• LIFE
William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, in Stradford-upon-Avon, a
town near London. He was the son of a wealthy merchant who gave him the
opportunity to attend the local grammar school and receive a good
education; he also apparently read and understood Latin well, not Greek.
There is no definite information about his life before 1582, except for a
marriage to a woman about 8 years his senior named Anne Hathaway, with
whom he had three children, Susanna and two twins, Judith and Hamlet. In
1584 he left Stanford to make his fortune in London, where he worked as
both an actor and a playwright until 1592, but because of the spread of
the plague that began in 1592, there was a closure of all the theaters in
London until 1594, when they reopened and Shakespeare wrote two poems
during those years, "Venus and Adonis" and "Lucrezia violata". In 1594
Shakespeare joined as a partner and shareholder, and later as an actor,
the theatrical troupe of "Lord Chamberlain's Men," an acting company
protected and financed by Lord Chamberlain in which he became the
principal author. This company settled at "The Globe Theater", a newly
built theater in London in 1598, which became their official home and
where many of Shakespeare's plays were performed. After the death of
Elizabeth I, James I ascended the English throne, and the troupe came
under the protection of the king, changing its name to "The King's Men."
During these and the following years, Shakespeare worked as a playwright
rather than an actor, writing his most famous works, which helped the
troupe itself become successful. Shakespeare worked for them until 1611
and then returned to Stanford, where he later died on April 23, 1616, the
day of his birth.
• THE FIRST FOLIO OF 1623
The First Folio is the first collected edition of the plays of William
Shakespeare, compiled and published in 1623, seven years after his death.
Folio editions were large and expensive books that were considered
prestigious.
Shakespeare wrote about 37 plays, 36 of which are included in the First
Folio. Most of these plays were performed at the Globe, an open-air
playhouse in London built in 1599 on the south bank of the Thames. Since
none of Shakespeare's original manuscripts survive (except possibly Sir
Thomas More, part of whom Shakespeare is thought to have revised), we
know his work only from printed editions. Of the 36 plays in the First
Folio, 17 were printed during Shakespeare's lifetime in various good and
bad smaller quarto editions, one was printed after his death, and 18 had
not yet been printed at all. It is this fact that makes the First Folio
so important; without it, 18 of Shakespeare's plays, including Twelfth
Night, Measure for Measure, Macbeth, Julius Caesar and The Tempest, might
never have survived.
The text was compiled by two of Shakespeare's fellow actors and friends,
John Heminge and Henry Condell, who edited it and oversaw its printing.
They appear in a list of 'Principal Actors' who appeared in Shakespeare's
plays, alongside Richard Burbage, Will Kemp and Shakespeare himself.
Heminge and Condell divided the plays into comedies, tragedies and
histories, an editorial decision that has shaped our conception of the
Shakespearean canon. To create the most authoritative text possible, they
compiled it from the good quartos and from (now lost) manuscripts such as
prompter's books, author's copies, and foul papers (working drafts). The
First Folio provided a corrective to what are now called bad quartos -
spurious and corrupt pirate editions that were probably based on a
memorial reconstruction.
• SHAKESPEARE’S CANON
Students tend to divide Shakespeare's canon into more than three
subgroups based on structure, year of composition, style, and main theme.
I. ENGLISH HISTORY PLAYS : These plays stage the history of English
nations from the Hundred Years War to the War of the Roses and present
a portrait of medieval and early modern England
II.ROMAN PLAYS: These plays are all set in ancient Rome and share the
same source, Plutarch's Parallel Lives, a book that contains
descriptions of the lives of exemplary characters.
III.COMEDIES: They constitute a separate corpus, with their own features
and characteristics. Many of the comedies are inspired by Italian
short stories (novellas) and deal with marriages, mistaken identities,
and usually a happy ending.
IV.PROBLEM PLAYS /DARK COMEDY: The term dark comedies emphasizes the fact
that these plays cannot be considered proper tragedies, and the term
problem plays refers to the fact that all of these plays revolve
around the workings of the minds of characters who doubt.
V. TRAGEDIES: they represent the culmination of early modern English
literature and deal with such themes as the tragic fate of humanity,
the human condition, stupidity, and man's loneliness in the universe
VI.ROMANCES: They include plays that contain elements of tragedy and
comedy and are characterized by fictional, almost improbable plots,
the contrast between virtue and vice, magic and the supernatural.
There are two plays in the Shakespearean canon that do not relate to any
of the above subgenres. The first, TITUS AND ANDRONICUS (1593), which is
a revenge tragedy, and ROMEO AND JULIET, (1595), which is a tragedy based
on the exploration of the theme of love
• ELIZABETH THEATRE
The first Elizabethan theater to open in London was the theater built in
1576. The theaters of this period were very different from those of the
present day; they were in the form of an amphitheater, and had a square
stage. The poorest people gathered around this stage, they were not
covered and paid only a penny to see the performance; the richest sat on
benches and were covered with a roof, Paradise.
Elizabethan drama included playwrights, actors, and audiences. People
went to the theater not only for the performance, but also to meet other
people, socialize, or do business. Actors also interacted with the
audience, so actors used loud voices. Many playwrights did not have
degrees, while only a few did. One thing to know about actors is that
women were not allowed to act because it was considered an immoral act
for them, so female characters were played by men. If we take for example
the characters of Juliet or Ophelia, they were male at the time and it
was absolutely normal. Actors were considered "vagabonds" and in order
not to be arrested, they went into the care of a rich man and gradually
formed real acting companies. Shakespeare's first company, for example,
were the Earl of Leicester's Men, who later joined the Lord Strange's
Men, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and the King's Men. Actors owned their
plays and often had their own playhouses.
As the theater was an open space and performances only took place in the
afternoon and night scenes could not be fully represented, some items
such as candles were used to make it clear that light was needed. The
emptiness of the stage was then filled with imaginative language that
provided the audience with all the necessary details.
Elizabethan drama is a mixture of tradition and innovation. The two
characteristics that came from the medieval dramatic tradition were: a
mixture of tragedy and comedy, giving rise to "tragicomedy," and the
avoidance of the unity of time, space, and action.
For poetic composition, they chose a free style that followed a natural
rhythm, so that the plot was always connected with subplots and the
actions took place in different places in a fluid period of time.
• THE GLOBE THEATRE
The Globe Theater was built in London in 1599 on the south bank of the Thames. The
reason why it was built outside the city of London dates back to the Elizabethan era,
when both Queen Elizabeth and her court were in favor of the theater, but those who were
against it were the Protestant citizens of the city, as they believed that the theater was a
distraction from work and an increase in inconveniences such as noise and drunken
people. For this reason, entertainment was made outside the city by the Puritans, and
were moved to Bankside, or rather the banks of the
Thames, and in 1599 this was the " first " Globe Theater of Shakspeare's
Company, or the "Lord Chamberlain's Man," in which most of the theater
lands belonged to the brothers Richard and Cuthbert Burbage. In 1613, due
to a cannonball fired during a performance (the cannon was under the
stage where there was a trap door, and the cannon was used to start the
performances), the "Globe Theater" building with the thatched roof caught
fire, and as almost all the buildings were wooden at that time, the whole
theater was completely engulfed in flames. After a hard reconstruction
work that lasted about twelve years, a second Globe Theater was built in
the same place, but after the arrival of the Puritans where they closed
the theaters because for them they were the places that went against the
Puritan religion and for that the Globe Theater fell apart and was
demolished in 1644. In 1670 Sam Wanamaker, an American actor and director
decided to rebuild the theater and try to make it similar to the original
and the second theater was inaugurated in 1970 and is called
"Shakespeare's Globe". But why did Shakespeare decide to call his theater
"the Globe"? Because "all the world's a stage" and therefore the theater
represented the world and it was a place where many people from all over
the world came. Similar to the original, the new Globe Theater is a semi-
open theater that includes the stage and an open orchestra and extends
into a large circular courtyard (court) where the wooden structure, the
"wooden 0", is 10 meters high. Meters, the diameter is 30 meters and the
perimeter is 90 meters. The octagonal structure had an open space in the
middle to allow natural light to enter, and unlike the original theater,
the modern Globe is equipped with lighting, so shows were held not only
during the day but also in the evening, and sometimes it was necessary to
light torches. In addition, the expensive male costumes were kept in a
shed in case it rained, because until 1660 women were not allowed to act
and during the performances the female characters were interpreted by
men, because women were not allowed. The theater could hold a maximum of
3,000 people and in the Elizabethan era the price of admission was 1
penny for a standing place (in the middle of the theater or near the
stage) or 2 pennies in the three seated galleries. The "Shakespeare's
Globe Theater" associated with the fame of the great playwright is the
symbolic expression of Britain and Sam Wanamaker, who wanted to rebuild
the theater at any cost to respect his wishes, takes place every year the
theater season from May to September, and at least one Shakespeare play
is performed annually in the theater by a male company in Elizabethan
costume
• HAMLET
Hamlet is one of Shakespeare's best known tragedies; it is one of the
most frequently performed works in all Western countries and has been
translated into nearly every language. In 1580 and 1590, it was initially
played in Elizabethan theaters. The legend of Amleth, as related by Saxo
Grammaticus, is the foundation for Hamlet's plot.
In folio and quarto size, there exist three early seventeenth-century
editions of Shakespeare's Hamlet. The "bad quarter" version of the drama
originally appeared in 1603. This book follows the story of the drama as
we know it, but it is considerably shorter and the language is
significantly different, most likely because it was released without the
Society's sanction and prepared with the assistance of performers who
knew all of the words by heart The "second quarter," which was published
in 1604 and is the longest Hamlet text from this time period, is the
longest Hamlet text from this time period. The first level of dramatic
action is formed when the company of actors comes to stage the
performance titled "The Murder of Gonzago" to remember the death of
Hamlet's father. The second level is formed when the company of actors
comes to stage the performance named "The Murder of Gonzago" to honor the
death of Hamlet's father. his father and substantiate the notion that his
uncle Claudius murdered him. Many themes link this Shakespearean tragedy
to the genre Renaissance Revenge tragedies; in fact, several of the usual
tropes of vengeance, paranormal happenings, murder, and vengeance are
employed. However, there is one significant difference: Hamlet's
hesitation. Because Hamlet was supposed to revenge his father's death
right away, his reluctance transforms the comedy into an impossible
tragedy. The emphasis on vengeance is replaced with a profoundly
philosophical analysis of psychological depth. In the Danish Elsinore,
the spirit of the murdered king appears to his son Hamlet and begs him
for vengeance, explaining that his brother Claudio, now king, has married
his brother's wife Gertrude.
The prince promises to honor his word, but because he needs proof of his
uncle's culpability, he decides to postpone the time of vengeance. When
Hamlet enacts the murder of the late king during a theatrical play, he
becomes convinced that his uncle is guilty for his father's death, and
Claudius, outraged and terrified, stands up and flees. Then, in an
attempt to excuse his actions to his mother, Hamlet mistakenly murders
Polonius, the new king's advisor and the father of Ophelia, his fiancée,
and Laertes, his closest friend. When he returns to Denmark, he accuses
Hamlet of murdering his father and sister. To alleviate his anguish for
his father's death and the loss of his beloved Hamlet, he chooses to
commit himself.
Laertes challenges him to a duel and, in collaboration with Claudio,
poisons the point of his sword as well as the cup from which Hamlet must
drink if he wins. Fortunately, it is her mother Gertrude who drinks from
the poisoned cup, and the lethal sword strikes both Hamlet and Laertes.
However, before he dies, Hamlet kills Claudio.
The main character is Hamlet, as the title suggests, one of the most
famous and important characters of all time; he is a unique and extremely
talkative character; he brings Renaissance attributes into play; he is a
philosopher inspired by humanistic ideas; as a result, he is seen as the
prototype of a Renaissance man; he is a man who has lost his religious
faith; he is a man who has lost his religious faith; he is a man who has
lost his religious faith, focuses on the uniqueness and exceptional
qualities of the human mind, his exceptional language talents allow him
to pretend to be someone he is not for the course of the play, he is a
melancholy character, not just because of the loss of his father, and the
center of attention of all the other characters linked by the endeavor to
comprehend Hamlet's actions, feelings, and ideas.
He is a prince as well as a skeptic, a guy caught between acting and
contemplating on situations that emphasize a disparity between reality
and appearance, between the individual and society. The uncertainty of
Hamlet, who does not act fast to revenge his father's killing, which he
realizes on questions and misgivings, is a significant issue. So we can
see how thought gets washed away in the midst of action. The
assassination of a monarch corrupts society, and Hamlet realizes that
something is wrong in Denmark and that it must be fixed, even if it means
jeopardizing the lives of many people, including his own. Only two women
appear throughout the entire work: Ophelia and Hamlet's mother. Hamlet is
skeptical of both women, and his faked insanity does not appear to be
manufactured because he feels hatred and hatred against both, resentment
against his mother because of her rush to remarry, and anger against
Ophelia because he believes she is participating in the conspiracy
against him.
• ROMEO AND JULIET
William Shakespeare wrote the play Romeo and Juliet between 1594 and
1597. Despite societal hostility, it is one of his best-known and most
represented paintings, and it has grown into the paradigm of perfect
love. This tragedy is structured into five acts, each of which has
several scenes.
This book tells the tragic love tale of Romeo, a Montague, and Juliet, a
Capulet: The Montagues and the Capulets were two aristocratic Veronese
families who had feuded for years. The two lovers met for the first time
at a Capulet party and fell in love, but they had no idea they were from
opposing families, and they were frantic when they found out.
Despite this, they adored one other, and that night they professed their
feelings and intended to marry secretly the next day. Brother Lawrence
did, in fact, marry them. After a challenge between Mercutio and Juliet's
cousin, Tybald, the latter injured Mercutio, who died soon after, and
when Romeo found out about his friend's murder, he collided with Tybald
and murdered him. The Prince then condemned him to exile, threatening to
murder Romeo if he was seen inside the city gates. Romeo and Juliet met
for the final time that night, as Romeo had to depart for Mantua before
the friar's request. Then Juliet's mother, Signora Capulet, informed her
that her father wanted her to marry Paris, Count of Capulets, within a
few days.She was originally opposed, but her Nurse soon persuaded her to
marry him. So she went to the friar the next day, who recommended her to
drink a sail, which would send her to sleep for several days. Meanwhile,
Friar Lawrence asked Friar John to inform Romeo of the plan: Romeo would
discover Juliet in his tomb and the two of them would flee together.
As part of the plan, the Capulets discovered Juliet dead on the wedding
day. Romeo was oblivious of Friar Lawrence's plans, and when he found out
about Juliet's death, he was shocked: he planned to buy poison and get to
Juliet's grave. Friar Lawrence feared dire implications when he found
Romeo was ignorant of his scheme.
Romeo walked to the Capulets' mausoleum, where he saw Paris; the two
battled, and Romeo murdered him. He chatted to her, kissed her, and then
took her life before taking the poison he had purchased. Friar Lawrence,
concerned about Romeo, dashed to the grave and discovered the remains of
the two murdered youths. When Juliet awoke and realized Romeo was no
longer alive, she kissed him one final time before stabbing herself.
When the Capulets and Montagues entered the monument and saw Romeo,
Juliet, and Paris dead, they became enraged and demanded to know what had
occurred and why. Brother Lawrence was the one who told the two families
what had transpired and blamed them. Following the event, the two
families reached an agreement.
