WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: BIOGRAPHY, GENRES AND STYLE - ARTE - 2025

William Shakespeare (c. 1564 - 1616) was an English playwright and poet. He is recognized as one of the greatest exponents of English literature and perhaps the most famous author in the entire history of mankind.

Shakespeare's fame is thought to have transcended the barriers of time like no other writer. Works like Romeo and Juliet are part of the popular imagination of Western civilization and continue to be represented all over the world.

John Taylor via Wikimedia Commons

Shakespeare settled in London in the late 16th century. There he began his adventures in the world of theater, as an actor and writer for one of the local companies known as Lord Chamberlain's Men, which would later go on to use the name of The King's Men.

Not much is known about his life, since no faithful biographical records were kept. However, it is known that he had a wife named Anne Hathaway with whom he conceived three children named Susanna, Hamnet and Judith.

His wife was also a native of Stratford, where Shakespeare retired three years before his death to a family estate called New Place. Due to the lack of information about his life, there was space for many speculations about his behavior, his appearance or his tastes.

It is considered that the success of his works lies in the fact that he managed to represent the feelings and behavior of men through characters that were attractive and sympathetic to the public, who do not find them completely alien to their own reality.

Shakespeare is believed to have been self-taught, in addition to the education he probably received at the Stratford school. However, it is possible that thanks to his love for reading he has come to know texts that were not common in his country during the time, but rather considered rare.

That was one of the elements that enriched his work, as he was influenced by a variety of authors from French and Italian to Spanish. That is why some of his works are set in distant landscapes, which were exotic for an Englishman of the time.

Biography

Early years

William Shakespeare, also written as Shaksper or Shake-speare, was born in Stratford-upon-Avon around 1564. His parents were John Shakespeare and Mary Arden.

The father was a bourgeois from the area who, in addition to participating in various commercial activities, was a councilor, a position then equivalent to that of mayor. While his mother was the daughter of a land-owning farmer. She had eight siblings of which she was the third.

Although the exact date of his birth is not known, there is a baptism record dating from April 26, 1564 in the parish of the Holy Trinity.

Some claim that he was born three days earlier, on April 23, which is the day of Saint George, however, it may be a mistake because this day coincides with his date of death.

It is widely considered that William Shakespeare attended Stratford's school, called King's New School.

This school was established approximately in 1553. Attendance to it was free for the children of the area, since the salaries were paid by the municipality and it was about 400 meters from their house.

The curriculum of the schools of the time included: standardized texts in Latin and grammar education based on the authors of the classical period, classical history, poetry and moralists.

Youth

At age 18 William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years older than him. The date that was recorded in the ecclesiastical act was November 28, 1582. Shakespeare's wife was born in Stratford and is related to a family who lived on a farm in the area.

On May 26 of the following year, Susanna, the couple's first daughter, was baptized. Two years later, on February 2, twins named Hamnet and Judith were baptized. Shakespeare's only male child did not reach adulthood since he died at 11 years of age.

As it is not known exactly what Shakespeare dedicated himself to before he made his mark on the London scene, much speculation has been raised about his early years. Some say he was a teacher, others a soldier or a cattle thief.

The period of time between 1585 and 1592 was given the name of "the lost years", because it is difficult to establish with certainty what was happening then in the life of William Shakespeare.

It is not known why Shakespeare decided to leave Stratford and move to London to later become one of the exponents of the capital's theater at the time.

London

The first document supporting William Shakespeare's activity in London was a review published in 1592 in Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit by the playwright Robert Green about a play in which the former participated:

"… An upstart rook, embellished with our feathers, who with his tiger heart wrapped in comedian's skin believes himself capable of impressing with a white verse like the best of you."

Then he went on to say that "it is considered the only shake-scene in the country." From Green's words it seems to indicate that Shakespeare was considered a careerist who put himself on the same level as higher-ranking actors and playwrights with a college education.

British Museum via Wikimedia Commons

It is considered that his career may have started from the middle of 1580 until the date of the publication of Green's text. By 1598 it was formally established in the parish of St. Helen, located in Bishopgate.

The time of prosperity

It has been argued that Shakespeare progressed economically from an early age, and that during his life he tried to get back to his family the status it had and even to climb the social ladder of England at the time.

In 1596 John Shakespeare, his father, received a coat of arms of which some sketches are preserved. The description of it indicated that it was a golden background with a band, sabers, a spear of the first steely silver. On the crest a falcon with outstretched wings.

It is believed that William Shakespeare was the one who paid the amount necessary to obtain and later maintain the family crest. Also, the following year he bought a property in Stratford called New Place.

Theater

Although it is not known exactly when Shakespeare's theatrical career began, it is considered that from 1594 he was already one of the main members, and one of the partners, of the theater company called Lord Chamberlain's Men, who a from 1603 they adopted the name of The King's Men after James I came to the British throne.

This company had among its members one of the best interpreters, Richard Burbage. They also presented their works in one of the best theaters in the city: The Globe. And finally they had Shakespeare as a playwright.

From then on, Shakespeare devoted himself entirely to the exercise of the theater as the company flourished every day and became profitable both financially and professionally. It is known that for 20 years in a row, the playwright turned body and soul into writing with unprecedented success.

It is believed that the influence of foreign works on the work of William Shakespeare gave it a touch that set it apart from the rest of the works of the time in London. That is why the public was attracted in a new way to the work he presented with his company.

Last years

According to authors Nicholas Rowe and Samuel Johnson, William Shakespeare decided to retire to Stratford some time before his death. He probably left the English capital in 1613, three years before his death.

In 1608 he was still working in London as an actor, but the following year the city was ravaged by the bubonic plague. The plague affected the art scene as theaters had to be closed for long periods of time.

Although he changed his address, Shakespeare did not completely withdraw from his theater work. He was visiting the capital constantly between 1611 and 1614.

It is thought that he collaborated during his last years with John Fletcher, who was the playwright of the company The King's Men, who took over after the death of William Shakespeare. However, there is no work attributed to the latter since 1613.

In his final years of activity, between 1610 and 1613, Shakespeare was not as productive as in previous decades, and few works were published.

William Shakespeare is believed to have spent his last years at New Place, his Stratford estate. This author's house was one of the largest in the entire area.

Death

William Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616, when he was 52 years old. The exact reason for his death is not known since it was not recorded in any document of the time.

Despite this, a few months ago he had signed his will in which he assured that he was in excellent health at the time the document was drawn up.

It is thought that he was the victim of a sudden fever, some sources say that it could be typhus. His wife, Anne Hathaway, survived him although there is speculation about the state of relations between them at the time of Shakespeare's death.

Susanna, his eldest daughter, was married since 1607 to John Hall, a physician. While Judith, the minor married Thomas Quiney a couple of months before Shakespeare's death.

In the will, William Shakespeare inherited his property to Susanna, but included a clause in which he had to pass the estate to the first male child she gave birth to.

However, none of Shakespeare's grandchildren had children, so the direct line ended.

Shakespeare's funerary monument, Holy Trinity Church, Stratford Upon Avon, England via Wikimedia Commons

Shakespeare was entombed in the Church of the Holy Trinity and the following message was placed in his epitaph:

Myths and truths about Shakespeare

Many were the myths that generated around the figure of William Shakespeare the lack of reliable data about his life and work. That void was filled with stories that in some cases do not correspond to reality and the evidence that has been found.

From the few records that were found of his life, around the 19th century, it was suggested that there was a possibility that Shakespeare was not the true author of his works, but that they could have been created by Edward de Vere, Francis Bacon or Christopher Marlowe.

However, those theories are also not supported in any document and are generally regarded as mere speculation.

Much has also been said about his personal creed. Although he came from a Catholic family on his mother's side, during Shakespeare's life it was forbidden to profess that religion in England.

But the author complied with all the rites of the Church of England in which he was baptized, where he married and in which he was buried.

His sexuality has also been widely debated, the author married Anne Hathaway very young, but during his career in London he lived for a time away from his family, except for occasional visits.

Some suggest that the writer was homosexual from his sonnets, others say that he was heterosexual, but had several lovers. However, there is no proof of any of the theories that have been put forward.

Style

Early in his career William Shakespeare began like many of the playwrights of the time, drawing inspiration from the structure that was common in London theater. It was based on the ability of its actors to recite deep speeches before the public.

But the playwright soon discovered that he could mix different styles to achieve a certain result in his work, as he did in Romeo and Juliet. Then, he began to apply the technique of white verse, with a regular meter and without rhyme. Later, he even dared to play with that structure.

He also liked to include many plots in his works to show all the points of view that there were of the same story. Another of the strengths of the Shakespearean work was the creation of characters with which they showed the different motivations of humans.

In addition, Shakespeare's characters generated an interesting link with the audience that could feel identified with them since they had complexity and were not simple archetypes as was the case in most of the works of the moment and in the classics.

Genders

William Shakespeare was primarily a playwright. Among the genres he addressed in the theater are mostly comedies, tragedies and stories. As time passed and his mastery of the pen grew, he made inroads into other genres such as poetry.

Much of his work was compiled into a play entitled First Folio, published by his friends and colleagues in the theater company Shakespeare worked for: John Hemminges and Henry Condell. It was a posthumous work published in 1623.

Although most of his fame was obtained by his work as a playwright, some sources claim that Shakespeare held his lyrical contributions in higher esteem than his works for the theater. Of these works the most important were his sonnets.

Theater

In his early works, like Titus Andronicus, the playwright borrowed many elements from a Thomas Kyd play called La tragedia española, which had been very successful in the 1580s. It maintained a classical structure, like that of Seneca's texts.

Thus arose to some extent the theme of revenge in the work of William Shakespeare, which would be repeated in the future, as was the case in Hamlet. In the structure of the revenge theater, basically, the central character must avenge some crime committed against one of his relatives.

The romantic comedy also played an important role in the early days of Shakespeare's career. One of the examples is that of The Knights of Verona. After that play, it would be one of the structures that the playwright made the most of due to the good reception that style had in the public.

His theater also introduced the element of multiple spotlights within the plot, with which the viewer can learn about the different points of view that each of the characters on stage have and not a fixed and one-sided vision of the events.

Shakespeare also experimented with another sub-genre that was very attractive at the time and it was that of historical performances. These were not framed in either of the two traditional genres, such as comedy or tragedy.

The historical representations tried to show the public how certain transcendental events for civilization or for the country had developed.

Poetry

Shakespeare took advantage of the time when the theaters in London were closed as a result of the plague that ravaged the city and published some poetry books with erotic themes.

One of them was called Venus and Adonis, in which the young Adonis did not correspond to the provocations of Venus. The other text was titled The Rape of Lucrecia, in which an exemplary wife is raped by a character named Tarquino.

Another of the lyrical texts that Shakespeare created was called The Complaint of a Lover, the latter accompanied the sonnets by the same author that were published in 1609. He also wrote the Phoenix and the Tortoise.

The exact date of creation of Shakespeare's sonnets is not known. The work includes 154 sonnets. It is known that they were shown privately by the author to his friends, but he had not decided to publish them for several years.

Among the themes that are addressed in the sonnets is the nature of love, passion, death and time. Many have tried to make deductions about Shakespeare's private life from this play, although it is not known whether its content was based on it.

The sonnets show the narrator's love for a young man who is in conflict over his passion for a dark-haired woman.

However, it could never be verified with an accurate source if either of these two characters really existed or if they were related to Shakespeare's feelings.

Apocryphal works

William Shakespeare collaborated with some writers during his career as a playwright, one of them was John Fletcher, who participated in the writing of The Two Noble Gentlemen and, probably, Henry VIII and Cardenio.

Also, it is believed that someone worked together with Shakespeare in the creation of Edward III. At that time it was common for writers to carry out two-handed works with other authors, so it is not surprising that a second writer has participated in several of their works.

Some of the works attributed to Shakespeare, but in which there is doubt of his authorship are:

- Locrine (1591–95).

- Sir John Oldcastle (1599–1600).

- Thomas Lord Cromwell (1599–1602).

- The London Prodigal (1603–05).

- The Puritan (1606).

- A Yorkshire Tragedy (1605–08).

- The Birth of Merlin (1662).

- The Second Maiden's Tragedy.

- Fair Em, the Miller's Daughter of Manchester (c.1590).

- Mucedorus (1598).

- The Merry Devil of Edmonton (1608).

- Arden of Faversham (1592).

- Sir Thomas More (1590).

Criticism of his work

The perception of the work of William Shakespeare was changed as time progressed in which critics approached the texts of the English author. Each century had a relatively different approach to the playwright's work.

The attacks

During his life he managed to gain recognition on the theatrical scene of the time, one of the contemporary critics with Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, considered that he had no rivals writing comedy in all history and that his tragedies were comparable with those of the Greeks.

At the same time, Jonson considered that he had no respect for the text when creating a setting since he mixed characters and locations in a single staging.

At the end of the seventeenth century, some thought that Shakespeare wrote for ignorant audiences and that they did not have the minimum decorum, therefore they had to be rewritten to correct all the errors they presented.

During the next century the works of the English were edited to purge them of their unseemly language and actions. Their plots that seemed too fanciful or improbable were criticized.

Words for posterity

When the romantic era arrived, the admiration for Shakespeare's work began, many began to consider him a genius and it was since then that he became the most prominent playwright in his country.

From the end of the 19th century, William Shakespeare was recognized as an author who had to be analyzed, interpreted and studied by the academy. Respect for his work and curiosity about his life was on the rise from then on.

Plays

Tragedy

- Antonio y Cleopatra (Antony and Cleopatra), between 1601 and 1608.

- Coriolanus (Coriolanus).

- King Lear (King Lear), between 1603 and 1606.

- Hamlet, probably published in the early seventeenth century.

- Julius Caesar (Julius Caesar), 1599.

- Macbeth, published between 1603 and 1606.

- Othello (Othello), circa 1603.

- Romeo and Juliet (The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet), between 1595 and 1596.

- Titus Andronicus (Titus Andronicus), circa 1593.

- Troilus and Cressida (Troilus and Cressida), 1602.

- Timon of Athens (Timon of Athens), circa 1607.

Comedy

- To a good end there is no bad weather (All's Well That Ends Well), between 1601 and 1608.

- Cymbeline (Cymbeline) circa 1609.

- Como gustéis (As You Like It), between 1599 and 1600.

- The Merchant of Venice.

- A Midsummer Night's Dream, circa 1595.

- The Comedy of Errors, between 1592 and 1594.

- The Taming of the Shrew.

- The Merry Wives of Windsor.

- The Tempest.

- Los dos hidalgos de Verona (The Two Gentlemen of Verona).

- Measure for Measure.

- Much Ado About Nothing (Much Ado About Nothing).

- Twelfth Night, between 1600 and 1601.

- The Winter's Tale, between 1594 and 1611.

Historical drama

- King John (1595-1598).

- Richard II.

- Henry IV, part 1 (1598).

- Henry IV, part 2 (1600).

- Henry V (1599).

- Henry VI, Part 1 (1623).

- Henry VI, Part 2 (1623).

- Henry VI, Part 3 (1623).

- Richard III (circa. 1593).

- Henry VIII (1635).

Other works

- Sonnets.

- Venus and Adonis.

- The Rape of Lucrecia

Influence

The impact that William Shakespeare's work has had on Western culture is unmatched. His works have been adapted many times, they have been represented at different times, in a traditional way and with arrangements.

In addition, it has inspired artists to create different audiovisual and literary pieces around the globe, not to mention its relevance in the world of tables.

In the theater

The influence of the dramaturgy of William Shakespeare was very important for the theater that was carried out after its passage through the genre. The Englishman was one of the first to integrate the character with the story that was being told.

Likewise, he was one of the first to create the romantic tragedy, with Romeo and Juliet, one of the most famous works to date. Before that romance was not a common element in a tragedy.

On the screen

First cinematographic representations

- The Taming of the Shrew (The Taming of the Shrew, 1929).

- A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935).

- Romeo and Juliet (Romeo and Juliet, 1936).

- As You Like It (As You Like It, 1936).

- Enrique V (The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fifth with His Battle Fought at Agincourt in France, 1945).

- Macbeth (1948).

- Hamlet (1948).

50's

- Othello (The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice, 1952).

- Julius Caesar (Julius Caesar, 1953).

- Romeo and Juliet (Romeo and Juliet, 1954).

- Richard III (Richard III, 1955).

- Othello (Otello, 1956).

- Forbidden Planet (Forbidden Planet, 1956).

- Throne of blood (Kumonosu jô, 1957).

60's

- Love without barriers (West Side Story, 1961).

- Hamlet (Gamlet, 1963).

- Hamlet (1964).

- Chimes at midnight (1965).

- The Taming of the Shrew (The Taming of the Shrew, 1967).

- Romeo and Juliet (Romeo and Juliet, 1968).

- King Lear (Korol Lir, 1969).

70's

- King Lear (King Lear, 1971).

- Macbeth (1971).

80's

- The Tempest (Tempest, 1982).

- Ran (1985).

- King Lear (King Lear, 1987).

- Enrique V (Henry V, 1989).

90's

- Romeo and Juliet (Romeo-Juliet, 1990).

- Hamlet (1990).

- The books of Prospero (Prospero's Books, 1991).

- My Private Idaho (My Own Private Idaho, 1991).

- As You Like It / As You Like It (As You Like It, 1992).

- Much ado about nothing (Much Ado About Nothing, 1993).

- The Lion King (The Lion King, 1994).

- Othello (Othello, 1995).

- Richard III (Richard III, 1995).

- Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (Romeo + Juliet, 1996).

- Hamlet (1996).

- In search of Ricardo III (Looking for Richard, 1996).

- Shakespeare in love (Shakespeare in love, 1998).

- 10 reasons to hate you (10 Things I Hate About You, 1999).

- A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1999).

- Titus (1999).

XXI century

- Lost labor of love (Love's Labor's Lost, 2000).

- Hamlet (2000).

- The Merchant of Venice (The Merchant of Venice, 2004).

- Coriolanus (2011).

- Much Ado About Nothing (2011).

References

1. En.wikipedia.org. (2019). William Shakespeare. Available at: en.wikipedia.org.
2. Bew Spencer, T., Russell Brown, J. and Bevington, D. (2018). William Shakespeare - Facts, Life, & Plays. Encyclopedia Britannica. Available at: britannica.com.
3. Lee, S. (1908). A life of William Shakespeare. London: Macmillan & Company.
4. Shakespeare, W. (2007). The complete works of William Shakespeare. Ware: Wordsworth Edition Limited.
5. Bengtsson, F. (2019). William Shakespeare - The Core Curriculum. College.columbia.edu. Available at: college.columbia.edu.
6. Rsc.org.uk. (2019). William Shakespeare's life and times - Royal Shakespeare Company. Available at: rsc.org.uk.