William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare

born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon

an English poet and playwright

widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist

often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"

Shakespeare’s Shakespeare’s MarriageMarriage

At age 18, he married Anne Hathaway

bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith

Shakespeare’s WorksShakespeare’s Works

surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems

plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright

Works ContinuedWorks Continued

produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613

early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century

then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language

last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights

Works ContinuedWorks Continued

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

appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later

was a respected poet and playwright in his own day

Reputation As A Poet Reputation As A Poet

his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century

twentieth century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance

His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world

Shakespeare’s SonnetsShakespeare’s Sonnets

Published in 1609, the Sonnets were the last of Shakespeare's non-dramatic works to be printed

Few analysts believe that the published collection follows Shakespeare's intended sequence

seems to have planned two contrasting series: one about uncontrollable lust for a married woman of dark complexion (the "dark lady"), and one about conflicted love for a fair young man (the "fair youth”)

Sonnets ContinuedSonnets Continued

1609 edition was dedicated to a "Mr. W.H.", credited as "the only begetter" of the poems

Critics praise the Sonnets as a profound meditation on the nature of love, sexual passion, procreation, death, and time

Facts About SonnetsFacts About Sonnets

Four Parts: Three, four line sections

(quatrains) ABAB CDCD EFEF

One, two line section (couplet) GG (volta is in the couplet)

Iambic PentameterIambic Pentameter

•Iamb: a poetic foot with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable

•Pentameter: 5 poetic feet in a line of poetry

U / u / u / u

But soft! What light thru yon der

/ u /

Win dow breaks?

Iambic PentameterIambic Pentameter

baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM.

Here is an example from a sonnet:

When I / do COUNT / the CLOCK / that TELLS / the TIME (Sonnet 12)

Sonnet XVIII (18)Addressed to the Young Man

Quatrain 1 (four-line stanza) .....................   A  Shall I compare thee to a summer's DAY?.....................If I compared you to a summer day   B   Thou art more lovely and more temperATE:....................I'd have to say you are more beautiful and serene:   A   Rough winds do shake the darling buds of MAY,.............By comparison, summer is rough on budding life,    B   And summer's lease hath all too short a DATE:..............And doesn't last long either: 

Quatrain 2 (four-line stanza) ……………………  C   Sometime too hot the eye of heaven SHINES,................At times the summer sun [heaven's eye] is too hot,    D   And often is his gold complexion DIMM'D;.....................And at other times clouds dim its brilliance;    C  And every fair from fair sometime deCLINES,..................Everything fair in nature becomes less fair from time to time,    D   By chance or nature's changing course unTRIMM'D;.......No one can change [trim] nature or chance;  Quatrain 3 (four-line stanza)……………………   E    But thy eternal summer shall not FADE.........................However, you yourself will not fade   F    Nor lose possession of that fair thou OWEST;................Nor lose ownership of your fairness;    E    Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his SHADE,..........Not even death will claim you,    F    When in eternal lines to time thou GROWEST:...............Because these lines I write will immortalize you:  Couplet (two rhyming lines) ..………………….  G    So long as men can breathe or eyes can SEE,.............Your beauty will last as long as men breathe and see,    G    So long lives this and this gives life to THEE..................As Long as this sonnet lives and gives you life. 

Possible Identities of Possible Identities of MuseMuse

The Young Man

Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton (1573-1624): Patron of writers and favorite at the court of Queen Elizabeth I. Shakespeare dedicated Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece to Wriothesley. Wriothesley married Elizabeth Vernon, one of the queen's attendants, in 1598. Supporters of Wriothesley as the young man of the sonnets note that his initials, H.W., are the reverse of the W.H. to whom the sonnets are dedicated.

William Herbert, Third Earl of Pembroke (1580-1630): Nephew of the writer Sir Philip Sidney and student of poet Samuel Daniel. He became a privy councilor of England in 1611 and served as chancellor of Oxford University from 1617 until the time of his death. When Shakespeare's friends compiled the First Folio of his plays in 1623, they dedicated it to Herbert and his brother.

William Hughes: A boy actor. The Irish playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) championed a theory that Hughes was the young man. However, no records are available to establish that Hughes was an actor in Shakespeare's time.

William Harte: Nephew of Shakespeare. 

William Hatcliffe: A Lord of Misrule. The Lord of Misrule managed Christmas celebrations at the court of the monarch, at the homes of favored nobles, and at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. 

William Hammond: A literary patron.

William Holgate: A little-known poet.

Identities ContinuedIdentities Continued

The Dark Lady

Mary Fitton (1578-1647): Woman of dark complexion who enjoyed a place in the court of Queen Elizabeth I and was married and widowed twice. She gave birth to three illegitimate children fathered by three men. 

Anne Whateley (or Whiteley): Resident of Temple Grafton, near Stratford, who may have been a girlfriend of Shakespeare. Evidence suggests that Shakespeare at one time intended to marry her but broke off his relationship to marry Anne Hathaway, who was pregnant with Shakespeare's child. 

Jane Davenant: Wife of the owner of The Crown Inn on Cornmarket Street in at Oxford. (The inn still exists.) Supposedly, Shakespeare stopped at the inn on trips between Stratford and London.  Shakespeare was the godfather of her child, William Davenant (1606-1668), a playwright and poet of some renown in his day. In 1638, Davenant became poet laureate of England after the death of Ben Jonson. Rumors abounded that Davenant was not only Shakespeare's godson but also his biological son. According to some accounts, Davenant once owned the famous Chandos portrait of William Shakespeare. 

Emilia Bassano Lanier (1570-1640s): Daughter of Baptista Bassano of Venice. After she moved to England, she was the mistress of Henry Carey, a patron known to Shakespeare. She married Alphonse Lanier, a court musician. Shakespeare created characters named Emilia in three of his plays: Othello, The Comedy of Errors, and The Two Noble Kinsmen.

Elizabeth I (1533-1603): Queen of England from 1558 to 1603 and a supporter of stage plays.

Lucy Morgan: A black woman said to be a prostitute. 

Marie Mountjoy: A London landlord who rented lodging to Shakespeare. 

Identities ContinuedIdentities Continued

The Rival Poet

Michael Drayton (1563-1631): poet of considerable talent who wrote sonnets, odes (after the manner of the Roman poet Horace), and heroic poems.

Samuel Daniel (1562-1619): poet, playwright, writer of masques, sonneteer (Delia, 1592), author of a verse history of the War of the Roses and a prose history of England.

George Chapman (1559-1634): playwright and translator of ancient literature, including highly praised translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. 

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593): Elizabethan playwright of the first rank who helped popularize the strengths of blank verse. Marlowe's most famous plays are The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1588), The Jew of Malta (1589), and Tamburlaine the Great (1587). Marlowe also wrote distinguished poetry and, like Chapman, translated ancient literary works. 

Ben Jonson (1572-1637): Poet and playwright of the first rank who advocated adherence to the drama rules (unity of time, place, and action) established by the ancient Greeks . Shakespeare acted in Jonson's first play, Every Man in His Humour, in 1598. Among Jonson's best plays are Volpone (1606) and The Alchemist (1610). Jonson also wrote masques and excellent poetry. He was a friend of Shakespeare who met frequently with him and other writers at the Mermaid Tavern in London.

Edmund Spenser (1552-1599): Poet of the first rank. He is most famous for his monumental epic poem, The Faerie Queene. His wedding poem, "Epithalamion," is one of the finest works of its type ever written. 

““Writerly Moves”Writerly Moves”

Shakespeare chose to follow the idiomatic rhyme scheme used by Philip Sidney in his Astrophel and Stella where the rhymes are interlaced in two pairs of couplets to make the quatrain

Only three of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets do not conform to this structure: Sonnet 99, which has 15 lines; Sonnet 126, which has 12 lines; and Sonnet 145, which is written in iambic tetrameter

Literary DevicesLiterary Devices

Metaphor- a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable

Imagery- visually descriptive or figurative language, esp. in a literary work

Symbol- a thing that represents or stands for something else, esp. a material object representing something abstract

Motif- a distinctive feature or dominant idea in an artistic or literary composition

Enjambment- the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza

Volta- closing or answer to a question presented within a piece of poetry, the poet’s solution

Personification- the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form

Allusion- an expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference

“Poetic Contract”- explains or tells the reader what the poem will be about

Volta- shift in the poem’s subject matter (begins with 3rd quatrain)

Sonnet 18Sonnet 18

A Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?B Thou art more lovely and more temperate:A Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,B And summer’s lease hath all too shorts a date:C Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,D And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;C And every fair from fair sometime declines,D By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;E But thy eternal sunshine shall not fadeF Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;E Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,F When in eternal lines to time thou growest:G So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,G So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Themes & MotifsThemes & Motifs

Destructive power of time and age

Power of the speaker’s poem to defy time and last forever, carrying the beauty of the beloved down to the future generations

Beauty changes with time

Why I Chose This Why I Chose This Poem…Poem…

I love Shakespeare!

Use of imagery is exquisite

The concept of trying to conceal the memory of a person within a piece of literature is timeless (just as people reserve memories of loved ones in journals or within pictures)

Reminds me of Romeo & Juliet (one of my favorite books)

Comparison of the course of love to nature