When we speak of publishing, we now think almost exclusively of the printed word. With Shakespeare it was not so; for him the term meant no more than "making public." Thus, King Lear proposes to "publish" his daughters' different dowries: he does so by announcing his decisions publicly to the court. Similarly, performance was the publication that Shakespeare sought for his plays, and with it he seems to have been entirely content.
For two poems, he had a different attitude. He published in print his Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594) at... Each age re-creates Shakespeare in its own image, thereby renewing his works with a tremendous vitality. It should therefore not be surprising to learn that there are whole books devoted solely to listing books and articles on a single play and that there is scarcely a play of Shakespeare that does not have a book devoted to it. Since criticism goes out of date so quickly, such a ferment of ideas and opinions about Shakespeare is all to the good. Each national culture and ethnic group has its own special ideas and vested interests in Shakespeare, as the annual international bibliography in...
Shakespeare is the measure of many things, among them the critic. Just as actors and directors must cut their teeth on Shakespeare, so the dramatic critic must sharpen his discrimination on him. That is to say, there is no way of being a serious theater critic without having evolved a set of criteria based on what one thinks can or cannot be done to Shakespeare. This is particularly true today, when "director's theater" is having its anarchic heyday and when every stage director who wishes to be a playwright—or who wants to make a name for himself by rewriting a few masterpieces —must...
"I have had a most rare vision." Bottom's confusion of dreaming and waking, his mixture of biblical theology (quoting the Epistles of St. Paul and St. John, if with some confounding of the senses) with the activity of the more sinister world within the play—all this corresponds to the two poles of the comedy, the joyful reconciliation of the alienated lovers and the dark exploration of a supernatural world shot through with aggression and malice. Puck does well in the end to reveal his allegiance to "the triple Hecate," while "following darkness like a dream."
One of the questions I'm often asked is which Shakespearean play interests me the most. I find that difficult to answer because my experience has been that the play I'm working on at a given time is the one that most thoroughly engages my attention. For me, and I suspect for most directors, it is work on a play that makes it interesting. It seems to expand into a universe of its own, so that at that time no other play seems to matter. This doesn't mean, of course, that work on one play excludes consideration of all other plays, because one of the things I've always felt is that when you're...
Sometime around the turn of the seventeenth century, William Shakespeare sat down at his worktable to continue writing a play of revenge that he would call simply The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. The title would attract audiences familiar with an earlier, popular melodrama on the same subject. Although he had worked his way into the third act, Shakespeare felt uneasy about his protagonist. Hamlet had taken on a complexity that an actor, even the great Richard Burbage, perhaps could not clarify for the spectators. Indeed, Shakespeare had created a problem for...
Shakespearean scholarship has for over 300 years endeavored to recover and to describe Shakespeare's scholarship. Its history may appropriately begin and end, therefore, with Love's Labor's Lost, in which the King of Navarre tells Berowne that "study's godlike recompense" is "that to know which else we should not know," and Berowne retorts, "Things hid and barred, you mean, from common sense?" (I. i. 55-58). The young men of Navarre hope to become "heirs of all eternity" (I. i. 7), and through them Shakespeare expresses both the poignancy and the absurdity of Renaissance academic...
The history of Shakespearean criticism can be divided into three phases. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, dominated by neoclassical values, critics saw Shakespeare at first as the noble savage, nature's artless child; then, as the era waned, his irregularity waned with it, his art found its roots in nature, and his judgment was discovered to be no less mighty than his genius. In the nineteenth century, roughly from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Andrew Bradley, Bardolatry bloomed. Attention, often reverent, focused on the plays' unity, now perceived to be organic, and on the...
In this sonnet by William Shakespeare, first published in 1609, the speaker’s extreme anguish concerning his “state” piques his audience’s curiosity, which is further heightened by the repetition of this word in lines 2, 10, and 14. Is he “outcast” because of his physical, mental, or emotional condition? his fortune or social rank? his rejection from a lover, or from society? his sexual orientation? It is tempting to read Shakespeare’s own life into “Sonnet 29” and consider his sometime unhappiness with his life in the theater, or his alleged bisexuality; but one must always bear in mind that the sonnets have never proven to be autobiographical. Though the cause of the speaker’s pain remains a mystery, his cure is revealed: his religious devotion to another mortal, not a higher being such as God, transports him to Edenic bliss.
Text of the Play Index Dramatis Personae Act I, Scene 1 Act II, Scene 1 Act III, Scene 1 Act III, Scene 2 Act III, Scene 3 Act III, Scene 4 Act IV, Scene 1 Act IV, Scene 2 Act IV, Scene 3 Act V, Scene 1 Act V, Scene 2 Act V, Scene 3 Act V, Scene 4 Act V, Scene 5 Act V, Scene 6 Act V, Scene 7
SCENE 3. The same.
[Alarums, Excursions, Retreat. Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, ARTHUR,
the BASTARD, HUBERT, and LORDS.]
KING JOHN.
[To ELINOR] So shall it be; your grace shall stay behind,
So strongly guarded.--
[To ARTHUR] Cousin, look not sad;
Thy grandam loves thee, and thy uncle will
As dear be to thee as thy father was.
ARTHUR.
O, this will make my mother die with grief!
KING JOHN.
Cousin [To the BASTARD], away for England; haste before:
And, ere our coming, see thou shake the bags
Of hoarding abbots; imprison'd angels
Set at liberty: the fat ribs of peace
Must by the hungry now be fed upon:
Use our commission in his utmost force.
BASTARD.
Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back,
When gold and silver becks me to come on.
I leave your highness.--Grandam, I will pray,--
If ever I remember to be holy,--
For your fair safety; so, I kiss your hand.
ELINOR.
Farewell, gentle cousin.
KING JOHN.
Coz, farewell.
[Exit BASTARD.]
ELINOR.
Come hither, little kinsman; hark, a word.
[She takes Arthur aside.]
KING JOHN.
Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hubert,
We owe thee much! within this wall of flesh
There is a soul counts thee her creditor,
And with advantage means to pay thy love:
And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath
Lives in this bosom, dearly cherished.
Give me thy hand. I had a thing to say,--
But I will fit it with some better time.
By heaven, Hubert, I am almost asham'd
To say what good respect I have of thee.
HUBERT.
I am much bounden to your majesty.
KING JOHN.
Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet:
But thou shalt have; and creep time ne'er so slow,
Yet it shall come for me to do thee good.
I had a thing to say,--but let it go:
The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day,
Attended with the pleasures of the world,
Is all too wanton and too full of gawds
To give me audience:--if the midnight bell
Did, with his iron tongue and brazen mouth,
Sound on into the drowsy race of night;
If this same were a churchyard where we stand,
And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs;
Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,
Had bak'd thy blood and made it heavy-thick,
Which else runs tickling up and down the veins,
Making that idiot, laughter, keep men's eyes,
And strain their cheeks to idle merriment--
A passion hateful to my purposes;--
Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes,
Hear me without thine ears, and make reply
Without a tongue, using conceit alone,
Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words,--
Then, in despite of brooded watchful day,
I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts:
But, ah, I will not!--yet I love thee well;
And, by my troth, I think thou lov'st me well.
HUBERT.
So well that what you bid me undertake,
Though that my death were adjunct to my act,
By heaven, I would do it.
KING JOHN.
Do not I know thou wouldst?
Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye
On yon young boy: I'll tell thee what, my friend,
He is a very serpent in my way;
And wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread,
He lies before me: dost thou understand me?
Thou art his keeper.
HUBERT.
And I'll keep him so
That he shall not offend your majesty.
KING JOHN.
Death.
HUBERT.
My lord?
KING JOHN.
A grave.
HUBERT.
He shall not live.
KING JOHN.
Enough!--
I could be merry now. Hubert, I love thee;
Well, I'll not say what I intend for thee:
Remember.--Madam, fare you well:
I'll send those powers o'er to your majesty.
ELINOR.
My blessing go with thee!
KING JOHN.
For England, cousin, go:
Hubert shall be your man, attend on you
With all true duty.--On toward Calais, ho!
1564: William Shakespeare is born in Stratford-upon-Avon. His notice of baptism is entered in the parish register at Holy Trinity Church on April 26th. While the actual date of his birth is not known, it is traditionally celebrated on April 23rd.
1571: Shakespeare probably enters grammar school, seven years being the usual age for admission.
1575: Queen Elizabeth visits Kenilworth Castle, near Stratford. Popular legend holds that the eleven-year-old William Shakespeare witnessed the pageantry attendant on the royal progress and later...
Brief Biography:In his dramatic works, Shakespeare has provided insights into human nature which, in the opinion of many of his disciples, equal those of the greatest modern psychologists. The impact of the Bard's insights is compounded by a masterful use of the language which makes him the mostly widely studied English writer.
Church records indicate that William Shakespeare was baptised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire on April 26, 1564. April 23 is widely accepted as his date of birth. His father was a respected tradesman (a glover who was involved in a variety of commercial activities) who held several important municipal offices.
Shakespeare was probably educated at the local grammar school. He would have viewed local theatrical productions by groups of travelling players. When he was eighteen he married the twenty-six year old Anne Hathaway. In May of 1583 she gave birth to their first daughter, Susanna. In 1585, twins, named Hamnet and Judith, were born. Shortly thereafter, Shakespeare left Stratford. It is speculated that he was fleeing prosecution for poaching deer on the property of a local nobleman.
By about 1587 he had arrived in London and begun his career as an actor and playwright. His success earned him the jealousy of rivals such as Richard Greene who condemned him as "an upstart crow" in 1592.
In 1594, Shakespeare joined The Chamberlain's Men, a theatrical company which enjoyed the patronage of the royal court. It is believed that he was instrumental in enabling his father to receive a grant of arms from the College of Heralds in 1596. The following year he purchased New Place, one of the largest houses in Stratford. He was one of the proprietors of the Globe Theatre which was built in 1599.
Although he continued to contribute to the theatre in London until 1614, Shakespeare moved back to Stratford in 1610. He died on April 23, 1616 of a fever contracted after an evening of entertaining fellow writers, Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton, in his home.
|
