William Shakespeare: "Was Not of An Age, But For All Time,"

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William
Shakespeare
“was not of an age,
but for all time,”
Ben Jonson
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Was an English poet, playwright, and
actor. He was baptized on 26 April
1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon (died
April 23 1616).
often called the English national poet,
nicknamed the Bard of Avon and
considered by many to be the greatest
dramatist of all time.
House on Henley Street, Stratford

He was born during the reign of
Queen Elizabeth I, who had recently
converted England to Protestantism.
Shakespeare’s parents had been
Catholics, and the tension between the
new and old religions can be seen in
much of his work. William’s father,
John Shakespeare, was a member of
the borough council of Stratford-
upon-Avon. William was the third of
eight children, though his two elder
Queen Elizabeth I siblings did not survive childhood.
Shakespeare married the 26-year-old Anne
Hathaway, in 1582 when he was 18. She was
already three months pregnant with their
first child.
The baptisms of his three children are the
last record of him for seven years, known as
his lost years. At some point Shakespeare
went to London, leaving his family in
Stratford, and established himself as a
playwright and actor. Some claim he worked
as a teacher, an apprentice butcher or a
lawyer’s clerk.
Anne Hathaway (1556 – 1623)

Shakespeare’s plays made him both famous
and wealthy. By 1599 he was a shareholder
in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.
The group built their own theatre called the
Globe, and Shakespeare owned a 12.5%
stake. This made him even wealthier. He
invested in property in Stratford and
London.
Shakespeare produced most of his known
work between 1589 and 1613. His early
plays were mainly comedies and histories
and these works remain regarded as some of
the best work 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.
After Elizabeth I died, Shakespeare’s
company was awarded a royal patent by
King James I (VI of Scotland), and became
the King’s Men.
King Lear, probably composed in this year,
took divided kingdoms as its theme
mirroring James I's new domain of England,
Scotland and Wales. Meanwhile Macbeth,
also written early in James's reign, gives a
kind portrayal of James’s ancestor Banquo
and was probably intended to honour the
new king’s Scottish ancestry.
He wrote about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two
long narrative poems, and a few other
verses, of which the authorship of some is
uncertain. His plays have been translated
into every major living language and are
performed more often than those of any
other playwright.
In 1598, Love's Labour's Lost was
Shakespeare's first work published with his
name on the title page, suggesting it was
now a selling point.
His work attracted royal attention; he acted
in several performances before Queen
Elizabeth I. Some academics suggest that
his history plays were supportive of
Elizabeth’s claim to the throne. Others
suggest Richard II criticised her as it
describes the overthrowing of a monarch.
Shakespeare published 154 sonnets which
explored themes of love, sex and beauty. He
probably started them in 1592 when plague
closed the theatres.
Sonnets were a traditional and popular form
during the Elizabethan period. Several of
them, including Sonnet 18 (Shall I compare
thee to a summer's day?), and Sonnet 116
(Let me not to the marriage of true minds)
have become some of the most familiar
poems in all of English literature
Frontispiece of Shakespeare's sonnets,

dedicated to a Mr W. H
The Two Noble Kinsmen was possibly the
last play Shakespeare worked on. He wrote
it with a collaborator, John Fletcher.
In the previous decade he had written his
late romances - Cymbeline, The Winter's
Tale and The Tempest. These plays are
graver in tone than the comedies of the
1590s but less so than the tragedies, as they
end with reconciliation and forgiveness for
potentially tragic actions. This change of
mood may simply reflect the theatrical
fashion of the day, but it could also be
evidence Shakespeare had developed a more
temperate view of life as he aged.
The English language owes a great debt to
Shakespeare. He invented over 1700 of our
common words by changing nouns into
verbs, changing verbs into adjectives,
connecting words never before used
together, adding prefixes and suffixes, and
devising words wholly original.
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biograp
hy/wordsinvented.html
Bibliography
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/wordsinvented.html
https://
www.britannica.com/biography/William-Shakespeare/Understanding-Shakespeare#ref232331
https://www.bbc.com/timelines/z8k2p39

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House on Henley Street, Stratford

Anne Hathaway (1556 – 1623)

Frontispiece of Shakespeare's sonnets,

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