William Shakespeare

1. Born: 26 April, 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire.
2. Died: 23 April 1616. He was buried in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church. In his epigraph written: Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear,/To dig the dust enclosed here./Blessed the man that spares these stones,/And cursed be he that moves my bones.
3. At the age of 18, married Anne Hathway of 26 years..
4. Between 1585 and 1592, began a successful career in London as an actor and part-owner of a playing company called: LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S MEN, later konown as KING’S MEN. The actors in Shakespeare’s company included Richard Burbage, William Kempe, Henry Condell and John Heminges. Burbage played the leading role in the first performances of many of Shakespeare’s plays: Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear. Comic actor Will Kempe played the servant Peter in Romeo and Juliet and Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing
5. After 1594, his palys were performed only by Lord Chamberlain’s Men. 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.
6. In 1599, a partnership of members of the company built their own theatre on the south bank of the River Thames, which they named the Globe. In 1608, the partnership also took over the Blackfriars indoor theatre. In 1597, Shakespeare bought the second largest house in Stratford, New Palace.
7. Called England’s National Poet and “Bard of Avon”
8. Rowe was the first biographer to record the tradition, repeated by Johnson, that Shakespeare retired to Stratford “some years before his death.”
9. His first histories, which draw heavily on the 1587 edition of Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, dramatise the destructive results of weak or corrupt rule of Tudor Dynasty. The palys were influenced by Elizabethan dramatists especially Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe, Seneca.
10. His most of the plays were probably on the London Stage by 1592. Robert Greene in his Groats-Worth of Wit attacked Shakespeare of reaching above his rank and trying to match university educated as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe, and Green himself:
    • “… 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.”
    • The 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 “Shakes-scene” clearly identify Shakespeare as Greene’s target. Johannes Factotum (Jack of all trades) refers to a second rate thinker with the work of others, rather than the “Universal genius”
11. His most of known works were produced between 1589 and 1613. Early plays were comedies and histories. Then he wrote tragedies until 1608, in the last stage of his life he wrote tragicomedies.
12. 1623: Shakespeare’s two fellow actors and friends in King’s Men John Heminges and Henry Condell published a collection of his 36 dramatic works including 18 printed for the first time in First Folio. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Johnson, its epithet says, ” not of an age, but for all times.”

Plays

1. 1. Shakespeare’s works include the 36 plays printed in the First Folio of 1623: classified as Comedies, Histories, Tragedies.
   2. 2 plays not included in the first folio: The Two Noble Kinsmen and Pericles, Prince of Tyre.
   3. In the late 19th century, Edward Dowden classified four of the late comedies as romances, others called it tragicomedies.
   4. 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.
   5. Edmond Malone in 1778, have attempted to reconstruct the relative chronology of Shakespeare’s oeuvre using external critical materials. Most modern chronologies are based on the work of E.K. Chambers in ” The Problem of Chronology” (1930), published in Volume I of his book William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems
2. Chronology of Publishing
   1. The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1589-91)
      1. Date of composition: 1590-94 (5)
   2. The Taming of the Shrew (1590-91)
      1. Date of composition: 1590-94 (5)
   3. Henry VI, Part 2 (1591)
      1. Date of composition: 1590-92 (4)
   4. Henry VI, Part 3 (1591)
      1. Date of composition: 1590-93 (5)
   5. Henry VI, Part 1: Titus Andronicus (1591-92)
      1. Date of composition: 1588-92 (2)
   6. Richard III (1592-93)
      1. Date of composition: 1592 – 94 (7)
   7. Edward III (1592-93)
      1. Date of composition: 1590-95 (6)
   8. Comedy of Errors (1594)
      1. Date of composition: 1589-94 (3)
   9. Love’s Labour Lost (1594-95)
      1. Date of composition: 1588-97 (1)
   10. Love’s Labour Won (1595-96)
       1. Date of composition:
   11. Richard II (1595)
       1. Date of composition: 1595 – 96 (9)
   12. Romeo and Juliet (1595)
       1. Date of composition: 1594-96 (8)
   13. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595)
       1. Date of composition: 1595-96 (9)
   14. King John (1596)
       1. Date of composition: 1594 -96 (8)
   15. The Merchant of Venice (1596-97)
       1. Date of composition: 1596-97 (10)
   16. Henry IV, Part I (1596-97)
       1. Date of composition: 1596-97 (10)
   17. The Merry Wives of Windsor (1597)
       1. Date of composition: 1597-1601 (12)
   18. Henry IV, Part II (1597-98)
       1. Date of composition: 1597-98 (11)
   19. Much Ado About Nothing (1598-99)
       1. Date of composition: 1598-1600 (13)
   20. Henry V (1599)
       1. Date of composition: 1599 (15)
   21. Julius Caesar (1599)
       1. Date of composition: 1599-1600 (16)
   22. As You like It (1599 – 1600)
       1. Date of composition: 1598-1600 (14)
       2. Quotation:
          1. All the world’s a stage, and all men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts … – Act II, Scene 7
   23. Hamlet (1599-1601) (GATE)
       1. Date of composition: 1599- 1600 (17)
   24. Twelfth Night, or What You Will (1601) – Romantic Comedy
   25. Troilus and Cressida (1600-1602)
       1. Date of composition: 1601 – 02 (18)
   26. Sir Thomas More (1592-1595; shakespeare’s involvement, 1603-1604)
       1. Date of composition:
   27. Measure for Measure (1603 – 1604)
       1. Date of composition: 1603-04 (20)
   28. Othello (1603-1604) (GATE)
       1. Date of composition: 1603-04 (20)
   29. All’s Well That Ends Well (1604-1605)
       1. Date of composition: 1601-05 (19)
   30. King Lear (1605-1606)
       1. Date of composition: 1605-1606 (21)
   31. Timon of Athens (1605-1606)
       1. Date of composition: 1605-08 (22)
   32. Macbeth (1606) (GATE)
       1. Date of composition: 1606-07 (23)
   33. Antony and Cleopatra (1606)
       1. Date of composition: 1606-07 (23)
   34. Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1607-1608)
       1. Date of composition: 1606-08 (24)
   35. Coriolanus (1608)
       1. Date of composition: 1608 (25)
   36. The Winter’s Tale (1609-1611)
       1. Date of composition: 1609-11 (27)
   37. Cymbeline (1610)
       1. Date of composition: 1608-10 (26)
   38. The Tempest (1610-1611) – A tragic comedy
   39. Cardenio (1612-13)
       1. Date of composition: 1613 (30)
   40. Henry VIII (1612-1613)
       1. Date of composition: 1613 (30)
   41. The Two Noble Kinsmen (1613-1614)
       1. Date of composition: 1612-14 (29)

Criticism

1. 1. “He was not of an age, but for all time” – Ben Jonson
   2. 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 art)
   3. In 1598, the cleric and author Francis Meres singled him out from a group of English playwrights as “the most excellent” in both comedy and tragedy.
   4. Restoration critics ranked Shakespeare below John Fletcher and Ben Johnson. Thomas Rymer condemned Shakespeare for mixing the comic with the tragic.
   5. Poet John Dryden rated Shakespeare highly, saying of Jonson, “I admire him, but I love Shakespeare.”
   6. Samuel Johnson in 1765
   7. Edmund Malon in 1790
   8. by 18th and 19th Voltaire, Goethe, Stendhal, Victor Hugo Admired him.
   9. By Romantic age, S.T. Coleridge praised him
   10. August Wilhelm Schlegal translated his plays in the spirit of German Romanticism.
   11. In his eaasy “This King Shakespeare”, Thomas Carlyle wrote in 1840, ” does not he shine, in crowned sovereignty, over us all, as the noblest, gentlest, yet strongest of rallying sings; indestructible.”
   12. The playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw mocked the cult of Shakespeare worship as “bardolatry”, claimed that the new naturalism of Ibsen’s play had made Shakespeare obsolate. T.S Eliot argued Shaw that Shakespeare’s “primitiveness” in fact made him truely modern.
   13. Eliot along with G. wilson Knight and the school of New Criticism, led a movement towards a closer reading of Shakespeare.
   14. Harold Bloom wrote, “Shakespeare was larger than Plato and than St. Augustine. He encloses us because we see with his fundamental perceptions.”

Poems/Sonnets

1. 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. Inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the poems show the guilt and moral confusion that result from uncontrolled lust.
2. In 1599, two early drafts of sonnets 138 and 144 appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim, published under Shakespeare’s name but without permission.
3. Style
   1. Shakespeare’s standard poetic form was blank verse, composed in Iambic pentameter.
   2. A.C.Bradley describes this style as “more concentrated, rapid, varied, and, in construction, less regular, not seldom twisted or elliptical.”
4. Poems
   1. Venus and Adonis 1593
      1. taken from Ovid’s Metamorphosis
      2. describes the unsuccessful seduction of a handsome young man Adonis y Venus, the Goddess of Love
   2. Rape of Lucrece 1594
      1. derived from Ovid’s Fasti, Livy’s History of Rome and perhaps from Chaucer’s The Legend of good Women.
      2. Describes the rape of a virtuous woman Lucrece, the wife of Tarquinius’s friend, by the son of Tarquin.
   3. Shakespeare’s Sonnets 1594
      1. Quarto published i 1609 with 154 sonnets
      2. the first 17 sonnets are called Procreation sonnets
   4. Passionate Pilgrim 1598
      1. Printed in Robert chester’s 1601 Love’s Martyr, mourns the death of the legendary phoenix and his lover, the faithful turtle dove.
   5. Phoenix and the Turtle 1601
   6. A Lover’s Complaint 1609
5. Sonnets.
   1. Published in 1609, the sonnets  were the last of Shakespeare’s non-dramatic works to be printed. This edition was dedicated to Mr W.H, credited as “the only begetter of the poem”
   2. Even before the two unauthorized sonnets appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim in 1599, Francis Meres had referred in 1598 to Shakespare’s “sugred sonnets among his private friends”.
   3. 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 is not evident 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 unlocks his heart.”
   4. The

1. Shakespeare was born at stratford on Avon. Stratford was the name of the town where he was born and Avon was: A river on the bank  of which Stratford was situated
2. How many plays did Shakespeare write in all? 37
3. how many sonnets did Shakespeare write in all? 154.
4. What is Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonais? A Narrative Poem.
5. To whom did Shakespeare dedicate his first Narrative poem Venus and Adonais? Earl of Southampton.
6. Who called Shakespeare “an upstart crow beautified with our feather”? Robert Greene.
7. Who wrote the malicious pamphlet entitled “A Groat’s Worth of Wit Bought with a Million of Repentance.” against Shakespeare? Robert Greene.
8. Who ridiculed Shakespeare by saying that he knew “small Latin and less Greek”? Ben Johnson.
9. Who said. “Shakespeare has only heroines, and no hero”? Ruskin.
10. Dryden’s play All For love is based on one of the Shakespeare’s plays: Antony and Cleopatra.
11. The phrase “What’s in a name?” occurs in: Romeo and Juliet.
12. The title of the novel The Sound and Fury reminds us of Shakespeare’s: macbeth.
13. Aldous Huxley took the hint for the title of his novel Brave New World from Shakespeare’s: Tempest.
14. Shakespeare’s King Lear was given a happy ending by playwright: Nahun Tate **
15. Who has written Tales from Shakespeare? Charles Lamb.
16. In which play does Shakespeare attack the Puritans? Twelfth Night.
17. “Age can not wither her, nor custom stale.” About whom are these lines spoken? Cleopatra.
18. Imogen is the heroine of: Cymberline
19. Who is the author of the critical work Shakespeare’s Sonnets Reconsidered? Samuel Butler.
20. Who is the author of the Preface to Shakespeare? Dr Johnson.
21. Who has written the Critical book Character of Shakespeare’s plays: Hazlitt
22. name the play in which the hero dies at the end of the fourth act, but the play continues to the fifth act? Antony and Cleopatra.
23. Name the play in which the hero and the heroine die together: Romeo and juliet.
24. Which are Roman Plays of Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Titus Andronicus
25. “Sweet are the uses of adversity.” In which play the lines appear? As You Like It.
26. “Frailty, thy name is woman!” In which play does the line occur? Hamlet.
27. “Neither a borrower nor a lender be: For loan oft loses both itself and friend.” These lines occur in Hamlet. Who speaks these lines? Polonius.
28. “there’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.” quoted from? Hamlet.
29. “Cowards die many times before their death,/ The valiant never tasts of death but once” lines from: Julius Caesar
30. ” … Life’s a tale, / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.” lines from: Macbeth.
31. “ife’s but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, / And then is heard no more.” Lines from: Macbeth.
32. “the quality of mercy is not strained, / it dropped as the gentle rain from heaven./ Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed; / It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” – Whose speech is this? Portia’s.
33. “The lunatic, the lover, and the poet / Are of imagination all compact.” These lines are quoted from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Who speaks these lines? Theseus.
34. “This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, / This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, / This other Eden, demi-paradise.” Who expresses these lines in Richard II? John of Gaunt.
35. Who is the messanger of the Fairies in the Tempest? Ariel.
36. “We are such stuff / As dreams are made of, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep.” Who speaks these lines? Prospero
37. What is Rape of Lucrece? A Narrative Poem.
38. In which play does Hermione appear as the heroine? The Winter’s Tale.
39. “He was not of an age, but for all times; Nature herself was proud of his designs!” Who praises Shakespeare in these lines? Ben Johnson.
40. “Soul of the age! / The applause! delight! the wonder of our stage! / My Shakespeare rise. *** Who praises Shakespeare in these lines? Ben Johnson.
41. “He was the man, who of all modern an perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and the most comprehensive soul.” Whose observation is this? Dryden’s.
42. “Shakespeare is the grandest thing we have yet done … Indian Empire will go, at any rate, some day, but this Shakespeare does not go, he lasts for ever with us. We can not give up our Shakespeare.” Who holds the view? Carlyle.
43. “Other abide our question. Thou art free, / We ask and ask – thou smilest and thou still, / Out topping knowledge.” These lines written in praise of Shakespeare by: Matthew Arnold.
44. In which year were Shakespeare’s Sonnets published? 1609
45. For what is the phrase ‘The Mousetrap’ used by Shakespeare in Hamlet? The Play within the Play in Hamlet.
46. “Thou in our wonder and astonishment, / Has built thyself a live – long monument, / and so sepulcher’s in such pomp dost lie, the Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die,” Who praised Shakespeare in these words? Milton ***
47. “The greatest genius that perhaps human nature has yet produced, our myriad minded Shakespeare.” said Coleridge.
48. the last play written by Shakespeare: The tempest.
49. ” … the rarer action is / In virtue than in vengeance!” This is the summing up of Shakespeare’s philosophy of life. In which play does he express this philosophy? Tempest
50. ” … I’ll break my staff, / Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, / And deeper than did ever plummet sound, / I’ll drown my book.” In these words Shakespeare pronounces the ending of his dramatic career. In what play he says so: The Tempest.