William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare, also known as the "Bard of Avon," is often called England's national poet
and considered the greatest dramatist of all time. Shakespeare's works are known throughout
the world, but his personal life is shrouded in mystery.

Who Was William Shakespeare?

William Shakespeare (baptized on April 26, 1564 to April 23, 1616) was an English playwright,
actor and poet also known as the “Bard of Avon” and often called England’s national poet. Born
in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, he was an important member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men
company of theatrical players from roughly 1594 onward. Written records give little indication
of the way in which Shakespeare’s professional life molded his artistry. All that can be deduced
is that, in his 20 years as a playwright, Shakespeare wrote plays that capture the complete
range of human emotion and conflict.

Known throughout the world, the works of William Shakespeare have been performed in
countless hamlets, villages, cities and metropolises for more than 400 years. And yet, the
personal history of William Shakespeare is somewhat a mystery. There are two primary sources
that provide historians with a basic outline of his life. One source is his work — the plays,
poems and sonnets — and the other is official documentation such as church and court records.
However, these only provide brief sketches of specific events in his life and provide little on the
person who experienced those events.

William Shakespeare’s Plays

While it’s difficult to determine the exact chronology of William Shakespeare’s plays, over the
course of two decades, from about 1590 to 1613, he wrote a total of 37 plays revolving around
several main themes: histories, tragedies, comedies and tragicomedies.

Early Works: Histories and Comedies

With the exception of the tragic love story Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare's first plays
were mostly histories. Henry VI (Parts I, II and III), Richard II and Henry Vdramatize the
destructive results of weak or corrupt rulers, and have been interpreted by drama historians as
Shakespeare's way of justifying the origins of the Tudor Dynasty. Julius Caesar portrays
upheaval in Roman politics that may have resonated with viewers at a time when England’s
aging monarch, Queen Elizabeth I, had no legitimate heir, thus creating the potential for future
power struggles.
Shakespeare also wrote several comedies during his early period: the witty romance A
Midsummer Night's Dream, the romantic Merchant of Venice, the wit and wordplay of Much
Ado About Nothing, the charming As You Like It and Twelfth Night.

Other plays written before 1600 include Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Two
Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, Love’s Labour’s Lost, King John, The Merry
Wives of Windsor and Henry V.

Works after 1600: Tragedies and Tragicomedies

It was in William Shakespeare's later period, after 1600, that he wrote the
tragedies Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. In these, Shakespeare's characters 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.
These moral failures often drive the twists and turns of Shakespeare's plots, destroying the
hero and those he loves.

In William Shakespeare's final period, he wrote several tragicomedies. Among these

are Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest. Though graver in tone than the comedies,
they are not the dark tragedies of King Lear or Macbeth because they end with reconciliation
and forgiveness.

Other plays written during this period include All’s Well That Ends Well, Measure for
Measure, Timon of Athens, Coriolanus, Pericles and Henry VIII.

When and Where Was William Shakespeare Born?

Though no birth records exist, church records indicate that a William Shakespeare was baptized
at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564. From this, it is believed he was
born on or near April 23, 1564, and this is the date scholars acknowledge as William
Shakespeare's birthday. Located 103 miles west of London, during Shakespeare's time
Stratford-upon-Avon was a market town bisected with a country road and the River Avon.

Family

William was the third child of John Shakespeare, a leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a local
landed heiress. William had two older sisters, Joan and Judith, and three younger brothers,
Gilbert, Richard and Edmund. Before William's birth, his father became a successful merchant
and held official positions as alderman and bailiff, an office resembling a mayor. However,
records indicate John's fortunes declined sometime in the late 1570s.

Childhood and Education

Scant records exist of William's childhood, and virtually none regarding his education. Scholars
have surmised that he most likely attended the King's New School, in Stratford, which taught
reading, writing and the classics. Being a public official's child, William would have undoubtedly
qualified for free tuition. But this uncertainty regarding his education has led some to raise
questions about the authorship of his work and even about whether or not William
Shakespeare ever existed.

William Shakespeare’s Wife and Kids

William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582, in Worcester, in

Canterbury Province. Hathaway was from Shottery, a small village a mile west of Stratford.
William was 18 and Anne was 26, and, as it turns out, pregnant. Their first child, a daughter
they named Susanna, was born on May 26, 1583. Two years later, on February 2, 1585, twins
Hamnet and Judith were born. Hamnet later died of unknown causes at age 11.

Shakespeare’s Lost Years

There are seven years of William Shakespeare's life where no records exist after the birth of his
twins in 1585. Scholars call this period the "lost years," and there is wide speculation on what
he was doing during this period. One theory is that he might have gone into hiding for poaching
game from the local landlord, Sir Thomas Lucy. Another possibility is that he might have been
working as an assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire. It is generally believed he arrived in London
in the mid- to late 1580s and may have found work as a horse attendant at some of London's
finer theaters, a scenario updated centuries later by the countless aspiring actors and
playwrights in Hollywood and Broadway.

Lord Chamberlain's Men

By the early 1590s, documents show William Shakespeare was a managing partner in the Lord
Chamberlain's Men, an acting company in London with which he was connected for most of his
career. Considered the most important troupe of its time, the company changed its name to
the King's Men following the crowning of King James I, in 1603.

From all accounts, the King's Men company was very popular. Records show that Shakespeare
had works published and sold as popular literature. Although the theater culture in 16th
century England was not highly admired by people of high rank, many of the nobility were good
patrons of the performing arts and friends of the actors.

William Shakespeare the Actor and Playwright

By 1592, there is evidence William Shakespeare earned a living as an actor and a playwright in
London and possibly had several plays produced. The September 20, 1592 edition of
the Stationers' Register (a guild publication) includes an article by London playwright Robert
Greene that takes a few jabs at William Shakespeare: "...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," Greene wrote of Shakespeare.

Scholars differ on the interpretation of this criticism, but most agree that it was Greene's way of
saying Shakespeare was reaching above his rank, trying to match better known and educated
playwrights like Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe or Greene himself.

Early in his career, Shakespeare was able to attract the attention of Henry Wriothesley, the Earl
of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his first- and second-published poems: "Venus and
Adonis" (1593) and "The Rape of Lucrece" (1594).

By 1597, Shakespeare had already written and published 15 of his 37 plays. Civil records show
that at this time he purchased the second largest house in Stratford, called New House, for his
family. It was a four-day ride by horse from Stratford to London, so it is believed that
Shakespeare spent most of his time in the city writing and acting and came home once a year
during the 40-day Lenten period, when the theaters were closed.

Shakespeare’s Globe Theater

By 1599, William Shakespeare and his business partners built their own theater on the south
bank of the Thames River, which they called the Globe. In 1605, Shakespeare purchased leases
of real estate near Stratford for 440 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 the time to write his plays uninterrupted

Shakespeare’s Writing Style

William Shakespeare's early plays were written in the conventional style of the day, with
elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases that didn't always align naturally with the story's
plot or characters. 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.

Shakespeare’s Death
Tradition has it that William Shakespeare died on his 52nd birthday, April 23, 1616, though
many scholars believe this is a myth. Church records show he was interred at Trinity Church on
April 25, 1616.

In his will, he left the bulk of his possessions to his eldest daughter, Susanna. Though entitled to
a third of his estate, little seems to have gone to his wife, Anne, whom he bequeathed his
"second-best bed." This has drawn speculation that she had fallen out of favor, or that the
couple was not close. However, there is very little evidence the two had a difficult marriage.
Other scholars note that the term "second-best bed" often refers to the bed belonging to the
household's master and mistress — the marital bed — and the "first-best bed" was reserved for
guests.

Did Shakespeare Write His Own Plays?

About 150 years after his death, questions arose about the authorship of William Shakespeare's
plays. Scholars and literary critics began to float names like Christopher Marlowe, Edward de
Vere and Francis Bacon — men of more known backgrounds, literary accreditation, or
inspiration — as the true authors of the plays. Much of this stemmed from the sketchy details
of Shakespeare's life and the dearth of contemporary primary sources. Official records from the
Holy Trinity Church and the Stratford government record the existence of a William
Shakespeare, but none of these attest to him being an actor or playwright.

Skeptics also questioned how anyone of such modest education could write with the
intellectual perceptiveness and poetic power that is displayed in Shakespeare's works. Over the
centuries, several groups have emerged that question the authorship of Shakespeare's plays.

The most serious and intense skepticism began in the 19th century when adoration for
Shakespeare was at its highest. The detractors believed that the only hard evidence
surrounding William Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon described a man from modest
beginnings who married young and became successful in real estate. Members of the
Shakespeare Oxford Society (founded in 1957) put forth arguments that English aristocrat and
poet Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the poems and plays of
"William Shakespeare." The Oxfordians cite de Vere's extensive knowledge of aristocratic
society, his education, and the structural similarities between his poetry and that found in the
works attributed to Shakespeare. They contend that William Shakespeare had neither the
education nor the literary training to write such eloquent prose and create such rich characters.

However, the vast majority of Shakespearean scholars contend that William Shakespeare wrote
all his own plays. They point out that other playwrights of the time also had sketchy histories
and came from modest backgrounds. They contend that Stratford's New Grammar School
curriculum of Latin and the classics could have provided a good foundation for literary writers.
Supporters of Shakespeare's authorship argue that the lack of evidence about Shakespeare's
life doesn't mean his life didn't exist. They point to evidence that displays his name on the title
pages of published poems and plays. Examples exist of authors and critics of the time
acknowledging William Shakespeare as author of plays such as The Two Gentlemen of
Verona, The Comedy of Errors and King John. Royal records from 1601 show that William
Shakespeare was recognized as a member of the King's Men theater company (formerly known
as the Chamberlain's Men) and a Groom of the Chamber by the court of King James I, where
the company performed seven of Shakespeare's plays. There is also strong circumstantial
evidence of personal relationships by contemporaries who interacted with Shakespeare as an
actor and a playwright.

Literary Legacy

What seems to be true is that William Shakespeare was a respected man of the dramatic arts
who wrote plays and acted in some in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. But his reputation
as a dramatic genius wasn't recognized until the 19th century. Beginning with the Romantic
period of the early 1800s and continuing through the Victorian period, acclaim and reverence
for William Shakespeare and his work reached its height. In the 20th century, new movements
in scholarship and performance have rediscovered and adopted his works.

Today, his plays are highly popular and constantly studied and reinterpreted in performances
with diverse cultural and political contexts. The genius of Shakespeare's characters and plots
are that they present real human beings in a wide range of emotions and conflicts that
transcend their origins in Elizabethan England.
William Shakespeare and Sonnet 18
Sonnet 18 is perhaps the best known of all sonnets. Shakespeare wrote 154 of them but this
one tends to top most popular lists, mainly due to the opening line which every romantic knows
off by heart.

But there is much more to this line than meets the eye, as you'll find out later in the analysis.
And please be aware that not every line of every Shakespeare sonnet is written in pure iambic
pentameter - a mistake made by many a supposed authority.

William Shakespeare's sonnets are world renowned and are said to been written for a 'fair
youth' (1 - 126) and a 'dark lady' (127 - 154), but no one is 100% certain. There are no definite
names and no written evidence. Shakespeare may have been well known in his lifetime but he
was also very good at keeping secrets.

The sonnets were first published in 1609, seven years before his death, and their remarkable
quality has kept them in the public eye ever since. Their depth and range set Shakespeare apart
from all other sonneteers.

His sonnet 18 focuses on the loveliness of a friend or lover, the speaker initially asking a
rhetorical question comparing them to a summer's day. He then goes on to introduce the pros
and cons of the weather, from an idyllic English summer's day to a less welcome dimmed sun
and rough winds.

In the end, it is the poetry that will keep the lover alive for ever, defying even death.

Sonnet 18
Sonnet 18 | Source

Analysis Of Sonnet 18

Sonnet 18 is devoted to praising a friend or lover, traditionally known as the 'fair youth', the
sonnet itself a guarantee that this person's beauty will be sustained. Even death will be silenced
because the lines of verse will be read by future generations, when speaker and poet and lover
are no more, keeping the fair image alive through the power of verse.

 The opening line is almost a tease, reflecting the speaker's uncertainty as he attempts to
compare his lover with a summer's day. The rhetorical question is posed for both
speaker and reader and even the metrical stance of this first line is open to conjecture.
Is it pure iambic pentameter? This comparison will not be straightforward.

This image of the perfect English summer's day is then surpassed as the second line reveals that
the lover is more lovely and more temperate. Lovely is still quite commonly used in England and
carries the same meaning (attractive, nice, beautiful) whilst temperate in Shakespeare's time
meant gentle-natured, restrained, moderate and composed.

 The second line refers directly to the lover with the use of the second person
pronoun Thou, now archaic. As the sonnet progresses however, lines 3 - 8 concentrate
on the ups and downs of the weather, and are distanced, taken along on a steady iambic
rhythm (except for line 5, see later).
Summer time in England is a hit and miss affair weather-wise. Winds blow, rain clouds gather
and before you know where you are, summer has come and gone in a week.The season seems
all too short - that's true for today as it was in Shakespeare's time - and people tend to moan
when it's too hot, and grumble when it's overcast.

 The speaker is suggesting that for most people, summer will pass all too quickly and
they will grow old, as is natural, their beauty fading with the passing of the season.

With repetition, alliteration and internal and end rhyme, the reader is taken along through this
uncertain, changing, fateful time. Note the language of these lines: rough, shake, too short,
Sometimes, too hot, often, dimmed, declines, chance, changing, untrimmed.

And there are interesting combinations within each line, which add to the texture and
soundscape: Rough/buds, shake/May, hot/heaven, eye/shines, often/gold/complexion, fair
from fair, sometimes/declines, chance/nature/changing, nature/course.

Life is not an easy passage through Time for most, if not all people. Random events can radically
alter who we are, and we are all subject to Time's effects.

In the meantime the vagaries of the English summer weather are called up again and again as
the speaker attempts to put everything into perspective. Finally, the lover's beauty,
metaphorically an eternal summer, will be preserved forever in the poet's immmortal lines.

And those final two lines, 13 and 14, are harmony itself. Following twelve lines without any
punctuated caesura (a pause or break in the delivery of the line), line 13 has a 6/4 caesura and
the last line a 4/6. The humble comma sorts out the syntax, leaving everything in balance,
giving life.

Perhaps only someone of genius could claim to have such literary powers, strong enough to
preserve the beauty of a lover, beyond even death.

Sonnet 18 Language and Tone

Note the use of the verb shall and the different tone it brings to separate lines. In the first line it
refers to the uncertainty the speaker feels. In line nine there is the sense of some kind of
definite promise, whilst line eleven conveys the idea of a command for death to remain silent.

The word beauty does not appear in this sonnet. Both summer and fair are used instead.

Thou, thee and thy are used throughout and refer directly to the lover, the fair youth.

And/Nor/So long repeat, reinforce

Further Analysis of Sonnet 18

Sonnet 18 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet, 14 lines in length, made up of 3 quatrains and

a couplet. It has a regular rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg. All the end rhymes are full, the
exceptions being temperate/date.

Metrical Analysis

Sonnet 18 is written in traditional iambic pentameter but it has to be remembered that this is
the overall dominant metre (meter in USA). Certain lines contain trochees, spondees and
possibly anapaests.

 Whilst some lines are pure iambic, following the pattern of

daDUM daDUMdaDUM daDUM daDUM, no stress syllable followed by a stressed
syllable, others are not.

Why is this an important issue? Well, the metre helps dictate the rhythm of a line and also how
it should be read. Take that first line for example:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

There's no doubting that this is a question so therefore the stress would normally fall on the
first word, Shall. Say it quietly to yourself and you'll find the natural thing to do is place a little
more emphasis on that opening word, because it is a question being asked. If the emphasis was
on the second word, I, the sense would be lost. So it is no longer an iamb in the first foot, but a
trochee, an inverted iamb.

Shall I / compare / thee to / a sum / mer's day? (trochee, iamb x4)

 But, there is an alternative analysis of this first line, which focuses on the mild caesura
(pause, after thee) and scans an amphibrach and an anapaest in a tetrameter line:

Shall I / compare thee / to a sum / mer's day?

Here we have an interesting mix, the stress still on the opening word in the first foot, with the
second foot of non stressed, stressed, non stressed, which makes an amphibrach. The third foot
is the anapaest, the fourth the lonely iamb. There are four feet so the line is in tetrameter.

Both scans are valid because of the flexible way in which English can be read and certain words
only partially stressed. For me, when I read this opening line, the second version seems more
natural because of that faint pause after the word thee. I cannot read the opening line whilst
sticking to the daDUM daDUM iambic pentameter beat. It just doesn't ring true. You try it and
find out for yourself.
More Analysis - Lines That Are Not Iambic Pentameter

Line 3

Again, the iambic pentameter rhythm is altered by the use of a spondee at the start, two
stressed single syllable words:

Rough winds / do shake / the dar / ling buds / of May,

This places emphasis on the meaning and gives extra weight to the rough weather.

Line 5

Again an inversion occurs, the opening trochee replacing the iamb:

Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,

The stress is on the first syllable, after which the iambic pattern continues to the end. Note the
metaphor (eye of heaven) for the sun, and the inversion of the line grammatically, where too
hot ordinarily would be at the end of the line. This is called anastrophe, the change of order in a
sentence.

Line 11

Note the spondee, this time in the middle of the line. And a trochee opens:

Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,

The emphasis is on death brag, the double stress reinforcing the initial trochee to make quite a
powerful negation.
Iambic Pentameter
Definition:

Here it is, folks. Probably the single most useful technical term in poetry (and in drama, too).
Shmoopers, if you learn one term in poetry, let it be the old I.P. Or maybe metaphor. But you
already knew that one.

Let's break it down:

 An iamb is a metrical foot that consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed

one—daDUM.

 Penta- means five.

 Meter refers to a regular rhythmic pattern in poetry.

So iambic pentameter is a kind of rhythmic pattern that consists of five iambs per line, almost
like five heartbeats: daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM.

Let's try it out on the first line of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night:

If music be the food of love, play on.

Just read that line aloud to yourself, and you'll be sure to hear those daDUMs.

Of course, though many poets use this rhythm, it might get pretty stinkin' boring after a while if
they didn't shake it up a bit. So while a ton of poems are written in iambic pentameter, you'd be
hard pressed to find one that follows the meter perfectly. Poets like to mix it up with metrical
variations like extra syllables or out-of-order stresses. Be sure to check out our page
on meter for more.

Iambic pentameter has some majorly early roots, dating back to Latin verse and Old French,
but Chaucer is considered the pioneer of the verse in English and used it for his
famous Canterbury Tales. Yep, it's been around that long.
Sonnet 18*
by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

*The sonnet was actually untitled. It is given a number from a collection of his works, the
sonnets he wrote (and which were preserved) numbering over 100. It is often referred to as
well by its first line, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

As all Shakespearian sonnets do, this follows the rhyme scheme ABABCDCDEFEFGG.

This is one of the many poems written for the "fair youth" for whom Shakespeare wrote so very
many of his sonnets. It seems likely that the youth was a male, and quite possibly Shakespeare's
patron. Whether Shakespeare had an actual romance with the fair youth or not remains an
unresolved matter.

Sonnet 18 opens with a comparison: the youth is compared to a summer's day, and found
superior. In fact, the first eight lines examine the notion that seasons come and go and
sometimes their weather is unpleasant, but the youth is found entirely superior. The "turn" in
this sonnet comes in the 9th line, with the word "But", which contrasts the fading away of
summer with the beauty (physical and otherwise) of the youth. "But thy eternal summer shall
not fade/Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st": Your youth and beauty won't fade, and
you'll keep possession of the fairness that is yours (ow'st is probably a variant of the verb "to
own" here). Shakespeare goes one further: Not only will the youth not fade, he will not be
forgotten. The final couplet (inset a wee bit) explains why: I've written a poem about you to
remind everyone through the ages.

Shakespeare's words proved prescient, in that his words continue to be read and cherished
hundreds of years later. And even though the precise identity of the fair youth cannot be
determined, in some ways, our continued recitations and readings of the poem keep his
memory alive, I suppose - it must be so, at least, for Shakespeare said so.

I. Dramatic Situation:

1. The theme in this sonnet is the adoration of Shakespeare’s love will live forever through
the words he writes in his poem.

Shakespeare is comparing his love to a summer’s day that summer is hot and untamed, while
his love is calm and is described as better than summer (Jungman 18).

2. The speaker in this poem is the poet, showing his adoration to his beloved. The characters
in the sonnet are the poet, the beloved, and the personification of a summer’s day.

3. The poet states that his love is better than summer because summer eventually fades
away but the beauty of his love will last forever because he is writing it down.

4. The sonnet doesn’t seem to be written for as special occasion other than adoring his love.

5. The motivation of the speaker is his deep adoration of his beloved. He loves him/her so
much that his words will live on for future generations.

II. "Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold completion dimmed/

And every fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee (Shakespeare 1063)."

III. Shakespeare uses imagery to contrast the beloved to a summer’s day in line. In lines 5
and 6, the poet compares the completion of the love to that of the sun

in that the sun is sometimes too bright to look at or even faded by the clouds, but not of his
beloved (Violli).

IV. This sonnet is relevant to readers in today’s time mainly because a person’s beauty is
what seems to be most important. Shakespeare immortalizes the subject and states that
his/her

beauty will last forever because he is writing it down. People of today are so focused on outer
beauty and forget about inner beauty. It would have been interesting if readers knew more
about

the personality of the subject rather that just physical beauty.