William Shakespeare

The Importance of Shakespeare

In a world where the quality of the art form called "writing" is so often said
to be rapidly diminishing, it is important for scholars of English literature
to retain some studies of the true classics, such as Shakespeare.
William Shakespeare has become an important landmark in English
literature. The success of Shakespeare's works helped to set the precedent
for the evolution of modern dramas and plays. He is also credited with
being one of the first writers to use any modern prose in his writings; in
fact, the growth of the popularity of prose in Shakespeare's time is clearly
shown as he used prose progressively more throughout his career.
 THE ELIZABETHAN ERA
The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the
reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in
English history. This "golden age" represented the apogee of the English Renaissance and
saw the flowering of poetry, music and literature. The era is most famous for theatre, as
William Shakespeare and many others composed plays that broke free of England's past
style of theatre.
 William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616)
William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded
as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist.
He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the
Bard").
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 of a playing
company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men.
 Plays
It is not known definitively when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of
performances show that several of his plays were on the London stage by 1592.
Some of Shakespeare's plays were published in quarto editions, beginning in 1594, and by 1598, his name had
become a selling point and began to appear on the title pages. Shakespeare continued to act in his own and other
plays after his success as a playwright.
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. A Midsummer Night's
Dream is a witty mixture of romance, fairy magic, and comic lowlife scenes. Shakespeare's next comedy, the
equally romantic Merchant of Venice, contains a portrayal of the vengeful Jewish moneylender Shylock. This
period begins and ends with two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, the famous romantic tragedy of sexually charged
adolescence, love, and death and Julius Caesar—based on Sir Thomas North's 1579 translation of Plutarch's
Parallel Lives—which introduced a new kind of drama.
 The Globe Theatre
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with
William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's
playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men. It was
destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613. A second Globe Theatre
was built on the same site by June 1614 and closed by
an Ordinance issued on 6 September 1642. Like all the other
theatres in London, the Globe was closed down by
the Puritans in 1642. It was pulled down in 1644–45; the
commonly cited document dating the act to 15 April 1644 has
been identified as a probable forgery—to make room
for tenements. The name of the Globe supposedly alludes to
the Latin tag totus mundus agit histrionem, in turn derived
from quod fere totus mundus exerceat histrionem—"because
all the world is a playgrouns"—
The balcony housed the musicians and could also be used for
scenes requiring an upper space, such as the balcony scene
in Romeo and Juliet. Rush matting covered the stage, although
this may only have been used if the setting of the play
demanded it
Shakespeareʹs Globe
Shakespeare's Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe
Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse for which William
Shakespeare wrote his plays, in the London Borough
of Southwark, on the south bank of the River Thames.
The theatre opened in 1997 under the name
"Shakespeare's Globe Theatre", and has staged plays
every summer. For its first 18 seasons, performances
were engineered to duplicate the original environment
of Shakespeare's Globe; there were no spotlights, and
plays were staged during daylight hours and in the
evenings (with the help of interior floodlights), there
were no microphones, speakers or amplification.
 Conclusion
William Shakespeare was considered the greatest writer of English literature. Many
of his plays were published during his lifetime and were staged at the Globe Theater,
one of the most popular of the time of Elizabeth I. He was connected with one of the
most successful companies of actors in london , the Lord Chamberlain's Men , where
Skakespeare was both an actor and the principal playwright. Shakespeare, more than
any other writer , made full use of the great resources of the English language.
Shakespeare in his work used about twenty-five thousand words, while the average
Englishman uses about five thousand words in the normal employment of English.
Shakespeare is important because he has made a significant contribution to the
English literature through his work on Drama or Plays. Reading and analyzing his
work also provide insight into the culture and society around those times.