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William Shakespeare
23.04.1564 — 23.04.1616
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William Shakespeare Biography
William Shakespeare (April 26, 1564 (epiphany), Stratford upon Avon, England April 23, 1616, there) was an English poet and playwright, often considered the greatest English language writer and one of the best playwrights in the world.
He is often called the national poet of England.
The extant works, including some written jointly with other authors, consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, 4 poems and 3 epitaphs.
Shakespeare's plays have been translated into all major languages and are staged more often than the works of other playwrights.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford upon Avon.
At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: a daughter, Susanna, and twins, Hamnet and Judith.
Shakespeare's career began between 1585 and 1592, when he moved to London.
Soon he became a successful actor, playwright, and also co owner of a theater company called "Servants of the Lord Chamberlain", later known as"Servants of the King".
Around 1613, at the age of 49, he returned to Stratford, where he died three years later.
There is little historical evidence about Shakespeare's life, and theories about his life are created on the basis of official documents and testimonies of contemporaries, so questions about his appearance and religious views are still being discussed in the scientific community, and there is also a point of view that the works attributed to him were created by someone else; it is popular in culture, although it is rejected by the overwhelming majority of Shakespeare scholars.
Most of Shakespeare's works were written between 1589 and 1613.
His early plays are mainly related to comedies and chronicles, in which Shakespeare greatly excelled.
Then came the period of tragedies in his work, including the works "Hamlet", "King Lear", "Othello" and "Macbeth", which are considered among the best in the English language.
At the end of his career, Shakespeare wrote several tragicomedies, and also collaborated with other writers.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published during his lifetime.
In 1623, two of Shakespeare's friends, John Heming and Henry Condell, published the First Folio, a collection of all but two of Shakespeare's plays currently included in the canon.
Later, several more plays (or fragments of them) were attributed to Shakespeare by various researchers with varying degrees of evidence.
Even during his lifetime, Shakespeare received commendable reviews about his works, but he really became popular only in the XIX century.
In particular, representatives of Romanticism and Victorians worshipped Shakespeare so much that Bernard Shaw called it "bardolatry" (English)Russian, which means "bardolatry"in English.
Shakespeare's works remain popular today, they are constantly being studied and reinterpreted in accordance with political and cultural conditions.
Early years
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford upon Avon (Warwickshire) in 1564, baptized on April 26, the exact date of birth is unknown.
Legend relates his birth to April 23: this date coincides with the precisely known day of his death.
In addition, on April 23, the day of St. George, the patron saint of England, is celebrated, and tradition could specially coincide with the birth of the greatest national poet on this day.
From English, the surname "Shakespeare" is translated as "stunning with a spear".
His father, John Shakespeare (1530-1601), was a wealthy craftsman (glover), often elected to various significant public positions.
In 1565, John Shakespeare was an alderman, and in 1568 — the bailiff (head of the city council).
He did not attend church services, for which he paid large monetary fines (it is possible that he was a secret Catholic).
Shakespeare's mother, nee Mary Arden (1537-1608), belonged to one of the oldest Saxon families.
In total, the couple had 8 children, William was born the third.
It is believed that Shakespeare studied at the Stratford "grammar school", where he was supposed to get a good knowledge of Latin: the Stratford teacher of Latin and literature wrote poems in Latin.
Some scholars claim that Shakespeare attended the school of King Edward VI (English)Russian.
in Stratford upon Avon, where he studied the works of poets such as Ovid and Plautus, but the school journals have not been preserved, and now nothing can be said for sure.
In 1582, at the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, the daughter of a local landowner, who was 8 years older than him.
At the time of the marriage, Ann was pregnant.
In 1583, the couple had a daughter, Susan (baptized on May 23), in 1585 — twins: a son, Hamnet, who died at the age of 11 in August 1596, and a daughter, Judith (baptized on February 2).
About further (within seven years) there are only assumptions about the events of Shakespeare's life.
The first mention of a London theatrical career dates back to 1592, and the period between 1585 and 1592 is called by researchers the "lost years" of Shakespeare.
Attempts by biographers to learn about Shakespeare's actions during this period led to the appearance of many apocryphal stories.
Nicholas Rowe, the first biographer of Shakespeare, believed that he left Stratford to avoid prosecution for poaching on the estate of the local squire Thomas Lucy.
It is also assumed that Shakespeare took revenge on Lucy by writing several obscene ballads to him.
According to another version of the XVIII century, Shakespeare began his theatrical career looking after the horses of London theatrical patrons.
John Aubrey wrote that Shakespeare was a school teacher.
Some scientists of the XX century believed that Shakespeare was the teacher of Alexander Nogton from Lancashire, since this Catholic landowner had a certain "William Shakeshaft".
There is little basis for this theory, except for the rumors that spread after Shakespeare's death, and, besides, "Shakeshaft" is a fairly common surname in Lancashire.
It is not known exactly when Shakespeare began writing theatrical works, and also moved to London, but the first extant sources that speak about this date back to 1592.
This year in the diary of entrepreneur Philip Henslow (English)Russian.
the historical chronicle of Shakespeare "Henry VI", which was held in the Rose Theater owned by Henslow, is mentioned..
In the same year, a pamphlet by the playwright and novelist Robert Green was posthumously published, where the latter angrily attacked Shakespeare, without naming his last name, but ironically playing it - "the shaker of the scene" (shake scene), paraphrasing a line from the third part of "Henry VI" " Oh, the heart of a tiger in this woman's skin!" like "the heart of a tiger in the skin of a performer".
Scholars disagree on the exact meaning of these words, but it is generally believed that Green accused Shakespeare of trying to match highly educated writers ("university minds"), such as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nash and Green himself.
Biographers believe that Shakespeare's career could have begun at any time, starting from the mid 1580s.
Since 1594, Shakespeare's plays have been staged only by the company "Servants of the Lord Chamberlain" (English)Russian..
This troupe also included Shakespeare, who at the end of the same year 1594 became its co owner.
The troupe soon became one of the leading theater groups in London.
After the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, the troupe received a royal patent from the new ruler, James I, and became known as the"Servants of the King".
In 1599, a partnership of members of the group built a new theater on the south bank of the Thames, called the Globe.
In 1608, they also purchased the closed Blackfriars Theater..
Reports on Shakespeare's purchases of real estate and his investments show that the troupe made him a rich man.
In 1597, he bought the second largest house in Stratford New Place (English)Russian..
Some of Shakespeare's plays were published In quarto in 1594.
In 1598, his name began to appear on the title pages of publications.
But even after Shakespeare became famous as a playwright, he continued to play in theaters.
In the 1616 edition of Ben Jonson's works, Shakespeare's name is included in the list of actors who performed the plays "Everyone Has His Own Whims" (1598) and "The Fall of Sejanus" (1603).
However, his name was absent from the lists of actors in Johnson's play "Volpone" in 1605, which is perceived by some scholars as a sign of the end of Shakespeare's London career.
Nevertheless, in the First Folio of 1623, Shakespeare is called "the main actor in all these plays", and some of them were first staged after Volpone, although it is not known for sure what roles Shakespeare played in them.
In 1610, John Davies wrote that "good Will" played "royal" roles.
In 1709, in his work, Rowe recorded the opinion already formed by that time that Shakespeare played the shadow of Hamlet's father.
Later it was also claimed that he played the roles of Adam in "As you Like it" and the Choir in "Henry V", although scientists doubt the reliability of this information.
During the period of his acting and dramatic activity, Shakespeare lived in London, but he also spent some of his time in Stratford.
In 1596, a year after the purchase of New Place, he lived in the parish of St. Helena in Bishopgate, on the north side of the Thames.
After the construction of the Globe Theater in 1599, Shakespeare moved to the other side of the river — to Southwark, where the theater was located.
In 1604, he moved across the river again, this time to the area north of St. Paul's Cathedral, where there were a large number of good houses.
He rented rooms from a French Huguenot named Christopher Mountjoy, a manufacturer of women's wigs and hats.
There is a traditional opinion that a few years before his death, Shakespeare moved to Stratford.
The first biographer of Shakespeare to convey this opinion was Rowe.
One of the reasons for this may be that the London public theaters have repeatedly stopped their work due to outbreaks of the plague, and the actors did not have enough work.
Complete retirement was rare in those days, and Shakespeare continued to visit London.
In 1612, Shakespeare acted as a witness in the case of Bellot v. Mountjoy, the trial of the wedding dowry of Mountjoy's daughter Mary.
In March 1613, he bought a house in the former parish of Blackfriars; in November 1614, he spent a few weeks with his son in law, John Hall.
After 1606-1607, Shakespeare wrote only a few plays, and after 1613 he stopped creating them altogether.
He wrote his last three plays together with another playwright, perhaps with John Fletcher, who replaced Shakespeare as the main playwright of the company "Servants of the King".
All the surviving signatures of Shakespeare on documents (1612-1613) differ in very poor handwriting, on the basis of which some researchers believe that he was seriously ill at that time.
On April 23, 1616, Shakespeare died.
Traditionally, it is considered that he died on his birthday, but there is no certainty that Shakespeare was born on April 23.
Shakespeare was survived by his widow, Anne (d. 1623), and two daughters.
Susan Shakespeare was married to John Hall from 1607, and Judith Shakespeare married two months after Shakespeare's death to the winemaker Thomas Queenie.
In his will, Shakespeare left the majority of his real estate to his eldest daughter, Susan.
After her, it should have been inherited by her direct descendants.
Judith had three children, and they all died without marrying.
Susan had one daughter, Elizabeth, who married twice, but died childless in 1670.
She was the last direct descendant of Shakespeare.
Shakespeare's will mentions his wife only briefly, but she was already supposed to receive a third of her husband's entire estate.
However, it indicated that he was leaving her "my second best bed", and this fact led to many different assumptions.
Some scientists consider this an insult to Ann, while others argue that the second — best bed is the marital bed, and therefore there is nothing offensive about it.
Three days later, Shakespeare's body was buried in the Stratford Church of St. Trinity.
Shortly before 1623, a painted bust of Shakespeare was erected in the church, showing him in the process of writing.
The epitaphs in English and Latin compare Shakespeare with the wise king of Pylos, Nestor, Socrates and Virgil.
There are many statues of Shakespeare all over the world, including funerary monuments in Southwark Cathedral and the Poets ' Corner of Westminster Abbey.
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