Isom innis biography of william shakespeare

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Folger Digital Texts. Folger Shakespeare Library. Archived from the original on 23 June Retrieved 20 March BBC News. Centuries passed until American actor Sam Wanamaker began working to resurrect the theater once more. The third Globe Theater opened in , and today, more than 1. Some plays blur these lines, and over time, our interpretation of them has changed, too.

However, Shakespeare was very innovative, adapting the traditional style to his own purposes and creating a freer flow of words. With only small degrees of variation, Shakespeare primarily used a metrical pattern consisting of lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse, to compose his plays. At the same time, there are passages in all the plays that deviate from this and use forms of poetry or simple prose.

Download our complete William Shakespeare Study Guide for free to explore the key themes and characters from three of his most important plays. Download Free Study Guide. Character in Othello , King Lear , and Macbeth present vivid impressions of human temperament that are timeless and universal. Possibly the best known of these plays is Hamlet , which explores betrayal, retribution, incest, and moral failure.

Shakespeare wrote comedies throughout his career, including his first play The Taming of the Shrew. Some of his comedies might be better described as tragicomedies. Although graver in tone than the comedies, they are not the dark tragedies of King Lear or Macbeth because they end with reconciliation and forgiveness. Additional Shakespeare comedies include:.

Shakespeare is known to have created plays with other writers, such as John Fletcher. They also collaborated on Cardenio , a play which was not preserved. When including these works, Shakespeare has 41 plays to his name. Around the turn of the 17 th century, Shakespeare became a more extensive property owner in Stratford. When his father, John, died in , he inherited the family home.

Then, in , he purchased about acres for pounds. In , Shakespeare purchased leases of real estate near Stratford for pounds, which doubled in value and earned him 60 pounds a year. This made him an entrepreneur as well as an artist, and scholars believe these investments gave him uninterrupted time to write his plays. He likely spent the last three years of his life in Stratford.

Tradition holds that Shakespeare died on his 52 nd birthday, April 23, , but some scholars believe this is a myth. Church records show he was interred at Holy Trinity Church on April 25, William Shakespeare would have lived with his family in their house on Henley Street until he turned eighteen. When he was eighteen, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway , who was twenty-six.

It was a rushed marriage because Anne was already pregnant at the time of the ceremony. Together they had three children. Their first daughter, Susanna , was born six months after the wedding and was later followed by twins Hamnet and Judith. Hamnet died when he was just 11 years old. Shakespeare's career jump-started in London, but when did he go there?

We know Shakespeare's twins were baptised in , and that by his reputation was established in London, but the intervening years are considered a mystery. Shakespeare was the company's regular dramatist, producing on average two plays a year, for almost twenty years. Altogether Shakespeare's works include 38 plays, 2 narrative poems, sonnets, and a variety of other poems.

Elizabethan playwrights were also exploring the possibilities of dramatic verse. Christopher Marlowe —; see entry , for example, was the first to demonstrate the power of blank verse, a type of poetry with regular meter the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables but no rhyme, in stage dialogue. Shakespeare went on to take dramatic blank verse to brilliant new heights, with language filled with puns, complex metaphors, and rich imagery.

Puns are a deliberate confusion of similar-sounding words usually for humorous effect; metaphors are comparisons made between two seemingly unrelated subjects. Scholars disagree as to the exact dating of Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays, many of which were not published until after his death. These works conformed to the traditional genre of chronicle, or history, plays that were quite popular in Elizabethan times.

History plays are plays about historical figures and events. But Shakespeare's works far surpassed previous examples of this type of play, which merely presented a sequence of events. Shakespeare provided a larger shape for his cycle of plays. Together, they made the story the Tudor dynasty , or period of reign by a particular ruling family, from which Elizabeth I —; see entry.

Plays in Shakespeare's time were performed outdoors and attracted large audiences. Public theaters, like the Theater or the Globe, were large wooden structures that were roughly circular. The galleries along the sides were covered, but most of the structure, including the large raised stage which projected about halfway into the theater, was unroofed.

All of the actors were males; younger men or boys played the roles of women characters. No scenery was used. This allowed for unhindered movement on stage, with plenty of room for the battle scenes and swordfights that were an exciting part of many plays. The Globe was built in after its owners, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, were forced to find a new location for their popular theater in north London, the Theater.

They had the Theater dismantled and reassembled on the south bank of the River Thames in Southwark, and named the new building the Globe Theater. Shakespeare, a member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, wrote exclusively for them and most of his greatest plays were performed at the Globe. The Globe, which opened with a performance of Shakespeare's Henry V , could accommodate an audience of about three thousand people, and individuals from all walks of life attended plays there.

The least expensive ticket allowed people to stand in the yard, at the base of the stage. These spectators, called "groundlings," were often uneducated or even illiterate, but they enjoyed Shakespeare's plays as much as the more educated theatergoers did. It was not uncommon for audiences to bring food and drink into the theater, and even throw food at the stage when they disliked a performance.

The Globe burned down in , after material from a cannon that was shot off during a performance of Henry VIII set fire to the gallery roof, which was made of thatch thick straw. Its owners rebuilt it and it reopened later that year. By the s, however, the Puritan faction had succeeded in shutting down theaters in London. The Globe was torn down in and housing was built on its site.

A replica of the famous theater now stands on or near its location in south London. Each of the four plays in this cycle was an integral part of the whole. Henry TV, Part One , generally considered Shakespeare's finest history play, was probably written around To many scholars, the most interesting dynamics in the play occur between the king's son, Prince Hal, and his comrade, Sir John Falstaff.

Indeed, Falstaff—who exudes intense joy—is generally considered to be Shakespeare's finest comic character. Titus Andronicus , his first tragedy, was written around The playwright used an extensive range of influences in these works, from English folklore to classical plays and Italian Renaissance literature. In these works Shakespeare demonstrated increasing stylistic sophistication.

His use of blank verse became more complex, and his dialogue became more rich, dynamic, and effective. Many of Shakespeare's greatest plays were written in the first ten years of the company's residence at the Globe, and they were first performed there. These later comedies, noted for their darker tone, are sometimes called the "problem plays. Among Shakespeare's major tragedies, scholars often cite Hamlet as the greatest.

Based on a legend from Denmark, it follows some conventions of the genre known as revenge tragedy, which was immensely popular. As the term suggests, revenge tragedies concerned the theme of vengeance for a past wrong—usually murder. Like typical revenge tragedies, Hamlet ended with a stage scattered with bloody corpses. But Shakespeare's work rose far above the standard plays of this genre, largely because he invested the character of Hamlet, a young man who seeks to avenge his father's death, with such complex human feeling.

When Hamlet learns that his father had been killed by Hamlet's uncle, now married to Hamlet's mother, the young prince is tormented by intense and contradictory emotions. He struggles with his conscience and his personality about what action to take. Macbeth , based on the history of an ancient Scottish king, Duncan, is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy.

Its theme is the danger of unrestrained ambition. Macbeth, a Scottish noble, meets three witches who predict that he will become king. Though he had been King Duncan's loyal general, Macbeth now wishes to fulfill the prophecy. His wife urges him to go along with her plan to murder the king while he is staying in their castle. Though at first he worries about committing such an immoral act, Macbeth stabs the king to death and seizes the throne.

Increasingly concerned that his enemies will rise against him, Macbeth slaughters many innocents before he is killed in battle. One of the most notable features of the play is the character of Lady Macbeth, who is more bloodthirsty and cold-hearted than her husband. Shakespeare based King Lear on an old English legend. In Shakespeare's version, Lear, an old man, needs to decide how to divide up his kingdom among his daughters.

He demands that they demonstrate their love for him. He fails to recognize that his two older daughters, who pretend affection, care only about getting the inheritance. By contrast, his youngest daughter, Cordelia, refuses to play her sisters' game because she recognizes it is insincere. Lear, however, is blind to the truth and banishes her.

He realizes his mistake too late, after Cordelia dies. In the play's most powerful scene, the man who was once a great king is now ragged and in despair, wandering over the moors carrying Cordelia's lifeless body. In Othello a jealous husband is driven to murder when his trusted general, Iago, suggests that Othello's wife, Desdemona, has been unfaithful.

Othello cannot see that Iago hates him and wishes to destroy him. He goes along with Iago's scheme to demonstrate proof of Desdemona's betrayal, and finally kills her. The play's subtitle, "The Moor of Venice," refers to the fact that Othello is a black African; his wife is white. Shakespeare uses black-white imagery throughout the play, especially in Iago's speeches, which demonstrate the villain's crude racism and contempt for women.

In James I —; see entry granted the Lord Chamberlain's Men a royal patent, and the company changed its name to the King's Men. This royal support helped to increase the status of theater professionals. James enjoyed plays, and the company performed at court several times a year. The plays that Shakespeare wrote in the final years of his career are sometimes classified as romances.

They conform less closely to conventional genres of comedy or tragedy, mixing elements from several genres within one work. The Winter's Tale is considered one of Shakespeare's finest plays. It begins as a tragedy but then shifts to pastoral comedy, or a comedy about country life. Leontes, king of Bohemia, irrationally suspects his friend, Polixenes, of having an affair with Leontes's wife.

He orders Polixenes killed and orders the wife, Hermione, thrown into prison where she gives birth to a daughter. Leontes orders this child to be killed as well, but instead she is adopted by shepherds. Polixines, too, escapes. Sixteen years later the action shifts and the tragic actions are resolved, often through wondrous events. The Tempest is Shakespeare's best-known play from this late period, and some scholars consider it his farewell to the theater, since he retired soon after producing it.

Magic plays a prominent part in the play, which concerns a powerful sorcerer, Prospero, whose brother stole his kingdom and set him adrift at sea with his baby daughter. They are saved by an enchantress, and live on a remote island for several years. Discovering that this untrustworthy brother will be passing near the island on a ship, Prospero conjures a storm that makes his brother a castaway on the island.

After much romantic plotting and scheming with his servant, the strange and demonic creature Ariel, Prospero sees to it that kingdoms and relationships are restored to their proper order. From to London theaters were closed because of plague in the city. The plague was a disease that killed nearly one-fourth of the city's population. Needing income, Shakespeare wrote two long poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece , for his patron, or financial supporter, the earl of Southampton.

These works are considered masterpieces of Elizabethan narrative poetry. A narrative poem is a poem that tells a story. Shakespeare's best-known poems, however, are his sonnet sequence, probably also composed around this time but not published until Sonnets are fourteen-line poems written in iambic pentameter—ten syllables in each line, with the emphasis on the second syllable in each word or phrase.

The sonnet sequence, in which individual poems are arranged to develop a particular theme or argument, had been made popular by Philip Sidney —; see entry. Shakespeare's contribution to the genre established him as one of the finest poets in the English language. The poems of Shakespeare's sonnet sequence form an extended dialogue between the poet or speaker and two mysterious characters: a "friend" who appears to be a young man, and a "dark lady.

They are considered masterpieces that, alone, would have established Shakespeare's reputation as a poetic genius. Shakespeare's career was quite successful. He earned a comfortable income from his plays and from his share in the profits of the theater company. In his father had obtained the right to have a coat-of-arms a symbol representing a family , and Shakespeare inherited this after his father's death in The playwright was also granted the right to call himself a gentleman—a distinguished achievement in an age that often considered actors to be disreputable.

In Shakespeare purchased a large house, New Place, in Stratford. This became his family home. Over the years he invested in additional property in Stratford. He retired there around , and lived quietly with his family. He died there on his birthday, April 23, , at age He was buried at Holy Trinity Church. While most critics and historians believe that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was the writer of the plays now credited to him, many others over the years have doubted it.

Most point to the limited education Shakespeare received in Stratford and note the vast knowledge displayed by the author of the plays. Some find evidence that the plays were written from the perspective of a member of the aristocracy, not the son of a glove maker. Others point to the lack of any reference to a playwright from Stratford in the documents of the era.

These skeptics have suggested other authors for the plays, primarily the scientist and writer Francis Bacon —; see entry , Christopher Marlowe , William Stanley Earl of Derby; — , and Edward de Vere Earl of Oxford; — Most such claims have been discredited, however. Shakespeare's work was so admired in his own time that, in , two actors compiled his plays and published them in the First Folio.

The First Folio did not contain Pericles , which is not accepted by most scholars as Shakespeare's work. Actors, audiences, and readers through the centuries have continued to find new excitement in Shakespeare's work. As his contemporary Ben Jonson — wrote in a preface to the First Folio , Shakespeare "was not of an age, but for all time!

Ackroyd, Peter. Shakespeare: The Biography. New York : Nan A. Talese, Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York : Riverhead Books, Braunmuller, A. The Complete Pelican Shakespeare. New York: Penguin Classics, Charney, Maurice. All of Shakespeare. New York: Columbia University Press, Fraser, Russell. Shakespeare: The Later Years.

Greenblatt, Stephen. New York: W. Norton, Prefatory Material to the First Folio, Shakespeare Homepage. Shakespeare Online. Shakespeare is universally recognized as the foremost writer in the English language to date. The thirty-seven plays associated with his name, including the major tragedies Hamlet, King Lear , Othello, and Macbeth, and his romances and comedies, Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night's Dream among them, have been translated into many languages and have crossed all kinds of cultural divide.

His poetry, in particular his intricately woven and fiercely passionate love sonnets, have stirred the senses of reader and critic alike for generations past and will do so for generations to come. Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England , and he was probably educated in the s at the free grammar school there known as the King's New School.

His father, John Shakespeare, has been described as a glover or whittawer, which means someone who works with animal skins. Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, was from a noted local family, the daughter of Robert Arden, John Shakespeare's landlord. At some point, perhaps in when his father was high bailiff mayor of the town and responsible for Stratford's entertainment, Shakespeare must have first seen actors perform as traveling players visiting on tour.

In about , Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, a rich yeoman's daughter. The marriage was undertaken during a notable downturn in the affairs of Shakespeare's father. Having been a respected and confident town official during Shakespeare's earliest years — initiating an application for gentry status in , for example — during John Shakespeare's alderman status was withdrawn.

Although controversy surrounds the possible reasons for Shakespeare's marriage to a woman who was eight years his senior, three children were produced from the marriage. Susanna was the first-born in with a pair of twins produced in — a son, Hamnet, who died in childhood, and a daughter, Judith. Whether Shakespeare had to leave Stratford for some reason, or whether he joined a visiting touring company such as the Queen's Men, we first hear of him as a London playhouse personality seven years after the birth of the twins.

This is when he is mentioned in a pamphlet called A Groatsworth of Wit Bought with a Million of Repentance written by a writer and playwright named Robert Greene. This text was written while the writer knew that he was dying, and in it he urged his fellow well-educated peers, Christopher Marlowe , Thomas Nashe, and George Peele, to forsake the stage.

By this time, scholars believe that the player Shakespeare had not only embarked on his English history cycle with the three Henry VI plays, but had also presented the highly successful if violent Titus Andronicus as well. In this play a woman is raped, has both her hands cut off and her tongue cut out, and a queen unknowingly eats her own children, baked in a pie.

However, in a matter of a few years Shakespeare was also provably capable of writing the extraordinarily poised and tragic Romeo and Juliet. Here two young lovers, divided by their families' antagonism to one another, meet, marry, and die while speaking the most beautiful words of love written for the English stage. By , Shakespeare, as a sharer member of the acting company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, was entitled to a portion of the company's takings.

This status was acquired through his investment in things for the company like costumes, playbooks, and props. However, there is some evidence to show that Shakespeare wanted to be perceived more as a serious poet than as either an actor or a playwright. In and he published his two narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece , both dedicated to his supposed patron Henry Wroithesley, 3rd earl of Southampton.

This period also marks the time when it is believed he had begun his sonnets, published as a collection in , with Southampton a candidate for the "Fair Youth" to whom the first possibly allude. The fourteen-line sonnet, quietly evolving in form since its first emergence in fourteenth-century Italy, had reached England through poet-courtiers such as Sir Thomas Wyatt and the earl of Surrey earlier in the sixteenth century.

In the hands of Shakespeare, many sonnet conventions were challenged, questioning the poetic expectation of comparing one's lover to nature, for example. Thus Shakespeare chose to use the sonnet to engage, not only with the passions and intellect of the person to whom the sonnet is addressed, but even with poetry itself. It is interesting that Greene chose to mark out Shakespeare's verse as his primary objection to him as an "upstart.

However, Shakespeare's energy when approaching his plays did not hold back on inventiveness and variety. The blank verse form reached its apotheosis with Shakespeare, but a few of his early plays contain sonnet moments too. The Prologue to Romeo and Juliet, given by the Chorus, is a sonnet, and later in this lovers' play, one is interwoven through the dialogue when the protagonists first speak together act 1, scene 5, lines 90 — By the turn of the seventeenth century, the Lord Chamberlain's Men had rebuilt their Shoreditch amphitheater called the "Theater" as the Globe on London's Bankside the south bank of the Thames.

They were now the most well established of the city's playing companies. By this time Shakespeare had begun to write his heavyweight tragedies for them, beginning with Hamlet published in If Titus Andronicus was violent, and Romeo and Juliet tragically romantic, Hamlet was Shakespeare's play concerned with the human mind. The eponymous prince of Denmark , whose father's ghost tells him how he was murdered by Hamlet's uncle, sets out on a course of revenge, while at the same time, as the philosopher prince studying at Wittenburg University, he questions life and death and any decision involving them.

Shakespeare is creative with the revenge tragedy form, using the vengeful mindset of the main character to explore highly philosophical questions. Hamlet is the most widely quoted and most investigated of Shakespeare's plays, attracting a phenomenal amount of scholarly study, just as much because of the questions it poses as because of the answers it fails to give.

In , after the death of Queen Elizabeth and the accession of James I, the company were renamed the King's Men, acquiring royal patronage status. In they also acquired a new, small, more select playhouse known as the Blackfriars that was to be used alongside the Globe, the public playhouse. Shares in this venture, which company members were given, were very lucrative acquirements for the actors — including Shakespeare.

This period marked the writing of plays such as Othello, first performed — and published in the s, King Lear of , published in , and Macbeth, again c. The plot lines and characters of these tragedies continued to demonstrate the extraordinary range of Shakespeare's mind as he dealt with, for example, jealousy and deception in Othello ; madness, mercy, and true filial love in King Lear ; and the dangers of encouraged ambition in Macbeth.

In about , however, at the peak of his writing powers, Shakespeare was to give up his career on London's stage. By , Shakespeare had returned to Stratford and the substantial home called New Place that he had bought for his family. It was there that he was to die in of a fever, reputedly after a rowdy visit from his friend and colleague Ben Jonson.

He died where he began, therefore, not in London where he made his name, but in the Stratford of his birth.

Isom innis biography of william shakespeare

Back in , gentry status had finally been achieved for his family, and the payee for this was likely to have been William. He died, therefore, not only rich, but respected and esteemed in his community, to become later in the minds of many the man most associated with the finest use of poetic English. In the historical context of his day-to-day existence as an actor and a companyman, Shakespeare's significant output as a dramatic writer can be interpreted as simple good business sense that resulted in his family's bettered status at home.

By writing good plays he drew audiences to playhouses in which he had financial interests. Shakespeare's plays did not, in fact, belong to him, but were the property of his company. Despite evidence that Shakespeare was involved in the printing of his poetry, there is no proof of authorial concern with the printed publication of his plays.

His dramas were only collected as serious "works" seven years after his death in for what we now know as Shakespeare's "First Folio," put together by his fellow actors. A man of extraordinary talent, however, at a time when there were no rulebooks for the English language or its lexicon, his contribution to what we now perceive as beauty through dramatic story and words is inestimable.

Shakespeare, William. The First Folio of Shakespeare. Norton facsimile, prepared by Charlton Hinman. New York and London, The Norton Shakespeare. Howard, and Katharine Eisaman Maus. Based on the Oxford Edition. Shakespeare's Sonnets. Edited by Stephen Booth. New Haven , Dobson, Michael, and Stanley Wells, eds. Oxford, Gurr, Andrew. The Shakespearean Stage, — Cambridge, U.