William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare [a]

(c. 23[b] April 1564 – 23 April 1616)[c] was an English playwright, poet
and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's
pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or
simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154
sonnets, three long narrative poems and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship.
His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often
than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer
in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he
married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and
Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an
actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's
Men, later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI of Scotland to the
English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he
died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated
considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his
religious beliefs and even certain fringe theories as to whether the works attributed to him
were written by others.

Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were
primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in
these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Othello, King
Lear and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in English. In the last phase of
his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) such as The Winter's Tale and The
Tempest, and collaborated with other playwrights.

Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy
during his lifetime. However, in 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two fellow actors
and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a
posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays.
Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson, a former rival of Shakespeare, who hailed
Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time".
Life William Shakespeare
Early life

John Shakespeare's house,

believed to be Shakespeare's
birthplace, in Stratford-upon-Avon

Shakespeare was the son of John

The Chandos portrait, likely depicting
Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful
Shakespeare, c. 1611
glover (glove-maker) originally from
Snitterfield in Warwickshire, and Mary Arden, Born c. 23 April 1564
the daughter of an affluent landowning Stratford-upon-
family.[3] He was born in Stratford-upon- Avon,

Avon, where he was baptised on 26 April 1564. Warwickshire,

England
His date of birth is unknown but is traditionally
observed on 23 April, Saint George's Day.[1] Died 23 April 1616
This date, which can be traced to William (aged 51–52)
Oldys and George Steevens, has proved Stratford-upon-
appealing to biographers because Avon,

Shakespeare died on the same date in Warwickshire,

England
1616.[4][5] He was the third of eight children,
and the eldest surviving son.[6] Resting place Church of the Holy
Trinity, Stratford-
Although no attendance records for the period
upon-Avon
survive, most biographers agree that
Shakespeare was probably educated at the Occupations Playwright · poet ·
actor
King's New School in Stratford,[7][8][9] a free
school chartered in 1553,[10] about a quarter- Years active c. 1585–1613
mile (400 m) from his home. Grammar schools
varied in quality during the Elizabethan era, but
Era Elizabethan ·
Jacobean
grammar school curricula were largely similar:
the basic Latin text was standardised by royal
decree,[11][12] and the school would have Organisations Lord Chamberlain's
provided an intensive education in grammar Men · King's Men
[13]
based upon Latin classical authors.
Works Shakespeare
At the age of 18, Shakespeare married 26- bibliography

year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory court

Movement English
of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage Renaissance
licence on 27 November 1582. The next day,
two of Hathaway's neighbours posted bonds Spouse Anne Hathaway ​(m. 1582)

guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded Children Susanna Hall

[14]
the marriage. The ceremony may have Hamnet
been arranged in some haste since the Shakespeare
Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage Judith Quiney

banns to be read once instead of the usual

Parents John Shakespeare
three times,[15][16] and six months after the Mary Arden
marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter,
Susanna, baptised 26 May 1583.[17] Twins, son Writing career
Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost Language Early Modern
two years later and were baptised 2 February English

1585.[18] Hamnet died of unknown causes at Genres Play (comedy ·

the age of 11 and was buried 11 August ·
history tragedy)
1596. [19] Poetry (sonnet ·
narrative poem ·
epitaph)

Signature
Shakespeare's coat of
arms, from the 1602 book
The book of coates and
creasts. Promptuarium
armorum. It features
spears as a pun on the
family name.[d]

After the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part
of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in the
"complaints bill" of a law case before the Queen's Bench court at Westminster dated
Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9 October 1589.[20] Scholars refer to the years between 1585 and
1592 as Shakespeare's "lost years".[21] Biographers attempting to account for this period have
reported many apocryphal stories. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare's first biographer, recounted
a Stratford legend that Shakespeare fled the town for London to escape prosecution for deer
poaching in the estate of local squire Thomas Lucy. Shakespeare is also supposed to have
taken his revenge on Lucy by writing a scurrilous ballad about him.[22][23] Another 18th-
century story has Shakespeare starting his theatrical career minding the horses of theatre
patrons in London.[24] John Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had been a country
schoolmaster.[25] Some 20th-century scholars suggested that Shakespeare may have been
employed as a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who
named a certain "William Shakeshafte" in his will.[26][27] Little evidence substantiates such
stories other than hearsay collected after his death, and Shakeshafte was a common name in
the Lancashire area.[28][29]

London and theatrical career

It is not known definitively when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and
records of performances show that several of his plays were on the London stage by 1592.[30]
By then, he was sufficiently known in London to be attacked in print by the playwright Robert
Greene in his Groats-Worth of Wit from that year:

... there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his
Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to
bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute
Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a
country.[31]

Scholars differ on the exact meaning of Greene's words,[31][32] but most agree that Greene
was accusing Shakespeare of reaching above his rank in trying to match such university-
educated writers as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe, and Greene himself (the so-called
"University Wits").[33] The italicised phrase parodying the line "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in a
woman's hide" from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3, along with the pun "Shake-scene",
clearly identify Shakespeare as Greene's target. As used here, Johannes Factotum ("Jack of
all trades") refers to a second-rate tinkerer with the work of others, rather than the more
common "universal genius".[31][34]

Greene's attack is the earliest surviving mention of Shakespeare's work in the theatre.
Biographers suggest that his career may have begun any time from the mid-1580s to just
before Greene's remarks.[35][36][37] After 1594, Shakespeare's plays were performed at The
Theatre, in Shoreditch, only by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a company owned by a group of
players, including Shakespeare, that soon became the leading playing company in
London.[38] After the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, the company was awarded a royal
patent by the new King James I, and changed its name to the King's Men.[39]

In 1599, a partnership of members of the

company built their own theatre on the All the world's a stage,
and all the men and women merely players:
south bank of the River Thames, which they
named the Globe. In 1608, the partnership they have their exits and their entrances;

also took over the Blackfriars indoor theatre. and one man in his time plays many parts ...

Extant records of Shakespeare's property —As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7, 139–142[40]
purchases and investments indicate that his
association with the company made him a wealthy man,[41] and in 1597, he bought the
second-largest house in Stratford, New Place, and in 1605, invested in a share of the parish
tithes in Stratford.[42]
Some of Shakespeare's plays were published in quarto editions, beginning in 1594, and by
1598, his name had become a selling point and began to appear on the title pages.[43][44][45]
Shakespeare continued to act in his own and other plays after his success as a playwright.
The 1616 edition of Ben Jonson's Works names him on the cast lists for Every Man in His
Humour (1598) and Sejanus His Fall (1603).[46] The absence of his name from the 1605 cast
list for Jonson's Volpone is taken by some scholars as a sign that his acting career was
nearing its end.[35] The First Folio of 1623, however, lists Shakespeare as one of "the Principal
Actors in all these Plays", some of which were first staged after Volpone, although one cannot
know for certain which roles he played.[47] In 1610, John Davies of Hereford wrote that "good
Will" played "kingly" roles.[48] In 1709, Rowe passed down a tradition that Shakespeare played
the ghost of Hamlet's father.[49] Later traditions maintain that he also played Adam in As You
Like It, and the Chorus in Henry V,[50][51] though scholars doubt the sources of that
information.[52]

Throughout his career, Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford. In 1596,
the year before he bought New Place as his family home in Stratford, Shakespeare was living
in the parish of St Helen's, Bishopsgate, north of the River Thames.[53][54] He moved across
the river to Southwark by 1599, the same year his company constructed the Globe Theatre
there.[53][55] By 1604, he had moved north of the river again, to an area north of St Paul's
Cathedral with many fine houses. There, he rented rooms from a French Huguenot named
Christopher Mountjoy, a maker of women's wigs and other headgear.[56][57]
Later years and death

Shakespeare's funerary
monument in Stratford-
upon-Avon

Nicholas Rowe was the first biographer to record the tradition, repeated by Samuel Johnson,
that Shakespeare retired to Stratford "some years before his death".[58][59] He was still
working as an actor in London in 1608; in an answer to the sharers' petition in 1635, Cuthbert
Burbage stated that after purchasing the lease of the Blackfriars Theatre in 1608 from Henry
Evans, the King's Men "placed men players" there, "which were Heminges, Condell,
Shakespeare, etc.".[60] However, it is perhaps relevant that the bubonic plague raged in
London throughout 1609.[61][62] The London public playhouses were repeatedly closed during
extended outbreaks of the plague (a total of over 60 months closure between May 1603 and
February 1610),[63] which meant there was often no acting work. Retirement from all work was
uncommon at that time.[64] Shakespeare continued to visit London during the years 1611–
1614.[58] In 1612, he was called as a witness in Bellott v Mountjoy, a court case concerning the
marriage settlement of Mountjoy's daughter, Mary.[65][66] In March 1613, he bought a
gatehouse in the former Blackfriars priory;[67] and from November 1614, he was in London for
several weeks with his son-in-law, John Hall.[68] After 1610, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays,
and none are attributed to him after 1613.[69] His last three plays were collaborations, probably
with John Fletcher,[70] who succeeded him as the house playwright of the King's Men. He
retired in 1613, before the Globe Theatre burned down during the performance of Henry VIII
on 29 June.[69]
Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, at the age of 52.[e] He died within a month of signing his
will, a document which he begins by describing himself as being in "perfect health". No extant
contemporary source explains how or why he died. Half a century later, John Ward, the vicar
of Stratford, wrote in his notebook: "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry
meeting and, it seems, drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there
contracted",[72][73] not an impossible scenario since Shakespeare knew Jonson and Drayton.
Of the tributes from fellow authors, one refers to his relatively sudden death: "We wondered,
Shakespeare, that thou went'st so soon / From the world's stage to the grave's tiring
room."[74][f]

Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-

upon-Avon, where Shakespeare
was baptised and is buried

He was survived by his wife and two daughters. Susanna had married a physician, John Hall,
in 1607,[75] and Judith had married Thomas Quiney, a vintner, two months before
Shakespeare's death.[76] Shakespeare signed his last will and testament on 25 March 1616;
the following day, Thomas Quiney, his new son-in-law, was found guilty of fathering an
illegitimate son by Margaret Wheeler, both of whom had died during childbirth. Thomas was
ordered by the church court to do public penance, which would have caused much shame
and embarrassment for the Shakespeare family.[76]

Shakespeare bequeathed the bulk of his large estate to his elder daughter Susanna[77] under
stipulations that she pass it down intact to "the first son of her body".[78] The Quineys had
three children, all of whom died without marrying.[79][80] The Halls had one child, Elizabeth,
who married twice but died without children in 1670, ending Shakespeare's direct line.[81][82]
Shakespeare's will scarcely mentions his wife, Anne, who was probably entitled to one-third
of his estate automatically.[g] He did make a point, however, of leaving her "my second best
bed", a bequest that has led to much speculation.[84][85][86] Some scholars see the bequest as
an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that the second-best bed would have been the
matrimonial bed and therefore rich in significance.[87]
Shakespeare's grave, next to those
of Anne Shakespeare, his wife, and
Thomas Nash, the husband of his
granddaughter

Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church two days after his
death.[88][89] The epitaph carved into the stone slab covering his grave includes a curse
against moving his bones, which was carefully avoided during restoration of the church in
2008:[90]

Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare, Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear,
To digg the dvst encloased heare. To dig the dust enclosed here.
Bleste be yͤ man yͭ spares thes stones, Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
And cvrst be he yͭ moves my bones.[91][h] And cursed be he that moves my bones.

Some time before 1623, a funerary monument was erected in his memory on the north wall,
with a half-effigy of him in the act of writing. Its plaque compares him to Nestor, Socrates,
and Virgil.[92] In 1623, in conjunction with the publication of the First Folio, the Droeshout
engraving was published.[93] Shakespeare has been commemorated in many statues and
memorials around the world, including funeral monuments in Southwark Cathedral and Poets'
Corner in Westminster Abbey.[94][95]

Plays

Procession of Characters from Shakespeare's Plays by an unknown 19th-century

artist
Most playwrights of the period typically collaborated with others at some point, as critics
agree Shakespeare did, mostly early and late in his career.[96]

The first recorded works of Shakespeare are Richard III and the three parts of Henry VI,
written in the early 1590s during a vogue for historical drama. Shakespeare's plays are difficult
to date precisely, however,[97][98] and studies of the texts suggest that Titus Andronicus, The
Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona may also
belong to Shakespeare's earliest period.[99][97] His first histories, which draw heavily on the
1587 edition of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland,[100]
dramatise the destructive results of weak or corrupt rule and have been interpreted as a
justification for the origins of the Tudor dynasty.[101] The early plays were influenced by the
works of other Elizabethan dramatists, especially Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe, by
the traditions of medieval drama, and by the plays of Seneca.[102][103][104] The Comedy of
Errors was also based on classical models, but no source for The Taming of the Shrew has
been found, though it has an identical plot but different wording as another play with a similar
name.[105][106] Like The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which two friends appear to approve of
rape,[107][108][109] the Shrew 's story of the taming of a woman's independent spirit by a man
sometimes troubles modern critics, directors, and audiences.[110]

Oberon, Titania and Puck with

Fairies Dancing. By William Blake,
c. 1786.

Shakespeare's early classical and Italianate comedies, containing tight double plots and
precise comic sequences, give way in the mid-1590s to the romantic atmosphere of his most
acclaimed comedies.[111] A Midsummer Night's Dream is a witty mixture of romance, fairy
magic, and comic lowlife scenes.[112] Shakespeare's next comedy, the equally romantic The
Merchant of Venice, contains a portrayal of the vengeful Jewish moneylender Shylock, which
reflects dominant Elizabethan views but may appear derogatory to modern audiences.[113][114]
The wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing,[115] the charming rural setting of As You
Like It, and the lively merrymaking of Twelfth Night complete Shakespeare's sequence of
great comedies.[116] After the lyrical Richard II, written almost entirely in verse, Shakespeare
introduced prose comedy into the histories of the late 1590s, Henry IV, Part 1 and 2, and Henry
V. Henry IV features Falstaff, rogue, wit and friend of Prince Hal. His characters become more
complex and tender as he switches deftly between comic and serious scenes, prose and
poetry, and achieves the narrative variety of his mature work.[117][118][119] This period begins
and ends with two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, the famous romantic tragedy of sexually
charged adolescence, love, and death;[120][121] and Julius Caesar—based on Sir Thomas
North's 1579 translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives—which introduced a new kind of
drama.[122][123] According to Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro, in Julius Caesar, "the
various strands of politics, character, inwardness, contemporary events, even Shakespeare's
own reflections on the act of writing, began to infuse each other".[124]

Hamlet, Horatio, Marcellus, and the

Ghost of Hamlet's Father. Henry
Fuseli, 1780–1785.

In the early 17th century, Shakespeare wrote the so-called "problem plays" Measure for
Measure, Troilus and Cressida, and All's Well That Ends Well and a number of his best known
tragedies.[125][126] Many critics believe that Shakespeare's tragedies represent the peak of his
art. Hamlet has probably been analysed more than any other Shakespearean character,
especially for his famous soliloquy which begins "To be or not to be; that is the question".[127]
Unlike the introverted Hamlet, whose fatal flaw is hesitation, Othello and Lear are undone by
hasty errors of judgement.[128] The plots of Shakespeare's tragedies often hinge on such fatal
errors or flaws, which overturn order and destroy the hero and those he loves.[129] In Othello,
Iago stokes Othello's sexual jealousy to the point where he murders the innocent wife who
loves him.[130][131] In King Lear, the old king commits the tragic error of giving up his powers,
initiating the events which lead to the torture and blinding of the Earl of Gloucester and the
murder of Lear's youngest daughter, Cordelia. According to the critic Frank Kermode, "the
play...offers neither its good characters nor its audience any relief from its cruelty".[132][133][134]
In Macbeth, the shortest and most compressed of Shakespeare's tragedies,[135]
uncontrollable ambition incites Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, to murder the rightful
king and usurp the throne until their own guilt destroys them in turn.[136] In this play,
Shakespeare adds a supernatural element to the tragic structure. His last major tragedies,
Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus, contain some of Shakespeare's finest poetry and were
considered his most successful tragedies by the poet and critic T. S. Eliot.[137][138][139] Eliot
wrote, "Shakespeare acquired more essential history from Plutarch than most men could
from the whole British Museum."[140]

In his final period, Shakespeare turned to romance or tragicomedy and completed three more
major plays: Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest, as well as the collaboration,
Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Less bleak than the tragedies, these four plays are graver in tone than
the comedies of the 1590s, but they end with reconciliation and the forgiveness of potentially
tragic errors.[141] Some commentators have seen this change in mood as evidence of a more
serene view of life on Shakespeare's part, but it may merely reflect the theatrical fashion of
the day.[142][143][144] Shakespeare collaborated on two further surviving plays, Henry VIII and
The Two Noble Kinsmen, probably with John Fletcher.[145]

Classification

The Plays of William Shakespeare,

a painting containing scenes and
characters from several plays of
Shakespeare; by Sir John Gilbert,
c. 1849

Shakespeare's works include the 36 plays printed in the First Folio of 1623, listed according to
their folio classification as comedies, histories, and tragedies.[146] Two plays not included in
the First Folio,[147] The Two Noble Kinsmen and Pericles, Prince of Tyre, are now accepted as
part of the canon, with today's scholars agreeing that Shakespeare made major contributions
to the writing of both.[148][149] No Shakespearean poems were included in the First Folio, partly
because the collection was compiled by men of theatre.[150]

In the late 19th century, Edward Dowden classified four of the late comedies as romances,
and though many scholars prefer to call them tragicomedies, Dowden's term is often
used.[151][152] In 1896, Frederick S. Boas coined the term "problem plays" to describe four
plays: All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, and Hamlet.[153]
"Dramas as singular in theme and temper cannot be strictly called comedies or tragedies", he
wrote. "We may, therefore, borrow a convenient phrase from the theatre of today and class
them together as Shakespeare's problem plays."[154] The term, much debated and sometimes
applied to other plays, remains in use, though Hamlet is definitively classed as a
tragedy.[155][156][157]

Performances
It is not clear for which companies Shakespeare wrote his early plays. The title page of the
1594 edition of Titus Andronicus reveals that the play had been acted by three different
troupes.[158] After the plagues of 1592–93, Shakespeare's plays were performed by his own
company at The Theatre and the Curtain in Shoreditch, north of the Thames.[159] Londoners
flocked there to see the first part of Henry IV, Leonard Digges recording, "Let but Falstaff
come, Hal, Poins, the rest ... and you scarce shall have a room".[160] When the company
found themselves in dispute with their landlord, they pulled The Theatre down and used the
timbers to construct the Globe Theatre, the first playhouse built by actors for actors, on the
south bank of the Thames at Southwark.[161][162] The Globe opened in autumn 1599, with
Julius Caesar one of the first plays staged. Most of Shakespeare's greatest post-1599 plays
were written for the Globe, including Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear.[161][163][164]

The reconstructed Globe Theatre

on the south bank of the River
Thames in London

After the Lord Chamberlain's Men were renamed the King's Men in 1603, they entered a
special relationship with the new King James. Although the performance records are patchy,
the King's Men performed seven of Shakespeare's plays at court between 1 November 1604,
and 31 October 1605, including two performances of The Merchant of Venice.[51] After 1608,
they performed at the indoor Blackfriars Theatre during the winter and the Globe during the
summer.[165] The indoor setting, combined with the Jacobean fashion for lavishly staged
masques, allowed Shakespeare to introduce more elaborate stage devices. In Cymbeline, for
example, Jupiter descends "in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle: he throws a
thunderbolt. The ghosts fall on their knees."[166][167]

The actors in Shakespeare's company included the famous Richard Burbage, William Kempe,
Henry Condell and John Heminges. Burbage played the leading role in the first performances
of many of Shakespeare's plays, including Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear.[168] The
popular comic actor Will Kempe played the servant Peter in Romeo and Juliet and Dogberry in
Much Ado About Nothing, among other characters.[169][170] He was replaced around 1600 by
Robert Armin, who played roles such as Touchstone in As You Like It and the fool in King
Lear.[171] In 1613, Sir Henry Wotton recorded that Henry VIII "was set forth with many
extraordinary circumstances of pomp and ceremony".[172] On 29 June, however, a cannon set
fire to the thatch of the Globe and burned the theatre to the ground, an event which pinpoints
the date of a Shakespeare play with rare precision.[172]

Textual sources

Title page of the First Folio,

1623. Copper engraving of
Shakespeare by Martin
Droeshout.

In 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two of Shakespeare's friends from the King's
Men, published the First Folio, a collected edition of Shakespeare's plays. It contained 36
texts, including 18 printed for the first time.[173] Most of the others had already appeared in
quarto versions—flimsy books made from sheets of paper folded twice to make four
leaves.[174][175] No evidence suggests that Shakespeare approved these editions, which the
First Folio describes as "stol'n and surreptitious copies".[176]
Alfred Pollard termed some of the pre-1623 versions as "bad quartos" because of their
adapted, paraphrased or garbled texts, which may in places have been reconstructed from
memory.[174][176][177] Where several versions of a play survive, each differs from the others.
The differences may stem from copying or printing errors, from notes by actors or audience
members, or from Shakespeare's own papers.[178][179] In some cases, for example, Hamlet,
Troilus and Cressida, and Othello, Shakespeare could have revised the texts between the
quarto and folio editions. In the case of King Lear, however, while most modern editions do
conflate them, the 1623 folio version is so different from the 1608 quarto that the Oxford
Shakespeare prints them both, arguing that they cannot be conflated without confusion.[180]

Poems

In 1593 and 1594, when the theatres were closed because of plague, Shakespeare published
two narrative poems on sexual themes, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. He
dedicated them to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. In Venus and Adonis, an innocent
Adonis rejects the sexual advances of Venus; while in The Rape of Lucrece, the virtuous wife
Lucrece is raped by the lustful Tarquin.[181] Influenced by Ovid's Metamorphoses,[182] the
poems show the guilt and moral confusion that result from uncontrolled lust.[183] Both proved
popular and were often reprinted during Shakespeare's lifetime. A third narrative poem, A
Lover's Complaint, in which a young woman laments her seduction by a persuasive suitor,
was printed in the first edition of the Sonnets in 1609. Most scholars now accept that
Shakespeare wrote A Lover's Complaint. Critics consider that its fine qualities are marred by
leaden effects.[184][185][186] The Phoenix and the Turtle, printed in Robert Chester's 1601 Love's
Martyr, mourns the deaths of the legendary phoenix and his lover, the faithful turtle dove. In
1599, two early drafts of sonnets 138 and 144 appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim, published
under Shakespeare's name but without his permission.[184][186][187]
Sonnets

Title page from 1609 edition

of Shake-Speares Sonnets

Published in 1609, the Sonnets were the last of Shakespeare's non-dramatic works to be
printed. Scholars are not certain when each of the 154 sonnets was composed, but evidence
suggests that Shakespeare wrote sonnets throughout his career for a private
readership.[188][189] Even before the two unauthorised sonnets appeared in The Passionate
Pilgrim in 1599, Francis Meres had referred in 1598 to Shakespeare's "sugred Sonnets among
his private friends".[190] Few analysts believe that the published collection follows
Shakespeare's intended sequence.[191] He seems to have planned two contrasting series: one
about uncontrollable lust for a married woman of dark complexion (the "dark lady"), and one
about conflicted love for a fair young man (the "fair youth"). It remains unclear if these figures
represent real individuals, or if the authorial "I" who addresses them represents Shakespeare
himself, though Wordsworth believed that with the sonnets "Shakespeare unlocked his
heart".[190][189]

The 1609 edition was dedicated to a "Mr.

W.H.", credited as "the only begetter" of Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate ...
the poems. It is not known whether this
was written by Shakespeare himself or by —Opening lines from Shakespeare's Sonnet 18.[192]
the publisher, Thomas Thorpe, whose
initials appear at the foot of the dedication page; nor is it known who Mr. W.H. was, despite
numerous theories, or whether Shakespeare even authorised the publication.[193] Critics
praise the Sonnets as a profound meditation on the nature of love, sexual passion,
procreation, death, and time.[194]
Style

Shakespeare's first plays were written in the conventional style of the day. He wrote them in a
stylised language that does not always spring naturally from the needs of the characters or
the drama.[195] The poetry depends on extended, sometimes elaborate metaphors and
conceits, and the language is often rhetorical—written for actors to declaim rather than
speak. The grand speeches in Titus Andronicus, in the view of some critics, often hold up the
action, for example; and the verse in The Two Gentlemen of Verona has been described as
stilted.[196][197]

Pity by William Blake, 1795, is an

illustration of two similes in
Macbeth:

"And pity, like a naked new-

born babe,
Striding the blast, or
heaven's cherubim, hors'd
Upon the sightless couriers
of the air."[198]

However, Shakespeare soon began to adapt the traditional styles to his own purposes. The
opening soliloquy of Richard III has its roots in the self-declaration of Vice in medieval drama.
At the same time, Richard's vivid self-awareness looks forward to the soliloquies of
Shakespeare's mature plays.[199][200] No single play marks a change from the traditional to the
freer style. Shakespeare combined the two throughout his career, with Romeo and Juliet
perhaps the best example of the mixing of the styles.[201] By the time of Romeo and Juliet,
Richard II, and A Midsummer Night's Dream in the mid-1590s, Shakespeare had begun to
write a more natural poetry. He increasingly tuned his metaphors and images to the needs of
the drama itself.
Shakespeare's standard poetic form was blank verse, composed in iambic pentameter. In
practice, this meant that his verse was usually unrhymed and consisted of ten syllables to a
line, spoken with a stress on every second syllable. The blank verse of his early plays is quite
different from that of his later ones. It is often beautiful, but its sentences tend to start, pause,
and finish at the end of lines, with the risk of monotony.[202] Once Shakespeare mastered
traditional blank verse, he began to interrupt and vary its flow. This technique releases the
new power and flexibility of the poetry in plays such as Julius Caesar and Hamlet.
Shakespeare uses it, for example, to convey the turmoil in Hamlet's mind:[203]

Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting

That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly—
And prais'd be rashness for it—let us know
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well ...

— Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2, 4–8[203]

After Hamlet, Shakespeare varied his poetic style further, particularly in the more emotional
passages of the late tragedies. The literary critic A. C. Bradley described this style as "more
concentrated, rapid, varied, and, in construction, less regular, not seldom twisted or
elliptical".[204] In the last phase of his career, Shakespeare adopted many techniques to
achieve these effects. These included run-on lines, irregular pauses and stops, and extreme
variations in sentence structure and length.[205] In Macbeth, for example, the language darts
from one unrelated metaphor or simile to another: "was the hope drunk/ Wherein you dressed
yourself?" (1.7.35–38); "... pity, like a naked new-born babe/ Striding the blast, or heaven's
cherubim, hors'd/ Upon the sightless couriers of the air ..." (1.7.21–25). The listener is
challenged to complete the sense.[205] The late romances, with their shifts in time and
surprising turns of plot, inspired a last poetic style in which long and short sentences are set
against one another, clauses are piled up, subject and object are reversed, and words are
omitted, creating an effect of spontaneity.[206]

Shakespeare combined poetic genius with a practical sense of the theatre.[207] Like all
playwrights of the time, he dramatised stories from sources such as Plutarch and
Holinshed.[208] He reshaped each plot to create several centres of interest and to show as
many sides of a narrative to the audience as possible. This strength of design ensures that a
Shakespeare play can survive translation, cutting, and wide interpretation without loss to its
core drama.[209] As Shakespeare's mastery grew, he gave his characters clearer and more
varied motivations and distinctive patterns of speech. He preserved aspects of his earlier style
in the later plays, however. In Shakespeare's late romances, he deliberately returned to a
more artificial style, which emphasised the illusion of theatre.[210][211]

Legacy

Influence

Macbeth Consulting the

Vision of the Armed Head.
By Henry Fuseli, 1793–
1794.

Shakespeare's work has made a significant and lasting impression on later theatre and
literature. In particular, he expanded the dramatic potential of characterisation, plot, language,
and genre.[212] Until Romeo and Juliet, for example, romance had not been viewed as a
worthy topic for tragedy.[213] Soliloquies had been used mainly to convey information about
characters or events, but Shakespeare used them to explore characters' minds.[214] His work
heavily influenced later poetry. The Romantic poets attempted to revive Shakespearean verse
drama, though with little success. Critic George Steiner described all English verse dramas
from Coleridge to Tennyson as "feeble variations on Shakespearean themes".[215] John
Milton, considered by many to be the most important English poet after Shakespeare, wrote
in tribute: "Thou in our wonder and astonishment/ Hast built thyself a live-long
monument."[216]

Shakespeare influenced novelists such as Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, and Charles
Dickens. The American novelist Herman Melville's soliloquies owe much to Shakespeare; his
Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick is a classic tragic hero, inspired by King Lear.[217] Scholars have
identified 20,000 pieces of music linked to Shakespeare's works, including Felix
Mendelssohn's overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream and Sergei
Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet. His work has inspired several operas, among them
Giuseppe Verdi's Macbeth, Otello and Falstaff, whose critical standing compares with that of
the source plays.[218] Shakespeare has also inspired many painters, including the Romantics
and the Pre-Raphaelites, while William Hogarth's 1745 painting of actor David Garrick playing
Richard III was decisive in establishing the genre of theatrical portraiture in Britain.[219] The
Swiss Romantic artist Henry Fuseli, a friend of William Blake, even translated Macbeth into
German.[220] The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud drew on Shakespearean psychology, in
particular, that of Hamlet, for his theories of human nature.[221] Shakespeare has been a rich
source for filmmakers; Akira Kurosawa adapted Macbeth and King Lear as Throne of Blood
and Ran, respectively. Other examples of Shakespeare on film include Max Reinhardt's A
Midsummer Night's Dream, Laurence Olivier's Hamlet and Al Pacino's documentary Looking
For Richard.[222] Orson Welles, a lifelong lover of Shakespeare, directed and starred in
Macbeth, Othello and Chimes at Midnight, in which he plays John Falstaff, which Welles
himself called his best work.[223]

In Shakespeare's day, English grammar, spelling, and pronunciation were less standardised
than they are now,[224] and his use of language helped shape modern English.[225] Samuel
Johnson quoted him more often than any other author in his A Dictionary of the English
Language, the first serious work of its type.[226] Expressions such as "with bated breath"
(Merchant of Venice) and "a foregone conclusion" (Othello) have found their way into
everyday English speech.[227][228]

Shakespeare's influence extends far beyond his native England and the English language. His
reception in Germany was particularly significant; as early as the 18th century Shakespeare
was widely translated and popularised in Germany, and gradually became a "classic of the
German Weimar era;" Christoph Martin Wieland was the first to produce complete
translations of Shakespeare's plays in any language.[229][230] Actor and theatre director Simon
Callow writes, "this master, this titan, this genius, so profoundly British and so effortlessly
universal, each different culture – German, Italian, Russian – was obliged to respond to the
Shakespearean example; for the most part, they embraced it, and him, with joyous abandon,
as the possibilities of language and character in action that he celebrated liberated writers
across the continent. Some of the most deeply affecting productions of Shakespeare have
been non-English, and non-European. He is that unique writer: he has something for
everyone."[231]

According to Guinness World Records, Shakespeare remains the world's best-selling

playwright, with sales of his plays and poetry believed to have achieved in excess of four
billion copies in the almost 400 years since his death. He is also the third most translated
author in history.[232]
Critical reputation
Shakespeare was not revered in his lifetime, but
He was not of an age, but for all time.
he received a large amount of praise.[234][235] In
1598, the cleric and author Francis Meres singled —Ben Jonson[233]

him out from a group of English playwrights as

"the most excellent" in both comedy and tragedy.[236][237] The authors of the Parnassus plays
at St John's College, Cambridge, numbered him with Chaucer, Gower, and Spenser.[238] In
the First Folio, Ben Jonson called Shakespeare the "Soul of the age, the applause, delight, the
wonder of our stage", although he had remarked elsewhere that "Shakespeare wanted art"
(lacked skill).[233]

Between the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the end of the 17th century, classical
ideas were in vogue. As a result, critics of the time mostly rated Shakespeare below John
Fletcher and Ben Jonson.[239] Thomas Rymer, for example, condemned Shakespeare for
mixing the comic with the tragic. Nevertheless, poet and critic John Dryden rated
Shakespeare highly, saying of Jonson, "I admire him, but I love Shakespeare".[240] He also
famously remarked that Shakespeare "was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of
books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there."[241] For several decades,
Rymer's view held sway. But during the 18th century, critics began to respond to Shakespeare
on his own terms and, like Dryden, to acclaim what they termed his natural genius. A series of
scholarly editions of his work, notably those of Samuel Johnson in 1765 and Edmond Malone
in 1790, added to his growing reputation.[242][243] By 1800, he was firmly enshrined as the
national poet,[244] and described as the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard").[245][i] In the 18th
and 19th centuries, his reputation also spread abroad. Among those who championed him
were the writers Voltaire, Goethe, Stendhal, and Victor Hugo.[247][j]
William Ordway Partridge's
garlanded statue of William
Shakespeare in Lincoln
Park, Chicago, typical of
many created in the 19th
and early 20th centuries

During the Romantic era, Shakespeare was praised by the poet and literary philosopher
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the critic August Wilhelm Schlegel translated his plays in the
spirit of German Romanticism.[249] In the 19th century, critical admiration for Shakespeare's
genius often bordered on adulation.[250] "This King Shakespeare," the essayist Thomas
Carlyle wrote in 1840, "does not he shine, in crowned sovereignty, over us all, as the noblest,
gentlest, yet strongest of rallying signs; indestructible".[251] The Victorians produced his plays
as lavish spectacles on a grand scale.[252] The playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw
mocked the cult of Shakespeare worship as "bardolatry", claiming that the new naturalism of
Ibsen's plays had made Shakespeare obsolete.[253]

The modernist revolution in the arts during the early 20th century, far from discarding
Shakespeare, eagerly enlisted his work in the service of the avant-garde. The Expressionists
in Germany and the Futurists in Moscow mounted productions of his plays. Marxist playwright
and director Bertolt Brecht devised an epic theatre under the influence of Shakespeare. The
poet and critic T. S. Eliot argued against Shaw that Shakespeare's "primitiveness" in fact
made him truly modern.[254] Eliot, along with G. Wilson Knight and the school of New
Criticism, led a movement towards a closer reading of Shakespeare's imagery. In the 1950s, a
wave of new critical approaches replaced modernism and paved the way for post-modern
studies of Shakespeare.[255] Comparing Shakespeare's accomplishments to those of leading
figures in philosophy and theology, Harold Bloom wrote, "Shakespeare was larger than Plato
and than St. Augustine. He encloses us because we see with his fundamental
perceptions."[256]

Speculation

Authorship
Around 230 years after Shakespeare's death, doubts began to be expressed about the
authorship of the works attributed to him.[257] Proposed alternative candidates include Francis
Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, and Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.[258] Several "group
theories" have also been proposed.[259] All but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary
historians consider it a fringe theory, with only a small minority of academics who believe that
there is reason to question the traditional attribution,[260] but interest in the subject,
particularly the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship, continues into the 21st
century.[261][262][263]

Religion
Shakespeare conformed to the official state religion,[k] but his private views on religion have
been the subject of debate. Shakespeare's will uses a Protestant formula, and he was a
confirmed member of the Church of England, where he was married, his children were
baptised, and where he is buried.

Some scholars are of the view that members of Shakespeare's family were Catholics, at a
time when practising Catholicism in England was against the law.[265] Shakespeare's mother,
Mary Arden, certainly came from a pious Catholic family. The strongest evidence might be a
Catholic statement of faith signed by his father, John Shakespeare, found in 1757 in the
rafters of his former house in Henley Street. However, the document is now lost and scholars
differ as to its authenticity.[266][267] In 1591, the authorities reported that John Shakespeare
had missed church "for fear of process for debt", a common Catholic excuse.[268][269][270] In
1606, the name of William's daughter Susanna appears on a list of those who failed to attend
Easter communion in Stratford.[268][269][270]

Other authors argue that there is a lack of evidence about Shakespeare's religious beliefs.
Scholars find evidence both for and against Shakespeare's Catholicism, Protestantism, or
lack of belief in his plays, but the truth may be impossible to prove.[271][272]
Sexuality

Artistic depiction of the

Shakespeare family, late 19th
century

Few details of Shakespeare's sexuality are known. At 18, he married 26-year-old Anne
Hathaway, who was pregnant. Susanna, the first of their three children, was born six months
later on 26 May 1583. Over the centuries, some readers have posited that Shakespeare's
sonnets are autobiographical,[273] and point to them as evidence of his love for a young man.
Others read the same passages as the expression of intense friendship rather than romantic
love.[274][275][276] The 26 so-called "Dark Lady" sonnets, addressed to a married woman, are
taken as evidence of heterosexual liaisons.[277]

Portraiture
No written contemporary description of Shakespeare's physical appearance survives, and no
evidence suggests that he ever commissioned a portrait. From the 18th century, the desire for
authentic Shakespeare portraits fuelled claims that various surviving pictures depicted
Shakespeare.[278] That demand also led to the production of several fake portraits, as well as
misattributions, re-paintings, and relabelling of portraits of other people.[279][280]

Some scholars suggest that the Droeshout portrait, which Ben Jonson approved of as a good
likeness,[281] and his Stratford monument provide perhaps the best evidence of his
appearance.[282] Of the claimed paintings, art historian Tarnya Cooper concluded that the
Chandos portrait had "the strongest claim of any of the known contenders to be a true portrait
of Shakespeare". After a three-year study supported by the National Portrait Gallery, London,
the portrait's owners, Cooper contended that its composition date, contemporary with
Shakespeare, its subsequent provenance, and the sitter's attire, all supported the
attribution.[283]
See also

Outline of William Shakespeare

English Renaissance theatre

Spelling of Shakespeare's name

World Shakespeare Bibliography

Shakespeare's Politics

References

Notes
a. /ˈʃeɪkspɪər/

b. The belief that Shakespeare was born on 23 April is a tradition and not a verified fact;[1]
see § Early life below. He was baptised 26 April.[1]

c. Dates follow the Julian calendar, used in England throughout Shakespeare's lifespan, but
with the start of the year adjusted to 1 January (see Old Style and New Style dates).
Under the Gregorian calendar, adopted in Catholic countries in 1582, Shakespeare died
on 3 May.[2]

d. The crest is a silver falcon supporting a spear, while the motto is Non Sanz Droict (French
for "not without right"). This motto is still used by Warwickshire County Council, in
reference to Shakespeare.

e. Inscribed in Latin on his funerary monument: AETATIS 53 DIE 23 APR (In his 53rd year he
died 23 April).[71]

f. Verse by James Mabbe printed in the First Folio.[74]

g. Charles Knight, 1842, in his notes on Twelfth Night.[83]

h. In the scribal abbreviations ye for the (3rd line) and yt for that (3rd and 4th lines) the letter
y represents th: see thorn.
i. The "national cult" of Shakespeare, and the "bard" identification, dates from September
1769, when the actor David Garrick organised a week-long carnival at Stratford to mark
the town council awarding him the freedom of the town. In addition to presenting the
town with a statue of Shakespeare, Garrick composed a doggerel verse, lampooned in
the London newspapers, naming the banks of the Avon as the birthplace of the
"matchless Bard".[246]

j. Grady cites Voltaire's Philosophical Letters (1733); Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's

Apprenticeship (1795); Stendhal's two-part pamphlet Racine et Shakespeare (1823–25);
and Victor Hugo's prefaces to Cromwell (1827) and William Shakespeare (1864).[248]

k. For example, A.L. Rowse, the 20th-century Shakespeare scholar, was emphatic: "He
died, as he had lived, a conforming member of the Church of England. His will made that
perfectly clear—in facts, puts it beyond dispute, for it uses the Protestant formula."[264]

Citations
1. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 24–26.

2. Schoenbaum 1987, p. xv.

3. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 14–22.

4. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 24, 296.

5. Honan 1998, pp. 15–16.

6. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 23–24.

7. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 62–63.

8. Ackroyd 2006, p. 53.

9. Wells et al. 2005, pp. xv–xvi.

10. Baldwin 1944, p. 464.

11. Baldwin 1944, pp. 179–180, 183.

12. Cressy 1975, pp. 28–29.

13. Baldwin 1944, p. 117.

14. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 77–78.

15. Wood 2003, p. 84.

16. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 78–79.

17. Schoenbaum 1987, p. 93 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/9
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18. Schoenbaum 1987, p. 94 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/9

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19. Schoenbaum 1987, p. 224 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/

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20. Bate 2008, p. 314.

21. Schoenbaum 1987, p. 95 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/9

5) .

22. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 97–108.

23. Rowe 1709, pp. 16–17, .

24. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 144–145.

25. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 110–111.

26. Honigmann 1998, p. 1.

27. Wells et al. 2005, p. xvii.

28. Honigmann 1998, pp. 95–117.

29. Wood 2003, pp. 97–109.

30. Chambers 1930a, pp. 287, 292.

31. Greenblatt 2005, p. 213.

32. Schoenbaum 1987, p. 153 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/1

53) .

33. Ackroyd 2006, p. 176.

34. Schoenbaum 1987, p. 151–153.

35. Wells 2006, p. 28.

36. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 144–146.

37. Chambers 1930a, p. 59.

38. Schoenbaum 1987, p. 184 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/1

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39. Chambers 1923, pp. 208–209.

40. Wells et al. 2005, p. 666.

41. Chambers 1930b, pp. 67–71.

42. Bentley 1961, p. 36.

43. Schoenbaum 1987, p. 188 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/1

88) .

44. Kastan 1999, p. 37.

45. Knutson 2001, p. 17.

46. Adams 1923, p. 275.

47. Schoenbaum 1987, p. 200 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/

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48. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 200–201.

49. Rowe 1709, p. 32.

50. Ackroyd 2006, p. 357.

51. Wells et al. 2005, p. xxii.

52. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 202–203.

53. Hales 1904, pp. 401–402.

54. Honan 1998, p. 121.

55. Shapiro 2005, p. 122.

56. Honan 1998, p. 325.

57. Greenblatt 2005, p. 405.

58. Ackroyd 2006, p. 476.

59. Wood 1806, pp. ix–x, lxxii.

60. Smith 1964, p. 558.

61. Ackroyd 2006, p. 477.

62. Barroll 1991, pp. 179–182.

63. Bate 2008, pp. 354–355.

64. Honan 1998, pp. 382–383.

65. Honan 1998, p. 326.

66. Ackroyd 2006, pp. 462–464.

67. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 272–274.

68. Honan 1998, p. 387.

69. Schoenbaum 1987, p. 279 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/

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70. Honan 1998, pp. 375–378.

71. Schoenbaum 1987, p. 311 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/3

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72. Schoenbaum 1991, p. 78 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/7

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73. Rowse 1963, p. 453.

74. Kinney 2012, p. 11.

75. Schoenbaum 1987, p. 287 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/

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76. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 292–294.

77. Schoenbaum 1987, p. 304 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/

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78. Honan 1998, pp. 395–396.

79. Chambers 1930b, pp. 8, 11, 104.

80. Schoenbaum 1987, p. 296 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/

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81. Chambers 1930b, pp. 7, 9, 13.

82. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 289, 318–319.

83. Schoenbaum 1991, p. 275 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/

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84. Ackroyd 2006, p. 483.

85. Frye 2005, p. 16.

86. Greenblatt 2005, pp. 145–146.

87. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 301–303.

88. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 306–307.

89. Wells et al. 2005, p. xviii.

90. BBC News 2008.

91. Schoenbaum 1987, p. 306 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/

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92. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 308–310.

93. Cooper 2006, p. 48.

94. Westminster Abbey n.d.

95. Southwark Cathedral n.d.

96. Thomson 2003, p. 49.

97. Frye 2005, p. 9.

98. Honan 1998, p. 166.

99. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 159–161.

100. Dutton & Howard 2003, p. 147.

101. Ribner 2005, pp. 154–155.

102. Frye 2005, p. 105.

103. Ribner 2005, p. 67.

104. Bednarz 2004, p. 100.

105. Honan 1998, p. 136.

106. Schoenbaum 1987, p. 166 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/1

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107. Frye 2005, p. 91.

108. Honan 1998, pp. 116–117.

109. Werner 2001, pp. 96–100.

110. Friedman 2006, p. 159.

111. Ackroyd 2006, p. 235.

112. Wood 2003, pp. 161–162.

113. Wood 2003, pp. 205–206.

114. Honan 1998, p. 258.

115. Ackroyd 2006, p. 359.

116. Ackroyd 2006, pp. 362–383.

117. Shapiro 2005, p. 150.

118. Gibbons 1993, p. 1.

119. Ackroyd 2006, p. 356.

120. Wood 2003, p. 161.

121. Honan 1998, p. 206.

122. Ackroyd 2006, pp. 353, 358.

123. Shapiro 2005, pp. 151–153.

124. Shapiro 2005, p. 151.

125. Bradley 1991, p. 85.

126. Muir 2005, pp. 12–16.

127. Bradley 1991, p. 94.

128. Bradley 1991, p. 86.

129. Bradley 1991, pp. 40, 48.

130. Bradley 1991, pp. 42, 169, 195.

131. Greenblatt 2005, p. 304.

132. Bradley 1991, p. 226.

133. Ackroyd 2006, p. 423.

134. Kermode 2004, pp. 141–142.

135. McDonald 2006, pp. 43–46.

136. Bradley 1991, p. 306.

137. Ackroyd 2006, p. 444.

138. McDonald 2006, pp. 69–70.

139. Eliot 1934, p. 59.

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142. Dowden 1881, p. 60.

143. Frye 2005, p. 123.

144. McDonald 2006, p. 15.

145. Wells et al. 2005, pp. 1247, 1279.

146. Boyce 1996, pp. 91, 193, 513..

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148. Kathman 2003, p. 629.

149. Boyce 1996, p. 91.

150. Shakespeare, William (2002). The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Sonnets and
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151. Edwards 1958, pp. 1–10.

152. Snyder & Curren-Aquino 2007.

153. Schanzer 1963, pp. 1–10.

154. Boas 1896, p. 345.

155. Schanzer 1963, p. 1.

156. Bloom 1999, pp. 325–380.

157. Berry 2005, p. 37.

158. Wells et al. 2005, p. xx.

159. Wells et al. 2005, p. xxi.

160. Shapiro 2005, p. 16.

161. Foakes 1990, p. 6.

162. Shapiro 2005, pp. 125–131.

163. Nagler 1958, p. 7.

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165. Foakes 1990, p. 33.

166. Ackroyd 2006, p. 454.

167. Holland 2000, p. xli.

168. Ringler 1997, p. 127.

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170. Chambers 1930a, p. 341.

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172. Wells et al. 2005, p. 1247.

173. Wells et al. 2005, p. xxxvii.

174. Wells et al. 2005, p. xxxiv.

175. Mowat & Werstine 2015, p. xlvii.

176. Pollard 1909, p. xi.

177. Maguire 1996, p. 28.

178. Bowers 1955, pp. 8–10.

179. Wells et al. 2005, pp. xxxiv–xxxv.

180. Wells et al. 2005, pp. 909, 1153.

181. Roe 2006, p. 21.

182. Frye 2005, p. 288.

183. Roe 2006, pp. 3, 21.

184. Roe 2006, p. 1.

185. Jackson 2004, pp. 267–294.

186. Honan 1998, p. 289.

187. Schoenbaum 1987, p. 327 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/
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188. Wood 2003, p. 178.

189. Schoenbaum 1987, p. 180 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/1

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190. Honan 1998, p. 180.

191. Schoenbaum 1987, p. 268 (https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000scho/page/

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192. Mowat & Werstine n.d.

193. Schoenbaum 1987, pp. 268–269.

194. Wood 2003, p. 177.

195. Clemen 2005a, p. 150.

196. Frye 2005, pp. 105, 177.

197. Clemen 2005b, p. 29.

198. de Sélincourt 1909, p. 174.

199. Brooke 2004, p. 69.

200. Bradbrook 2004, p. 195.

201. Clemen 2005b, p. 63.

202. Frye 2005, p. 185.

203. Wright 2004, p. 868.

204. Bradley 1991, p. 91.

205. McDonald 2006, pp. 42–46.

206. McDonald 2006, pp. 36, 39, 75.

207. Gibbons 1993, p. 4.

208. Gibbons 1993, pp. 1–4.

209. Gibbons 1993, pp. 1–7, 15.

210. McDonald 2006, p. 13.

211. Meagher 2003, p. 358.

212. Chambers 1944, p. 35.

213. Levenson 2000, pp. 49–50.

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Schoenbaum, Samuel (1991). Shakespeare's Lives (https://archive.org/details/shakespeare

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External links

Digital editions Library resources about

William Shakespeare's plays on Bookwise (https://bookwi

William Shakespeare
se.io/author/william-shakespeare) Online books (https://ftl.toolfor
ge.org/cgi-bin/ftl?st=wp&su=
Internet Shakespeare Editions (https://internetshakespear William+Shakespeare&library=
OLBP)
e.uvic.ca/) Resources in your library (http
s://ftl.toolforge.org/cgi-bin/ftl?
The Folger Shakespeare (https://shakespeare.folger.ed st=wp&su=William+Shakespea
u/) re)
Resources in other libraries (htt
Open Source Shakespeare (http://www.opensourceshake ps://ftl.toolforge.org/cgi-bin/ft
l?st=wp&su=William+Shakespe
speare.org/) complete works, with search engine and are&library=0CHOOSE0)
concordance By William Shakespeare
Online books (https://ftl.toolfor
The Shakespeare Quartos Archive (https://wayback.archiv ge.org/cgi-bin/ftl?at=wp&au=
William+Shakespeare&library=
e-it.org/org-467/20191016094633/http://quartos.org/)
OLBP)
Resources in your library (http
Works by William Shakespeare in eBook form (https://sta
s://ftl.toolforge.org/cgi-bin/ftl?
ndardebooks.org/ebooks/william-shakespeare) at at=wp&au=William+Shakespea
re)
Standard Ebooks
Resources in other libraries (htt
ps://ftl.toolforge.org/cgi-bin/ft
Works by William Shakespeare (https://www.gutenberg.o l?at=wp&au=William+Shakesp
rg/ebooks/author/65) at Project Gutenberg eare&library=0CHOOSE0)

Works by or about William Shakespeare (https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28%28su

bject%3A%22Shakespeare%2C%20William%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22William%20Sh
akespeare%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Shakespeare%2C%20William%22%20OR%20cr
eator%3A%22William%20Shakespeare%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Shakespeare%2
C%20W%2E%22%20OR%20title%3A%22William%20Shakespeare%22%20OR%20descript
ion%3A%22Shakespeare%2C%20William%22%20OR%20description%3A%22William%20S
hakespeare%22%29%20OR%20%28%221564-1616%22%20AND%20Shakespeare%29%2
9%20AND%20%28-mediatype:software%29) at the Internet Archive

Works by William Shakespeare (https://librivox.org/author/37) at LibriVox (public domain

audiobooks)
Exhibitions
Shakespeare Documented (https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/) an online
exhibition documenting Shakespeare in his own time

Shakespeare's Will (https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/+/https://www.nati

onalarchives.gov.uk/dol/images/examples/pdfs/shakespeare.pdf) from The National
Archives

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/)

William Shakespeare (https://www.bl.uk/people/william-shakespeare) at the British

Library. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20210923070227/https://www.bl.uk/peopl
e/william-shakespeare) 23 September 2021 at the Wayback Machine.

Music
Works by William Shakespeare set to music: free scores in the Choral Public Domain Library
(ChoralWiki)

Works by William Shakespeare set to music: Scores at the International Music Score Library
Project

Education
Shakespeare at Home (https://shakespeareathome.org/) an online resource providing
free educational resources on William Shakespeare and the Renaissance world. Activities
are dyslexia friendly and suitable for all ages.

Legacy and criticism

Records on Shakespeare's Theatre Legacy from the UK Parliamentary Collections (https://
www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/towncountry/towns/collectio
ns/collections-shakespeare/)

Winston Churchill & Shakespeare – UK Parliament Living Heritage (https://www.parliamen

t.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/yourcountry/collections/church
illexhibition/churchill-death/herbert-samuel/)

Portals: Biography England History Literature Theatre