Shakespeare's life - Research Paper Example

Shakespeare’s life affiliation William Shakespeare was an important cultural person contributed a lot to the Great Britain literature and theatric professional. His life path was marked by his professional skills in the playwriting and composing of the complicated poetry pieces like sonnets, etc. Moreover he was a member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men Company that consisted from the theatrical players. Over the course of almost 20 years, Shakespeare has written plays which effectively captured all range of human emotions, different conflicts and reactions to the various events. We can also underline the description of the present to the Shakespeare age, Shakespeare described many of the habits of the Renaissance. Therefore works of the Shakespeare – quite precious things, considering the historical value of them (Ackroyd, 2006). Speaking about the personal history of the Shakespeare himself, we cannot state precise date of his birth, because only according to the information from the church archives we can know that Shakespeare was baptized on April 26, 1564. He lived in Stratford-upon-Avon. Some details about the origin of legendary playwright we can take from his plays, sonnets and other poems, however, more light can shed official documentation. However they provide only very brief sketches of the important events of the Shakespeare’s life. From the official documents comes the information that the Shakespeare was baptized at the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. From this moment many people consider the beginning of the Shakespeare life. On November 28, 1582, in Worcester, in Centerbury Province William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. Hathaway was from Shottery, it was small village a mile west of Stratford. William was 18 and Anne was 26, and, she was pregnant. Their first child, a daughter they named Susanna, was born on May 26, 1583. Then, after two years they had twins Hamnet and Judith. However Hamnet died of unknown causes when she was eleven. Then the history of records ends and seven years considered to be the “lost years”. These years are undocumented and there are many information from various sources regarding this hidden period of time. Some of them tell that Shakespeare has gone into hiding from the local landlord. Another possibility that Shakespeare could work as an assistant to the schoolmaster of the Lancashire. And then in the late of 1580s he moved to the London and worked as a horse attendant at some London theaters. Then this scenario significantly was updated by the multiple aspiring actors, playwrights in Hollywood, Broadway. Theatrical life of the William Shakespeare began by the 1592 in London. And he possibly produced there some plays. The September 20, many playwrights have spoken about the Shakespeare (The Biography.com website, 2014). Scholars discuss the interpretation of the criticism of the Shakespeare, and most scientists agree that Shakespeare reached above the rank. He wanted to become much better that the educated and known playwrights. By early 1590s official documents tell that the William Shakespeare worked as managing partner in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, it was popular acting company in London. When King James came to reign in 1603. This company has changed the name to the King’s men. This company was very popular, records show that Shakespeare already worked, published, sold popular literature. Moreover by 1597, William Shakespeare became quite popular playwright because almost half his works were published. Shakespeare has purchased the largest house in Stratford, this home called New House. He never lived in this house because he played and acted in the London. So he came home once during the 40-day period, when all theaters were closed. By 1599 year, Shakespeare gathered all business partners and built own theater on the south of the Thames River. This theater they called the Globe. In 1605, Shakespeare purchased leases of the real estate that was located close to the Stratford and then he had 60 pounds a year. All these situations showed that the Shakespeare was as entrepreneur and artist in the one person (Wells, 2006). Speaking about the writing style of the Shakespeare, we can underline the conventional style. He created the elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases, they did not align to the plot, characters. But Shakespeare was quite innovative in the age of the greatest playwrights. He adapted the traditional style to create synthesized style connected with his purposes. He used to create the freer flow of words. Degree of variation is often quite small. Shakespeare use metrical pattern and it consists of the line of unrhymed iambic pentameter or even blank verse. This pattern was used to compose plays. However, there are some passages where Shakespeare uses different patterns of the poetry or prose (Meagher, 2003). Excepting the Romeo and Juliet, we can underline histories written by the Shakespeare in 1590s such as: Richard II, Henry V, Henry VI. These plays were written to emphasize the destructive outcomes of corrupted rulers’ activity (McDonald, 2004). Shakespeare was the author of some comedies during this period that we can call early period of the Shakespeare’s creative work. Later period of works: Tragedies, Tragicomedies William Shakespeare’s late period of literary work underlined with the writing of the tragedies such as: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth. These characters of the Shakespeare presented vivid expression of the human temperament, and we can emphasize that all these characters are universal and timeless. Possibly best known character that plays with the highest expression of the character is Hamlet (Frye, 2005). He explored with all his being idea of betrayal, incest, retribution and moral failure. All these failures often twist and turn the plot of the Shakespeare’ works. Shakespeare destroys such heroes by all these controversial character traits. Very often those who are beloved for them also die or suffer (Holland, 2006). Final period of the Shakespeare’s creative work marked with writing of several tragicomedies. Among these, we can emphasize: Cymbeline, Tempest, Winter’s Tale. They are somewhat graver than the comedies, however, these works are not so dark like King Lear, due to the fact that they end with reconciliation, forgiveness. Therefore, they are much brighter than the usual tragedies, and they get their name – tragicomedy, due to the synthesis of the tragedy and comedy. According to the traditional information William Shakespeare died on the birthday. However, many data prove this fact to be myth. Church archives regarding the death of Shakespeare can confute it with more precise data – April 5, 1616. Will created by the Shakespeare stated that the eldest daughter will get bulk of the possessions. Third of the estate was the wife, Anne, she was claimed to be his “Second-best bed.” Such information can provide evidence of bad relationships between the Shakespeare and the wife or that their lives were too hard to live. However, there is not enough information to suggest that they had bad marriage. Probably the second bed refers to the bed that belongs to the Household master. And the first bed always reserved for the guests. Therefore, we can say that relationships could either very good or very bad, we cannot make clear statement due to the lack of data. After many years from the death of Shakespeare some questions about the authorship arose. Scholars thought that it is Christopher Marlowe or Francis Bacon – are the most probable authors of the plays because they had more backgrounds, more literary accreditation and more inspiration to produce such works. Sceptics questioned how someone with modest education can write with such perceptiveness and poetic power that we can see in Shakespeare’s works (Gibson, 2005). Over the centuries, people discredited the authorship of the William and expressed their distrust to the fact that Shakespeare can be so good playwright or actor. However, despite all facts, which cannot be considered as exhaustive, because there are no evidence that Shakespeare has written the plays and that he hasn’t. Vast majority of Shakespearean historians believe that it is he who has written all his plays. They emphasize the idea that even greatest playwrights and poets came from the same modest backgrounds, some of them even did not have enough education to produce something literary. There is one good evidence of the Shakespearean authorship to the plays – there was name on the title pages of the poems and plays. Moreover, other authors acknowledged that it is Shakespeare real author of the plays like The Two Gentlemen of Verona. According to the Royal archives we can get information that William Shakespeare was recognized to be the member of the Chamberlain’s Men, Groom of the Chamber. We can consider this as a strong evidence for the Shakespeare to be the actor and a playwright (Kermode, 2004). William Shakespeare was respected man of dramatic arts, he wrote plays, acted in some of them. He had dramatic genius and it was recognized by the 19th century. When the Romantic period came until the Victorian period, reverence and acclaim for Shakespeare were on the height. And new scholarship movements rediscovered his works and understood that the William Shakespeare was truly genius of the drama and poetry. There were many authors who decided to imitate the Shakespearean style, however, no one couldn’t reconstruct the style peculiar only to the Shakespeare. (Bevington, 2002). References William Shakespeare. (2014). The Biography.com website. Retrieved 10:48, Nov 19, 2014, from http://www.biography.com/people/william-shakespeare-9480323. Ackroyd, P. (2006). Shakespeare: The biography. London: Vintage. Bevington, D. (2002). Shakespeare. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. Frye, R. (2005). Shakespeare: The art of the dramatist. London: Routledge. Gibson, H. (2005). The Shakespeare claimants: A critical survey of the four principal theories concerning the authorship of the Shakespearean plays. London: Routledge. Holland, P. (2006). Editing Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kermode, F. (2004). The age of Shakespeare. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. McDonald, R. (2004). Shakespeare: An anthology of criticism and theory, 1945-2000. Malden,Mass.: Blackwell Pub. Meagher, J. (2003). Pursuing Shakespeares dramaturgy: Some contexts, resources, and strategies in his playmaking. Madison [N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. Thomas Middleton, John Fletcher, and the other players in his story. New York: Pantheon Books. Wells, S. (2006). Shakespeare and co.: Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Dekker, Ben Jonson, Read More