WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

-the Bard of Avon

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players

-WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

THE SHAKESPEARE TIMELINE

1564 APRIL 23-WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE WAS BORN AT STRATFORD -UPON –AVON.

1582 Nov 28-Married Anne Hathaway of Shottery, Stratford

1583-1585-Shakespeare’s three children Susanna, Hamnet&Judith were born.

1585-1592-???? 1593- Went to London and starts writing

sonnets and gets recognition as leading playwright of London

1596-His son, Hamnet dies, possibly from the bubonic plague, at the age of eleven

1598-99-Shakespeare and other members of his company finance and built the Globe Theatre

1600- First production of Julius Caesar at the Globe Theatre

1604-First performance of Othello 1613- The Globe Theatre was

destroyed due to fire 1614-The second Globe Theatre was

built 1616 -23 April-The death of William

Shakespeare 1623-’The First Folio’ of his plays was

published

EARLY LIFE……

William was the third child of John Shakespeare, a leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a local landed heiress. William had two older sisters, Joan and Judith, and three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard and Edmund

Shakespeare probably entered the grammar school of Stratford, King's New School, where he would have studied theatre and acting, as well as Latin literature and history.

MARRIED LIFE…..

William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582. William was 18 and Anne was 26 at the time of marriage

Susanna Shakespeare the first child of William and Anne born six months after their wedding. Two years later twins Hamnet and Judith were born,. Hamnet later died of unknown causes at age 11.

-SHAKESPEARE’S CHILDREN

STRATFORD’S HOME-

ESTABLISHING HIMSELF…

William Shakespeare was a managing partner in the King’s Men, an acting company in London. From all accounts, the King's Men company was very popular, and records show that Shakespeare had works published and sold as popular literature. The theatre culture in 16th-century England was not highly admired by people of high rank

William Shakespeare and his business partners built their own theatre on the south bank of the Thames River, which they called the Globe.Shakespeare purchased leases of real estate near Stratford for 440 pounds, which doubled in value and earned him 60 pounds a year. This made him an entrepreneur as well as an artist, and scholars believe these investments gave him the time to write his plays uninterrupted.

THE GLOBE THEATRE

WRITING STYLE….

William Shakespeare's early plays were written in the conventional style of the day, with elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases

With only small degrees of variation, Shakespeare primarily used a metrical pattern consisting of lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse, to compose his plays.

At the same time, there are passages in all the plays that deviate from this and use forms of poetry or simple prose.

EARLY WORKS:HISTORIES&COMEDIES

With the exception of "Romeo and Juliet," William Shakespeare's first plays were mostly histories. "Richard II" and "Henry VI," and "Henry V" dramatize the destructive results of weak or corrupt rulers and have been interpreted by drama historians as Shakespeare's way of justifying the origins of the Tudor dynasty.

Shakespeare also wrote several comedies during his early period: the witty romance "A Midsummer Night's Dream," the romantic "Merchant of Venice," the wit and wordplay of "Much Ado About Nothing," the charming "As You Like It," and Twelfth Night. Other plays, possibly written before 1600, were "Titus Andronicus," "The Comedy of Errors," "The Taming of the Shrew" and "The Two Gentlemen of Verona."

Later Works: Tragedies and Tragicomedies

It was in William Shakespeare's later period, after 1600, that he wrote the tragedies "Hamlet," "King Lear," "Othello" and "Macbeth." In these, Shakespeare's characters present vivid impressions of human temperament that are timeless and universal. Possibly the best known of these plays is "Hamlet," with its exploration of betrayal, retribution, incest and moral failure.

DEATH

Tradition has it that William Shakespeare died on his birthday, April 23, 1616, though many scholars believe this is a myth. Church records show he was interned at Trinity Church on April 5, 1616.

In his will, he left the bulk of his possessions to his eldest daughter, Susanna. Though entitled to a third of his estate, little seems to have gone to his wife, Anne,

Shakespeare’s grave

CONTROVERSIES

About 150 years after his death, questions arose about the authorship of William Shakespeare's plays.

Skeptics questioned how anyone of such modest education could write with the intellectual perceptiveness and poetic power that is displayed in his works.

Official records from the Holy Trinity Church and the Stratford government record the existence of a William Shakespeare, but none of these attest to him being an actor or playwright.

The only hard evidence surrounding William Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon described a man from modest beginnings who married young and became successful in real estate.

Supporters of Shakespeare's authorship argue that the lack of evidence about Shakespeare's life doesn't mean his life didn't exist. They point to evidence that displays his name on the title pages of published poems and plays

Poetry

It is generally agreed that most of the Shakespearean Sonnets were written in the 1590s, some printed at this time as well. Others were written or revised right before being printed. 154 sonnets and "A Lover's Complaint" were published by Thomas Thorpe as Shake-speares Sonnets in 1609

TRAGEDIES

Titus Andronicus first performed in 1594 (printed in 1594)

Romeo and Juliet 1594-95 (1597) Hamlet 1600-01 (1603) Julius Caesar 1600-01 (1623) Othello 1604-05 (1622) Antony and Cleopatra 1606-07 (1623) King Lear 1606 (1608) Coriolanus 1607-08 (1623), derived from Plutarch Timon of Athens 1607-08 (1623) Macbeth 1611-1612 (1623).

Histories

King Henry VI Part 1 1592 (printed in 1594) King Henry VI Part 2 1592-93 (1594) King Henry VI Part 3 1592-93 (1623) King John 1596-97 (1623) King Henry IV Part 1 1597-98 (1598) King Henry IV Part 2 1597-98 (1600) King Henry V 1598-99 (1600) Richard II 1600-01 (1597) Richard III 1601 (1597) King Henry VIII 1612-13 (1623)

COMEDIES

Tamming of the Shrew first performed 1593-94 (1623),Comedy of Errors 1594 (1623),Two Gentlemen of Verona 1594-95 (1623),Love's Labour's Lost 1594-95 (1598),Midsummer Night's Dream 1595-96 (1600), Merchant of Venice 1596-1597 (1600),Much Ado About Nothing 1598-1599 (1600),As You Like It 1599-00 (1623), Merry Wives of Windsor 1600-01 (1602), Troilus and Cressida 1602 (1609), Twelfth Night 1602 (1623),All's Well That Ends Well 1602-03 (1623), Measure for Measure 1604 (1623), Pericles, Prince of Tyre 1608-09 (1609), Tempest (1611), Cymbeline 1611-12 (1623), Winter's Tale 1611-12 (1623).

By-ISHAN PANDE &

AKSHAY RAMNANI

THANK YOU