DOCSLIB.ORG

William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) Lecture 13

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) Lecture 13 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564 – 1616) LECTURE 14 (A) BY ASHER ASHKAR GOHAR 1.5 CREDIT HRS. INTRODUCTION AND EARLY YEARS Considered the greatest English-speaking writer in history and known as England’s national poet, William Shakespeare (1564-1616) has had more theatrical works performed than any other playwright. To this day, countless theater festivals around the world honor his work, students memorize his eloquent poems and scholars reinterpret the million words of text he composed. They also hunt for clues about the life of the man who inspires such “bardolatry” (as George Bernard Shaw derisively called it), much of which remains shrouded in mystery. William Shakespeare stands above all other dramatists, a supreme genius whom it is impossible to characterize briefly. Shakespeare is unequaled as poet and dramatist, but he remains elusive. His capacity for assimilation—what the poet John Keats called his “negative capability”—means that his work is comprehensively accommodating. This means that every attitude or ideology finds its resemblance there yet also finds itself subject to criticism and interrogation. In part, Shakespeare achieved this by the total inclusiveness of his aesthetic, by putting clowns in his tragedies and kings in his comedies, juxtaposing public and private, and mingling the artful with the spontaneous; his plays imitate the counterchange of values occurring at large in his society. INTRODUCTION AND EARLY YEARS William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, a bustling market town 100 miles northwest of London, and baptized there on April 26, 1564. His birthday is traditionally celebrated on April 23, which was the date of his death in 1616 and is the feast day of St. George, the patron saint of England. Shakespeare’s father, John, dabbled in farming, wood trading, tanning, leatherwork, money lending and other occupations; he also held a series of municipal positions before falling into debt in the late 1580s. The ambitious son of a tenant farmer, John boosted his social status by marrying Mary Arden, the daughter of an aristocratic landowner. Like John, she may have been a practicing Catholic at a time when those who rejected the newly established Church of England faced persecution. William was the third of eight Shakespeare children, of whom three died in childhood. Though no records of his education survive, it is likely that he attended the well-regarded local grammar school, where he would have studied Latin grammar and classics. It is unknown whether he completed his studies or abandoned them as an adolescent to apprentice with his father. At 18 Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway (1556-1616), a woman eight years his senior, in a ceremony thought to have been hastily arranged due to her pregnancy. INTRODUCTION AND EARLY YEARS A daughter, Susanna, was born less than seven months later in May 1583. Twins Hamnet and Judith followed in February 1585. Susanna and Judith would live to old age, while Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died at 11. As for William and Anne, it is believed that the couple lived apart for most of the year while the bard pursued his writing and theater career in London. It was not until the end of his life that Shakespeare moved back in with Anne in their Stratford home. To the dismay of his biographers, Shakespeare disappears from the historical record between 1585, when his twins’ baptism was recorded, and 1592, when the playwright Robert Greene denounced him in a pamphlet as an “upstart crow”. This mocking phrase by Greene can be treated as evidence that Shakespeare had already made a name for himself on the London stage. What did the newly married father and future literary icon do during those seven “lost” years? Historians have speculated that he worked as a schoolteacher, studied law, traveled across continental Europe or joined an acting troupe that was passing through Stratford. According to one 17th-century account, he fled his hometown after poaching deer from a local politician’s estate. INTRODUCTION AND EARLY YEARS Whatever the answer, by 1592 Shakespeare had begun working as an actor, penned several plays and spent enough time in London to write about its geography, culture and diverse personalities with great authority. Even his earliest works display knowledge of European affairs and foreign countries, familiarity with the royal court and general learnedness that might seem unattainable to a young man raised in the provinces by parents who were probably illiterate. For this reason, some theorists have suggested that one or several authors wishing to conceal their true identity used the person of William Shakespeare as a front. Yet, majority of scholars and literary historians dismiss this hypothesis, although many suspect Shakespeare sometimes collaborated with other playwrights. It has also been conjectured that Shakespeare spent some time as a member of a great household and that he was a soldier, perhaps in the Low Countries. In lieu of external evidence, such extrapolations about Shakespeare’s life have often been made from the internal “evidence” of his writings. But this method is unsatisfactory: one cannot conclude, for example, from his allusions to the law that Shakespeare was a lawyer, for he was clearly a writer who without difficulty could get whatever knowledge he needed for the composition of his plays. OVERVIEW OF SHAKESPEARE’S OEUVRE Shakespeare occupies a position unique in world literature. Other poets, such as Homer and Dante, and novelists, such as Leo Tolstoy and Charles Dickens, have transcended national barriers, but no writer’s living reputation can compare to that of Shakespeare, whose plays, written in the late 16th and early 17th centuries for a small repertory theatre, are now performed and read more often and in more countries than ever before. His great contemporary, the poet and dramatist Ben Jonson, prophesized that Shakespeare “was not of an age, but for all time”. It may be audacious even to attempt a definition of his greatness, but it is not so difficult to describe the gifts that enabled him to create imaginative visions of pathos and mirth that, whether read or witnessed in the theatre, fill the mind and linger there. He is a writer of great intellectual rapidity, perceptiveness, and poetic power. Other authors have had these qualities, but with Shakespeare the keenness of mind was applied not to abstruse or remote subjects but to human beings and their complete range of emotions and conflicts. Many writers have attempted to apply their keenness of mind in the same way, but Shakespeare is astonishingly clever with words and images, so that his mental energy, when applied to intelligible human situations, finds full and memorable expression, convincing and imaginatively stimulating. OVERVIEW OF SHAKESPEARE’S OEUVRE As if this were not enough, the art form into which his creative energies went was not remote and bookish but involved the vivid stage impersonation of human beings, commanding sympathy and inviting vicarious participation. Thus, Shakespeare’s merits can survive translation into other languages and into cultures remote from that of Elizabethan England. Shakespeare lived at a time when ideas and social structures established in the Middle Ages still informed human thought and behaviour. An interplay of new and old ideas was typical of the time: official homilies exhorted the people to obedience; the Italian political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli was expounding a new, practical code of politics that caused Englishmen to fear the Italian “Machiavillain” and yet prompted them to ask what men do, rather than what they should do. This could be the reason due to which we see in Hamlet, disquisitions — on man, belief, a “rotten” state, and times “out of joint” — thus reflecting a growing disquiet and skepticism. The translation of Montaigne’s Essays in 1603 gave further currency, range, and finesse to such thought, and Shakespeare was one of many who read them, making direct and significant quotations in The Tempest. OVERVIEW OF SHAKESPEARE’S OEUVRE In philosophical inquiry the question “How?” became the impulse for advance, rather than the traditional “Why?” of Aristotle. And, therefore, we see that Shakespeare’s plays written between 1603 and 1606 unmistakably reflect a new, distrust prevalent in the Jacobean era (1603 – 1625). While Shakespeare was regarded as the foremost dramatist of his time, evidence indicates that both he and his contemporaries looked to poetry, not playwriting, for enduring fame. Shakespeare's sonnets were composed between 1593 and 1601, though not published until 1609. That edition, The Sonnets of Shakespeare, consists of 154 sonnets, all written in the form of three quatrains and a couplet that is now recognized as “Shakespearean”. It is interesting to note that in his poems and plays, Shakespeare invented thousands of words, often combining or contorting Latin, French, and native roots. His impressive expansion of the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, includes such words as: arch-villain, birthplace, bloodsucking, courtship, dewdrop, downstairs, fanged, heartsore, hunchbacked, leapfrog, misquote, pageantry, radiance, schoolboy, stillborn, watchdog, and zany. To be continued in Lecture 14 (B). Thank you!.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Shakespeare's Life Stratford Beginnings
    Shakespeare's Life Shakespeare Memorial Bust Shakespeare. Works. London, 1623 William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, on England’s Avon River. When he was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway. The couple had three children—their older daughter Susanna and the twins Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died in childhood. The bulk of Shakespeare’s working life was spent, not in Stratford, but in the theater world of London, where he established himself professionally by the early 1590s. He enjoyed success not only as a playwright, but as an actor and shareholder in an acting company. Sometime between 1610 and 1613, Shakespeare is thought to have retired from the stage and returned home to Stratford, where he died in 1616. Only two images of Shakespeare are considered reliable likenesses: the Martin Droeshout engraving in the 1623 First Folio, and Shakespeare’s memorial bust at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford. The Folger Reading Room includes a replica of that bust. Stratford Beginnings Surviving documents that give us glimpses into the life of William Shakespeare show us a playwright, poet, and actor who grew up in the market town of Stratford-upon-Avon, spent his professional life in London, and returned to Stratford a wealthy landowner. He was born in April 1564, died in April 1616, and is buried inside the chancel of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford. We wish we could know more about the life of the world's greatest dramatist. His plays and poems are testaments to his wide reading—especially to his knowledge of Virgil, Ovid, Plutarch, Holinshed's Chronicles, and the Bible—and to his mastery of the English language, but we can only speculate about his education.
    [Show full text]
  • Is the Proud Sponsor of Team Shakespeare. Barbara Gaines Criss Henderson Table of Contents Artistic Director Executive Director Preface
    is the proud sponsor of Team Shakespeare. Barbara Gaines Criss Henderson Table of Contents Artistic Director Executive Director Preface................................................................................................1 Art That Lives ..................................................................................2 Bard’s Bio...........................................................................................2 The First Folio..................................................................................3 Shakespeare’s England....................................................................4 The Renaissance Theater...............................................................5 Chicago Shakespeare Theater is Chicago’s professional theater Courtyard-style Theater .................................................................6 dedicated to the works of William Shakespeare. Founded as Timelines ...........................................................................................8 Shakespeare Repertory in 1986, the company moved to its seven- story home on Navy Pier in 1999. In its Elizabethan-style courtyard WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S TWELFTH NIGHT theater, 500 seats on three levels wrap around a deep thrust stage—with only nine rows separating the farthest seat from the Dramatis Personae ........................................................................10 DFWRUV&KLFDJR6KDNHVSHDUHDOVRIHDWXUHVDÁH[LEOHVHDWEODFN The Story.........................................................................................10
    [Show full text]
  • Classic Repertory Company STUDY GUIDE William Shakespeare’S ROMEO and JULIET
    classic repertory company STUDY GUIDE William Shakespeare’s ROMEO AND JULIET Education Outreach Supporters Funded in part by generous individual contributors, the National Endowment for the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Foundation for MetroWest, Esther B. Kahn Foundation, Fuller Foundation, The Marshall Home Fund, Peter Fuller Car Rentals, Roy A. Hunt Foundation, and Watertown Community Foundation. This program is also supported in part by grants from the Andover Cultural Council, Framingham Cultural Council, Hudson Cultural Council, Hull Cultural Council, Saugus Cultural Council, Waltham Cultural Council, Watertown Cultural Council, and Westford Cultural Council, local agencies which are supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. NEW REP ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE 400 TALCOTT AVENUE | BUILDING 131, 3RD FLOOR WATERTOWN, MA 02472 in residence at the artistic director michael j. bobbitt mosesian center for the arts A Timeline of Shakespeare’s Life 1564 Born in Stratford-upon-Avon 1582 Marries Anne Hathaway 1585 Moves to London to pursue theatre career 1592 London closes theatres due to plague 1593 Starts to write sonnets 1594 Publishes first works of poetry 1594 Starts managing, as well as writing for, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men 1596 Romeo and Juliet first performed 1599 Lord Chamberlain’s Men begin performing at the newly built Globe Theater 1603 The Lord Chamberlain’s Men is renamed the King’s Men in honor of the new King James’ patronage 1604 Retires from acting 1613 The Globe Theatre burns down 1614 The Globe Theatre is rebuilt 1616 Dies and is buried at Holy Trinity Church NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, LONDON PORTRAIT GALLERY, NATIONAL in Stratford-Upon-Avon C.1600 JOHN TAYLOR THE CHANDOS PORTRAIT, adapted from http://absoluteshakespeare.com/trivia/timeline.htm Biography William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564.
    [Show full text]
  • A Brief History of the Audience I Can Take Any Empty Space and Call It a Bare Stage
    A Brief History of the Audience I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged. —Peter Brook, The Empty Space The nature of the audience has changed throughout history, evolving from a participatory crowd to a group of people sitting behind an imaginary line, silently observing the performers. The audience is continually growing and changing. There has always been a need for human beings to communicate their wants, needs, perceptions and disagreements to others. This need to communicate is the foundation of art and the foundation of theatre’s relationship to its audience. In the Beginning ended with what the Christians called “morally Theatre began as ritual, with tribal dances and inappropriate” dancing mimes, violent spectator sports festivals celebrating the harvest, marriages, gods, war such as gladiator fights, and the public executions for and basically any other event that warranted a party. which the Romans were famous. The Romans loved People all over the world congregated in villages. It violence, and the audience was a lively crowd. was a participatory kind of theatre, the performers Because theatre was free, it was enjoyed by people of would be joined by the villagers who believed that every social class. They were vocal, enjoyed hissing their lives depended on a successful celebration—the bad actors off the stage, and loved to watch criminals harvest had to be plentiful or the battle victorious, or meet large ferocious animals, and soon after, enjoyed simply to be in good graces with their god or gods.
    [Show full text]
  • William Shakespeare 1 William Shakespeare
    William Shakespeare 1 William Shakespeare William Shakespeare The Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity unconfirmed. National Portrait Gallery, London. Born Baptised 26 April 1564 (birth date unknown) Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England Died 23 April 1616 (aged 52) Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England Occupation Playwright, poet, actor Nationality English Period English Renaissance Spouse(s) Anne Hathaway (m. 1582–1616) Children • Susanna Hall • Hamnet Shakespeare • Judith Quiney Relative(s) • John Shakespeare (father) • Mary Shakespeare (mother) Signature William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 (baptised) – 23 April 1616)[1] was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.[2] He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon".[3][4] His extant works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays,[5] 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, the authorship of some of which is uncertain. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.[6] Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at age 49, where he died three years later.
    [Show full text]
  • William Shakespeare His Life
    William Shakespeare His life. William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England in 1564. Nobody is exactly sure what date he was born but he was baptised on 26th April. In 1582, at age 18, he married Anne Hathaway and they went on to have three children, Hamnet Shakespeare, Susanna Hall and Judith Quiney. Shakespeare wrote 37 plays (though some experts think that it may have been more) which were either about history, comedies or tragedies. Some of his plays. • Hamlet • Macbeth • Romeo and Juliet • King Lear • Othello • The tempest • Julius Caesar • Twelfth night Wealth In his early years in London, Shakespeare did well. Between 1597 and 1605, he invested £900 in a series of increasingly ambitious purchases of real estate. To put in perspective, a good-sized house in Stratford could change hands for £30 and a Stratford headmaster’s annual salary was £20. Shakespeare had done so well, that when he was only thirty-three he became wealthy enough to buy the second biggest house in Stratford. His death It isn’t known how Shakespeare died but there is a theory that he died after contracting a fever following a drinking binge with fellow playwrights, Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton. Childhood Very little is known about William Shakespeare's childhood. He was born in the English city of Stratford-upon-Avon about 100 miles northwest of London in 1564. William's father was a successful leather merchant who once held the public position of alderman. He was the third of six children including two older sisters and three younger brothers.
    [Show full text]
  • Influences of Social Conventions
    Influences of Social Conventions By Super Students Mrs. Jestice English 1 May 9th, 2014 Background William Shakespeare • Born on April 16th 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. • Disappeared from records from Stratford-upon-Avon in 1587 • An English Poet and Playwright • Wrote and collaborated on over 38 plays, 154 sonnets, and several poems • Plays consisted of comedies, histories, tragedies, and romances Essential Question Are the social conventions of the period represented in Shakespeare’s work and, if so, how? Thesis The social conventions are reflected in William Shakespeare’s plays through Queen Elizabeth, Nobles and Commoners, and the social life and ladder throughout Queen Elizabeth's rein. How were nobles and commoners represented in Shakespeare’s work? Claim #1 Romeo and Juliet: Demonstrates how two people of different families or social classes could fall in love even though they are not supposed to fall in love. 1st Support Explanation Romeo represents the commoners and Juliet represents the Nobles, or vice verse, and how they were not supposed to fall in love, however, they did. Love’s Labour’s Lost is a comedy about a King and his three companions who decide not to be involved with women for three years. However, they do not keep the vow, and fall in love with others. 2nd Support In the comedy, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Shakespeare has a King and his three companions swear off the company of women for three years. The men fall in love with a Princess and her ladies. After the princess dies, the men fall in love with people they should not.
    [Show full text]
  • Othello Entire First Folio
    First Folio Teacher Curriculum Guide Othello by William Shakespeare directed by Michael Kahn August 30 — October 30, 2005 First Folio Teacher Curriculum Guide Table of Contents Page Number Welcome to the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production ofOthello by William Shakespeare! A Brief History of the Audience…………………….1 Each season, the Shakespeare Theatre Company About the Playwright presents five plays by William Shakespeare and other classic playwrights. The Education Department On William Shakespeare…………………………………3 continues to work to deepen understanding, Elizabethan England……………………………………….4 appreciation and connection to these plays and Shakespeare’s Works……………………………………….5 classic theatre in learners of all ages. One approach is Shakespeare’s Verse and Prose……………………..7 the publication ofFirst Folio: Teacher Curriculum A Timeline of Western World Events…….……...9 Guides. About the Play In the 2005•06 season, the Education Department Synopsis of Othello………..……………………………..10 will publish First Folio: Teacher Curriculum Guides for The Geography of Othello………………………..…11 our productions ofOthello, Comedy of Errors, Don Juan, The Persiansand Love’s Labor’s Lost. The Iago and the Problem of Evil………………..……..14 Guides provide information and activities to help “The Net that Shall Enmesh Them All”……….16 students form a personal connection to the play Who’s to Blame for Desdemona’s before attending the production at the Shakespeare Murder?...................................................................18 Theatre Company. First Folio guides are full of material about the playwrights, their world and the Classroom Connections plays they penned. Also included are approaches to • Before the Performance……………………………20 explore the plays and productions in the classroom Time Is On My Side before and after the performance.First Folio is The Psychology of Iago designed as a resource both for teachers and students.
    [Show full text]
  • Master William's Hamnet: a New Theory on Shakespeare's Sonnets
    Quidditas Volume 37 Article 8 2016 Master William’s Hamnet: A New Theory on Shakespeare’s Sonnets Juan Daniel Millán Mexico City Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/rmmra Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, History Commons, Philosophy Commons, and the Renaissance Studies Commons Recommended Citation Millán, Juan Daniel (2016) "Master William’s Hamnet: A New Theory on Shakespeare’s Sonnets," Quidditas: Vol. 37 , Article 8. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/rmmra/vol37/iss1/8 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Quidditas by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Quidditas 37 (2016) 85 Master William’s Hamnet: A New Theory on Shakespeare’s Sonnets Juan Daniel Millán Mexico City This essay suggests the Fair Youth in Shakespeare’s Sonnets is Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, to whom he later dedicated the cycle. Nevertheless, the larger claims of the essay are independent of the biographical details of Shakespeare’s life, and even independent of the particular ordering of the Sonnets as they have come down to us. Introduction to the Sonnets The 154 Sonnets were published in 16091. It has not been deter- mined exactly when they were written. The Sonnets are love poems, apparently written first to a man, then to a woman, neither of whom is ever named. The Sonnets were published with this dedication: TO . THE . ONLIE . BEGGETTER . OF . THESE . INSVING . SONNETS . Mʳ . W . H .
    [Show full text]
  • William Shakespeare
    William Shakespeare PDF generated using the open source mwlib toolkit. See http://code.pediapress.com/ for more information. PDF generated at: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 02:02:06 UTC Contents Articles Introduction 1 Main article 2 William Shakespeare 2 Life 25 Shakespeare's life 25 Plays 32 Shakespeare's plays 32 Shakespeare in performance 41 Poems 51 Shakespeare's sonnets 51 Style 60 Shakespeare's style 60 Influence 64 Shakespeare's influence 64 Critical reputation 69 Shakespeare's reputation 69 Timeline of Shakespeare criticism 77 Speculation about Shakespeare 86 Shakespeare authorship question 86 Shakespeare's religion 125 Sexuality of William Shakespeare 130 Portraits of Shakespeare 134 List of works 142 List of Shakespeare's works 142 Chronology of Shakespeare's plays 151 Shakespearean comedy 155 Shakespearean history 156 Shakespearean tragedy 158 Shakespeare Apocrypha 159 References Article Sources and Contributors 164 Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors 168 Article Licenses License 170 Introduction 1 Introduction Note. This book is based on the Wikipedia article, "William Shakespeare." The supporting articles are those referenced as major expansions of selected sections. 2 Main article William Shakespeare William Shakespeare The Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity unconfirmed. National Portrait Gallery, London. Born baptised 26 April 1564 (birth date unknown) Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England Died 23 April 1616 (aged 52) Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England Occupation Playwright, poet, actor Literary movement English
    [Show full text]
  • Cymbeline of Team Shakespeare
    Chicago ShakespeareTheater 800 EastGrandAvenue Chicago, IL 60611 on Nav y Pier cymbeline teacher handbook Shakespeare. of Team is theprincipalsponsor Table of Contents Preface 1 Barbara Gaines Art That Lives 2 Artistic Director Bard’s Bio 2 Criss Henderson The First Folio 3 Executive Director Shakespeare’s England 4 Early Modern Theater 5 Chicago Shakespeare Theater is Chicago’s professional theater Courtyard-style Theater 6 dedicated to the works of William Shakespeare. Founded as Timelines 8 Shakespeare Repertory in 1986, the company moved to its seven- story home on Navy Pier in 1999. In its Elizabethan-style Courtyard Theater, 500 seats on three levels wrap around a deep Shakespeare’s Cymbeline thrust stage—with only nine rows separating the farthest seat from Dramatis Personae 10 the stage. Chicago Shakespeare also features a flexible 180-seat The Story 10 black box studio theater, a Teacher Resource Center, and a Act-by-Act Synopsis 11 Shakespeare specialty bookstall. Something Borrowed, Something New 14 In its first 20 seasons, the Theater has produced nearly the entire Shakespeare’s Romances 15 Shakespeare canon: All’s Well That Ends Well, Antony and Cleopatra, From a Scholar’s Perspective: As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors, Cymbeline, Hamlet, Henry IV “Crooked Alchemies” 18 Parts 1 and 2, Henry V, Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3, Julius Caesar, King From a Scholar’s Perspective: John, King Lear, Love’s Labor’s Lost, Macbeth, Measure for Measure, The “Between the Lines” 19 Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night’s What the Critics Have Said 22 Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, Pericles, Richard II, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, Timon of Athens, Troilus and Cressida, Twelfth Night, The Two Gentlemen of A Play Comes to Life Verona, The Two Noble Kinsmen, and The Winter’s Tale.
    [Show full text]
  • Shakespeare, Stephen Hamnet
    October 14, 2013 Stephen Hamnet Shakespeare By Catherine L. Gowdy Stephen Shakespeare died in San Rafael Saturday morning, March 22nd, 1902, of pneumonia at the age of 67 years. A military service was held from the First Presbyterian Church Monday afternoon and the casket was taken to Mt. Tamalpais Cemetery on a caisson drawn by four horses and draped in the flag of the United States. The escort consisted of cadets from the Mt. Tamalpais Military Academy; a bugler sounded taps, and a firing squad of cadets fired a salute over the grave. His obituary describes him as well known and highly respected, quiet and unassuming, ready to help others. (Marin Journal, 3/27/1902, page 1) Shakespeare was held in such high esteem by the Academy that funds were raised and, about a year later, a ceremony was held at the cemetery for the “unveiling” of a monument to him. (Marin County Tocsin, April 25th, 1903) Research to learn more about Shakespeare’s ancestry has been interesting and Stephen has proved to be elusive. I have not found him on the 1850 census. He enlisted in the Civil War in Bourbon County, Kentucky in July of 1863. The record states that he was age 35, single, born in Delaware, and a druggist. Interestingly, a B. A. Shakespeare, age 34, also born in Delaware, single, and a druggist, enlists with him. This suggested to me that they might be brothers. Benjamin A. Shakespeare was a resident of Cantwells Bridge in New Castle County, Delaware in 1850, and was living in Bourbon County, Kentucky in 1860 where he was recorded on the census.
    [Show full text]