Hamlet
by William Shakespeare |
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| About The Author: |
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William Shakespeare
(1564-1616)
Shakespeare also spelled Shakspere, byname Bard of Avon,
or Swan of Avon English poet, dramatist, and actor, often
called the English national poet and considered by many
to be the greatest dramatist of all time.
Shakespeare occupies a position unique in world literature.
Other poets, such as Homer and Dante, and novelists, such
as Leo Tolstoy and Charles Dickens, have transcended national
barriers; but no writer's living reputation can compare
with that of Shakespeare, whose plays, written in the
late 16th and early 17th centuries for a small repertory
theatre, are now performed and read more often and in
more countries than ever before. The prophecy of his great
contemporary, the poet and dramatist Ben Jonson, that
Shakespeare “was not of an age, but for all time,”
has been fulfilled.
It may be audacious even to attempt a definition of his
greatness, but it is not so difficult to describe the
gifts that enabled him to create imaginative visions of
pathos and mirth that, whether read or witnessed in the
theatre, fill the mind and linger there. He is a writer
of great intellectual rapidity, perceptiveness, and poetic
power. Other writers have had these qualities, but with
Shakespeare the keenness of mind was applied not to abstruse
or remote subjects but to human beings and their complete
range of emotions and conflicts. Other writers have applied
their keenness of mind in this way, but Shakespeare is
astonishingly clever with words and images, so that his
mental energy, when applied to intelligible human situations,
finds full and memorable expression, convincing and imaginatively
stimulating. As if this were not enough, the art form
into which his creative energies went was not remote and
bookish but involved the vivid stage impersonation of
human beings, commanding sympathy and inviting vicarious
participation. Thus Shakespeare's merits can survive translation
into other languages and into cultures remote from that
of Elizabethan England.
William Shakespeare was born to John Shakespeare and mother
Mary Arden some time in late April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon.
There is no record of his birth, but his baptism was recorded
by the church, thus his birthday is assumed to be the
23 of April. His father was a prominent and prosperous
alderman in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, and was later
granted a coat of arms by the College of Heralds. All
that is known of Shakespeare's youth is that he presumably
attended the Stratford Grammar School, and did not proceed
to Oxford or Cambridge. The next record we have of him
is his marriage to Anne Hathaway in 1582. The next year
she bore a daughter for him, Susanna, followed by the
twins Judith and Hamnet two years later.
Seven years later Shakespeare is recognized as an actor,
poet and playwright, when a rival playwright, Robert Greene,
refers to him as "an upstart crow" in A Groatsworth
of Wit. A few years later he joined up with one of the
most successful acting troupe's in London: The Lord Chamberlain's
Men. When, in 1599, the troupe lost the lease of the theatre
where they performed, (appropriately called The Theatre)
they were wealthy enough to build their own theatre across
the Thames, south of London, which they called "The
Globe." The new theatre opened in July of 1599, built
from the timbers of The Theatre, with the motto "Totus
mundus agit histrionem" (A whole world of players)
When James I came to the throne (1603) the troupe was
designated by the new king as the King's Men (or King's
Company). The Letters Patent of the company specifically
charged Shakespeare and eight others "freely to use
and exercise the art and faculty of playing Comedies,
Tragedies, Histories, Inerludes, Morals, Pastorals, stage
plays ... as well for recreation of our loving subjects
as for our solace and pleasure."
Shakespeare entertained the king and the people for another
ten years until June 19, 1613, when a canon fired from
the roof of the theatre for a gala performance of Henry
VIII set fire to the thatch roof and burned the theatre
to the ground. The audience ignored the smoke from the
roof at first, being to absorbed in the play, until the
flames caught the walls and the fabric of the curtains.
Amazingly there were no casualties, and the next spring
the company had the theatre "new builded in a far
fairer manner than before." Although Shakespeare
invested in the rebuilding, he retired from the stage
to the Great House of New Place in Statford that he had
purchased in 1597, and some considerable land holdings
,where he continued to write until his death in 1616 on
the day of his 52nd birthday. |
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