry V. His characters become more complex and tender as
c. 1786.
he switches deftly between comic and serious scenes, prose and poetry, and achieves the
narrative variety of his mature work.[127][128][129] This period begins and ends with two
tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, the famous romantic tragedy of sexually charged adolescence, love, and death;[130][131] and Julius
Caesar—based on Sir Thomas North's 1579 translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives—which introduced a new kind of
drama.[132][133] According to Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro, in Julius Caesar, "the various strands of politics,
character, inwardness, contemporary events, even Shakespeare's own reflections on the act of writing, began to infuse each
other".[134]
In the early 17th century, Shakespeare wrote the so-called "problem plays" Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, and
All's Well That Ends Well and a number of his best known tragedies.[135][136] Many critics believe that Shakespeare's greatest
tragedies represent the peak of his art. The titular hero of one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies, Hamlet, has probably been
discussed more than any other Shakespearean character, especially for his famous soliloquy which begins "To be or not to be;
that is the question".[137] Unlike the introverted Hamlet, whose fatal flaw is hesitation, the heroes of the tragedies that
followed, Othello and King Lear, are undone by hasty errors of judgement.[138] The plots of Shakespeare's tragedies often hinge
on such fatal errors or flaws, which overturn order and destroy the hero and those he loves.[139] In Othello, the villain Iago
stokes Othello's sexual jealousy to the point where he murders the innocent wife who loves him.[140][141] In King Lear, the old
king commits the tragic error of giving up his powers, initiating the events which lead to the torture and blinding of the Earl of
Gloucester and the murder of Lear's youngest daughter Cordelia. According to the critic
Frank Kermode, "the play...offers neither its good characters nor its audience any relief
from its cruelty".[142][143][144] In Macbeth, the shortest and most compressed of
Shakespeare's tragedies,[145] uncontrollable ambition incites Macbeth and his wife, Lady
Macbeth, to murder the rightful king and usurp the throne until their own guilt destroys
them in turn.[146] In this play, Shakespeare adds a supernatural element to the tragic
structure. His last major tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus, contain some of
Shakespeare's finest poetry and were considered his most successful tragedies by the poet
and critic T. S. Eliot.[147][148][149]
Hamlet, Horatio, Marcellus, and the
In his final period, Shakespeare turned to romance or tragicomedy and completed three Ghost of Hamlet's Father. Henry
more major plays: Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest, as well as the Fuseli, 1780–1785.
collaboration, Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Less bleak than the tragedies, these four plays are
graver in tone than the comedies of the 1590s, but they end with reconciliation and the
forgiveness of potentially tragic errors.[150] Some commentators have seen this change in mood as evidence of a more serene
view of life on Shakespeare's part, but it may merely reflect the theatrical fashion of the day.[151][152][153] Shakespeare
collaborated on two further surviving plays, Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen, probably with John Fletcher.[154]
Classification
Shakespeare's works include the 36 plays printed in the First Folio of 1623, listed according
to their folio classification as comedies, histories, and tragedies.[155] Two plays not included
in the First Folio,[12] The Two Noble Kinsmen and Pericles, Prince of Tyre, are now
accepted as part of the canon, with today's scholars agreeing that Shakespeare made major
contributions to the writing of both.[156][157] No Shakespearean poems were included in the
First Folio.
In the late 19th century, Edward Dowden classified four of the late comedies as romances,
and though many scholars prefer to call them tragicomedies, Dowden's term is often
The Plays of William Shakespeare, used.[158][159] In 1896, Frederick S. Boas coined the term "problem plays" to describe four
a painting containing scenes and plays: All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, and
characters from several plays of Hamlet.[160] "Dramas as singular in theme and temper cannot be strictly called comedies
Shakespeare; by Sir John Gilbert,
or tragedies", he wrote. "We may, therefore, borrow a convenient phrase from the theatre
c. 1849
of today and class them together as Shakespeare's problem plays."[161] The term, much
debated and sometimes applied to other plays, remains in use, though Hamlet is
definitively classed as a tragedy.[162][163][164]
Performances
It is not clear for which companies Shakespeare wrote his early plays. The title page of the 1594 edition of Titus Andronicus
reveals that the play had been acted by three different troupes.[165] After the plagues of 1592–93, Shakespeare's plays were
performed by his own company at The Theatre and the Curtain in Shoreditch, north of the Thames.[166] Londoners flocked
there to see the first part of Henry IV, Leonard Digges recording, "Let but Falstaff come, Hal, Poins, the rest ... and you scarce
shall have a room".[167] When the company found themselves in dispute with their landlord, they pulled The Theatre down and
used the timbers to construct the Globe Theatre, the first playhouse built by actors for actors, on the south bank of the Thames
at Southwark.[168][169] The Globe opened in autumn 1599, with Julius Caesar one of the first plays staged. Most of
Shakespeare's greatest post-1599 plays were written for the Globe, including Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear.[168][170][171]
After the Lord Chamberlain's Men were renamed the King's Men in 1603, they entered a
special relationship with the new King James. Although the performance records are
patchy, the King's Men performed seven of Shakespeare's plays at court between 1
November 1604, and 31 October 1605, including two performances of The Merchant of
Venice.[61] After 1608, they performed at the indoor Blackfriars Theatre during the winter
and the Globe during the summer.[172] The indoor setting, combined with the Jacobean
fashion for lavishly staged masques, allowed Shakespeare to introduce more elaborate
stage devices. In Cymbeline, for example, Jupiter descends "in thunder and lightning,
sitting upon an eagle: he throws a thunderbolt. The ghosts fall on their knees."[173][174]
The reconstructed Globe Theatre on
The actors in Shakespeare's company included the famous Richard Burbage, William
the south bank of the River Thames
Kempe, Henry Condell and John Heminges. Burbage played the leading role in the first
in London performances of many of Shakespeare's plays, including Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, and
King Lear.[175] The popular comic actor Will Kempe played the servant Peter in Romeo and
Juliet and Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing, among other characters.[176][177] He was
replaced around 1600 by Robert Armin, who played roles such as Touchstone in As You Like It and the fool in King Lear.[178]
In 1613, Sir Henry Wotton recorded that Henry VIII "was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and
ceremony".[179] On 29 June, however, a cannon set fire to the thatch of the Globe and burned the theatre to the ground, an
event which pinpoints the date of a Shakespeare play with rare precision.[179]
Textual sources
In 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two of Shakespeare's friends from the King's Men,
published the First Folio, a collected edition of Shakespeare's plays. It contained 36 texts,
including 18 printed for the first time.[180] The others had already appeared in quarto versions—
flimsy books made from sheets of paper folded twice to make four leaves.[181] No evidence
suggests that Shakespeare approved these editions, which the First Folio describes as "stol'n and
surreptitious copies".[182]
Alfred Pollard termed some of the pre-1623 versions as "bad quartos" because of their adapted,
paraphrased or garbled texts, which may in places have been reconstructed from
memory.[181][182][183] Where several versions of a play survive, each differs from the others. The
differences may stem from copying or printing errors, from notes by actors or audience members,
or from Shakespeare's own papers.[184][185] In some cases, for example, Hamlet, Troilus and
Cressida, and Othello, Shakespeare could have revised the texts between the quarto and folio
editions. In the case of King Lear, however, while most modern editions do conflate them, the
1623 folio version is so different from the 1608 quarto that the Oxford Shakespeare prints them Title page of the First Folio,
both, arguing that they cannot be conflated without confusion.[186] 1623. Copper engraving of
Shakespeare by Martin
Droeshout.
Poems
In 1593 and 1594, when the theatres were closed because of plague, Shakespeare published two narrative poems on sexual
themes, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. He dedicated them to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. In Venus
and Adonis, an innocent Adonis rejects the sexual advances of Venus; while in The Rape of Lucrece, the virtuous wife Lucrece
is raped by the lustful Tarquin.[187] Influenced by Ovid's Metamorphoses,[188] the poems show the guilt and moral confusion
that result from uncontrolled lust.[189] Both proved popular and were often reprinted during Shakespeare's lifetime. A third
narrative poem, A Lover's Complaint, in which a young woman laments her seduction by a persuasive suitor, was printed in
the first edition of the Sonnets in 1609. Most scholars now accept that Shakespeare wrote A Lover's Complaint. Critics
consider that its fine qualities are marred by leaden effects.[190][191][192] The Phoenix and the Turtle, printed in Robert
Chester's 1601 Love's Martyr, mourns the deaths of the legendary phoenix and his lover, the faithful turtle dove. In 1599, two
early drafts of sonnets 138 and 144 appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim, published under Shakespeare's name but without his
permission.[190][192][193]
Sonnets
Published in 1609, the Sonnets were the last of Shakespeare's non-dramatic works to be printed.
Scholars are not certain when each of the 154 sonnets was composed, but evidence suggests that
Shakespeare wrote sonnets throughout his career for a private readership.[194][195] Even before the
two unauthorised sonnets appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim in 1599, Francis Meres had
referred in 1598 to Shakespeare's "sugred Sonnets among his private friends".[196] Few analysts
believe that the published collection follows Shakespeare's intended sequence.[197] He seems to
have planned two contrasting series: one about uncontrollable lust for a married woman of dark
complexion (the "dark lady"), and one about conflicted love for a fair young man (the "fair youth").
It remains unclear if these figures represent real individuals, or if the authorial "I" who addresses
them represents Shakespeare himself, though Wordsworth believed that with the sonnets
"Shakespeare unlocked his heart".[196][195]
The 1609 edition was dedicated to a

Title page from 1609 edition
"Mr. W.H.", credited as "the only
of Shake-Speares Sonnets Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
begetter" of the poems. It is not known
whether this was written by Thou art more lovely and more temperate ...
Shakespeare himself or by the publisher, Thomas Thorpe, whose
initials appear at the foot of the dedication page; nor is it known who
Mr. W.H. was, despite numerous theories, or whether Shakespeare —Opening lines from Shakespeare's Sonnet 18.[198]
even authorised the publication.[199] Critics praise the Sonnets as a
profound meditation on the nature of love, sexual passion,
procreation, death, and time.[200]
Style
Shakespeare's first plays were written in the conventional style of the day. He wrote them in a stylised language that does not
always spring naturally from the needs of the characters or the drama.[201] The poetry depends on extended, sometimes
elaborate metaphors and conceits, and the language is often rhetorical—written for actors to declaim rather than speak. The
grand speeches in Titus Andronicus, in the view of some critics, often hold up the action, for example; and the verse in The
Two Gentlemen of Verona has been described as stilted.[202][203]
However, Shakespeare soon began to adapt the traditional styles to his own purposes.
The opening soliloquy of Richard III has its roots in the self-declaration of Vice in
medieval drama. At the same time, Richard's vivid self-awareness looks forward to
the soliloquies of Shakespeare's mature plays.[205][206] No single play marks a change
from the traditional to the freer style. Shakespeare combined the two throughout his
career, with Romeo and Juliet perhaps the best example of the mixing of the
styles.[207] By the time of Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, and A Midsummer Night's
Dream in the mid-1590s, Shakespeare had begun to write a more natural poetry. He
increasingly tuned his metaphors and images to the needs of the drama itself.
Shakespeare's standard poetic form was blank verse, composed in iambic pentameter.
In practice, this meant that his verse was usually unrhymed and consisted of ten
Pity by William Blake, 1795, is an
syllables to a line, spoken with a stress on every second syllable. The blank verse of illustration of two similes in Macbeth:
his early plays is quite different from that of his later ones. It is often beautiful, but its
sentences tend to start, pause, and finish at the end of lines, with the risk of "And pity, like a naked new-born
monotony.[208] Once Shakespeare mastered traditional blank verse, he began to babe,
interrupt and vary its flow. This technique releases the new power and flexibility of Striding the blast, or heaven's
the poetry in plays such as Julius Caesar and Hamlet. Shakespeare uses it, for cherubim, hors'd
example, to convey the turmoil in Hamlet's mind:[209] Upon the sightless couriers of the
air."[204]
Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting
That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly—
And prais'd be rashness for it—let us know
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well ...
— Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2, 4–8[209]
After Hamlet, Shakespeare varied his poetic style further, particularly in the more emotional passages of the late tragedies. The
literary critic A. C. Bradley described this style as "more concentrated, rapid, varied, and, in construction, less regular, not
seldom twisted or elliptical".[210] In the last phase of his career, Shakespeare adopted many techniques to achieve these effects.
These included run-on lines, irregular pauses and stops, and extreme variations in sentence structure and length.[211] In
Macbeth, for example, the language darts from one unrelated metaphor or simile to another: "was the hope drunk/ Wherein
you dressed yourself?" (1.7.35–38); "... pity, like a naked new-born babe/ Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd/
Upon the sightless couriers of the air ..." (1.7.21–25). The listener is challenged to complete the sense.[211] The late romances,
with their shifts in time and surprising turns of plot, inspired a last poetic style in which long and short sentences are set
against one another, clauses are piled up, subject and object are reversed, and words are omitted, creating an effect of
spontaneity.[212]
Shakespeare combined poetic genius with a practical sense of the theatre.[213] Like all playwrights of the time, he dramatised
stories from sources such as Plutarch and Holinshed.[214] He reshaped each plot to create several centres of interest and to
show as many sides of a narrative to the audience as possible. This strength of design ensures that a Shakespeare play can
survive translation, cutting, and wide interpretation without loss to its core drama.[215] As Shakespeare's mastery grew, he gave
his characters clearer and more varied motivations and distinctive patterns of speech. He preserved aspects of his earlier style
in the later plays, however. In Shakespeare's late romances, he deliberately returned to a more artificial style, which
emphasised the illusion of theatre.[216][217]
Legacy
Influence
Shakespeare's work has made a significant and lasting impression on later theatre and literature. In particular, he expanded
the dramatic potential of characterisation, plot, language, and genre.[218] Until Romeo and Juliet, for example, romance had
not been viewed as a worthy topic for tragedy.[219] Soliloquies had been used mainly to convey information about characters or
events, but Shakespeare used them to explore characters' minds.[220] His work heavily influenced later poetry. 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."[221] John Milton, considered by
many to be the most important English poet after Shakespeare, wrote in tribute: "Thou in our wonder and astonishment/ Has
built thyself a live-long monument."[222]
Shakespeare influenced novelists such as Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, and Charles
Dickens. The American novelist Herman Melville's soliloquies owe much to
Shakespeare; his Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick is a classic tragic hero, inspired by King
Lear.[223] Scholars have identified 20,000 pieces of music linked to Shakespeare's
works, including Felix Mendelssohn's overture and incidental music for A Midsummer
Night's Dream and Sergei Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet. 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.[224] Shakespeare has also
inspired many painters, including the Romantics and the Pre-Raphaelites, while William
Hogarth's 1745 painting of actor David Garrick playing Richard III was decisive in
establishing the genre of theatrical portraiture in Britain.[225] The Swiss Romantic artist
Henry Fuseli, a friend of William Blake, even translated Macbeth into German.[226] The
psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud drew on Shakespearean psychology, in particular, that of
Hamlet, for his theories of human nature.[227] Shakespeare has been a rich source for
filmmakers; Akira Kurosawa adapted Macbeth and King Lear as Throne of Blood and
Ran, respectively. Other examples of Shakespeare on film include Max Reinhardt's A
Macbeth Consulting the Vision of the Midsummer Night's Dream, Laurence Olivier's Hamlet and Al Pacino's documentary
Armed Head. By Henry Fuseli, 1793– Looking For Richard.[228] Orson Welles, a lifelong lover of Shakespeare, directed and
1794. starred in films of Macbeth and Othello, and Chimes at Midnight, in which he plays
John Falstaff, which Welles himself called his best work.[229]
In Shakespeare's day, English grammar, spelling, and pronunciation were less standardised than they are now,[230] and his use
of language helped shape modern English.[231] Samuel Johnson quoted him more often than any other author in his A
Dictionary of the English Language, the first serious work of its type.[232] Expressions such as "with bated breath" (Merchant
of Venice) and "a foregone conclusion" (Othello) have found their way into everyday English speech.[233][234]
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.[235][236] Actor and theatre director Simon Callow writes, "this master, this
titan, this genius, so profoundly British and so effortlessly universal, each different culture – German, Italian, Russian – was
obliged to respond to the Shakespearean example; for the most part, they embraced it, and him, with joyous abandon, as the
possibilities of language and character in action that he celebrated liberated writers across the continent. 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."[237]
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 400 years since his death. He is also the third
most translated author in history.[238]
Critical reputation
Shakespeare was not revered in his lifetime, but he received a large amount of He was not of an age, but for all time.
praise.[240][241] In 1598, the cleric and author Francis Meres singled him out from a
group of English playwrights as "the most excellent" in both comedy and
tragedy.[242][243] The authors of the Parnassus plays at St John's College, —Ben Jonson[239]
Cambridge, numbered him with Chaucer, Gower, and Spenser.[244] In the First
Folio, Ben Jonson called Shakespeare the "Soul of the age, the applause, delight, the
wonder of our stage", although he had remarked elsewhere that "Shakespeare wanted art" (lacked skill).[239]
Between the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the end of the 17th century, classical ideas were in vogue. As a result,
critics of the time mostly rated Shakespeare below John Fletcher and Ben Jonson.[245] Thomas Rymer, for example,
condemned Shakespeare for mixing the comic with the tragic. Nevertheless, poet and critic John Dryden rated Shakespeare
highly, saying of Jonson, "I admire him, but I love Shakespeare".[246] He also famously remarked that Shakespeare "was
naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there."[247] For
several decades, Rymer's view held sway. 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 1765 and Edmond Malone in 1790, added to his growing reputation.[248][249] By 1800, he was firmly
enshrined as the national poet,[250] and described as the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard").[251][h] In the 18th and 19th
centuries, his reputation also spread abroad. Among those who championed him were the writers Voltaire, Goethe, Stendhal,
and Victor Hugo.[253][i]
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.[255] In the 19th century, critical admiration
for Shakespeare's genius often bordered on adulation.[256] "This King Shakespeare," the essayist Thomas Carlyle wrote in
1840, "does not he shine, in crowned sovereignty, over us all, as the noblest, gentlest, yet strongest of rallying signs;
indestructible".[257]
The Victorians produced his plays as lavish spectacles on a grand scale.[258]
The playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw mocked the cult of Shakespeare worship as
"bardolatry", claiming that the new naturalism of Ibsen's plays had made Shakespeare
obsolete.[259]
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. S. Eliot argued against Shaw that Shakespeare's "primitiveness" in fact made him truly
modern.[260] Eliot, along with G. Wilson Knight and the school of New Criticism, led a movement
towards a closer reading of Shakespeare's imagery. In the 1950s, a wave of new critical approaches
replaced modernism and paved the way for post-modern studies of Shakespeare.[261] By the
1980s, Shakespeare studies were open to movements such as structuralism, feminism, New
Historicism, African-American studies, and queer studies.[262][263] Comparing Shakespeare's
accomplishments to those of leading figures in philosophy and theology, Harold Bloom wrote,
"Shakespeare was larger than Plato and than St. Augustine. He encloses us because we see with his William Ordway Partridge's
fundamental perceptions."[264] garlanded statue of William
Shakespeare in Lincoln
Speculation Park, Chicago, typical of
many created in the 19th
and early 20th centuries
Authorship
Around 230 years after Shakespeare's death, doubts began to be expressed about the authorship of the works attributed to
him.[265] Proposed alternative candidates include Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, and Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of
Oxford.[266] Several "group theories" have also been proposed.[267] All but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians
consider it a fringe theory, with only a small minority of academics who believe that there is reason to question the traditional
attribution,[268] but interest in the subject, particularly the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship, continues into the
21st century.[269][270][271]
Religion
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 claim that members of Shakespeare's family were
Catholics, at a time when practising Catholicism in England was against the law.[273] Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden,
certainly came from a pious Catholic family. The strongest evidence might be a Catholic statement of faith signed by his father,
John Shakespeare, found in 1757 in the rafters of his former house in Henley Street. However, the document is now lost and
scholars differ as to its authenticity.[274][275] In 1591, the authorities reported that John Shakespeare had missed church "for
fear of process for debt", a common Catholic excuse.[276][277][278] In 1606, the name of William's daughter Susanna appears on
a list of those who failed to attend Easter communion in Stratford.[276][277][278] 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.[279][280]
Sexuality
Few details of Shakespeare's sexuality are known. At 18, he married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, who was pregnant. Susanna,
the first of their three children, was born six months later on 26 May 1583. Over the centuries, some readers have posited that
Shakespeare's sonnets are autobiographical,[281] 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.[282][283][284] The 26 so-called "Dark Lady"
sonnets, addressed to a married woman, are taken as evidence of heterosexual liaisons.[285]
Portraiture
No written contemporary description of Shakespeare's physical appearance survives, and no evidence suggests that he ever
commissioned a portrait, so the Droeshout engraving, which Ben Jonson approved of as a good likeness,[286] and his Stratford
monument provide perhaps the best evidence of his appearance. From the 18th century, the desire for authentic Shakespeare
portraits fuelled claims that various surviving pictures depicted Shakespeare. That demand also led to the production of
several fake portraits, as well as misattributions, repaintings, and relabelling of portraits of other people.[287]
See also
Outline of William Shakespeare
English Renaissance theatre
Spelling of Shakespeare's name
World Shakespeare Bibliography
References
Notes
a. The concept that Shakespeare was born on 23 April, contrary to belief, is a tradition, and not a fact;[1] see § Early life
below.
b. Dates follow the Julian calendar, used in England throughout Shakespeare's lifespan, but with the start of the year adjusted
to 1 January (see Old Style and New Style dates). Under the Gregorian calendar, adopted in Catholic countries in 1582,
Shakespeare died on 3 May.[2]
c. The crest is a silver falcon supporting a spear, while the motto is Non Sanz Droict (French for "not without right"). This
motto is still used by Warwickshire County Council, in reference to Shakespeare.
d. Inscribed in Latin on his funerary monument: AETATIS 53 DIE 23 APR (In his 53rd year he died 23 April).[81]
e. Verse by James Mabbe printed in the First Folio.[84]
f. Charles Knight, 1842, in his notes on Twelfth Night.[93]
g. In the scribal abbreviations ye for the (3rd line) and yt for that (3rd and 4th lines) the letter y represents th: see thorn.
h. The "national cult" of Shakespeare, and the "bard" identification, dates from September 1769, when the actor David
Garrick organised a week-long carnival at Stratford to mark the town council awarding him the freedom of the town. 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".[252]
i. Grady cites Voltaire's Philosophical Letters (1733); Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (1795); Stendhal's two-part
pamphlet Racine et Shakespeare (1823–25); and Victor Hugo's prefaces to Cromwell (1827) and William Shakespeare
(1864).[254]
j. For example, A.L. 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."[272]
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Gross, John (2003). "Shakespeare's Influence". In Wells, Stanley; Orlin, Lena Cowen (eds.). Shakespeare: An Oxford
Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-924522-2. OCLC 50920674 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/509
20674).
Kathman, David (2003). "The Question of Authorship". In Wells, Stanley; Orlin, Lena Cowen (eds.). Shakespeare: an
Oxford Guide. Oxford Guides. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 620–632. ISBN 978-0-19-924522-2.
Thomson, Peter (2003). "Conventions of Playwriting". In Wells, Stanley; Orlin, Lena Cowen (eds.). Shakespeare: An
Oxford Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-924522-2. OCLC 50920674 (https://www.worldcat.org/o
clc/50920674).
Werner, Sarah (2001). Shakespeare and Feminist Performance. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-22729-2.
Wilson, Richard (2004). Secret Shakespeare: Studies in Theatre, Religion and Resistance (https://archive.org/details/secre
tshakespear00wils). Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-7024-2. OCLC 55523047 (https://www.w
Wood, Manley, ed. (1806). The Plays of William Shakespeare with Notes of Various Commentators. Vol. I. London: George
Kearsley. OCLC 38442678 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38442678).
Wood, Michael (2003). Shakespeare (https://archive.org/details/shakespeare00wood). New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-
Wright, George T. (2004). "The Play of Phrase and Line". In McDonald, Russ (ed.). Shakespeare: An Anthology of Criticism
and Theory, 1945–2000 (https://archive.org/details/shakespeareantho0000unse_z9v6). Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-
Articles and online
Casey, Charles (1998). "Was Shakespeare gay? Sonnet 20 and the politics of pedagogy". College Literature. 25 (3): 35–
51. JSTOR 25112402 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/25112402).
Fort, J.A. (October 1927). "The Story Contained in the Second Series of Shakespeare's Sonnets". The Review of English
Studies. Original Series. III (12): 406–414. doi:10.1093/res/os-III.12.406 (https://doi.org/10.1093%2Fres%2Fos-III.12.406).
ISSN 0034-6551 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0034-6551) – via Oxford Journals.
Hales, John W. (26 March 1904). "London Residences of Shakespeare" (https://archive.org/stream/p1athenaeum1904lond
#page/400/mode/2up). The Athenaeum. No. 3987. London: John C. Francis. pp. 401–402.
Jackson, MacDonald P. (2004). Zimmerman, Susan (ed.). "A Lover's Complaint revisited" (https://www.thefreelibrary.com/A
+Lover%27s+Complaint+revisited.-a0125306072). Shakespeare Studies. XXXII. ISSN 0582-9399 (https://www.worldcat.or
g/issn/0582-9399) – via The Free Library.
Mowat, Barbara; Werstine, Paul (n.d.). "Sonnet 18" (https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/shakespeares-so
nnets/sonnet-18/). Folger Digital Texts. Folger Shakespeare Library. Retrieved 20 March 2021.
"Bard's 'cursed' tomb is revamped" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/coventry_warwickshire/7422986.stm).
BBC News. 28 May 2008. Retrieved 23 April 2010.
"Did He or Didn't He? That Is the Question" (https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/education/edlife/22shakespeare-survey.
html). The New York Times. 22 April 2007. Retrieved 31 December 2017.
"Shakespeare Memorial" (https://web.archive.org/web/20160304192458/http://www.southwark.anglican.org/cathedral/tour/
bill.htm). Southwark Cathedral. Archived from the original (http://southwark.anglican.org/cathedral/tour/bill.htm) on 4 March
2016. Retrieved 2 April 2016.
"Visiting the Abbey" (https://web.archive.org/web/20160403162702/http://www.westminster-abbey.org/archive/visit-us/highli
ghts/poets-corner). Westminster Abbey. Archived from the original (http://www.westminster-abbey.org/archive/visit-us/highli
ghts/poets-corner) on 3 April 2016. Retrieved 2 April 2016.
External links
Digital editions
William Shakespeare's plays on Bookwise (https://bookwise.io/author/william-shakespeare)

Internet Shakespeare Editions (https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/)
The Folger Shakespeare (https://shakespeare.folger.edu/)
Open Source Shakespeare (http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/) complete works, with search engine and
concordance
The Shakespeare Quartos Archive (https://wayback.archive-it.org/org-467/20191016094633/http://quartos.org/)
Works by William Shakespeare in eBook form (https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/william-shakespeare) at Standard
Ebooks
Works by William Shakespeare (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/65) at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about William Shakespeare (https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28%28subject%3A%22Shakespeare%2
C%20William%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22William%20Shakespeare%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Shakespeare%2
C%20William%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22William%20Shakespeare%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Shakespeare%2
C%20W%2E%22%20OR%20title%3A%22William%20Shakespeare%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Shakespeare%2
C%20William%22%20OR%20description%3A%22William%20Shakespeare%22%29%20OR%20%28%221564-1616%2
2%20AND%20Shakespeare%29%29%20AND%20%28-mediatype:software%29) at Internet Archive
Works by William Shakespeare (https://librivox.org/author/37) at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
Exhibitions
Shakespeare Documented (https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/) an online exhibition documenting Shakespeare in

his own time
Shakespeare's Will (https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/+/https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/dol/images/ex
amples/pdfs/shakespeare.pdf) from The National Archives
The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/)
William Shakespeare (https://www.bl.uk/people/william-shakespeare) at the British Library
Music
Works by William Shakespeare set to music: free scores in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
Works by William Shakespeare set to music: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
Legacy and criticism
Records on Shakespeare's Theatre Legacy from the UK Parliamentary Collections (https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-

heritage/transformingsociety/towncountry/towns/collections/collections-shakespeare/)
Winston Churchill & Shakespeare – UK Parliament Living Heritage (https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transfor
mingsociety/private-lives/yourcountry/collections/churchillexhibition/churchill-death/herbert-samuel/)
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12/24/23, 10:22 AM William Shakespeare - Wikipedia

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age

Shakespeare was the son of John Hamnet Shakespeare

Shakespeare's coat of arms, from

In 1599, a partnership of members of the company built their own theatre

Later years and death

Procession of Characters from Shakespeare's Plays by an unknown 19th-century

The 1609 edition was dedicated to a

— Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2, 4–8[209]

Ackroyd, Peter (2006). Shakespeare: The Biography (https://archive.org/details/shakespeare00pete). London: Vintage.

Articles and online

William Shakespeare's plays on Bookwise (https://bookwise.io/author/william-shakespeare)

Shakespeare Documented (https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/) an online exhibition documenting Shakespeare in

Legacy and criticism

Records on Shakespeare's Theatre Legacy from the UK Parliamentary Collections (https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Shakespeare&oldid=1189693927"

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