Shakespeare, William (1564–1616)

English dramatist and poet. He is considered the greatest English dramatist. His plays, written in blank verse with some prose, can be broadly divided into comedies, including A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, and Measure For Measure; historical plays, such as Henry VI (in three parts), Richard III, and Henry IV (in two parts), which often show cynical political wisdom; and tragedies, including Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. He also wrote numerous sonnets and longer poetry, often for wealthy patrons.

Born in Stratford‐upon‐Avon, the son of a maker of gloves, he was educated at the grammar school, and in 1582 married Anne Hathaway. They had a daughter, Susanna in 1583, and in 1585 twins, Hamnet (who died in 1596) and Judith. By 1592 Shakespeare was established in London as an actor and a dramatist, and from 1594 he was an important member of the Lord Chamberlain's Company of actors. In 1598 the Company tore down their regular playhouse, the Theatre, and used the timber to build the Globe Theatre in Southwark, London. Shakespeare became a ‘sharer’ in the venture, which entitled him to a percentage of the profits. In 1603 the Company became the King's Men. By this time Shakespeare was the leading playwright of the company and one of its business directors; he also continued to act. He retired to Stratford in about 1610, where he died on 23 April 1616. He was buried in the chancel of Holy Trinity, Stratford.

His plays were collected and edited by John Heminge and Henry Condell, two of Shakespeare's former colleagues from the King's company, into the First Folio (1623). Later editions were published in 1632, 1664, and 1685 as the Second, Third, and Fourth Folios, respectively.

In the plays written around 1589–94, Shakespeare may be regarded as a young writer learning the techniques of his art and experimenting with different forms. These include the three parts of Henry VI; the comedies The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona; the revenge tragedyTitus Andronicus; and Richard III. Around 1593 he came under the patronage of the Earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his long poems Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594); he also wrote for him the comedy Love's Labour's Lost, satirizing and criticizing the circle of English explorer Walter Raleigh, and seems to have dedicated to him his sonnets written around 1593–96.

Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream (concerned with love battling against politics and law), and Richard II (which explores the relationship between the private man and the public life of the state), written 1594–97, were followed by King John (again exploring the ironies and problems of politics) and The Merchant of Venice (1596–97). The Falstaff plays of 1597–1600:Henry IV (parts I and II, placing side by side the comic world of the tavern and the dilemmas and responsibilities attending kingship and political ambition), Henry V (a portrait of King Hal as the ideal soldier‐king), and The Merry Wives of Windsor (said to have been written at the request of Elizabeth I, to show Falstaff in love) – brought his fame to its height. Julius Caesar (1599) anticipates the great tragedies in its concentration on a central theme and plot: the conspiracy to assassinate Caesar, and the confrontation between political rivals, in which the more ruthless win. The period ended with the lyrically witty Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night, (c. 1598–1601).

With Hamlet begins the period of the great tragedies, 1601–08:Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Timon of Athens, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus (the hero of which comes into disastrous conflict with the Roman people through his overriding sense of personal honour). This ‘darker’ period is also reflected in Troilus and Cressida (a sarcastic and mocking exploration of the concept of chivalric honour in relation to sexual conduct and the war between Greece and Troy), All's Well That Ends Well, and Measure for Measure (c. 1601–04). It is thought that Shakespeare was only part author of Pericles, which is grouped with the late plays of around 1608–11:, Cymbeline (set in ancient Britain, when Augustus Caesar ruled in Rome and Christ was born in Palestine), The Winter's Tale (a refashioning of a romance by an envious rival, Robert Greene), and The Tempest. These mature romance or ‘reconciliation’ plays form the end of his writing career. It is thought that The Tempest may have been based on the real‐life story of William Strachey, who was shipwrecked off Bermuda in 1609. During 1613 it is thought that Shakespeare collaborated with John Fletcher on Henry VIII (in which the theme of reconciliation and regeneration after strife is played out in historical terms, so that the young child who represents hope for the future is Elizabeth I) and The Two Noble Kinsmen.

For the first 200 years after his death, Shakespeare's plays were frequently performed in cut or revised form (Nahum Tate's King Lear was given a happy ending), and it was not until the 19th century, with the critical assessment of English writers Samuel Coleridge and William Hazlitt, that the original texts were restored. Appreciation of Shakespeare's plays in the present century has become analytical, examining in detail such aspects as language, structure, contemporary theatrical conditions, and the social and intellectual context of his work.