Erik michael tristan biography of william shakespeare

The Tempest is Shakespeare's best-known play from this late period, and some scholars consider it his farewell to the theater, since he retired soon after producing it. Magic plays a prominent part in the play, which concerns a powerful sorcerer, Prospero, whose brother stole his kingdom and set him adrift at sea with his baby daughter.

They are saved by an enchantress, and live on a remote island for several years. Discovering that this untrustworthy brother will be passing near the island on a ship, Prospero conjures a storm that makes his brother a castaway on the island. After much romantic plotting and scheming with his servant, the strange and demonic creature Ariel, Prospero sees to it that kingdoms and relationships are restored to their proper order.

From to London theaters were closed because of plague in the city. The plague was a disease that killed nearly one-fourth of the city's population. Needing income, Shakespeare wrote two long poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrecefor his patron, or financial supporter, the earl of Southampton. These works are considered masterpieces of Elizabethan narrative poetry.

A narrative poem is a poem that tells a story. Shakespeare's best-known poems, however, are his sonnet sequence, probably also composed around this time but not published until Sonnets are fourteen-line poems written in iambic pentameter—ten syllables in each line, with the emphasis on the second syllable in each word or phrase.

The sonnet sequence, in which individual poems are arranged to develop a particular theme or argument, had been made popular by Philip Sidney —; see entry. Shakespeare's contribution to the genre established him as one of the finest poets in the English language. The poems of Shakespeare's sonnet sequence form an extended dialogue between the poet or speaker and two mysterious characters: a "friend" who appears to be a young man, and a "dark lady.

They are considered masterpieces that, alone, would have established Shakespeare's reputation as a poetic genius. Shakespeare's career was quite successful. He earned a comfortable income from his plays and from his share in the profits of the theater company. In his father had obtained the right to have a coat-of-arms a symbol representing a familyand Shakespeare inherited this after his father's death in The playwright was also granted the right to call himself a gentleman—a distinguished achievement in an age that often considered actors to be disreputable.

In Shakespeare purchased a large house, New Place, in Stratford. This became his family home. Over the years he invested in additional property in Stratford. He retired there aroundand lived quietly with his family. He died there on his birthday, April 23,at age He was buried at Holy Trinity Church. While most critics and historians believe that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was the writer of the plays now credited to him, many others over the years have doubted it.

Most point to the limited education Shakespeare received in Stratford and note the vast knowledge displayed by the author of the plays. Some find evidence that the plays were written from the perspective of a member of the aristocracy, not the son of a glove maker. Others point to the lack of any reference to a playwright from Stratford in the documents of the era.

These skeptics have suggested other authors for the plays, primarily the scientist and writer Francis Bacon —; see entryChristopher MarloweWilliam Stanley Earl of Derby; —and Edward de Vere Earl of Oxford; — Most such claims have been discredited, however.

Erik michael tristan biography of william shakespeare: 'A Year in the Life

Shakespeare's work was so admired in his own time that, intwo actors compiled his plays and published them in the First Folio. The First Folio did not contain Pericleswhich is not accepted by most scholars as Shakespeare's work. Actors, audiences, and readers through the centuries have continued to find new excitement in Shakespeare's work. As his contemporary Ben Jonson — wrote in a preface to the First FolioShakespeare "was not of an age, but for all time!

Ackroyd, Peter. Shakespeare: The Biography. New York : Nan A. Talese, Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York : Riverhead Books, Braunmuller, A. The Complete Pelican Shakespeare. New York: Penguin Classics, Charney, Maurice. All of Shakespeare. New York: Columbia University Press, Fraser, Russell. Shakespeare: The Later Years.

Greenblatt, Stephen. New York: W. Norton, Prefatory Material to the First Folio, Shakespeare Homepage. Shakespeare Online. Shakespeare is universally recognized as the foremost writer in the English language to date. The thirty-seven erik michaels tristan biography of william shakespeare associated with his name, including the major tragedies Hamlet, King LearOthello, and Macbeth, and his romances and comedies, Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night's Dream among them, have been translated into many languages and have crossed all kinds of cultural divide.

His poetry, in particular his intricately woven and fiercely passionate love sonnets, have stirred the senses of reader and critic alike for generations past and erik michael tristan biography of william shakespeare do so for generations to come. Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, Englandand he was probably educated in the s at the free grammar school there known as the King's New School.

His father, John Shakespeare, has been described as a glover or whittawer, which means someone who works with animal skins. Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, was from a noted local family, the daughter of Robert Arden, John Shakespeare's landlord. At some point, perhaps in when his father was high bailiff mayor of the town and responsible for Stratford's entertainment, Shakespeare must have first seen actors perform as traveling players visiting on tour.

In aboutShakespeare married Anne Hathaway, a rich yeoman's daughter. The marriage was undertaken during a notable downturn in the affairs of Shakespeare's father. Having been a respected and confident town official during Shakespeare's earliest years — initiating an application for gentry status infor example — during John Shakespeare's alderman status was withdrawn.

Although controversy surrounds the possible reasons for Shakespeare's marriage to a woman who was eight years his senior, three children were produced from the marriage. Susanna was the first-born in with a pair of twins produced in — a son, Hamnet, who died in childhood, and a daughter, Judith. Whether Shakespeare had to leave Stratford for some reason, or whether he joined a visiting touring company such as the Queen's Men, we first hear of him as a London playhouse personality seven years after the birth of the twins.

This is when he is mentioned in a pamphlet called A Groatsworth of Wit Bought with a Million of Repentance written by a writer and playwright named Robert Greene. This text was written while the writer knew that he was dying, and in it he urged his fellow well-educated peers, Christopher MarloweThomas Nashe, and George Peele, to forsake the stage.

By this time, scholars believe that the player Shakespeare had not only embarked on his English history cycle with the three Henry VI plays, but had also presented the highly successful if violent Titus Andronicus as well. In this play a woman is raped, has both her hands cut off and her tongue cut out, and a queen unknowingly eats her own children, baked in a pie.

However, in a matter of a few years Shakespeare was also provably capable of writing the extraordinarily poised and tragic Romeo and Juliet. Here two young lovers, divided by their families' antagonism to one another, meet, marry, and die while speaking the most beautiful words of love written for the English stage. ByShakespeare, as a sharer member of the acting company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, was entitled to a portion of the company's takings.

This status was acquired through his investment in things for the company like costumes, playbooks, and props. However, there is some evidence to show that Shakespeare wanted to be perceived more as a serious poet than as either an actor or a playwright. In and he published his two narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucreceboth dedicated to his supposed patron Henry Wroithesley, 3rd earl of Southampton.

This period also marks the time when it is believed he had begun his sonnets, published as a collection inwith Southampton a candidate for the "Fair Youth" to whom the first possibly allude. The fourteen-line sonnet, quietly evolving in form since its first emergence in fourteenth-century Italy, had reached England through poet-courtiers such as Sir Thomas Wyatt and the earl of Surrey earlier in the sixteenth century.

In the hands of Shakespeare, many sonnet conventions were challenged, questioning the poetic expectation of comparing one's lover to nature, for example. Thus Shakespeare chose to use the sonnet to engage, not only with the passions and intellect of the person to whom the sonnet is addressed, but even with poetry itself. It is interesting that Greene chose to mark out Shakespeare's verse as his primary objection to him as an "upstart.

However, Shakespeare's energy when approaching his plays did not hold back on inventiveness and variety. The blank verse form reached its apotheosis with Shakespeare, but a few of his early plays contain sonnet moments too. The Prologue to Romeo and Juliet, given by the Chorus, is a sonnet, and later in this lovers' play, one is interwoven through the dialogue when the protagonists first speak together act 1, scene 5, lines 90 — By the turn of the seventeenth century, the Lord Chamberlain's Men had rebuilt their Shoreditch amphitheater called the "Theater" as the Globe on London's Bankside the south bank of the Thames.

They were now the most well established of the city's playing companies. By this time Shakespeare had begun to write his heavyweight tragedies for them, beginning with Hamlet published in If Titus Andronicus was violent, and Romeo and Juliet tragically romantic, Hamlet was Shakespeare's play concerned with the human mind. The eponymous prince of Denmarkwhose father's ghost tells him how he was murdered by Hamlet's uncle, sets out on a course of revenge, while at the same time, as the philosopher prince studying at Wittenburg University, he questions life and death and any decision involving them.

Shakespeare is creative with the revenge tragedy form, using the vengeful mindset of the main character to explore highly philosophical questions. Hamlet is the most widely quoted and most investigated of Shakespeare's plays, attracting a phenomenal amount of scholarly study, just as much because of the questions it poses as because of the answers it fails to give.

Inafter the death of Queen Elizabeth and the accession of James I, the company were renamed the King's Men, acquiring royal patronage status. In they also acquired a new, small, more select playhouse known as the Blackfriars that was to be used alongside the Globe, the public playhouse. Shares in this venture, which company members were given, were very lucrative acquirements for the actors — including Shakespeare.

This period marked the writing of plays such as Othello, first performed — and published in the s, King Lear ofpublished inand Macbeth, again c. The plot lines and characters of these tragedies continued to demonstrate the extraordinary range of Shakespeare's mind as he dealt with, for example, jealousy and deception in Othello ; madness, mercy, and true filial love in King Lear ; and the dangers of encouraged ambition in Macbeth.

In abouthowever, at the peak of his writing powers, Shakespeare was to give up his career on London's stage. ByShakespeare had returned to Stratford and the substantial home called New Place that he had bought for his family. It was there that he was to die in of a fever, reputedly after a rowdy visit from his friend and colleague Ben Jonson.

He died where he began, therefore, not in London where he made his name, but in the Stratford of his birth. Back ingentry status had finally been achieved for his family, and the payee for this was likely to have been William. He died, therefore, not only rich, but respected and esteemed in his community, to become later in the minds of many the man most associated with the finest use of poetic English.

In the historical context of his day-to-day existence as an actor and a companyman, Shakespeare's significant output as a dramatic writer can be interpreted as simple good business sense that resulted in his family's bettered status at home. By writing good plays he drew audiences to playhouses in which he had financial interests. Shakespeare's plays did not, in fact, belong to him, but were the property of his company.

Despite evidence that Shakespeare was involved in the printing of his poetry, there is no proof of authorial concern with the printed publication of his plays. His dramas were only collected as serious "works" seven years after his death in for what we now know as Shakespeare's "First Folio," put together by his fellow actors. A man of extraordinary talent, however, at a time when there were no rulebooks for the English language or its lexicon, his contribution to what we now perceive as beauty through dramatic story and words is inestimable.

Shakespeare, William. The First Folio of Shakespeare. Norton facsimile, prepared by Charlton Hinman. New York and London, The Norton Shakespeare. Howard, and Katharine Eisaman Maus. Based on the Oxford Edition. Shakespeare's Sonnets. Edited by Stephen Booth. New Haven Dobson, Michael, and Stanley Wells, eds. Oxford, Gurr, Andrew. The Shakespearean Stage, — Cambridge, U.

Kermode, Frank. Shakespeare's Language. New York William Shakespeare drew upon elements of classical literature to create distinctly English forms of poetry and drama. His work was hardly limited to strict classical idioms, however; he successfully utilized a much broader range of literary sources than any of his contemporaries. Moreover, his extraordinary linguistic abilities—his gift for complex poetic imagery, mixed metaphor, and brilliant puns—combined with a penetrating insight into human nature, are widely recognized as the makings of a unique literary genius.

Over the centuries Shakespeare's works have obtained an unparalleled critical significance and exerted an unprecedented influence on the development of world literature. Family and Early Life William Shakespeare was probably born on April 23,though the precise date of his birth is uncertain. He was the eldest of the five children of John Shakespeare, a tradesman, and Mary Arden Shakespeare, the daughter of a gentleman farmer.

It is thought that Shakespeare attended the local grammar school, where the main course of instruction was in Latin. There is no evidence that he attended college. Inhe married Ann Hathaway of Stratford; they would have three children together. Shakespeare's life from this date untilwhen he became known as a dramatist, is not well documented.

Early Work Shakespeare's first plays, the three parts of the Henry VI history cycle, were presented in — He also wrote a pair of narrative poems directly modeled after Ovid's Metamorphoses : Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece These works, which acknowledged the contemporary fashion for poems written with mythological themes, were immensely successful, and established Shakespeare as a poet of the first rank.

Success as Actor and Playwright Shakespeare further enhanced his reputation as a professional actor and playwright when he joined the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a well-regarded acting company formed in The success of the Lord Chamberlain's Men is largely attributable to the fact that after joining the group inShakespeare wrote for no other company.

Inshortly after his accession to the throne, James I granted the Lord Chamberlain's Men a royal patent, and the company's name was changed to the King's Men to reflect the king's direct patronage. Surviving records of Shakespeare's business transactions indicate that he benefited financially from his long career in the theater. Bywith his fortune made and his reputation as the leading English dramatist unchallenged, he appears to have largely retired to Stratford-upon-Avon.

Shakespeare died on April 23, He was buried in the chancel of Trinity Church in Stratford. Publication History The publication history of Shakespeare's plays is extremely complex and the subject of much scholarly debate. The earliest collected edition of his dramas, known as the First Folio, was compiled by two fellow actors and published posthumously in The First Folio, which classifies the dramas into distinct genres of comedy, history, and tragedy, contains thirty-six of the thirty-seven plays now believed to be written by Shakespeare.

Of the works included, thirteen had never before been published. The plays in this group, such as The Comedy of Errors —The Taming of the Shrew —and Love's Labour's Lost —generally adhere closely to established comedic forms. This group, which also includes The Tempestis characterized by an emphasis on themes of separation and loss. These plays typically include a erik michael tristan biography of william shakespeare journey that ultimately results in a reunion amid a spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Eight of the ten history plays collectively trace the English monarchy from the fourteenth century to the sixteenth century. This last work presents the king as the triumphant leader of his people in a glorious battle against the French. Within the history plays Shakespeare demonstrated his capacity for investing plot with extraordinary dramatic tension, and demonstrated his flair for original characterization through the use of subtle, ironic language.

The Roman plays drew their inspiration from histories of classical antiquity. The major tragedies of this type, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra —explore the themes of political intrigue and personal revenge and are distinguished by their clear, poetic discourse and ironic representation of historical incidents. The four great tragedies are Hamlet —regarded by many critics as Shakespeare's finest work, King LearMacbethwhich explores the issue of regicide, and Othelloa story of domestic intrigue set in the Venetian Republic.

In these works Shakespeare characteristically presents the fall of the heroes in terms that suggest a parallel collapse of all human values or a disordering of the universe itself. Although frequently judged by critics to be of a lesser rank than the great tragedies, Romeo and Juliet — remains one of the most frequently performed of Shakespeare's dramas.

Shakespeare's Sonnets The Sonnets are also considered a central work in the Shakespeare canon. Shakespeare's sonnets are arranged in a narrative order. Their brilliant versification and subtle analysis of human emotion are together regarded as the work of a unique poetic genius. Consequently, scholars often place the Sonnets on an equal level with Shakespeare's dramas.

Dramatic Influences Shakespeare's approach to drama was eclectic. He appropriated stylistic elements from Roman classicism specifically comedy as defined by Plautus and Terence and tragedy by Senecamedieval morality plays, French popular farce, and Italian drama such as the improvised comedic forms of the commedia dell'arte. Shakespeare's use of these sources was not purely imitative, however; he experimented with traditional forms in an original way.

Of the three genres, the comedies reveal the closest affinity to the themes of Italian Renaissance literature. If Shakespeare's earliest efforts in the dramatization of history derived from his response to the political climate of his day, his first experiments in comedy seem to have evolved from his reading in school and from his familiarity with the plays of such predecessors on the English stage as John LylyGeorge Peele, Robert Greene, and Thomas Nashe.

King Lear is structurally without parallel in the Shakespearean canon. Written in the tradition of the Old Testament book of Job, which focuses on proving the presence of spiritual grace in the presence of evil, King Lear has been thought by many to evoke more existential terror than all of Shakespeare's other tragedies combined. The experiences of Lear can be seen as comparable to that of another long-suffering king, the protagonist in Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus.

Historical Epic Tracing the monarchy in his history plays gave Shakespeare a theme of epic proportions, similar to the subject matter in ancient Greece and Rome that had inspired such classical authors as Homer and Virgil in narrative genres and Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Seneca in dramatic genres. It accorded with the biblical treatment of human destiny that Shakespeare's age had inherited from earlier generations, an approach to historical interpretation that had been embedded in such didactic entertainments as the morality play allegorizing the sin, suffering, repentance, and salvation of a typical member of mankind and the mystery play broadening the cycle to a dramatization of the whole of human history according to the Bible.

As with the earlier English history plays, Richard II and the three Henry plays that followed derived in large measure from the second edition of Raphael Holinshed 's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland. In all probability, they were also influenced by, and possibly even inspired by, the publication of Samuel Daniel's Civil Wars.

The Sonnet Form Like the dramas, the sonnets are patterned after a literary model widely imitated in Shakespeare's age: the sonnets of Petrarch. The sonnet sequence was a highly self-conscious form. The sonnet speaker was an example—partly to be repudiated, partly to be admired, partly to be emulated—whose eloquence permitted him to articulate the stages of some emotional or personal crisis.

Shakespeare's speaker, however much he may recall King David of the biblical Psalms, Ovid, Horace, or Petrarch, is steeped in the English tradition. The Tragedies The four great tragedies display the greatest intensity of tragic pathos of all Shakespeare's dramas. Scholars have suggested that such vividly portrayed upheavals reflect a generalized anxiety among Shakespeare's contemporaries that underlying social, political, and religious tensions would upset the hierarchical order of the Elizabethan world.

Romeo and Juliet was the subject of little scholarship or critical attention in the decades after Shakespeare's death. Critics have also encountered difficulty in their attempts to reconcile the purity of Romeo and Juliet's devotion to each other with the play's equal insistence that their relationship is a form of idolatry, ultimately leading both lovers to acts of desperation that audiences in Shakespeare's time would have considered far more consequential than do most modern audiences.

But it is not for its revenge elements that most of us remember Romeo and Julietbut for the lyricism with which Shakespeare portrays the beauty and idealism of love at first sight. Queen Elizabeth — : Known as the Virgin Queen because she never married, this queen of England and Ireland gave her country a long and stable reign. Christopher Marlowe — : English playwright, translator, and poet; known for his blank verse, he is considered the chief Elizabethan playwright before Shakespeare.

Ben Jonson — : English playwright, actor, and poet; known for his satirical works, such as Volpone. Francis Drake — : English politician, pirate, and navigator; influential in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Galileo Galilei — : Italian astronomer and physicist who was forced by the Inquisition to recant some of his knowledge of science, such as that the Earth revolves around the sun, as it went against a literal interpretation of the Bible.

However, this met with little success; the fashion for sonnets was long over. For the next century and a half, they were regularly excluded from editions of Shakespeare. Afterhowever, Edmond Malone published a critical edition of the Sonnets based on Thorpe's quarto, and included a detailed introduction and commentary. Thereafter, they were assumed to be highly personal writings.

William Shakespeare's plays have appealed to audience throughout the centuries and are still influential and relevant today. Here are some contemporary adaptations of his works:. The Merchant of Venicea movie directed by Michael Radford. This close adaptation of Shakespeare's play stars Al Pacino as Shylock, portraying the character as a tragic hero rather than a villain.

Shakespeare in Lovea movie directed by John Madden. Winning multiple Academy Awards and making no claim to historical accuracy, this film follows Will Shakespeare as he falls in love with Viola, a noble-woman who longs to act. The Expressionists in Germany and the Futurists in Moscow mounted productions of his plays. Marxist playwright and director Bertolt Brecht devised an epic theatre under the influence of Shakespeare.

The poet and critic T. Eliot argued against Shaw that Shakespeare's "primitiveness" in fact made him truly modern. Wilson Knight and the school of New Criticismled a movement towards a closer reading of Shakespeare's imagery. In the s, a wave of new critical approaches replaced modernism and paved the way for post-modern studies of Shakespeare.

He encloses us because we see with his fundamental perceptions. Around years after Shakespeare's death, doubts began to be expressed about the authorship of the works attributed to him. Shakespeare conformed to the official state religion, [ k ] but his private views on religion have been the subject of debate. Shakespeare's will uses a Protestant formula, and he was a confirmed member of the Church of Englandwhere he was married, his children were baptised, and where he is buried.

Some scholars are of the view that members of Shakespeare's family were Catholics, at a time when practising Catholicism in England was against the law. The strongest evidence might be a Catholic statement of faith signed by his father, John Shakespearefound in in the rafters of his former house in Henley Street. However, the document is now lost and scholars differ as to its authenticity.

Other authors argue that there is a lack of evidence about Shakespeare's religious beliefs. Scholars find evidence both for and against Shakespeare's Catholicism, Protestantism, or lack of belief in his plays, but the truth may be impossible to prove. Few details of Shakespeare's sexuality are known. At 18, he married year-old Anne Hathawaywho was pregnant.

Susanna, the first of their three children, was born six months later on 26 May Over the centuries, some readers have posited that Shakespeare's sonnets are autobiographical, [ ] and point to them as evidence of his love for a young man. Others read the same passages as the expression of intense friendship rather than romantic love.

No written contemporary description of Shakespeare's physical appearance survives, and no evidence suggests that he ever commissioned a portrait. From the 18th century, the desire for authentic Shakespeare portraits fuelled claims that various surviving pictures depicted Shakespeare. Some scholars suggest that the Droeshout portraitwhich Ben Jonson approved of as a good likeness, [ ] and his Stratford monument provide perhaps the best evidence of his appearance.

After a three-year study supported by the National Portrait Gallery, Londonthe portrait's owners, Cooper contended that its composition date, contemporary with Shakespeare, its subsequent provenance, and the sitter's attire, all supported the attribution. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read View source View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version.

In other projects. English playwright and poet — For other uses, see Shakespeare disambiguation and William Shakespeare disambiguation. The Chandos portraitlikely depicting Shakespeare, c. Stratford-upon-AvonWarwickshire, England. Elizabethan Jacobean. Lord Chamberlain's Men King's Men. Anne Hathaway. John Shakespeare Mary Arden. Play comedy history tragedy.

Poetry sonnet narrative poem epitaph. Main article: Life of William Shakespeare. London and theatrical career. Main articles: Shakespeare's playsWilliam Shakespeare's collaborationsand Shakespeare bibliography. Further information: Chronology of Shakespeare's plays. Main article: Shakespeare in performance. Main article: Shakespeare's sonnets. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate Main article: Shakespeare's writing style. Main article: Shakespeare's influence. He was not of an age, but for all time. Main article: Shakespeare authorship question. Main article: Religious views of William Shakespeare. Main article: Sexuality of William Shakespeare. Main article: Portraits of Shakespeare.

He was baptised 26 April. Under the Gregorian calendaradopted in Catholic countries inShakespeare died on 3 May. This motto is still used by Warwickshire County Councilin reference to Shakespeare. In addition to presenting the town with a statue of Shakespeare, Garrick composed a doggerel verse, lampooned in the London newspapers, naming the banks of the Avon as the birthplace of the "matchless Bard".

Rowsethe 20th-century Shakespeare scholar, was emphatic: "He died, as he had lived, a conforming member of the Church of England. His will made that perfectly clear—in facts, puts it beyond dispute, for it uses the Protestant formula. Archived from the original on 8 February Retrieved 8 February Eliot Tradition and the Individual Talent. Archived from the original on 7 May Retrieved 7 May Poetry Foundation.

Archived from the original on 6 January Retrieved 6 January The Oxford Handbook of the Georgian Theatre — Oxford University Press. The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 3 February Retrieved 3 February Broadcast 18 May Archived from the original on 3 March Retrieved 29 November The Local Germany.

Erik michael tristan biography of william shakespeare: Bibliography. Published online by

Well, William Shakespeare was the greatest after all Archived from the original on 14 April Retrieved 2 September Guinness World Records. Beaumont and Fletcher. Ben Jonson. Seventeenth Century. Henry Craik, ed. English Prose". Archived from the original on 20 July Retrieved 20 July May Metropolitan Museum of Art. Archived from the original on 10 September Retrieved 16 April CBS News.

Archived from the original on 19 April The Guardian. Retrieved 15 April Ackroyd, Peter Shakespeare: The Biography. London: Vintage. ISBN OCLC Adams, Joseph Quincy A Life of William Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Baldwin, T. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Archived from the original on 5 May Retrieved 5 May Barroll, Leeds Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Bate, Jonathan The Soul of the Age. London: Penguin. Bednarz, James P. In Cheney, Patrick Gerard ed. The Cambridge Companion to Christopher Marlowe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bentley, G. Shakespeare: A Biographical Handbook. New Haven: Yale University Press. Berry, Ralph Changing Styles in Shakespeare. London: Routledge.

Bevington, David Oxford: Blackwell. Bloom, Harold New York: Riverhead Books. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. Heims, Neil ed. King Lear. Bloom's Shakespeare Through the Ages. Bloom's Literary Criticism. Boas, Frederick S. Shakspere and His Predecessors. The University series. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. OL M. Bowers, Fredson On Editing Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Dramatists.

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Boyce, Charles Dictionary of Shakespeare. Ware: Wordsworth. Bradbrook, M. Bradley, A. Brooke, Nicholas Bryant, John In Levine, Robert Steven ed. The Cambridge Companion to Herman Melville. Carlyle, Thomas London: James Fraser. Cercignani, Fausto Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Chambers, E. The Elizabethan Stage. His early plays were mainly comedies e. Henry V. By the early Seventeenth Century, Shakespeare had begun to write plays in the genre of tragedy. These plays, such as HamletOthello and King Learoften hinge on some fatal error or flaw in the lead character and provide fascinating insights into the darker aspects of human nature.

William Shakespeare wrote sonnets mostly in the s. These short poems, deal with issues such as lost love. His sonnets have an enduring appeal due to his formidable skill with language and words. The plays of Shakespeare have been studied more than any other writing in the English language and have been translated into numerous languages.

He was rare as a play-write for excelling in tragedies, comedies and histories. He deftly combined popular entertainment with an extraordinary poetic capacity for expression which is almost mantric in quality. Farewell: my blessing season this in thee! During his lifetime, Shakespeare was not without controversy, but he also received lavish praise for his plays which were very popular and commercially successful.

Official records from the Holy Trinity Church and the Stratford government record the existence of Shakespeare, but none of these attest to him being an actor or playwright. The most serious and intense skepticism began in the 19 th century when adoration for Shakespeare was at its highest. The detractors believed that the only hard evidence surrounding Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon described a man from modest beginnings who married young and became successful in real estate.

They contend that 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 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 point to evidence that displays his name on the title pages of published poems and plays.

Erik michael tristan biography of william shakespeare: This chapter has three

There is also strong circumstantial evidence of personal relationships by contemporaries who interacted with Shakespeare as an actor and a playwright. What seems to be true is that Shakespeare was a respected man of the dramatic arts who wrote plays and acted in the late 16 th and early 17 th centuries. Beginning with the Romantic period of the early s and continuing through the Victorian period, acclaim and reverence for Shakespeare and his work reached its height.

In the 20 th century, new movements in scholarship and performance rediscovered and adopted his works. Today, his plays remain highly popular and are constantly studied and reinterpreted in performances with diverse cultural and political contexts. The Biography. We have worked as daily newspaper reporters, major national magazine editors, and as editors-in-chief of regional media publications.

Among our ranks are book authors and award-winning journalists. Our staff also works with freelance writers, researchers, and other contributors to produce the smart, compelling profiles and articles you see on our site. Adrienne directs the daily news operation and content production for Biography. Adrienne has served as editor-in-chief of two regional print magazines, and her work has won several awards, including the Best Explanatory Journalism award from the Alliance of Area Business Publishers.

A Huge Shakespeare Mystery, Solved. How Did Shakespeare Die? Shakespeare Wrote 3 Tragedies in Turbulent Times. Agatha Christie. Truman Capote. August Wilson. Langston Hughes.