Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

English poet and dramatist of the Elizabethan and early Jacobean period, probably the most widely known author in all English literature. His plays, the plots of most of which were derived from traditional medieval legend, contemporary chronicles, classic literature, and existent dramas of his own day, are distinguished by a more profound understanding and conception of character than is found in the work of other Elizabethan playwrights and by superior poetry of great delicacy, sensitivity, variety, and dramatic appropriateness.

His lyric and narrative poetry is closer to the conventional product of his time but, especially in his Sonnets and the songs from his plays, it is often marked by a combination of imagination, precision, and deep and sincere emotion that is lacking in similar work of his contemporaries.The following is a list of the accepted canon of Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays, arranged in the classification sometimes used, and followed by the dates generally agreed upon, by 20th century scholars:

Experiment

LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST (ca. 1590)
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS (ca. 1591)
TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA (ca. 1592)
KING HENRY VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3 (1592?)
THE TRAGEDY OF KING RICHARD III (ca. 1593)
ROMEO AND JULIET (ca. 1593)

Development

TITUS ANDRONICUS (1594)
THE TRAGEDY OF KING RICHARD II (ca. 1594)
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (ca. 1594)
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING JOHN (ca. 1594)
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE (ca. 1595)
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW (ca. 1596)
KING HENRY IV, Part 1 (1597?)
KING HENRY IV, Part 2 (1598?)
THE LIFE OF KING HENRY V (1599)
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR (1599?)
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (ca. 1599)
JULIUS CAESAR (1599)
AS YOU LIKE IT (ca. 1600)
TWELFTH NIGHT (1600?)

Tragedies

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL (ca. 1602)
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA (ca. 1602)
HAMLET (ca. 1602)
MEASURE FOR MEASURE (ca. 1604)
OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE (ca. 1604) KING LEAR (1605?)
MACBETH (1606?)
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA (1607?)
CORIOLANUS (ca. 1608)
TIMON OF ATHENS (ca. 1608)
PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE (ca. 1608)

Romances

CYMBELINE (1610?)
THE WINTER'S TALE (1610?)
THE TEMPEST (1611?)
THE FAMOUS HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF KING HENRY VIII (ca. 1611)

The most famous of these are Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar, and As You Like It. Shakespeare's nondramatic works are Venus and Adonis ( 1593), The Rape of Lucrece ( 1594), and his Sonnets ( 1609).

Beyond the fact that his birthplace was Stratford-on-Avon, that his father at one time was a butcher, that he was a player with the Lord Chamberlain's company, and that he lived for awhile as a country gentleman after his success in the theater, very little is known of Shakespeare's life; as a result, numerous writers have speculated on it and tried to find biographical significance in his works, especially his Sonnets. See W. H. There are also a great many curious theories ascribing Shakespeare's plays to other authors, notably Bacon.

He was popular in his own day and much admired by his contemporaries, but during the later 17th century and the 18th century his value as a poet and dramatist was minimized. In the period of Romanticism interest in him and his works was revived in the criticism of S. T. Coleridge, Charles Lamb, and William Hazlitt, and later Shakespearean enthusiasm grew to the point of adulation, with Germany and other European countries adopting the playwright as one of their own authors.