Brief history of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was born in 1564 at Stratford upon Avon and his familywas business class, that will have a big Importance in Elizabethan age. His mother, Mary
Arden, was one of the daughters of a farmer andhis father, John Shakespeare, wasa
glover and wool dealer of good standing.
From the age of 7 to about 14 he attended Stratford grammar school receiving an
excellent well rounded education. At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway because
she was pregnant, seven years senior and they had 3 children. In 1592 he moved to
London looking for lucky and he became an actormanager and
part owner in the Blackfiriors and afterwards in the Globe theatre. He was a first rate actor,
but it is as a writer of plays that he has achieved lasting world wide fame.
His 37 plays vary a lot in Type: historical romances, light, fantastic comedies, tragedies, all
including the comical and the farcical, even if he hasn't got originality in interlacement. In
his tragedies there aren't efforts because e loved the teathtre and he took the more
profound secret of life.
So he was a businessman, infact, with his theatre company, he built a new theatre, "The Globe"; he amassed quite a fortune in hi time.
Probably near 1594 he came to Italy because he wrote about Italian places, but this isn't
sure. He wrote poems for his patron too. He was the count of Southampton and he helped
Shakespeare in his palace with his rich life.
WilliamShakespearereturned to Stratford for his latter years, where he died at the age of 52 and now lies
at rest in his special grave at Holy Trinity Church.
His plays are thought to be the finest ever written in any language.
The sonnets
The " Canzoniere" became very famous in Europe in the 1500 a century after the renaissance in Italy and sonnets became very popular thank to Petrarca. Infact the sonnets inspired from petrarc style but with some difference. Petrarc sonnets are hendecasyllabic composed by octave and sestets and the Shakespeare ones are made of three quatrains and a couple for linguistic reason because English has a different form from Italian. This sort of division permits to analize deeply or have three different arguments and a very quick and concen4ed end. They have got iambic rhythm and each line is divided in five feet and every foot is shared in two parts, one with stressed accent, another with the unstressed one. The argument of the sonnet is the love, but it's presented in two different ways:
from the sonnet 1 to 127 the sonnets are dedicated to a fair youth, probably his patron. He speaks about spiritual love and he the lover is idealized and presented as an angel like in Petrarca
From the 127 to 154 sonnets are dedicated to a dark lady. He speaks about physical and
passional love.
Shakespeare works
Shakespeare didn'tprint his work personally and probably some of his scripts were
transcribed during the performances and published by some of his friends. Besides his
major lyrics works like
Venus and Adonis
The rape of Lucrece
Shakespeare's sonnets
in which the mannerist manner of that age is reelaborated with an original lyricism,
Shakespeare is certainly famous for his theatre works which are divided into some
genre:
there are comedies inspired from Seneca and Plutarch, like
The comedy of errors
The lamentable tragedy of Titus Andronico
comedies about the tempere as
The taming of the shrew
and other written in contemporary style rich of gallant dialogues and metaphors like
The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet
A midsummer night's dream
The merchant of Venice
Another part is dedicated to historic drama as
-Thelife and death of Richard II
King Henry the fourth
to celebrate the heroes of English history to elevate the Elizabethan England.
At the end of the century are more frequent comedy like
The life and death of Richard II
The life and death of King John
The life of Henry IV
with patriotic theme in which he joined the cruelty of negative character and the chivalrous
honour of heroes.
But there's also a period in which he wrote a genre nearer the Italian Novella's tradition
like
-Much ado about nothing
-As you like it
-Twelfth night or what you will.
-All is well that’s end well.
The last period is characterized by the tragedy like:
The tempest
The life of King Henry Vll
The tragedy of Machbet
The tragedy of King Lear
The tragedy of Anthony and Cleopatra
The life and death of Julius Caesar
The tragedy of Hamlet, prince of Denmark
- The tragedy of Othello the moor of Venice in which he reflects the changed historical climate