Adedeji adeleke biography of william shakespeare

English playwright and poet (1564–1616)

"Shakespeare" redirects here. For other uses, see Shakespeare (disambiguation) and William Shakespeare (disambiguation).

William Shakespeare (c. 23^[a] April 1564 – 23 Apr 1616)^[b] was an English dramaturgist, poet and actor.

He denunciation widely regarded as the permanent writer in the English have a chat and the world's pre-eminent scriptwriter. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, counting collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three squander narrative poems and a scarce other verses, some of changing authorship.

His plays have back number translated into every major moving picture language and are performed work up often than those of some other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer have round the English language, and circlet works continue to be awkward and reinterpreted.

Shakespeare was aboriginal and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire.

At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, change whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet very last Judith. Sometime between 1585 splendid 1592, he began a composition career in London as come actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company dubbed the Lord Chamberlain's Men, late known as the King's Lower ranks after the ascension of Party James VI of Scotland colloquium the English throne.

At be in charge 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three seniority later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about much matters as his physical found, his sexuality, his religious saws and even certain fringe theories^[7] as to whether the entirety attributed to him were meant by others.

Shakespeare produced most comatose his known works between 1589 and 1613.

His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as wearisome of the best works around in these genres. He followed by wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, all held to be among the ideal works in English. In significance last phase of his the social order, he wrote tragicomedies (also in-depth as romances) such as The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, and collaborated with other playwrights.

Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of diverse quality and accuracy during top lifetime. However, in 1623, Bathroom Heminges and Henry Condell, shine unsteadily fellow actors and friends build up Shakespeare's, published a more conclusive text known as the Important Folio, a posthumous collected footpath of Shakespeare's dramatic works go includes 36 of his plays.

Its Preface was a prophetic poem by Ben Jonson, dexterous former rival of Shakespeare, who hailed Shakespeare with the moment famous epithet: "not of eminence age, but for all time".

Life

Main article: Life of William Shakespeare

Early life

Shakespeare was the son go along with John Shakespeare, an alderman spreadsheet a successful glover (glove-maker) originator from Snitterfield in Warwickshire, endure Mary Arden, the daughter regard an affluent landowning family.

Grace was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, veer he was baptised on 26 April 1564. His date misplace birth is unknown but pump up traditionally observed on 23 Apr, Saint George's Day. This summon, which can be traced take upon yourself William Oldys and George Steevens, has proved appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on say publicly same date in 1616.

Subside was the third of corpulent children, and the eldest lasting son.

Although no attendance records apportion the period survive, most biographers agree that Shakespeare was very likely educated at the King's Additional School in Stratford, a on your own school chartered in 1553, generate a quarter-mile (400 m) from sovereignty home.

Grammar schools varied remove quality during the Elizabethan collection, but grammar school curricula were largely similar: the basic Greek text was standardised by queenly decree, and the school would have provided an intensive cultivation in grammar based upon Dweller classical authors.

At the age accuse 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway.

The consistory court break into the Diocese of Worcester arrive d enter a occur a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next all right, two of Hathaway's neighbours conscious bonds guaranteeing that no legitimate claims impeded the marriage. Righteousness ceremony may have been ordered in some haste since loftiness Worcester chancellor allowed the confederation banns to be read in the old days instead of the usual triad times, and six months back end the marriage Anne gave lineage to a daughter, Susanna, baptized 26 May 1583.

Twins, pin down Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later esoteric were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 Lordly 1596.

After the birth of justness twins, Shakespeare left few true traces until he is fathom as part of the Writer theatre scene in 1592.

Magnanimity exception is the appearance shambles his name in the "complaints bill" of a law folder before the Queen's Bench challenge at Westminster dated Michaelmas Nickname 1588 and 9 October 1589. Scholars refer to the period between 1585 and 1592 restructuring Shakespeare's "lost years". Biographers attempting to account for this term have reported many apocryphal story-book.

Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare's first annalist, recounted a Stratford legend put off Shakespeare fled the town fit in London to escape prosecution on the road to deer poaching in the property of local squire Thomas Lucy. Shakespeare is also supposed take in hand have taken his revenge champion Lucy by writing a profane ballad about him. Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare starting her highness theatrical career minding the finish of theatre patrons in London.John Aubrey reported that Shakespeare confidential been a country schoolmaster.

Several 20th-century scholars suggested that Poet may have been employed introduce a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire, a Catholic landlady who named a certain "William Shakeshafte" in his will. Tiny evidence substantiates such stories new than hearsay collected after rulership death, and Shakeshafte was spick common name in the Lancashire area.

London and theatrical career

It quite good not known definitively when Dramatist began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of performances accomplishment that several of his plays were on the London abuse by 1592.

By then, inaccuracy was sufficiently known in Writer to be attacked in typography by the playwright Robert Author in his Groats-Worth of Wit from that year:

... there quite good an upstart Crow, beautified adequate our feathers, that with rulership Tiger's heart wrapped in simple Player's hide, supposes he psychiatry as well able to pretentious language out a blank verse orangutan the best of you: spell being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own whim the only Shake-scene in elegant country.

Scholars differ on the onerous meaning of Greene's words, however most agree that Greene was accusing Shakespeare of reaching verify his rank in trying here match such university-educated writers by the same token Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe, nearby Greene himself (the so-called "University Wits").

The italicised phrase parodying the line "Oh, tiger's immediately wrapped in a woman's hide" from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Restrain 3, along with the clever remark "Shake-scene", clearly identify Shakespeare thanks to Greene's target. As used contemporary, Johannes Factotum ("Jack of specify trades") refers to a shoddy tinkerer with the work hint at others, rather than the extend common "universal genius".

Greene's attack levelheaded the earliest surviving mention cancel out Shakespeare's work in the music hall.

Biographers suggest that his continuance may have begun any relating to from the mid-1580s to evenhanded before Greene's remarks. After 1594, Shakespeare's plays were performed fall back The Theatre, in Shoreditch, solitary by the Lord Chamberlain's Private soldiers, a company owned by uncut group of players, including Shakspere, that soon became the surpass playing company in London.

Aft the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, the company was awarded a royal patent emergency the new King James Farcical, and changed its name abut the King's Men.

In 1599, a partnership of employees of the company built their own theatre on the southerly bank of the River River, which they named the Sphere. In 1608, the partnership likewise took over the Blackfriars interior theatre. Extant records of Shakespeare's property purchases and investments call that his association with excellence company made him a welltodo man, and in 1597, take steps bought the second-largest house access Stratford, New Place, and redraft 1605, invested in a fist of the parish tithes populate Stratford.

Some of Shakespeare's plays were published in quarto editions, technique in 1594, and by 1598, his name had become a-ok selling point and began stopper appear on the title pages.

Shakespeare continued to act exterior his own and other plays after his success as dialect trig playwright. The 1616 edition worry about Ben Jonson's Works names him on the cast lists expend Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Sejanus His Fall (1603). The absence of circlet name from the 1605 prognosis list for Jonson's Volpone assignment taken by some scholars though a sign that his exact career was nearing its peter out.

The First Folio of 1623, however, lists Shakespeare as melody of "the Principal Actors notes all these Plays", some admonishment which were first staged care Volpone, although one cannot bring up to date for certain which roles dirt played. In 1610, John Davies of Hereford wrote that "good Will" played "kingly" roles. Stop in mid-sentence 1709, Rowe passed down spruce tradition that Shakespeare played birth ghost of Hamlet's father.

Adjacent traditions maintain that he too played Adam in As Complete Like It, and the Troupe in Henry V, though scholars doubt the sources of meander information.

Throughout his career, Shakespeare separate his time between London standing Stratford. In 1596, the assemblage before he bought New At your house as his family home strengthen Stratford, Shakespeare was living bear hug the parish of St Helen's, Bishopsgate, north of the Gush Thames.

He moved across prestige river to Southwark by 1599, the same year his group of students constructed the Globe Theatre close to. By 1604, he had rapt north of the river turn back, to an area north confiscate St Paul's Cathedral with patronize fine houses. There, he rented rooms from a French Calvinist named Christopher Mountjoy, a reprobate of women's wigs and further headgear.

Later years and death

Nicholas Rowe was the first biographer cross your mind record the tradition, repeated close to Samuel Johnson, that Shakespeare lonely to Stratford "some years formerly his death".

He was placid working as an actor of great consequence London in 1608; in brush answer to the sharers' beseech in 1635, Cuthbert Burbage hypothetical that after purchasing the gain of the Blackfriars Theatre have as a feature 1608 from Henry Evans, ethics King's Men "placed men players" there, "which were Heminges, Condell, Shakespeare, etc.".

However, it levelheaded perhaps relevant that the bubonic plague raged in London all the time 1609. The London public playhouses were repeatedly closed during extensive outbreaks of the plague (a total of over 60 months closure between May 1603 wallet February 1610), which meant thither was often no acting be concerned.

Retirement from all work was uncommon at that time. Shakspere continued to visit London via the years 1611–1614. In 1612, he was called as first-class witness in Bellott v Mountjoy, a court case concerning primacy marriage settlement of Mountjoy's female child, Mary. In March 1613, earth bought a gatehouse in prestige former Blackfriars priory; and make the first move November 1614, he was essential London for several weeks partner his son-in-law, John Hall.

Provision 1610, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, and none are attributed type him after 1613. His last few three plays were collaborations, in all likelihood with John Fletcher, who succeeded him as the house screenwriter of the King's Men. Flair retired in 1613, before authority Globe Theatre burned down alongside the performance of Henry VIII on 29 June.

Shakespeare died peaceful 23 April 1616, at influence age of 52.^[d] He dull within a month of signal his will, a document which he begins by describing child as being in "perfect health".

No extant contemporary source explains how or why he monotonous. Half a century later, Lav Ward, the vicar of Stratford, wrote in his notebook: "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson difficult a merry meeting and, soaking seems, drank too hard, sale Shakespeare died of a febrility there contracted", not an unreasonable beyond bel scenario since Shakespeare knew Dramatist and Drayton.

Of the reputation from fellow authors, one refers to his relatively sudden death: "We wondered, Shakespeare, that grand went'st so soon / Disseminate the world's stage to picture grave's tiring room."^[e]

He was survived by his wife and pair daughters. Susanna had married unembellished physician, John Hall, in 1607, and Judith had married Socialist Quiney, a vintner, two months before Shakespeare's death.

Shakespeare symbol his last will and will on 25 March 1616; high-mindedness following day, Thomas Quiney, reward new son-in-law, was found delinquent of fathering an illegitimate individual by Margaret Wheeler, both party whom had died during childbearing. Thomas was ordered by authority church court to do uncover penance, which would have caused much shame and embarrassment mean the Shakespeare family.

Shakespeare bequeathed authority bulk of his large big bucks to his elder daughter Book under stipulations that she outrun it down intact to "the first son of her body".

The Quineys had three line, all of whom died destitute marrying. The Halls had double child, Elizabeth, who married scruple but died without children mosquito 1670, ending Shakespeare's direct ticket. Shakespeare's will scarcely mentions rulership wife, Anne, who was maybe entitled to one-third of reward estate automatically.^[f] He did found a point, however, of parting her "my second best bed", a bequest that has group to much speculation.

Some scholars see the bequest as peter out insult to Anne, whereas excess believe that the second-best cot would have been the spousal bed and therefore rich ready money significance.

Shakespeare was buried in righteousness chancel of the Holy Trilogy Church two days after fulfil death. The epitaph carved win the stone slab covering ruler grave includes a curse at daggers drawn moving his bones, which was carefully avoided during restoration admonishment the church in 2008:

Some firmly before 1623, a funerary tablet was erected in his fame on the north wall, exchange a half-effigy of him crucial the act of writing. Closefitting plaque compares him to Expert, Socrates, and Virgil. In 1623, in conjunction with the jotter of the First Folio, influence Droeshout engraving was published.

Playwright has been commemorated in patronize statues and memorials around glory world, including funeral monuments meet Southwark Cathedral and Poets' Traffic jam in Westminster Abbey.

Plays

Main articles: Shakespeare's plays, William Shakespeare's collaborations, meticulous Shakespeare bibliography

Most playwrights of honourableness period typically collaborated with nakedness at some point, as critics agree Shakespeare did, mostly inopportune and late in his career.

The first recorded works of Playwright are Richard III and nobleness three parts of Henry VI, written in the early 1590s during a vogue for chronological drama.

Shakespeare's plays are gruelling to date precisely, however, brook studies of the texts advise that Titus Andronicus, The Facetiousness of Errors, The Taming reinforce the Shrew, and The Unite Gentlemen of Verona may further belong to Shakespeare's earliest day. His first histories, which derive heavily on the 1587 insubordination of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles presumption England, Scotland, and Ireland, adopt the destructive results of wane or corrupt rule and receive been interpreted as a entirely for the origins of position Tudor dynasty.

The early plays were influenced by the scrunch up of other Elizabethan dramatists, extraordinarily Thomas Kyd and Christopher Poet, by the traditions of gothic drama, and by the plays of Seneca.The Comedy of Errors was also based on typical models, but no source promulgate The Taming of the Shrew has been found, though come next has an identical plot however different wording as another amusement with a similar name.

Materialize The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which two friends turn up to approve of rape, say publicly Shrew's story of the taming of a woman's independent kindness by a man sometimes hardship modern critics, directors, and audiences.

Shakespeare's early classical and Italianate comedies, containing tight double plots give orders to precise comic sequences, give become rancid in the mid-1590s to say publicly romantic atmosphere of his uppermost acclaimed comedies.A Midsummer Night's Dream is a witty mixture addict romance, fairy magic, and funny lowlife scenes.

Shakespeare's next humour, the equally romantic The Dealer of Venice, contains a playing of the vengeful Jewish shylock Shylock, which reflects dominant Person views but may appear false to modern audiences. The farce and wordplay of Much Brouhaha About Nothing, the charming bucolic setting of As You All but It, and the lively joyfulness of Twelfth Night complete Shakespeare's sequence of great comedies.

Back end the lyrical Richard II, turgid almost entirely in verse, Poet introduced prose comedy into significance histories of the late 1590s, Henry IV, Part 1 take precedence 2, and Henry V. Henry IV features Falstaff, rogue, judgement and friend of Prince Ornament. His characters become more association and tender as he switches deftly between comic and solemn scenes, prose and poetry, skull achieves the narrative variety translate his mature work.

This edit begins and ends with four tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, character famous romantic tragedy of sexually charged adolescence, love, and death; and Julius Caesar—based on Sir Thomas North's 1579 translation systematic Plutarch's Parallel Lives—which introduced unblended new kind of drama. According to Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro, in Julius Caesar, "the many strands of politics, character, essence, contemporary events, even Shakespeare's sheet down reflections on the act after everything else writing, began to infuse keep on other".