Shakespeare's Works - PDF

SHAKESPEARE William Shakespeare, born in 1564 and baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, had a modest early life with little documented about his childhood. He was the eldest of eight children and attended a local grammar school where he studied classical authors. At 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with who...

SHAKESPEARE William Shakespeare, born in 1564 and baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, had a modest early life with little documented about his childhood. He was the eldest of eight children and attended a local grammar school where he studied classical authors. At 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children. In 1584, he moved to London, where he gained recognition as a playwright rather than an actor. He became a shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which later became the King’s Men under King James I. His works spanned various genres, including comedies, histories, and tragedies, totaling around 37 plays and 150 poems. He retired to Stratford and died in 1616. His plays were posthumously published in 1623 in the “First Folio,” which grouped them into comedies, tragedies, and histories. Shakespeare’s language innovations have left a lasting impact on English, with many words and phrases he coined still in use today. Shakespeare's sonnets were probably written in the 1590s, but were rst published in 1609 in a small quarto edition about the size of a modern paperback. They were dedicated to W.H., whose identity remains a mystery - although William Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke, is frequently suggested because Shakespeare's First Folio was also dedicated to him. We know little about their composition, but since their rst appearance, they have inspired many other poets and artists. The 154 sonnets are both traditional and experimental. Shakespeare plays with the conventions of Elizabethan love poetry and is not afraid to rewrite them. He wrote the sonnets when the vogue for sonneteering was already declining, so his poems express nostalgia for the form as well as a desire to reinvent it. Not only did he modify the structure of the sonnet, he also reimagined its linguistic possibilities, creating new metaphors that responded to the changing political and economic climate of his times. It is also signi cant that one of the 'lovers' is male. It provides a complex exploration of gender and sexuality that challenges the conventions. The Fair Youth: Sonnets I to CXXVI are devoted to a young man. They explore a variety of themes, such as: beauty and its decay; competition with a rival poet; despair due to the absence of the lover; the destructive power of time; and the permanence of poetry. In Sonnets I to XVIII, the poet tries to convince the young man to marry and preserve his virtues through children. The Dark Lady: Sonnets CXXVII to CLIV focus on a woman who, though not physically pleasing, is irresistibly attractive. We do not know whether the poems are expressing Shakespeare's personal feelings. We know too little about Shakespeare's personal life to be sure that the poetic persona who speaks is Shakespeare himself. In fact, he seems to play with the reader by frustrating any attempt to map the precise relationship between the poet and the two mysterious gures the sonnets are addressed to: the Fair Youth and the Dark Lady. Shakespeare changed both the rhyme scheme and the layout of the sonnet (G 3.6), but his greatest contribution is in what his poems said. Not only is the choice of addressees a novelty, but the traditional love poems praising a woman's worth and beauty are addressed to a young man, while those devoted to a woman are negative or unconventional. The sonnets are also unique in their analysis of emotions and behaviour: perhaps Shakespeare's experience as a dramatist had made him more aware of the complexity and range of human emotions. SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS Shakespeare used a mix of verse and prose in his plays to show the social status of his characters. Characters from the lower classes spoke in prose, while noble characters used iambic pentameter, which was extremely popular at the time. Shakespeare liked to experiment with iambic pentameter and played around with the rhythm, to make his characters' speeches more effective. Shakespeare did not take his fi fi fi fi  characters from just one social class. Still, hierarchy forms the background of every play. From the king or duke, the list descends to nurses, rustics and servants. Another important feature is the importance of family ties: parents and children, brothers and sisters. These relationships often occur in contrasting form, suggesting rivalry or a con ict between the generations. There are often symmetries: three lords and three ladies, two families, two lovers, two brothers. The plays were performed in daylight with little to no scenery, so Shakespeare had to evoke mythical islands, the streets of Verona, or a cold Scottish castle through language alone. A wide variety of rhetorical gures, like similes, metaphors and 'image clusters' (recurrent groupings of metaphors and similes) characterise Shakespeare's works. Some plays have characteristic image motifs - for example, light and dark in Romeo and Juliet, or blood in Macbeth. These contribute to the development of their themes and de ne their tones. ROMEO AND JULIET Shakespeare chose Verona as the setting of this play because, to an Elizabethan audience, Italy was a place of mysterious murderous feuds and passionate love affairs. It was also seen as a fashionable and sophisticated country because of its important artistic and intellectual achievements. However, apart from the setting, the manners and the attitudes shown are those typical of Elizabethan England. Romeo Montague is presented in the rst act as a man belonging to the 'courtly love convention'. His adoration is intense and he respects a lady who is chaste and impossible to be with. Juliet Capulet is beautiful, kind, loving and determined. Her rst meeting with Romeo causes her to move quickly towards maturity. She shows her independence and strength in her spontaneous declarations of love and desire for Romeo. She is not an idealised character; she is a real woman. She is put in impossible situations by her family and Romeo, and she is not afraid of making brave decisions. Her suicide requires more determination than Romeo's, because while he swallows poison, she stabs herself with a dagger. The prologue gives the outcome of the play and the main themes. Love, fate and death - Romeo and Juliet are 'star-crossed lovers', meaning that their love will end tragically as the result of a sequence of missed chances and characters relying on incomplete knowledge. Age and youth - The gap between the parents and children causes confusion, misunderstandings and mistakes throughout the play. Shakespeare emphasises this difference by making the young lovers very young, while exaggerating how old their parents are. During the course of the play, the children seem to get more rebellious as they try to ght to stay together. Their secret marriage may seem very romantic, but it also means going against the wishes of their parents and breaking away from their families. In the rst act, Romeo uses the image of light, typical of courtly love. He compares Juliet to the light of torches. In the balcony scene, he compares her to sunlight, daylight, and the light that shines from angels. From the second act onwards, there is a progression towards darkness, which becomes one of the central images. HAMLET All tragedies derived from the Greek plays; then Seneca set the rules for revenge tragedies. They always include a sexual or violent crime that is committed against a family member of the hero. The perpetrator cannot be punished, for various reasons, by laws or institutional justice, so the hero has to carry out the revenge. He usually has a period of doubt, which involves complex planning. Other common features include the appearance of a ghost and the hero's close relationship with the audience through soliloquies and asides. He places himself outside the normal moral order of things, and often becomes more isolated as the play progresses - an isolation which may turn into madness. There is bloody action and many deaths. In Hamlet, Shakespeare largely followed these conventions while analysing them at the fl fi fi fi fi fi fi  same time. In addition, the play includes a lot of psychological insight, through the re ections of the hero, his relationship with the outside world, his doubts and uncertainty. Hamlet is very talkative. He has the most lines in a single play of all Shakespearean characters. The most striking characteristic of his language is its ambiguity. Everything he says is conveyed through metaphor, simile and, above all, wordplay. His words have a hidden meaning; his speeches are ambiguous - just like the ambiguous feelings which drive them. He spends much of the play complaining about the fact that he has to play roles that he does not believe in. He is the (non-)avenger in a revenge play, the (non-)heir to the throne, the (non-)lover of the heroine, the (non-)son to the (non-)father. Hamlet fails to keep his promise to his father to avenge his murder until the nal act. Most critics have drawn the conclusion that the main cause of the whole tragic train of events is Hamlet's habit of delaying things. Hamlet himself is confused by his inability to act quickly. He says he is af icted by a form of depression, which was called 'melancholy' in Shakespeare's day. The shock Hamlet receives at his father's death and his mother's remarriage causes his melancholy. Life changes its meaning; love is deprived of its spirituality, a woman of her prestige, and the state of its stability. Hamlet sees a disease that spreads from man to the kingdom, from the kingdom to the universe. His constant doubt about his role as avenger also expresses his rejection of a barbaric way of life - whose corruption, injustice and inhumanity he nds intolerable. Shakespeare lets Hamlet avenge his father in the end, but he does it impulsively because of anger. Hamlet could be read simply as a revenge tragedy. However, Shakespeare also develops a series of themes that are central to humanity, such as family and love relationships, madness, action and inaction, the corruption linked to power, the existence of God, life after death, and the meaning of the theatre itself. A major question is the relation between appearance and reality': how does one separate what appears to be real or absolute from what actually is so? Truth seems to be in the 'existential idea that the only truth that individual man knows is that he exists. Another important theme is 'honour'. Shakespeare makes it clear that any action to correct a wrong should be reasoned, not emotional. Justice is nally reached through the various deaths and the ascent of Fortinbras to the throne. TO BE OR NOT TO BE 1. Who is Hamlet talking to? What does he wonder? Hamlet is speaking to himself in a soliloquy. He wonders whether it is better to endure the su ering of life or to end it through death. 2. What do the verbs ‘su er’ and ‘take arms’ mean? Su er: To endure pain or hardship passively, without ghting back. Take arms: To resist or ght against something actively, symbolizing rebellion or confrontation. 3. What solution does he nd? Why is it desirable? The solution Hamlet considers is death, which he views as a way to end the pain and troubles of life. It is desirable because it promises rest and freedom from the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” 4. What obstacle does he nd? The obstacle is the uncertainty of what happens after death, “the undiscovered country.” Hamlet fears the possibility of eternal su ering or an unknown existence, which makes him hesitate to end his life. 5. What is the ‘mortal coil’? The “mortal coil” refers to the burdens, troubles, and chaos of human life—essentially, the struggles that come with living. 6. What are the miseries and injustices man has to bear? fl fl ff ff fi ff fi fi ff fi fi fi fi Hamlet lists several: The oppression of rulers (“the oppressor’s wrong”) The insults of arrogant men (“the proud man’s contumely”) Unrequited love (“the pangs of despised love”) Delays in justice (“the law’s delay”) The abuse of power (“the insolence of o ce”) The ingratitude of others (“the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes”). 7. What could bring relief to man? Relief could come from death, which Hamlet equates to sleep—a state where all troubles cease. 8. What does Hamlet compare the afterlife to? Hamlet compares the afterlife to an “undiscovered country,” a mysterious and uncharted place from which no one has returned. 9. How does this thought a ect man’s attitude to life? The fear of the unknown afterlife causes people to endure their current su ering rather than risk something potentially worse. It leads to inaction and acceptance of life’s burdens. 10. What does ‘conscience’ mean here? In this context, “conscience” refers to self-awareness and moral reasoning. It is the inner voice that makes people consider the consequences of their actions. 11. What is the e ect of awareness on man? Awareness (or conscience) makes people overthink and hesitate. It “does make cowards of us all,” as Hamlet says, leading to inaction and the continuation of su ering rather than taking bold steps to change their fate. ff ff ffi ff ff