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William Shakespeare a brief biography
William Shakespeare briefly
brief contents of Shakespeare's dramas on our website: Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear
read also articles William Shakespeare a brief biography, Shakespeare's Dramas, English theater of the Shakespeare era
The Life of William Shakespeare (briefly)
William Shakespeare (Shakespeare, Shakspere, Shaksper and many other variants) is a famous English poet and the greatest of playwrights.
Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in Stratford upon Avon, a small town in the county of Warwick.
Information about his life is very scarce.
It is known that Shakespeare's ancestors were small landowners, and his father, John Shakespeare, was considered one of the most significant local landowners and the most respectable city residents.
The famous poet was the third of eight children.
Whether he studied at Stratford Grammar school or not is not known for certain, A friend of Shakespeare, Ben Johnson said that Shakespeare knew little Latin and even less Greek.
(See the article Shakespeare's Childhood and Youth.)
William Shakespeare
In 1582, an extremely hasty marriage took place between the 18 year old William Shakespeare and a poor girl Anne Hathaway, who was 8 years older than him.
Probably, this was the result of a careless infatuation on the part of an ardent young man, which he later had to repent of all his life.
Where and what the young people lived for the first time is also unknown; but when his father's affairs began to decline almost to complete disorder, the young Shakespeare, around 1586, left his family in Stratford (he already had several children), went to London, where he met fellow countrymen who served in the Lord Chamberlain's troupe.
Shakespeare was attached to this troupe, first as an actor, and then as a supplier of plays.
Soon he acquired a great name in theatrical circles, found friends and patrons among the aristocratic London society, took a privileged position in the Lord Chamberlain's company, and when the company's business went brilliantly, he increased his funds so much that in 1597 he could buy a house with a garden in Stratford.
In 1602 and 1605.
Shakespeare bought several more plots of land in Stratford for considerable sums, and finally (around 1608) left London to take a break from the excitement of metropolitan and theatrical life in the free environment of a well to do squire.
However, he did not completely break off his ties with the theater, went to London on business, hosted friends and comrades on the stage and sent his new plays to them in London.
William Shakespeare died at the age of 52, on April 23, 1616.
The first period of Shakespeare's work (briefly)
Based on the study of the works of William Shakespeare, it can be reliably stated that during his London life he worked hard on his education.
He undoubtedly achieved a thorough knowledge of French and Italian, and in translations was well acquainted with the best works of classical and modern European literature, the strong influence of which was already reflected in the youthful works of Shakespeare.
The poem " Venus and Adonis "(1593), written on a plot borrowed from Ovid, and the poem" Lucretia", in which the famous story from the first book of Titus Livy is processed, although they show the independence of the young poet in terms of understanding and developing psychological types, however, in the style decorated with rhetoric, they entirely belong to the then fashionable Italian school.
It also includes those "sweet sonnets" - as their contemporaries called them (published for the first time in 1609), which are so interesting and mysterious in autobiographical terms, and in which Shakespeare sometimes praises some friend, then depicts his feelings for some beautiful coquette, then indulges in sad reflections on the impermanence of all earthly things.
In the dramatic works of the early period of the development of his talent (1587-1594), Shakespeare also did not yet come out of the modern literary current.
Such plays as "Pericles", "Henry VI" and especially "Titus Andronicus" (however, their belonging to Shakespeare is disputed), with all the striking touches that give a premonition of the great master, strongly sin with the shortcomings of the pompously bloody tragedies of Kid and Marlowe.
And the youthful comedies of William Shakespeare ("The Two Men of Verona", "The Comedy of Errors", "The Taming of the Shrew") can, like the Plautus and Italian comedies that were then fashionable on the English stage, deserve a reproach for the intricacy of intrigue, the appearance of comedy, the naivety of action, although excellent scenes, situations and vividly outlined characters are abundantly scattered here.
In the comedy "The Fruitless Efforts of Love", which can be viewed as a transition to a more mature period of creativity, Shakespeare already ridicules the fashionable, flowery style to which he himself previously paid tribute.
The second period of Shakespeare's work (briefly)
In the next, relatively short period (1595-1601), the genius of William Shakespeare develops more and more widely and freely.
In the tragedy "Romeo and Juliet", he combined an enthusiastic hymn of love with the funeral song of a young feeling, depicted love in all its depth and tragedy as a powerful and fatal force, and in the almost simultaneously written comedy "A Midsummer Night's Dream", this very love, inserted into the frame of a fragrant night, in the darkness of which playful elves frolic and wilfully connect human hearts, is interpreted as a radiant dream and is clothed in a graceful haze of fantastic so, in The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare already proceeds to the analysis of difficult moral problems and shows himself a deep connoisseur of the human soul in all the complexity of its intersecting motives, drawing in Shylock both a cruel usurer, and a tenderly loving son, and an implacable avenger for a humiliated people.
In the comedy "Twelfth Night", he speaks out against the unsympathetic Puritan intolerance; in the play "All's Well that Ends Well", he strikes at pedigree prejudices, and then bursts into carefree laughter in the comedy "Much ado about Nothing".
Stills from the feature film "Romeo and Juliet" with the immortal music of Nino Rota
Historical dramas or dramatic chronicles from English history belonging to this transitional period for Shakespeare ("King John"," Richard II"," Richard III"," Henry IV "in 2 parts," Henry V") represent an important step in the development of William Shakespeare's work.
From fantastic plots with universal types, he now turned to reality, plunged into history with its persistent struggle of various interests.
But as if tired of prolonged contemplation of the gloomy and often outrageous pictures of English history, in which he met with the demonic image of Richard III, this personified evil, as if wanting to have fun and refresh himself a little, Shakespeare writes a sweet, elegant pastoral "As you like it" and a domestic comedy "The Windsor Mockers" with satirical arrows at obsolete and decaying chivalry.
The third period of Shakespeare's work (briefly)
In the third, the most mature period of creativity, William Shakespeare produced works as great in breadth of conception, clarity of art, images and psychological depth as they were perfect in terms of composition, conciseness and strength of language, flexibility of verse.
The human heart has already revealed all its secrets to Shakespeare, and with some spontaneous, unsurpassed, divinely inspired power, he creates one immortal creation after another and embodies in the grandiose personalities of his heroes all the diversity of human characters, the fullness of world life in its eternal and unshakable manifestations.
The rapture of love and the torments of jealousy, ambition and ingratitude, hatred and treachery, pride and contempt, the torments of an oppressed conscience, the beauty and tenderness of a maiden's soul, the inextinguishable ardor of a mistress, the strength of a mother's feeling, the loyalty of a wife offended by suspicion – all this passes before us in a long string of Shakespearean images, all this lives, worries, trembles and suffers, all this is revealed to us in amazing pictures, sometimes full of blood and horror, then imbued with fragrance and a little love, then imprinted with emotion and quiet sorrow.
Shakespeare's Hamlet is the cry of a soul that made high demands on life and was disappointed in its expectations, it is a brilliant foresight of that typical man of our time who inherited from the Danish prince his upset inner world, his suffering for humanity, his disturbing thought and introspection.
In" Othello "and" Macbeth", the passions overturn with their destructive hurricane that over which the seal of prosperity and contentment previously lay.
In Shakespeare's King Lear, great injustice and arrogance are redeemed by great suffering, and on that terrible night when the old king wanders through the rain and the whirlwind, having no roof for his gray head, a mysterious renewal of the human soul is performed on this night, which learns to love and compassion.
An illustration of Shakespeare's Macbeth.
Artist I. G. Fussli
The three dramas of this period from ancient life, which were written by William Shakespeare mainly on the basis of Plutarch, are not inferior in artistic beauty and power to the named plays: "Julius Caesar", "Coriolanus", "Antony and Cleopatra".
The drama "Measure for Measure" is characterized by a gloomy character, in which the poet dealt another blow to Puritanical exclusivity and intolerance.
Pessimistic notes are also heard in the works of the last period of Shakespeare's work, in such plays as" Troilus and Cressida "and" Timon of Athens", but the harmonically developed nature of the great poet did not stop at disappointment, but reached reconciliation with life and reassurance in the idea of forgiveness.
"Cymbeline", "Winter's Tale" and, finally, "Storm" sound like permissive major chords after many minor and disharmonic consonances.
Characteristics of Shakespeare
Trying to give a general description of William Shakespeare as a historical phenomenon in the development of English and pan European drama, we see that he assimilated all the features of the English stage of his time – the mixing of the tragic with the comic, clowns, fantastic scenes, complex intrigue, the lack of unity of time and place, etc.
But under his brilliant pen, all the rough features have softened, and all the good ones have reached a high degree of perfection, and he stands before us in the history of mankind incomparable, great and mysterious.
Thanks to Shakespeare, the English theater entered into a competition on the European stage with the French theater and won a complete victory over the latter.
The richness of content characteristic of Shakespeare's works, the abundance and variety of ideas, with complete objectivity representing their essential feature, provided and still provide abundant material for various, often mutually exclusive opinions about the poet's worldview.
What is certain is that the worldview of William Shakespeare was distinguished by a deeply humane character, although it was pessimistic in its basis.
Shakespeare loved people, he sympathized with their suffering, but he did not blame anyone in the world, did not justify anyone in the world, and he put into the mouth of Lear the words full of great meaning: "There are no guilty people in the world"("All is right").
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