age of shakespeare essay

The Age of Shakespeare (1558 – 1625 ) – History of English Literature

Table of Contents

The Age of Shakespeare (1558 – 1625 )

Non-dramatic verse.

In this post, we will go over what is commonly referred to as the Shakespearean Age, which encompasses the time from Elizabeth’s accession in 1558 until James I’s death in 1625. These 67 years naturally fall into three categories: the first 21 years of the queen’s reign; the 24 years between the release of Spenser’s Shepheardes Calendar and her demise; and the 22 years of James I’s rule. The first division corresponds to the period of preparation, or springtide, in Elizabethan literature; the second corresponds to the period of full fruition or summer; and the third corresponds to the period of decline, or autumn. Strictly speaking, the word Elizabethan should be applied to the first two divisions alone, whereas Jacobean is the legitimate classification for the third. However, from the standpoint of literary growth, there are compelling grounds to include both the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods in the broad term we employ here-the Age of Shakespeare.

This time as whole ranks as one of the finest in the history of world literature, owing to its extraordinary fertility and the variety and splendour of its output, and its grandeur was the consequence of numerous cooperating reasons. As we study history, we see that a nation’s average mood can be lethargic and dull at times, and can be unusually vibrant and attentive at others. Men like Spenser, Bacon, and Shakespeare who developed from boyhood to youth in the early years of Elizabeth’s reign and matured in the concluding decades of the sixteenth century were lucky to live in a world where the tides of life were at their peak. There were influences at work everywhere that served to broaden thought, arouse emotions, dilate the imagination, and, through nurturing as well as stimulating creativity, to provide depth and vitality to the literature produced. England felt the full impact of the revival of learning, which was no longer restricted to the scholarly few at the universities and around the court because innumerable translations spread the treasures of the classics far and wide among the large miscellaneous public to whom the originals would have been sealed books. As a result, as has been well stated, ‘every breeze was dusty with ‘pollen’ from Greece, Rome, and Italy,’ and even the general environment was charged with the spirit of fresh learning.

OUR LATEST VIDEOS

Please enable JavaScript

Thus, a thirst for reading was developed, and an enormous impetus was given to the development of a sense of beauty and a developing appreciation for all that contributed to life’s enrichment. While the Renaissance stimulated the intellect and aesthetic faculties, the Reformation reawakened the spiritual nature; the same printing press that disseminated classical knowledge also distributed the English Bible; and the spread of religious interest was inextricably linked to a deepening of moral earnestness. Recent discoveries of new worlds beyond the seas, as well as the thrilling tales brought home by daring explorers such as Hawkins, Drake, Frobisher, and Raleigh, piqued popular curiosity and the appetite for adventure , sparked new ideas about a variety of subjects and contributed significantly to enlarging men’s mental boundaries. The country’s general wealth was also expanding, and for the first time in many years, it was blessed with internal peace. England had thrown off the yoke of a foreign power in the great rupture with Rome; the bloody feuds between Catholics and Protestants had been resolved; its discordant elements had been welded together into a united nation; and in the crisis that threatened its very existence—the collision with Spain—Englishmen found themselves burying minor differences in order to stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of their common country against an invading force. Thus, an ardent patriotism became one of the era’s defining characteristics, manifesting itself in a variety of ways—through a profound interest in England’s history, pride in England’s greatness, hatred of England’s adversaries, and lavish allegiance to England’s queen.

These are just a few of the circumstances that contributed to the spirit of Shakespeare’s age—a time when’men lived deeply, thought intensely, and wrote intensely.’ At such a time, when passions were high, speculation was rampant, and a large public was eager to respond to the call of genius, everything conspired to bring out the best in each man, and whatever the individual quality of his work, the breadth and multifacetedness of the life around him were certain to be reflected in it.

Elizabethan Poetry Before Spenser

We might consider the release of Spenser’s Shepheardes Calendar in 1579 to be the start of the “golden age of Elizabethan literature.” While there was a lot of poetry written throughout the first part of the queen’s reign, there was not much of it that was worth reading. The contribution of Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst to an enormous endeavour titled A Myrroure for Magistrates contains by far the greatest poetry of the age. This arose from a publisher’s plan to expand on Lydgate’s Falles of Princes (see $16) by including a long series of ‘tragical narratives’ of notable Englishmen. There were several writers involved, but Sackville’s two poems (which first appeared in the edition of 1563)—the Induction (or general introduction to the entire) and the Complaint of Buckingham—are far superior to the remainder of the work. The noble but solemn

Induction, in particular, deserves special mention as the best single poem composed in England between Chaucer and Spenser. The Steele Glas (1576) by George Gascoigne  (1525-77) is notable as the first regular poetry satire in English.

Spenser’s Poetry

Edmund Spenser, the greatest non-dramatic poet of a period when the drama was the most natural literary form, was born in London in 1552 and educated at the Merchant Taylors’ School and at Cambridge, where he studied the classics and Italian literature and came under the influence of the university’s strong Protestant spirit. After a few years spent with relatives in Lancashire, he obtained work in the household of the Earl of Leicester, with whom he forged an intimate acquaintance through his nephew, Sir Philip Sidney. In 1580, he travelled to Ireland as secretary to Lord Grey of Wilton, the new Lord Deputy. Except for infrequent travels to London, the remainder of his life was spent in Ireland, in sad exile among a lawless people he despised. He found his only solace in the composition of his Faery Queene, after being repeatedly rejected in his efforts to get a post at the court and, with it, a means of returning to England. In October 1598, an insurrection broke out in Tyrone, where he lived; his castle was set on fire and plundered by an enraged crowd; he and his family narrowly escaped with their lives. He arrived in London at the end of the year, in poor health and depressed spirits, and died on 16th January 1599 in an inn in Westminster.

While Spenser’s popularity is primarily based on The Faery Queene, his minor poetry, which is prolific, would have been sufficient to establish him as the preeminent contemporary English poet. His Shepheardes Calender (1579) is a pastoral poem of the artifice, which the taste for everything classical that accompanied the revival of learning popularised throughout all European literature, and in which Spenser follows the models established by the late Greek poet Theocritus, Vergil in his Bucolica, and French and Italian Renaissance writers who imitated these. It is divided into twelve sections, one for each month of the year, and in it, under the guise of conventional pastoral imagery—that is, shepherds conversing and singing—the poet writes of his unfortunate love for a certain mysterious Rosalind, discusses various moral issues, and discusses contemporary religious issues from a strong Protestant perspective. Such traditional pastoral imagery was resurrected in Astrophel (1586), an elegy on the death of Sidney, to whom the Calender was dedicated. His Foure Hymnes in honour of love and beauty demonstrate his incredible ability to write harmonious verse. His Amoretti, a collection of 88 sonnets written in Petrarch’s style (such sonnet sequences in Petrarch’s style had gained considerable popularity in England as a result of widespread enthusiasm for Italian literature), chronicle the development of his love for Elizabeth Boyle, whom he married in 1594. This occasion inspired his Epithalamium, the finest of his lesser pieces and ‘by general agreement, the language’s most exquisite wedding song.

Notably, he was not just the finest non-dramatic poet of his generation; he was also the most comprehensively represented. All the cooperating forces that shaped Elizabethan England are woven into the fabric of his poem, which more than any other work of the period embodies the synthesis of the Renaissance and Reformation spirits. It is entrenched in the humanism of the classics and Italian literature, and it bears witness to Protestantism’s strong idealism and moral sincerity everywhere. Two minor points must be addressed before we conclude this epochal effort. To begin, it must not be assumed that the language in which it was written was Spenser’s genuine English. As a devout follower of Chaucer, he developed his own vernacular, which he purposefully rendered ancient. Second, just as his language was invented, so was the stanza he utilised, which is now universally known by his name. This is a nine-line -stanza with the rhyme scheme ababbcbcc, with the final line being an Alexandrine, or line with six iambic feet rather than five. The origins of this stanza are unknown, but Spenser likely added the Alexandrine to Chaucer’s eight-line stave (ababbcbc) in The Monkes Tale.

Other Poets from 1579 to 1625

Minor poets flourished during the Age of Shakespeare, but compiling a list of them here would be futile. It is vital, however, that we learn about the various styles of poetry that were written at the time, as well as about a handful of the individuals who contributed to the chorus of Elizabethan songs.

Following Tottel’s Miscellany, numerous collections with wonderfully fantastical titles followed, including The Paradyse of Daynty Devises (1576), A Handefull of Pleasant Delites (1584), An Arbor of Amorous Devises (1597), and the most renowned of them all, England’s Helicon (1597). (1600). These, like the more traditional song-books, have preserved for us numerous lovely bits of verse by authors whose names would have otherwise been forgotten. A particularly popular style of lyric was the sonnet, which, following its introduction from Italy by Wyatt and Surrey, quickly established itself as one of the recognised forms of English poetry. As we have seen, numerous writers embraced the Italian strategy of penning sonnets in sequences. One such sequence—Amoretti—has Spenser’s previously been mentioned; to this list, we can now add Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella, Daniel’s Delia, Drayton’s Idea, and Shakespeare’s Sonnets. All of these are love poems in the Italian tradition, tracing the movements and fluctuations of desire; nevertheless, while some of the experiences and thoughts are genuine, others are fabricated.

Another category of poetry that is historically significant due to the way it expresses the period’s strong patriotic sentiment is that inspired by national themes. Albion’s England (1586-1606) by William Warner is a 10,000-line poem that chronicles the history of England from Noah’s time to Elizabeth’s. Samuel Daniel wrote an eight-volume versed account of the Civil Wars between the Two Houses of Lancaster and York (15951609). Michael Drayton, best known for his spirited ballad The Battle of Agincourt, has a more substantial , if not superior, claim to recognition as the author of England’s Heroical Epistles (1595), The Barons’ Wars (1603), and Polyolbion (1612-22), a thirty-volume poetical description of England that Drayton himself appropriately refers to as his ‘Herculean toil’. We must bear in mind that these poems sprang out of the same passionate interest in and love for England that drove scholars such as Stow, Harrison, and Holinshed into tedious historical inquiries and found dramatic embodiment in Shakespeare’s chronicle plays.

We have referred to the Jacobean period of Shakespeare’s Age as the age of decline. This indicates that the Elizabethan inspiration had waned, its subject matter had been exhausted, and a tendency toward imitation had developed among the emerging generation. Meanwhile, a new sort of poetry was emerging with John Donne (1573-1631), whose work is largely associated with James’s reign, despite the fact that he was thirty years old at the time of Elizabeth’s death. Donne, a prominent divine and preacher, composed songs, sonnets, marriage poems, elegies, and satires that are all marked by a great deal of true poetic feeling, harsh metres, and those strained and humorous ideas and turns of words known as conceits’. His historical significance stems from the fact that he founded the metaphysical school of poetry, which we will discuss in further detail shortly.

The Elizabethan Romantic Drama

Following the staging of Gorboduc, the quarter-century or so that followed was a period of considerable disarray in English play. On the one hand, some intellectuals aspired to naturalise the Senecan, or ‘classic,’ species of play, of which Sackville and others were proponents.

Norton’s tragedy served as an example, and their efforts were backed up by humanists such as Sir Philip Sidney, who believed that the only certain path to truly creative play was through careful copying of ancient models. On the other hand, knowing that their patrons were less concerned with finer details of art and more concerned with exciting plots and vigorous action, the writers and actors catering to the amusement of the miscellaneous unscholarly public abandoned the decorous Senecan conventions entirely and embarked on a series of experiments, all of them very crude, is a type of play based on entirely different ideas of construction. These experiments may be viewed as a logical development of the dramatic components of the older English theatre, as well as a groping in the dark for a more expansive and free form of art than was conceivable under the Senecan style’s constricted limitations. Thus, a transitory confrontation developed between humanists, who defended classical heritage and wanted to force it on the populace, and the English public’s strong national taste, which demanded something entirely different. Finally, national taste prevailed, and just prior to Shakespeare’s career as a playwright, the “romantic” style of theatre was firmly established. The establishment of romantic drama was the achievement of Shakespeare’s immediate predecessors, a group of university men who had been trained in the school of the classics, learned much about dramatic workmanship there, but who, while composition, abandoned their special principles of composition in favour of the free tradition of the popular stage.

Before delving into their work, however, it is necessary to establish a working understanding of the distinction between the so-called ‘classic’ and ‘romantic’ styles of play.

Concentrating on the aspects that are immediately relevant here, we can summarise the principles of classic theatre under three headings: (1) it was adamant on subject and tone unity, and as a result, it maintained the worlds of tragedy and comedy completely distinct. A tragedy had to be a tragedy from beginning to end; it had to maintain the proper tragic pitch and avoid all suggestion of familiarity; and no humorous episode could be included; a comedy had to be a comedy from beginning to end; (2) there had to be little or no dramatic action, with the incidents forming the plot occurring offstage and being reported to the audience through dialogue and set narrative; (3) in theorem These principles were derived, or more precisely, were supposed to be derived, from the practice of the Attic tragedy writers, and the teachings of the great Greek critic were supposed to be derived from the practice of the Attic Aristotle; however, they entered modern drama via the plays of the Latin poet Seneca, in which they were exhibited in their most severe form. The specific style of drama that the humanists aspired to construct is now obvious, and they can also comprehend the broad characteristics of the opposite type produced in its place by Shakespeare’s forerunners. For the romantic, or Shakespearean, drama (1) makes liberal use of variety in theme and tone, frequently combining tragic and comic incidents and characters in the same piece; (2) while it employs both action and narrative to advance the plot, it is essentially a drama of action, with nearly everything that occurs represented on stage; and (3) it rejects the three unities by (a) allowing the storey to extend over months and even years on occasion; (b) allowing the storey to change throughout the piece; and (c) allowing

Shakespeare’s Forerunners

It will be demonstrated that the work of those playwrights who came before Shakespeare paved the path for him by assuring the success of the open and flexible form of theatre that he would later adopt. They form a loose association and are usually referred to as the ‘university wits’. As this implies, they were all individuals of academic training who had come into direct contact with and absorbed the spirit of the new learning at one of the two great schools of scholarship. However, with one exception, they brought their abilities to the public stage, and it is obvious that their audience’s strong preferences influenced the type of play they produced. They are as follows: John Lyly (1554-1606); Thomas Kyd (1558-1594); George Peele (1556-97); Thomas Lodge (1558-1625); Robert Greene (1560-92); Christopher Marlowe (1564-93); and Thomas Nash (1567-1601).

It would be pointless to provide a list of these men’s theatrical works, and a more extensive assessment of their writings would be inconsistent with the purpose of this brief summary. Therefore, we must consider them collectively and accept the broad assumption that each contributed to the growth of the drama into the forms in which Shakespeare would take it up. A few further facts must be provided to two of them, due to their unique place in literary history and the direct influence they had on Shakespeare. Lyly and Marlowe are the two.

Lyly is best known as the author of the prose romance Euphues, which we will discuss in the following chapter. His theatrical work, which we must now deal with exclusively, consists of eight comedies, the best of which are Campaspe, Endymion, and Gallathea. These were all written for court performance, and their appeal is based not on plot, scenario, or even characterization , but on language—that is, on the dialogue’s wit, sharpness, originality, and grace. At a time when the public stage’s humour frequently devolved into coarseness and horseplay, Lyly contributed to the intellectualization of comedy. He anticipated Shakespeare in this, as well as in his skill at clever repartee and his constant use of puns, conceits, and other verbal fireworks. Shakespeare’s early comedies, such as Love’s Labour’s Lost and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, owe a great deal to his example. Shakespeare also learnt how to blend a courtly main plot with sequences of rustic mistakes and clownish foolery from Lyly (as in the two aforementioned plays). In these areas, Lyly established a precedent that others, including Shakespeare, followed, and he was unquestionably Shakespeare’s first master in comedy.

Marlowe’s historical significance is even more significant. A man of flamboyant imagination and immense though uncontrolled powers, who lived a wild Bohemian life and was killed in a drunken brawl while still young, he was by nature a lyric poet rather than a dramatist; yet his Tamburlaine the Great, Dr Faustus, The Jew of Malta, and Edward II, despite the bombast and extravagance with which they are frequently marred, establish him as the pre-Sha He established the style of tragedy and chronicle play for his immediate successors with these works, and he also introduced blank verse (formerly reserved for classic plays and intimate representations) to romantic theatre and the public stage with them. It is obvious that Shakespeare, who must have known him well and most likely cooperated with him, was initially greatly inspired by him. His early blank verse is modelled like that of Marlowe. Venus and Adonis, his narrative poem, is influenced in part, if not entirely, by Marlowe’s Hero and Leander. His Richard III and Richard II are unmistakably modelled on Edward II’s style of chronicle drama. Even in The Merchant of Venice, numerous aspects indicate that Shakespeare was inspired by The Jew of Malta.

Shakespeare’s Biography

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire, on or about 23 April 1564. He was the son of a prominent town businessman who subsequently became the town’s High Bailiff or Mayor. Though there is no official record, it is almost clear that he attended the local Grammar School, an exceptional institution of its sort, where he was taught Latin and arithmetic. While he never became a knowledgeable man, his few years in school provided him with basic education. His father’s financial difficulties soon overcame him, and when he was about fourteen, he was removed from school in order to assist the family by earning money on his own. However, we know nothing about the nature of his employment. He married Anne Hathaway, a woman eight years his senior and the daughter of a well-to-do yeoman from the nearby village of Shottery, in his 19th year. This marriage was hurried and ill-advised, and it appears to have ended in dissatisfaction. He had three children: Susannah and twins Judith and Hamnet. Meanwhile, legend has it that he fell into bad company and was forced to flee from home following a deer-stealing incident in the woods of Charlecote Hall. This storey may or may not be true—we have no way of knowing. He likely left his native town a few years after his marriage – in 1587 – to pursue his fortune in London. At a time when the drama was rapidly gaining popularity due to the work of the University Wits, Shakespeare soon went to the stage, first as an actor, and subsequently as a playwright (but never ceasing to be an actor). A disparaging reference to him in a pamphlet published on his deathbed demonstrates that he was well-known as a prominent author in 1592. He remained in London for about two decades after this, working diligently, creating on average a pair of plays each year, and progressively increasing in popularity and fortune. He acquired shares in two of the main theatres of the day, the Globe and the Blackfriars, as well as real estate in Stratford and London. However, the years of affluence also brought domestic anguish. His father died in 1596; his younger brother Edmund, also an actor, died in 1607; and his mother died in 1608. He then retired to Stratford between 1610 and 1612, having purchased the town’s largest residence, known as New Place. His elder daughter had already married Dr John Hall (1607), who became a distinguished surgeon; on February 10, 1616, Judith married Thomas Quincy, whose father was a personal friend of the poet. Shakespeare’s health had deteriorated to the point of death at this time, and he died on 23 April of that year. Shakespeare’s biography demonstrates unequivocally that, like Chaucer, he was a practical man of affairs. He arrived in London impoverished and without friends; he left it wealthy and respected; and his fortunes were entirely his own. This sheds considerable light not just on his personal nature, but also on his writings, which combine extraordinary abilities of creative imagination with and are bolstered by a wonderful sense of reality, strong common sense, and a broad and varied experience with the world. Of the learning evident in his plays, and about which much has been written, suffice it to say that it is not the learning of the trained and exact scholar—of a Bacon or a Ben Jonson—but rather the broad miscellaneous knowledge of many things that were naturally accumulated by an extraordinarily assimilative mind over years of contact with men and books at a time when all social interaction and all literature were saturated with classicism. Translations provided him with easy access to the treasures of ancient literature; the intellectual atmosphere in which he lived and worked was charged with new ideas and enormously stimulating; and Shakespeare was preeminently endowed with the fortunate faculty of giving the best possible account of everything that came to him.

Shakespeare’s Complete Works

Except for a few miscellaneous and dubious pieces, Shakespeare’s non-dramatic poetry consists of two narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and Lucrece, in which the period’s classicism is evident, and a sequence of 154 sonnets, the first 126 addressed to a man and the remainder addressed to or referring to a woman. These sonnets have sparked unending debate, and much about them remains obscure. They pretend to chronicle a passionate history of catastrophic love and broken friendship, but we have no way of knowing if they are dealing with real or imagined events. The only certainty is that they include some of their era’s finest lyrical poetry.

The popularly accepted canon of Shakespeare’s dramatic output consists of 37 plays, albeit several of these are dubious in their authenticity, and in certain cases, it is obvious that his contribution to the dramas credited to him was confined to reworking previous material. His career as a stage playwright lasted approximately 24 years, beginning around 1588 and ending around 1612; we can therefore conclude that 12 years of it were spent in the sixteenth century and 12 years in the seventeenth century. Shakespeare critics have agreed to split these 24 years into four periods, and by placing the plays inside these periods in the order in which they were produced, we may trace the progression of his genius and craft, as well as the astonishing changes that occurred in his thought and style. As a result, I will list the titles of his plays in roughly chronological order, showing the distinctive spirit and technique that distinguish each period’s work.

1588–1593. Period of experimental and, to a large degree, pioneering work. Shakespeare’s apprenticeship begins with the editing of older works, including Henry VI in three parts and Titus Andronicus. This time includes his first comedies, which bear a strong Lyly influence, such as Love’s Labour’s Lost and The Two Night’s Dream; his first attempt at chronicle drama, which is seen in Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream of his work. His attention is focused entirely on the tremendous transformation that has occurred in the entire spirit evocative of Marlowe, Richard III, and a single very young tragedy, Romeo and Juliet. The overall texture of this period’s work is extremely thin; the presentation of life is cursory; there is little depth of thought or characterisation; and the painting is conspicuously underdeveloped. The dialogue’s emphasis on rime, the rigidity of the blank verse , and the continual use of conceits and other affectations are only a few of its noteworthy technical aspects.

(ii) 1594-1600. The era of the great comedies and historical dramas. Richard II, King John, The Merchant of Venice, Henry IV, Parts I and II, Henry V, The Taming of the Shrew are among the works from this era.

The Taming of the Shrew, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night are some of the works. Shakespeare now sheds the influence of his early mentors; his writing becomes self-contained and demonstrates enormous growth in strength and technique. It is significantly more huge in size, and the knowledge of the world and of men’s motivations and passions that it constantly demonstrates is infinitely more profound. The characterisation and humour have developed a depth and penetrating quality, and the weight of thought has increased significantly. Shakespeare has likewise outgrown or is rapidly outgrowing, his earlier style’s immaturities. The crudeness, extravagance, and strain of youth are fading; prose and blank verse have entirely supplanted rime, and the blank verse itself has lost its stiffness and become open and flexible.

(iii) 1601-08. This is the era of tremendous tragedies and dismal or bitter comedy. All of Shakespeare’s abilities—dramatic, intellectual, and expressive—are at their peak during this period. This is the era of his magnum opuses. However, what is probably most apparent is the remarkable transformation that has occurred in the spirit of his work. His focus is devoted entirely to the darker side of human existence, and his plays are inspired by those destructive passions that undermine the moral order and cause disaster to innocent and guilty alike. Men’s crimes and vulnerabilities are central to his storylines, and even when he writes what are ostensibly comedies, the emphasis remains on evil, and the tone is either grave or angry. Julius Caesar, Hamlet, All’s Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Timon of Athens are among the plays from this period.

(iv) 1608–12: Decade of late comedies and dramatic romances. Once again, we observe an abrupt and distinct shift in the tone of Shakespeare’s work. It is as though the dense clouds that have long hovered over his hypothetical world have dissipated, and the sky begins to clear approaching sunset. The tragic passion provides the foundation for these final plays, but evil is no longer allowed to have its way, but is subdued and overcome by the good. They maintain a really compassionate and gracious tone throughout. At the same time, they vividly demonstrate Shakespeare’s catastrophic fall. They are frequently careless in their composition and unsatisfying in their portrayal, while their style and versification pale in comparison to the prior decade’s work. This period includes three fully Shakespearean works: Cymbeline, The Tempest, and The Winter’s Tale. These must be supplemented by two who are only partially his—Pericles and Henry VIII. Fletcher, his younger contemporary and buddy, completed the latter (see $34).

It is impossible to provide a conclusive answer to the much-contested subject of how much of Shakespeare’s work is a revelation of his life and character in a simple statement. We cannot, I am certain, accept the judgement of those who maintain that he was so entirely the mark in its successive stages were the result of his own experiences – whether, for example, he wrote tragedies because his life was tragic and then returned to comedy when his spirit was restored to peace – we do not know. When read chronologically, his plays provide a record of his intellectual and aesthetic development.

The Characteristics of  Shakespeare’s Works

Shakespeare’s plays, taken as a whole, are the greatest single body of work that any writer has produced to our literature. Its astounding variety is maybe their most notable trait. Other men have overtaken him at various points, but no one has ever matched him in terms of the breadth and flexibility of his abilities. He was equally at home in tragedy and comedy, and his genius encompassed innumerable aspects of both; he was supreme not only as a dramatist, but also as a poet to whom the worlds of high imagination and delicate fancy were alike open; and, while not himself a very profound or original thinker, he possessed in a superlative degree the faculty of digesting thought into phraseology so memorable and final that, as we all know, he is the most He was nearly completely free of dogmatism, and his tolerance was as broad as his worldview. He is unrivalled in the life of his characterisation; no one else has produced so many men and women that we accept and treat not as figments of a poet’s head, but as fully and entirely alive. It is also worth noting his singular grasp of the language’s resources; his vocabulary is estimated to be around 15,000 words, while Milton’s is just around half that size.

The brilliance of Shakespeare’s work has a tendency to blind reviewers to his limitations and flaws, but these must, of course, be acknowledged in any assessment of him, or else we will lose sight of him. As broad as he was, he was ultimately a man of his day, and while his plays are notable for their general truth to what is permanent in human nature, his perception of human nature is that of an age that is extremely different from our own in many ways. He wrote rapidly, and evidence of hurried and ill-considered creation are frequently visible. Designing his plays specifically for the stage, and keen to ensure their success, he was willing to sacrifice character consistency and the finer standards of art in order to produce a telling theatrical effect. He reflects the low taste of the groundlings to whom he had to appeal in his occasional coarseness. His psychology is utterly basic and unconvincing at times; his manner is harsh; his wit is forced and weak; and his sad language is overblown. These, and other flaws, will be obvious to anyone who reads him critically. But, in the end, they are minor details in comparison to the outstanding talents that have propelled him to the top of the world’s dramatists.

Shakespeare’s era was characterised by a flurry of theatrical activity, and the list of his contemporaries in the annals of the theatre is lengthy. Among these, his friend BEN JONSON is the most important, not only because he was the greatest of them in terms of the strength and volume of his talent, but also because the purposes and ideas of his work were completely different from Shakespeare’s. He was born in London in 1573, educated at Westminster Grammar School, where he set the groundwork for his solid classical study, began acting around 1592, and began his career as a dramatist in 1598 with the satiric farce Every Man in his Humour. He wrote plays for both the court and the public theatre for many years. With the ascension of Charles I, his circumstances began to deteriorate, and he suffered from neglect, poverty, and ever-increasing ill-health for the rest of his life. He died in 1637, palsied and bedridden, having outlived Shakespeare by twenty-one years. Outside of the theatre, Jonson produced numerous translations and a significant number of other poetry. His plays are divided into three categories: court masques, historical tragedies such as Sejanus and Catiline, which are very learned, laborious, and dull, and – by far the most significant part of his output – his numerous comedies, the best of which are The Alchemist, Volpone or the Fox, and Epicoene or the Silent Woman. By examining these comedies, we can see the particular elements of Jonson’s brilliance and creativity right away, and we can comprehend what it means to say that he worked in a different field than Shakespeare, and on methods wholly his own. To begin with, he was a realist; that is, the world of his comedy is modern London life, with its manners, types, follies, and affectations, rather than the world of romance. He paints a vivid image of this world. But his goal is not simply to represent and, while doing so, to amuse; he takes his craft seriously and, according to the moral tasks of the theatre, attempts to correct and instruct as well. Thus, a specific ethical motive is generally apparent, and is frequently expressly stated in his work. As a result, his realism must be characterised further as didactic realism. In his building ideas, he condemns the lawlessness of the romantic drama and looks to Latin comedy as a model. Finally, his portrayal is founded on the assumption that each man is possessed and governed by some one special trait or’master passion,’ which (at least for the purposes of the stage) can be regarded as the backbone and essential aspect of his personality. As a result, Jonson seizes on this master passion, or ‘humour,’ as he calls it, and makes a whole character out of it, with the result that his men and women are not complex individuals, like Shakespeare’s, but rather types; while, reverting to the old morality method, he frequently labels or tickets them with names that immediately indicate their special ‘humours,’ such as Downright, Morose, and Wellbred. Pertinax, be subtle. Sir Epicure Mammon, you are a jerk. In Jonson’s comedies, intellect predominates; they are the result of learning, talent, and diligent effort rather than creative power, and they are ponderous and lacking in spontaneity and attractiveness, despite being amazingly intelligent and rich in vivid depictions of the life of the time. However, they are historically significant since Jonson was the true originator of what is known as the Comedy of Manners , and his influence on subsequent dramatists was enormous.

Other Shakespearean Dramatists

I shall identify only a handful of the lesser writers whose work spans the period from Shakespeare’s peak to the end. John Webster was a dramatist of gloomy intellect and immense power, while his morbid love of the violent and horrifying led him too often to sensationalism. His moments of tragic passion in White Devil and Duchess of Malfi are unparalleled outside of Shakespeare. John Ford has a similar predisposition for ugly subjects and abnormal emotions, but his sadness distinguishes his best work, such as The Broken Heart. The names Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher are inextricably linked, and they collaborated extensively, while Fletcher continued to write fluently for the nine years between his partner’s death and his own. Their moral tone is frequently harsh, its sentiment strained, and their characterization inadequate; nonetheless, they have many redeeming aspects, and plays such as Philaster and The Maid’s Tragedy successfully challenge comparison with anything in the romantic drama outside Shakespeare, Philip Massinger , a versatile writer, attained a pinnacle with his comedy A New Way to Pay Old Debts. James Shirley was born during the reign of Charles I, yet he is remembered here as “the last of a great race,” in the words of Charles Lamb. The deterioration of the play is visible in all of these writers, and even more, in minor persons whom we need not name. By the conclusion of the period, we discover that all of the previous creative ability has vanished, and that the stage has succumbed entirely to the age’s fast-spreading immorality; while even the formlessness of the blank verse employed is another sign of the general decay.

The Playhouses of Shakespeare’s Time

It is preferable for a theatre student to have some understanding of the theatrical conditions in which Shakespeare and his contemporaries worked. In the early days of the regular drama, plays were staged in inn yards and other open locations where a scaffold could be erected and spectators could be accommodated. In what was then the open fields of Shoreditch, two permanent playhouses were built in 1576: the Theatre and the Curtain. When Shakespeare arrived in London, these were the only playhouses in the city; but, by the conclusion of Elizabeth’s reign, there were at least eleven. These were not in London, because the local authorities would not allow them to be built within their bounds, but on the outskirts, primarily on the banks of the Thames on the Surrey side. Shakespeare was extremely closely associated with two of these playhouses—the Globe in Southwark and the Blackfriars, near the area now occupied by the Times office—as we have seen. The theatrical profession had previously been in disrepute, and in order to escape being labelled as ‘rogues and vagabonds,’ players had been compelled to get permits from nobles and other important patrons, and to enrol in companies as their servants. Thus, we hear about the Lord Leicester’s Servants (later the Lord Chamberlain’s), to which Shakespeare belonged, as well as the Lord Admiral’s Servants, the Queen’s Players, and so on. The playhouses were quite small, round or hexagonal in shape, and mostly made of wood. There was nothing luxurious about them, either in terms of architecture or appointments. The stage and the boxes, or “rooms,” as they were known, were covered in thatch, but the remainder of the structure was open to the elements. The boxes were frequented by the wealthier and more aristocratic audience members, some of whom, however, seized the luxury of sitting on the stage. There were no chairs in the ‘yard’ or pit for the groundlings. Into this yard ran the stage, a basic platform whose constrained proportions appear to our minds to turn the Elizabethans’ delight in marching armies and pitched conflicts into silliness. Some interesting aspects of the stage configurations are presented. There was almost no movable scenery; though it was beginning to appear towards the end of the Shakespearean period, it was not consistently employed until the theatres reopened after the Commonwealth. Stage properties, such as furniture, were freely used, and banners containing legends such as ‘This is Athens’ and ‘This is a wood’ were hung out to instruct the audience where the scene was supposed to be staged. Two notable aspects of Shakespearean theatre can be directly attributed to the absence of painted scenery: the constant movement in the location of the action, and the frequency of descriptive passages that appealed to the audience’ imagination. A modest structure at the back of the stage, consisting of a balcony and an open space beneath, was crucial to the performance’s economy. The balcony itself represented any elevated location, such as city walls or the upper section of a house; the space beneath, which could be curtained off, was used for a variety of purposes when any type of interior scene was necessary. Performances often began at three of the clock in the afternoon and lasted around two hours. There is every reason to suppose that the art of acting was refined to its pinnacle. On the Shakespearean stage, however, there were no actresses; women’s roles were played by boys and young men who had been specifically prepared for the occasion. These male actresses must have been quite intelligent, and when women began to appear on the English boards after the Restoration, there were people who grieved the shift, such as the diarist Pepys. However, we find it impossible to believe that such masculine actors could have successfully interpreted Shakespeare’s females.

Lyly and Other Prose Fiction Writers

While the play was the primary creative vehicle for the Shakespearean Age, it was also active in the field of prose literature. It did not, in fact, produce what we term the novel, which is a long account about contemporary life and manners. This was not established in English literature until much after Shakespeare’s death, more than a century later. However, significant progress was achieved in other lines of fake narrative. The activity of translators, who familiarised the reading public with Spanish and Italian romance, as well as Italian novelle, or short stories, provided some impetus in this direction. The final two are of secondary relevance since they are the sources from which Elizabethan dramatists, including Shakespeare, frequently relied for plot material. They were also adapted and reproduced, and several storey collections, such as William Painter’s Palace of Pleasure, became popular. The most notable prose romance of the period is the work of John Lyly, whose comedies, Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit, and its sequel, Euphues and his England, have already been mentioned. The former was published in 1579, making it exactly contemporaneous with the Shepheardes Calendar; the latter was released the following year. The first part tells the storey of a wealthy, handsome, and clever young Athenian named Euphues, who sets out on his travels; arrives in Naples, where he becomes an intimate friend of a certain Philautus, with whom he has many long conversations on philosophical and ethical subjects; has several affairs of the heart, which fail; and eventually returns to Athens, leaving behind him a ‘pamphlet, or letter, addressed to his friend and described as ‘a It is a love storey, but there is no action, and what little storyline there is is just an excuse for lengthy lectures and moralising. In the second part, Euphues visits England and gives a long description of the country, court, and manners of the isle’, which is so unqualified in its praise that, if we only take it as true, we would be convinced that in Lyly’s time, our land was a paradise, and its inhabitants absolute embodiments of all the virtues. Euphues’ popularity was astonishing; in little more than a half-century, it went through 10 editions—a huge record at the time; everyone who read anything read it; and the ladies of the court used it as a moral guidebook, a guide to polite behaviour, and a model of elegance in speech and writing. Its enduring popularity is primarily due to its style. Enthusiasm for the classics, the impact of Italian and Spanish literatures, and a general desire to elevate and polish the common tongue resulted in a wide spectrum of bizarre attempts in English prose. Lyly’s fashion sense or “Euphuism, as it is known, is the most notable of these. It is distinguishable from other current efforts by great elaboration and artifice, as well as a variety of particular rhetorical tropes that give it a dimension of its own. It would take too much space to go over them all here, so I will just highlight the most crucial ones. Perhaps the most notable feature of Euphuism is the excessive use of balanced antithesis ; for example, “As you may suspect me of idleness in giving ear to your talk, so you may convince me of lightness in answering such toys”; in which, as will be seen, suspect me’ and ‘convince me’, ‘idleness’ and ‘lightness’, ‘giving ear’ and ‘answering’, ‘talk’ and ‘toys This balanced antithesis is sometimes used with alliteration , as in ‘Although I have shrined thee in my heart as a loyal friend, I will shun thee hereafter as a trothless adversary,’ for example. Lyly also enjoys similes, wordplay, and punning, and has a penchant for ‘non’-natural history, or the natural history of myth and fable rather than science. To our astonishment, we read of a bird named Attagen “who never singeth any time after she is taken,” of a beautiful stone called Draconites found in the dragon, of a shrub called Dictannum “in which the wounded deer always finds an unfailing remedy,” and so on. Shakespeare uses the toad as an example of incredible pseudo-science when he describes it as ‘ugly and venomous,’ yet with a ‘beautiful jewel in his head.’ Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia , completed around 1581 but not published until 1613, may be assigned second place in Elizabethan romance. To some extent, this work continues the traditions of earlier chivalric tales, although it owes much of its shape to the pastoral Diana of the Portuguese Montemayor and the Arcadia of the Italian Sannazaro. It is full with happenings, unlike Euphues, which has almost no tale. The adventures of the two friends, Pyrocles and Musidorus, while attempting to win the two Arcadian princesses, Philoclea and Pamela, provide the primary interest; however, a large number of other characters are introduced, each of whom becomes the centre of a separate storey, and episodes arise within episodes, adding to the plot’s complication and confusion. Though, unlike Lyly, Sidney does not overwork a few rhetorical elements, his style is exceedingly intricate and poetical, and, while striking and beautiful in moments, it gets tiresome in the long run due to its absolute lack of simplicity and restraint. Lodge and Greene, two of the pre-Shakespearean dramatists we have recognised, are also important romance authors. In general, they resemble Sidney in their use of conventional pastoralism’s people and machinery, but their style is heavily influenced by Lyly. Among their many other works, each wrote one book that is still of significance, not because of its basic virtues, but because of its relationship to Shakespeare. The raw ingredients for As You Like It came from Lodge’s Rosalynde, Euphues’ Golden Legacy; those for The Winter’s Tale came from Greene’s Pandosto, The Triumph of Time. He selected the law as his vocation; he was called to the he had also made his mark as an orator in the House of Commons. Thomas Nash, University Wits?, has a place somewhat apart, because at a time when the tendency in fiction was almost entirely towards romance, he gave a distinct lead in the direction of coarse realism. His Unfortunate Traveller, or The Life of Jack Wilton, a wandering narrative of adventure on the continent, is our oldest example of the picaresque novel,’ or novel of rascality—a genre of literature that was already popular in Spain and that Defoe would later pursue with great success.

Bacon and His Essays

We must not assume that Shakespearean English literature was purely a work of the imagination. England was now feeling the intellectual and creative stimulation of the Renaissance, which resulted in the production of a large number of written works dealing with many issues in which sensible people were engaged at the time. The majority of these fall under the purview of the special history of such subjects rather than the general history of literature. However, a few writers claim a place in our history, and among them is one of tremendous significance—Bacon, the main writing master of his day. Francis Bacon, the second son of a notable lawyer and statesman, was born on January 22, 1561. His wit and precocity drew the queen’s attention as a child, and she jokingly referred to him as her “young lord keeper”—his father being the Keeper of the Great Seal of England at the time. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was sent to Paris in the suite of the English ambassador in preparation for a future as a statesman. After his father died in 1579, he was left to fend for himself; he selected the law as a vocation, was admitted to the bar in 1582, and became Queen’s Counsel in 1589. By this point, he had built a name for himself as an orator in the House of Commons. Following James I’s ascension, he gained quickly in favour and money. In 1603 he was knighted; in 1613 he became Attorney General; in 1616 he became Privy Councillor; in 1617 he became Lord Keeper; in 1618 he became Lord Chancellor and Baron Verulam; and in 1621 he became Viscount St. Albans. Then there was a loud crash. He was impeached before the House of Lords on multiple counts of official malfeasance, and he was sentenced to a £40,000 fine, imprisonment at the king’s pleasure, and lifelong exile from parliament and court. This sentence, however, was never carried out, and he was eventually granted a royal pardon. He spent the last few years of his life in intellectual endeavours before dying in 1626 as a result of complications from a cold contracted while conducting a scientific experiment. His personality was riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions. He considered himself to be “born for the service of mankind,” and honestly intended to devote his magnificent powers to the growth of knowledge that would lead to the glory of the Creator and the relief of man’s estate.” In practise, however, he made many sacrifices for the sake of wealth and power, as well as the realisation of his irrational desires, while his moral teaching too frequently resolves itself into the narrowest practicality and utilitarianism. His biggest writings, Advancement of Learning and Novum Organum (New Organ or instrument), in which he sets forth and illustrates the inductive or ‘Baconian’ technique of examining nature, placing him at the forefront of the world’s epoch-makers. However, these belong to the history of science and philosophy, not general literature. His main contribution to general literature is his small collection of Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral, which was first published in 1597 and was greatly expanded in 1612 and 1625. The drafting of these Essays was undoubtedly inspired by the Essais of the great French thinker Montaigne, but the subject matter and style are totally Bacon’s own. It should be noted that, like Montaigne, he employs the term “essay” in its original etymological form, which is wholly Bacon’s. It should be observed that, like sensibility, which is now nearly extinct, and as comparable to assay—a trial or attempt. As a result, the Essays are only meant to be used as a guide “dispersed reflections or informal comments on the issues addressed, as opposed to full treatises Thoroughly practical in nature, they are preoccupied for the most part with the conduct of life in private and public affairs, and thus with matters that concern men’s business and bosoms.” Their distinguishing characteristics are extraordinary insight and sagacity; they are loaded with the ripest wisdom of experience, perhaps more than any other book of the same size in any literature; but we must never forget that the wisdom which they instil is, on the whole, of a distinctly worldly kind. Though, according to his first biographer, Bacon “did rather drive at a masculine and clear expression than at any fineness or affectation of phrases” in writing them, his style is marked by the general ornateness, fondness for imagery, and love of analogy and metaphor, which were all very fashionable at the time. It is also heavily Latinised. But its most notable feature is its amazing brevity and epigrammatic intensity. Bacon had an almost unrivalled ability to cram his thoughts into the smallest possible area, and we might thus describe his Essays as ‘unlimited riches in a little place,’ to use a term from Marlowe’s Jew of Malta.

Other  Prose of the Period

The varied interests of the time are well represented in the prose literature of the time. Many writers cultivated history, including Raleigh in his vast and uncritical History of the World (1614); Bacon in his judicial History of Henry VII’s Reign (1622); Foxe in his thoroughly untrustworthy Acts and Monuments or Book of Martyrs (1563); and Raphael Holinshed in his Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland—a work that Shakespeare frequently referred to in his historical plays. The literature of travel naturally blossomed at a time when the spirit of adventure was strong, and one particularly notable work, Richard Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation, may be given as an example. A great deal of important work was done in the field of theology, and while this does not properly concern us here, the masterly Ecclesiastical Polity (1594-97) of RICHARD Hooker may be mentioned in passing for the sake of its style, which, while still over-rhetorical and involved, is generally plainer and simpler than most contemporary prose. In this perspective, we should consider the Authorised Version of the Bible (1611), which has had a tremendous influence on English writing since its publication. From the beginning of people’s interest in the forms and 76 point of view of literary history, there is also enormous significance in the development of the literature of criticism, as this demonstrates the principles of literature as an art. Sidney’s Apologie for Poetrie is the most well-known of these early treatises (about 1581). William Webbe’s Discourse of English Poetrie (1586) and George Puttenham’s Arte of English Poesie are two more important works in this genre (1589).

The Shakespearean Age – Prose

While the play was the primary creative vehicle for the Shakespearean Age, it was also active in the field of prose literature. It did not, in fact, produce what we term the novel, which is a long account about contemporary life and manners. This was not established in English literature until much after Shakespeare’s death, more than a century later. However, significant progress was achieved in other lines of fake narrative. The activity of translators, who familiarised the reading public with Spanish and Italian romance, as well as Italian novelle, or short stories, provided some impetus in this direction. The final two are of secondary relevance since they are the sources from which Elizabethan dramatists, including Shakespeare, frequently relied for plot material. They were also adapted and reproduced, and several storey collections, such as William Painter’s Palace of Pleasure, became popular. The most notable prose romance of the period is the work of JOHN LYLY, whose comedies, Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit, and its sequel, Euphues and his England, have already been mentioned. The former was published in 1579, making it exactly contemporaneous with the Shepheardes Calendar; the latter was released the following year. The first part tells the storey of a wealthy, handsome, and clever young Athenian named Euphues, who sets out on his travels; arrives in Naples, where he becomes an intimate friend of a certain Philautus, with whom he has many long conversations on philosophical and ethical subjects; has several affairs of the heart, which fail; and eventually returns to Athens, leaving behind him a ‘pamphlet, or letter, addressed to his friend and described as ‘a It is a love storey, but there is no action, and what little storyline there is is just an excuse for lengthy lectures and moralising. In the second part, Euphues visits England and gives a long description of the country, court, and manners of the isle’, which is so unqualified in its praise that, if we only take it as true, we would be convinced that in Lyly’s time, our land was a paradise, and its inhabitants absolute embodiments of all the virtues. Euphues’ popularity was astonishing; in little more than a half-century, it went through 10 editions—a huge record at the time; everyone who read anything read it; and the ladies of the court used it as a moral guidebook, a guide to polite behaviour, and a model of elegance in speech and writing. Its enduring popularity is primarily due to its style. Enthusiasm for the classics, the impact of Italian and Spanish literatures, and a general desire to elevate and polish the common tongue resulted in a wide spectrum of bizarre attempts in English prose. Lyly’s fashion sense or “Euphuism, as it is known, is the most notable of these. It is distinguishable from other current efforts by great elaboration and artifice, as well as a variety of particular rhetorical tropes that give it a dimension of its own. It would take too much space to go over them all here, so I will just highlight the most crucial ones. Perhaps the most notable feature of Euphuism is the excessive use of balanced antithesis ; for example, “As you may suspect me of idleness in giving ear to your talk, so you may convince me of lightness in answering such toys”; in which, as will be seen, suspect me’ and ‘convince me’, ‘idleness’ and ‘lightness’, ‘giving ear’ and ‘answering’, ‘talk’ and ‘toys This balanced antithesis is sometimes used with alliteration , as in ‘Although I have shrined thee in my heart as a loyal friend, I will shun thee hereafter as a trothless adversary,’ for example. Lyly also enjoys similes, wordplay, and punning, and has a penchant for ‘non’-natural history, or the natural history of myth and fable rather than science. To our astonishment, we read of a bird named Attagen “who never singeth any time after she is taken,” of a beautiful stone called Draconites found in the dragon, of a shrub called Dictannum “in which the wounded deer always finds an unfailing remedy,” and so on. Shakespeare uses the toad as an example of incredible pseudo-science when he describes it as ‘ugly and venomous,’ yet with a ‘beautiful jewel in his head.’ Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia, completed around 1581 but not published until 1613, may be assigned second place in Elizabethan romance. To some extent, this work continues the traditions of earlier chivalric tales, although it owes much of its shape to the pastoral Diana of the Portuguese Montemayor and the Arcadia of the Italian Sannazaro. It is full with happenings, unlike Euphues, which has almost no tale. The adventures of the two friends, Pyrocles and Musidorus, while attempting to win the two Arcadian princesses, Philoclea and Pamela, provide the primary interest; however, a large number of other characters are introduced, each of whom becomes the centre of a separate storey, and episodes arise within episodes, adding to the plot’s complication and confusion. Though, unlike Lyly, Sidney does not overwork a few rhetorical elements, his style is exceedingly intricate and poetical, and, while striking and beautiful in moments, it gets tiresome in the long run due to its absolute lack of simplicity and restraint. Lodge and Greene, two of the pre-Shakespearean dramatists we have recognised, are also important romance authors. In general, they resemble Sidney in their use of conventional pastoralism’s people and machinery, but their style is heavily influenced by Lyly. Among their many other works, each wrote one book that is still of significance, not because of its basic virtues, but because of its relationship to Shakespeare. The raw ingredients for As You Like It came from Lodge’s Rosalynde, Euphues’ Golden Legacy; those for The Winter’s Tale came from Greene’s Pandosto, The Triumph of Time. He selected the law as his vocation; he was called to the he had also made his mark as an orator in the House of Commons. Thomas Nash, University Wits?, has a place somewhat apart, because at a time when the tendency in fiction was almost entirely towards romance, he gave a distinct lead in the direction of coarse realism. His Unfortunate Traveller, or The Life of Jack Wilton, a wandering narrative of adventure on the continent, is our oldest example of the picaresque novel,’ or novel of rascality—a genre of literature that was already popular in Spain and that Defoe would later pursue with great success.

The varied interests of the time are well represented in the prose literature of the time. Many writers cultivated history, including Raleigh in his vast and uncritical History of the World (1614); Bacon in his judicial History of Henry VII’s Reign (1622); Foxe in his thoroughly untrustworthy Acts and Monuments or Book of Martyrs (1563); and Raphael Holinshed in his Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland—a work that Shakespeare frequently referred to in his historical plays. The literature of travel naturally blossomed at a time when the spirit of adventure was strong, and one particularly notable work, Richard Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation, may be given as an example. A great deal of important work was done in the field of theology, and while this does not properly concern us here, the masterly Ecclesiastical Polity (1594-97) of Richard Hooker may be mentioned in passing for the sake of its style, which, while still over-rhetorical and involved, is generally plainer and simpler than most contemporary prose. In this perspective, we should consider the Authorised Version of the Bible (1611), which has had a tremendous influence on English writing since its publication. From the beginning of people’s interest in the forms and 76 point of view of literary history, there is also enormous significance in the development of the literature of criticism, as this demonstrates the principles of literature as an art. Sydney’s Apologie for Poetrie is the most well-known of these early treatises (about 1581). William Webbe’s Discourse of English Poetrie (1586) and George Puttenham’s Arte of English Poesie are two more important works in this genre (1589).

Discover more from Smart English Notes

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Type your email…

Continue reading

Essay on William Shakespeare

500 words essay on william shakespeare.

William Shakespeare was certainly a very famous writer. The man is credited with an unbelievable thirty-eight plays, two narrative poems, several other poems and a whopping one hundred fifty-four sonnets. So let us take a peek inside the life of this genius with this essay on William Shakespeare.

                                                                                                                               Essay On William Shakespeare

Early Life of William Shakespeare

Shakespeare is the world’s pre-eminent dramatist and according to many experts is the greatest writer in the English language. Furthermore, he is also called England’s National Poet and also has the nickname of the Bard of Avon. Such a worthy reputation is due to his top-notch unmatchable writing skills.

William Shakespeare was born to a successful businessman in Stratford-upon-Avon on 23rd April in the year 1564. Shakespeare’s mother was the daughter of a landlord and came from a well-to-do family. About the age of seven, William Shakespeare began attending the Stratford Grammar School.

The teachers at Stratford were strict in nature and the school timings were long. One can say that William Shakespeare’s use of nature in his writings was due to the influence of the fields and woods surrounding the Stratford Grammar School on him.

Warwickshire was an interesting place to live, especially for those who were writers. Furthermore, the river Avon ran down through the town and because of this Shakespeare later got the title ‘Bard of Avon’. At the age of eighteen, William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, a woman who in age was eight years older than him.

Illustrious Career of William Shakespeare

After his education, William Shakespeare became engaged in theatrical life in London. Furthermore, it was from here that his career likely took off. Moreover, by the year 1592, the popularity of William Shakespeare had grown to be very much.

Shakespeare became a member of one of the famous theatre companies in the city. Moreover, this company was ‘the Lord Chamberlain’s Men’. Also, the theatre companies during that era were commercial organizations that were dependent upon the audience who came to watch the plays.

From the year 1594, Shakespeare became the leading member of the acting group and remained that for almost the entire rest of his career. By the year 1594, the production of at least six plays had taken place by William Shakespeare.

Evidence shows that Shakespeare became a member of a well-known travelling theatre group. After joining this theatre, Shakespeare did plays in the presence of many dignitaries in various places.

Shakespeare, throughout his life, came up with some outstanding pieces of English literature , involving memorable timeless characters with human qualities. Furthermore, the human qualities and struggles of Shakespeare’s characters are such that one can relate with them even today. Shakespeare retired from his acting profession in 1613 and became completely devoted to writing many excellent plays.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

 Conclusion of the Essay on William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is, without a doubt, one of the greatest writers of all times. Furthermore, his excellence in story writing, narrative building, and character development is of the highest order. Individuals of such a high calibre appear once in a century or are even rarer than that.

FAQs For Essay on William Shakespeare

Question 1: Why is William Shakespeare so famous?

Answer 1:  William Shakespeare’s story writing skills are of an extremely high-quality. Furthermore, his works are characterized by outstanding narrative building around the topics of jealousy, mystery, love, magic, death, murder, life, revenge, and grief. That is why William Shakespeare is so famous.

Question 2: What are some of the most famous works of William Shakespeare?

Answer 2: Some of the most famous works of William Shakespeare are as follows:

• Romeo and Juliet
• The Merchant of Venice
• Much Ado About Nothing

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Which class are you in.

• Travelling Essay
• Picnic Essay
• Our Country Essay
• My Parents Essay
• Essay on Favourite Personality
• Essay on Memorable Day of My Life
• Essay on Knowledge is Power
• Essay on Gurpurab
• Essay on My Favourite Season
• Essay on Types of Sports

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Download the App

Website navigation

Shakespeare's Life: From the Folger Shakespeare Editions

By Barbara Mowat and Paul Werstine Editors of the Folger Shakespeare Library Editions

Listen to this essay:

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. We know that the King’s New School in Stratford-upon-Avon was considered excellent. The school was one of the English “grammar schools” established to educate young men, primarily in Latin grammar and literature. As in other schools of the time, students began their studies at the age of four or five in the attached “petty school,” and there learned to read and write in English, studying primarily the catechism from the Book of Common Prayer. After two years in the petty school, students entered the lower form (grade) of the grammar school, where they began the serious study of Latin grammar and Latin texts that would occupy most of the remainder of their school days. (Several Latin texts that Shakespeare used repeatedly in writing his plays and poems were texts that schoolboys memorized and recited.) Latin comedies were introduced early in the lower form; in the upper form, which the boys entered at age ten or eleven, students wrote their own Latin orations and declamations, studied Latin historians and rhetoricians, and began the study of Greek using the Greek New Testament.

Title page of a 1573 Latin and Greek catechism for children. From Alexander Nowell, Catechismus paruus pueris primum Latine  . . . (1573).

Since the records of the Stratford “grammar school” do not survive, we cannot prove that William Shakespeare attended the school; however, every indication (his father’s position as an alderman and bailiff of Stratford, the playwright’s own knowledge of the Latin classics, scenes in the plays that recall grammar-school experiences—for example,  The Merry Wives of Windsor , 4.1 ) suggests that he did. We also lack generally accepted documentation about Shakespeare’s life after his schooling ended and his professional life in London began. His marriage in 1582 (at age eighteen) to Anne Hathaway and the subsequent births of his daughter Susanna (1583) and the twins Judith and Hamnet (1585) are recorded, but how he supported himself and where he lived are not known. Nor do we know when and why he left Stratford for the London theatrical world, nor how he rose to be the important figure in that world that he had become by the early 1590s.

We do know that by 1592 he had achieved some prominence in London as both an actor and a playwright. In that year was published a book by the playwright Robert Greene attacking an actor who had the audacity to write blank-verse drama and who was “in his own conceit [i.e., opinion] the only Shake-scene in a country.” Since Greene’s attack includes a parody of a line from one of Shakespeare’s early plays, there is little doubt that it is Shakespeare to whom he refers, a “Shake-scene” who had aroused Greene’s fury by successfully competing with university-educated dramatists like Greene himself. It was in 1593 that Shakespeare became a published poet. In that year he published his long narrative poem  Venus and Adonis ; in 1594, he followed it with  The Rape of Lucrece.  Both poems were dedicated to the young earl of Southampton (Henry Wriothesley), who may have become Shakespeare’s patron.

It seems no coincidence that Shakespeare wrote these narrative poems at a time when the theaters were closed because of the plague, a contagious epidemic disease that devastated the population of London. When the theaters reopened in 1594, Shakespeare apparently resumed his double career of actor and playwright and began his long (and seemingly profitable) service as an acting-company shareholder. Records for December of 1594 show him to be a leading member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. It was this company of actors, later named the King’s Men, for whom he would be a principal actor, dramatist, and shareholder for the rest of his career.

So far as we can tell, that career spanned about twenty years. In the 1590s, he wrote his plays on English history as well as several comedies and at least two tragedies ( Titus Andronicus  and  Romeo and Juliet ). These histories, comedies, and tragedies are the plays credited to him in 1598 in a work,  Palladis Tamia , that in one chapter compares English writers with “Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets.” There the author, Francis Meres, claims that Shakespeare is comparable to the Latin dramatists Seneca for tragedy and Plautus for comedy, and calls him “the most excellent in both kinds for the stage.” He also names him “Mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare”: “I say,” writes Meres, “that the Muses would speak with Shakespeare’s fine filed phrase, if they would speak English.” Since Meres also mentions Shakespeare’s “sugared sonnets among his private friends,” it is assumed that many of Shakespeare’s sonnets (not published until 1609) were also written in the 1590s.

In 1599, Shakespeare’s company built a theater for themselves across the river from London, naming it the Globe. The plays that are considered by many to be Shakespeare’s major tragedies ( Hamlet , Othello , King Lear , and  Macbeth ) were written while the company was resident in this theater, as were such comedies as  Twelfth Night  and  Measure for Measure .  Many of Shakespeare’s plays were performed at court (both for Queen Elizabeth I and, after her death in 1603, for King James I), some were presented at the Inns of Court (the residences of London’s legal societies), and some were doubtless performed in other towns, at the universities, and at great houses when the King’s Men went on tour; otherwise, his plays from 1599 to 1608 were, so far as we know, performed only at the Globe. Between 1608 and 1612, Shakespeare wrote several plays—among them  The Winter’s Tale  and  The Tempest —presumably for the company’s new indoor Blackfriars theater, though the plays were performed also at the Globe and at court. Surviving documents describe a performance of  The Winter’s Tale  in 1611 at the Globe, for example, and performances of  The Tempest  in 1611 and 1613 at the royal palace of Whitehall.

Shakespeare seems to have written very little after 1612, the year in which he probably wrote  King Henry VIII .  (It was at a performance of  Henry VIII  in 1613 that the Globe caught fire and burned to the ground.) Sometime between 1610 and 1613, according to many biographers, he returned to live in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he owned a large house and considerable property, and where his wife and his two daughters lived. (His son Hamnet had died in 1596.) However, other biographers suggest that Shakespeare did not leave London for good until much closer to the time of his death. During his professional years in London, Shakespeare had presumably derived income from the acting company’s profits as well as from his own career as an actor, from the sale of his play manuscripts to the acting company, and, after 1599, from his shares as an owner of the Globe. It was presumably that income, carefully invested in land and other property, that made him the wealthy man that surviving documents show him to have become. It is also assumed that William Shakespeare’s growing wealth and reputation played some part in inclining the Crown, in 1596, to grant John Shakespeare, William’s father, the coat of arms that he had so long sought. William Shakespeare died in Stratford on April 23, 1616 (according to the epitaph carved under his bust in Holy Trinity Church) and was buried on April 25. Seven years after his death, his collected plays were published as  Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (the work now known as the First Folio).

Ptolemaic universe. From Marcus Manilius, The sphere of . . . (1675).

The years in which Shakespeare wrote were among the most exciting in English history. Intellectually, the discovery, translation, and printing of Greek and Roman classics were making available a set of works and worldviews that interacted complexly with Christian texts and beliefs. The result was a questioning, a vital intellectual ferment, that provided energy for the period’s amazing dramatic and literary output and that fed directly into Shakespeare’s plays. The Ghost in  Hamlet , for example, is wonderfully complicated in part because he is a figure from Roman tragedy—the spirit of the dead returning to seek revenge—who at the same time inhabits a Christian hell (or purgatory); Hamlet’s description of humankind reflects at one moment the Neoplatonic wonderment at mankind (“ What a piece of work is a man! ”) and, at the next, the Christian attitude toward sinful humanity (“ And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? ”).

As intellectual horizons expanded, so also did geographical and cosmological horizons. New worlds—both North and South America—were explored, and in them were found human beings who lived and worshiped in ways radically different from those of Renaissance Europeans and Englishmen. The universe during these years also seemed to shift and expand. Copernicus had earlier theorized that the earth was not the center of the cosmos but revolved as a planet around the sun. Galileo’s telescope, created in 1609, allowed scientists to see that Copernicus had been correct: the universe was not organized with the earth at the center, nor was it so nicely circumscribed as people had, until that time, thought. In terms of expanding horizons, the impact of these discoveries on people’s beliefs—religious, scientific, and philosophical—cannot be overstated.

London, too, rapidly expanded and changed during the years (from the early 1590s to around 1610) that Shakespeare lived there. London—the center of England’s government, its economy, its royal court, its overseas trade—was, during these years, becoming an exciting metropolis, drawing to it thousands of new citizens every year. Troubled by overcrowding, by poverty, by recurring epidemics of the plague, London was also a mecca for the wealthy and the aristocratic, and for those who sought advancement at court, or power in government or finance or trade. One hears in Shakespeare’s plays the voices of London—the struggles for power, the fear of venereal disease, the language of buying and selling. One hears as well the voices of Stratford-upon-Avon—references to the nearby Forest of Arden, to sheepherding, to small-town gossip, to village fairs and markets. Part of the richness of Shakespeare’s work is the influence felt there of the various worlds in which he lived: the world of metropolitan London, the world of small-town and rural England, the world of the theater, and the worlds of craftsmen and shepherds.

That Shakespeare inhabited such worlds we know from surviving London and Stratford documents, as well as from the evidence of the plays and poems themselves. From such records we can sketch the dramatist’s life. We know from his works that he was a voracious reader. We know from legal and business documents that he was a multifaceted theater man who became a wealthy landowner. We know a bit about his family life and a fair amount about his legal and financial dealings. Most scholars today depend upon such evidence as they draw their picture of the world’s greatest playwright. Such, however, has not always been the case. Until the late eighteenth century, the William Shakespeare who lived in most biographies was the creation of legend and tradition. This was the Shakespeare who was supposedly caught poaching deer at Charlecote, the estate of Sir Thomas Lucy close by Stratford; this was the Shakespeare who fled from Sir Thomas’s vengeance and made his way in London by taking care of horses outside a playhouse; this was the Shakespeare who reportedly could barely read, but whose natural gifts were extraordinary, whose father was a butcher who allowed his gifted son sometimes to help in the butcher shop, where William supposedly killed calves “in a high style,” making a speech for the occasion. It was this legendary William Shakespeare whose Falstaff (in  1  and  2 Henry IV ) so pleased Queen Elizabeth that she demanded a play about Falstaff in love, and demanded that it be written in fourteen days (hence the existence of  The Merry Wives of Windsor ). It was this legendary Shakespeare who reached the top of his acting career in the roles of the Ghost in  Hamlet  and old Adam in  As You Like It —and who died of a fever contracted by drinking too hard at “a merry meeting” with the poets Michael Drayton and Ben Jonson. This legendary Shakespeare is a rambunctious, undisciplined man, as attractively “wild” as his plays were seen by earlier generations to be. Unfortunately, there is no trace of evidence to support these wonderful stories.

Perhaps in response to the disreputable Shakespeare of legend—or perhaps in response to the fragmentary and, for some, all-too-ordinary Shakespeare documented by surviving records—some people since the mid-nineteenth century have argued that William Shakespeare could not have written the plays that bear his name. These persons have put forward some dozen names as more likely authors, among them Queen Elizabeth, Sir Francis Bacon, Edward de Vere (earl of Oxford), and Christopher Marlowe. Such attempts to find what for these people is a more believable author of the plays is a tribute to the regard in which the plays are held. Unfortunately for their claims, the documents that exist that provide evidence for the facts of Shakespeare’s life tie him inextricably to the body of plays and poems that bear his name. Unlikely as it seems to those who want the works to have been written by an aristocrat, a university graduate, or an “important” person, the plays and poems seem clearly to have been produced by a man from Stratford-upon-Avon with a very good “grammar-school” education and a life of experience in London and in the world of the London theater. How this particular man produced the works that dominate the cultures of much of the world four centuries after his death is one of life’s mysteries—and one that will continue to tease our imaginations as we continue to delight in his plays and poems.

Further Reading

Baldwin, T. W.  William Shakspere’s Petty School.  Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1943.

Baldwin here investigates the theory and practice of the petty school, the first level of education in Elizabethan England. He focuses on that educational system primarily as it is reflected in Shakespeare’s art.

Baldwin, T. W.  William Shakspere’s Small Latine and Lesse Greeke.  2 vols. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1944.

Baldwin attacks the view that Shakespeare was an uneducated genius—a view that had been dominant among Shakespeareans since the eighteenth century. Instead, Baldwin shows, the educational system of Shakespeare’s time would have given the playwright a strong background in the classics, and there is much in the plays that shows how Shakespeare benefited from such an education.

Beier, A. L., and Roger Finlay, eds.  London 1500–1700: The Making of the Metropolis.  New York: Longman, 1986.

Focusing on the economic and social history of early modern London, these collected essays probe aspects of metropolitan life, including “Population and Disease,” “Commerce and Manufacture,” and “Society and Change.”

Chambers, E. K.  William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems.  2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930.

Analyzing in great detail the scant historical data, Chambers’s complex, scholarly study considers the nature of the texts in which Shakespeare’s work is preserved.

Cressy, David.  Education in Tudor and Stuart England.  London: Edward Arnold, 1975.

This volume collects sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and early eighteenth-century documents detailing aspects of formal education in England, such as the curriculum, the control and organization of education, and the education of women.

Duncan-Jones, Katherine.  Shakespeare: An Ungentle Life.  London: Arden Shakespeare, 2010.

This biography, first published in 2001 under the title  Ungentle Shakespeare: Scenes from His Life,  sets out to look into the documents from Shakespeare’s personal life—especially legal and financial records—and it finds there a man very different from the one portrayed in more traditional biographies. He is “ungentle” in being born to a lower social class and in being a bit ruthless and more than a bit stingy. As the author notes, “three topics were formerly taboo both in polite society and in Shakespearean biography: social class, sex and money. I have been indelicate enough to give a good deal of attention to all three.” She examines “Shakespeare’s uphill struggle to achieve, or purchase, ‘gentle’ status.” She finds that “Shakespeare was strongly interested in intense relationships with well-born young men.” And she shows that he was “reluctant to divert much, if any, of his considerable wealth towards charitable, neighbourly, or altruistic ends.” She insists that his plays and poems are “great, and enduring,” and that it is in them “that the best of him is to be found.”

Dutton, Richard.  William Shakespeare: A Literary Life.  New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989.

Not a biography in the traditional sense, Dutton’s very readable work nevertheless “follows the contours of Shakespeare’s life” as it examines Shakespeare’s career as playwright and poet, with consideration of his patrons, theatrical associations, and audience.

Honan, Park.  Shakespeare: A Life.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Honan’s accessible biography focuses on the various contexts of Shakespeare’s life—physical, social, political, and cultural—to place the dramatist within a lucidly described world. The biography includes detailed examinations of, for example, Stratford schooling, theatrical politics of 1590s London, and the careers of Shakespeare’s associates. The author draws on a wealth of established knowledge and on interesting new research into local records and documents; he also engages in speculation about, for example, the possibilities that Shakespeare was a tutor in a Catholic household in the north of England in the 1580s and that he acted particular roles in his own plays, areas that reflect new, but unproven and debatable, data—though Honan is usually careful to note where a particular narrative “has not been capable of proof or disproof.”

Potter, Lois.  The Life of William Shakespeare: A Critical Biography.  Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.

This critical biography of Shakespeare takes the playwright from cradle to grave, paying primary attention to his literary and theatrical milieu. The chapters “follow a chronological sequence,” each focusing on a handful of years in the playwright’s life. In the chapters that cover his playwriting years (5–17), each chapter focuses on events in Stratford-upon-Avon and in London (especially in the commercial theaters) while giving equal space to discussions of the plays and/or poems Shakespeare wrote during those years. Filled with information from Shakespeare’s literary and theatrical worlds, the biography also shares frequent insights into how modern productions of a given play can shed light on the play, especially in scenes that Shakespeare’s text presents ambiguously.

Schoenbaum, S.  William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.

Schoenbaum’s evidence-based biography of Shakespeare is a compact version of his magisterial folio-size  Shakespeare: A Documentary Life  (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975). Schoenbaum structures his readable “compact” narrative around the documents that still exist which chronicle Shakespeare’s familial, theatrical, legal, and financial existence. These documents, along with those discovered since the 1970s, form the basis of almost all Shakespeare biographies written since Schoenbaum’s books appeared.

Stay connected

Find out what’s on, read our latest stories, and learn how you can get involved.

• Search Menu
• Browse content in Arts and Humanities
• Browse content in Archaeology
• Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
• Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
• Archaeology by Region
• Archaeology of Religion
• Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
• Biblical Archaeology
• Contemporary and Public Archaeology
• Environmental Archaeology
• Historical Archaeology
• History and Theory of Archaeology
• Industrial Archaeology
• Landscape Archaeology
• Mortuary Archaeology
• Prehistoric Archaeology
• Underwater Archaeology
• Urban Archaeology
• Zooarchaeology
• Browse content in Architecture
• Architectural Structure and Design
• History of Architecture
• Residential and Domestic Buildings
• Theory of Architecture
• Browse content in Art
• Art Subjects and Themes
• History of Art
• Industrial and Commercial Art
• Theory of Art
• Biographical Studies
• Byzantine Studies
• Browse content in Classical Studies
• Classical Literature
• Classical Reception
• Classical History
• Classical Philosophy
• Classical Mythology
• Classical Art and Architecture
• Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
• Greek and Roman Papyrology
• Greek and Roman Archaeology
• Greek and Roman Epigraphy
• Greek and Roman Law
• Late Antiquity
• Religion in the Ancient World
• Digital Humanities
• Browse content in History
• Colonialism and Imperialism
• Diplomatic History
• Environmental History
• Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
• Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
• Historical Geography
• History by Period
• History of Emotions
• History of Agriculture
• History of Education
• History of Gender and Sexuality
• Industrial History
• Intellectual History
• International History
• Labour History
• Legal and Constitutional History
• Local and Family History
• Maritime History
• Military History
• National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
• Oral History
• Political History
• Public History
• Regional and National History
• Revolutions and Rebellions
• Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
• Social and Cultural History
• Theory, Methods, and Historiography
• Urban History
• World History
• Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
• Language Learning (Specific Skills)
• Language Teaching Theory and Methods
• Browse content in Linguistics
• Applied Linguistics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• Computational Linguistics
• Forensic Linguistics
• Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
• Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
• History of English
• Language Evolution
• Language Reference
• Language Variation
• Language Families
• Language Acquisition
• Lexicography
• Linguistic Anthropology
• Linguistic Theories
• Linguistic Typology
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Psycholinguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• Translation and Interpretation
• Writing Systems
• Browse content in Literature
• Bibliography
• Children's Literature Studies
• Literary Studies (Romanticism)
• Literary Studies (American)
• Literary Studies (Modernism)
• Literary Studies (Asian)
• Literary Studies (European)
• Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
• Literary Studies - World
• Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
• Literary Studies (19th Century)
• Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
• Literary Studies (African American Literature)
• Literary Studies (British and Irish)
• Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
• Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
• Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
• Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
• Literary Studies (History of the Book)
• Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
• Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
• Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
• Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
• Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
• Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
• Literary Studies (War Literature)
• Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
• Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
• Mythology and Folklore
• Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
• Browse content in Media Studies
• Browse content in Music
• Applied Music
• Dance and Music
• Ethics in Music
• Ethnomusicology
• Gender and Sexuality in Music
• Medicine and Music
• Music Cultures
• Music and Media
• Music and Culture
• Music and Religion
• Music Education and Pedagogy
• Music Theory and Analysis
• Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
• Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
• Musicology and Music History
• Performance Practice and Studies
• Race and Ethnicity in Music
• Sound Studies
• Browse content in Performing Arts
• Browse content in Philosophy
• Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
• Epistemology
• Feminist Philosophy
• History of Western Philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Moral Philosophy
• Non-Western Philosophy
• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy of Perception
• Philosophy of Action
• Philosophy of Law
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
• Practical Ethics
• Social and Political Philosophy
• Browse content in Religion
• Biblical Studies
• Christianity
• East Asian Religions
• History of Religion
• Judaism and Jewish Studies
• Qumran Studies
• Religion and Education
• Religion and Health
• Religion and Politics
• Religion and Science
• Religion and Law
• Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
• Religious Studies
• Browse content in Society and Culture
• Cookery, Food, and Drink
• Cultural Studies
• Customs and Traditions
• Ethical Issues and Debates
• Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
• Lifestyle, Home, and Garden
• Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
• Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
• Sports and Outdoor Recreation
• Technology and Society
• Travel and Holiday
• Visual Culture
• Browse content in Law
• Arbitration
• Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
• Commercial Law
• Company Law
• Browse content in Comparative Law
• Systems of Law
• Competition Law
• Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
• Government Powers
• Judicial Review
• Local Government Law
• Military and Defence Law
• Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
• Construction Law
• Contract Law
• Browse content in Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Criminal Evidence Law
• Sentencing and Punishment
• Employment and Labour Law
• Environment and Energy Law
• Browse content in Financial Law
• Banking Law
• Insolvency Law
• History of Law
• Human Rights and Immigration
• Intellectual Property Law
• Browse content in International Law
• Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
• Public International Law
• IT and Communications Law
• Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
• Law and Society
• Law and Politics
• Browse content in Legal System and Practice
• Courts and Procedure
• Legal Skills and Practice
• Primary Sources of Law
• Regulation of Legal Profession
• Medical and Healthcare Law
• Browse content in Policing
• Criminal Investigation and Detection
• Police and Security Services
• Police Procedure and Law
• Police Regional Planning
• Browse content in Property Law
• Personal Property Law
• Study and Revision
• Terrorism and National Security Law
• Browse content in Trusts Law
• Wills and Probate or Succession
• Browse content in Medicine and Health
• Browse content in Allied Health Professions
• Arts Therapies
• Clinical Science
• Dietetics and Nutrition
• Occupational Therapy
• Operating Department Practice
• Physiotherapy
• Radiography
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Browse content in Anaesthetics
• General Anaesthesia
• Neuroanaesthesia
• Clinical Neuroscience
• Browse content in Clinical Medicine
• Acute Medicine
• Cardiovascular Medicine
• Clinical Genetics
• Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
• Dermatology
• Endocrinology and Diabetes
• Gastroenterology
• Genito-urinary Medicine
• Geriatric Medicine
• Infectious Diseases
• Medical Toxicology
• Medical Oncology
• Pain Medicine
• Palliative Medicine
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
• Rheumatology
• Sleep Medicine
• Sports and Exercise Medicine
• Community Medical Services
• Critical Care
• Emergency Medicine
• Forensic Medicine
• Haematology
• History of Medicine
• Browse content in Medical Skills
• Clinical Skills
• Communication Skills
• Nursing Skills
• Surgical Skills
• Medical Ethics
• Browse content in Medical Dentistry
• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Paediatric Dentistry
• Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
• Surgical Dentistry
• Medical Statistics and Methodology
• Browse content in Neurology
• Clinical Neurophysiology
• Neuropathology
• Nursing Studies
• Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
• Gynaecology
• Occupational Medicine
• Ophthalmology
• Otolaryngology (ENT)
• Browse content in Paediatrics
• Neonatology
• Browse content in Pathology
• Chemical Pathology
• Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
• Histopathology
• Medical Microbiology and Virology
• Patient Education and Information
• Browse content in Pharmacology
• Psychopharmacology
• Browse content in Popular Health
• Caring for Others
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Self-help and Personal Development
• Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
• Cell Biology
• Molecular Biology and Genetics
• Reproduction, Growth and Development
• Primary Care
• Professional Development in Medicine
• Browse content in Psychiatry
• Addiction Medicine
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Forensic Psychiatry
• Learning Disabilities
• Old Age Psychiatry
• Psychotherapy
• Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Browse content in Radiology
• Clinical Radiology
• Interventional Radiology
• Nuclear Medicine
• Radiation Oncology
• Reproductive Medicine
• Browse content in Surgery
• Cardiothoracic Surgery
• Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
• General Surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Paediatric Surgery
• Peri-operative Care
• Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
• Surgical Oncology
• Transplant Surgery
• Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
• Vascular Surgery
• Browse content in Science and Mathematics
• Browse content in Biological Sciences
• Aquatic Biology
• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Ecology and Conservation
• Evolutionary Biology
• Genetics and Genomics
• Microbiology
• Molecular and Cell Biology
• Natural History
• Plant Sciences and Forestry
• Research Methods in Life Sciences
• Structural Biology
• Systems Biology
• Zoology and Animal Sciences
• Browse content in Chemistry
• Analytical Chemistry
• Computational Chemistry
• Crystallography
• Environmental Chemistry
• Industrial Chemistry
• Inorganic Chemistry
• Materials Chemistry
• Medicinal Chemistry
• Mineralogy and Gems
• Organic Chemistry
• Physical Chemistry
• Polymer Chemistry
• Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
• Theoretical Chemistry
• Browse content in Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Architecture and Logic Design
• Game Studies
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Mathematical Theory of Computation
• Programming Languages
• Software Engineering
• Systems Analysis and Design
• Virtual Reality
• Browse content in Computing
• Business Applications
• Computer Games
• Computer Security
• Computer Networking and Communications
• Digital Lifestyle
• Graphical and Digital Media Applications
• Operating Systems
• Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
• Atmospheric Sciences
• Environmental Geography
• Geology and the Lithosphere
• Maps and Map-making
• Meteorology and Climatology
• Oceanography and Hydrology
• Palaeontology
• Physical Geography and Topography
• Regional Geography
• Soil Science
• Urban Geography
• Browse content in Engineering and Technology
• Agriculture and Farming
• Biological Engineering
• Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
• Electronics and Communications Engineering
• Energy Technology
• Engineering (General)
• Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
• History of Engineering and Technology
• Mechanical Engineering and Materials
• Technology of Industrial Chemistry
• Transport Technology and Trades
• Browse content in Environmental Science
• Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
• Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Environmental Sustainability
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
• Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
• History of Science and Technology
• Browse content in Materials Science
• Ceramics and Glasses
• Composite Materials
• Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
• Nanotechnology
• Browse content in Mathematics
• Applied Mathematics
• Biomathematics and Statistics
• History of Mathematics
• Mathematical Education
• Mathematical Finance
• Mathematical Analysis
• Numerical and Computational Mathematics
• Probability and Statistics
• Pure Mathematics
• Browse content in Neuroscience
• Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
• Development of the Nervous System
• Disorders of the Nervous System
• History of Neuroscience
• Invertebrate Neurobiology
• Molecular and Cellular Systems
• Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
• Neuroscientific Techniques
• Sensory and Motor Systems
• Browse content in Physics
• Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
• Biological and Medical Physics
• Classical Mechanics
• Computational Physics
• Condensed Matter Physics
• Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
• History of Physics
• Mathematical and Statistical Physics
• Measurement Science
• Nuclear Physics
• Particles and Fields
• Plasma Physics
• Quantum Physics
• Relativity and Gravitation
• Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
• Browse content in Psychology
• Affective Sciences
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Criminal and Forensic Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Health Psychology
• History and Systems in Psychology
• Music Psychology
• Neuropsychology
• Organizational Psychology
• Psychological Assessment and Testing
• Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
• Psychology Professional Development and Training
• Research Methods in Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Browse content in Social Sciences
• Browse content in Anthropology
• Anthropology of Religion
• Human Evolution
• Medical Anthropology
• Physical Anthropology
• Regional Anthropology
• Social and Cultural Anthropology
• Theory and Practice of Anthropology
• Browse content in Business and Management
• Business Ethics
• Business History
• Business Strategy
• Business and Technology
• Business and Government
• Business and the Environment
• Comparative Management
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Entrepreneurship
• Health Management
• Human Resource Management
• Industrial and Employment Relations
• Industry Studies
• Information and Communication Technologies
• International Business
• Knowledge Management
• Management and Management Techniques
• Operations Management
• Organizational Theory and Behaviour
• Pensions and Pension Management
• Public and Nonprofit Management
• Strategic Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Criminal Justice
• Criminology
• Forms of Crime
• International and Comparative Criminology
• Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
• Development Studies
• Browse content in Economics
• Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
• Asian Economics
• Behavioural Finance
• Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
• Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
• Economic History
• Economic Methodology
• Economic Systems
• Economic Development and Growth
• Financial Markets
• Financial Institutions and Services
• General Economics and Teaching
• Health, Education, and Welfare
• History of Economic Thought
• International Economics
• Labour and Demographic Economics
• Law and Economics
• Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
• Microeconomics
• Public Economics
• Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
• Welfare Economics
• Browse content in Education
• Adult Education and Continuous Learning
• Care and Counselling of Students
• Early Childhood and Elementary Education
• Educational Equipment and Technology
• Educational Strategies and Policy
• Higher and Further Education
• Organization and Management of Education
• Philosophy and Theory of Education
• Schools Studies
• Secondary Education
• Teaching of a Specific Subject
• Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
• Teaching Skills and Techniques
• Browse content in Environment
• Applied Ecology (Social Science)
• Climate Change
• Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environment)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
• Browse content in Human Geography
• Cultural Geography
• Economic Geography
• Political Geography
• Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
• Communication Studies
• Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
• Browse content in Politics
• African Politics
• Asian Politics
• Chinese Politics
• Comparative Politics
• Conflict Politics
• Elections and Electoral Studies
• Environmental Politics
• European Union
• Foreign Policy
• Gender and Politics
• Human Rights and Politics
• Indian Politics
• International Relations
• International Organization (Politics)
• International Political Economy
• Irish Politics
• Latin American Politics
• Middle Eastern Politics
• Political Behaviour
• Political Economy
• Political Institutions
• Political Theory
• Political Methodology
• Political Communication
• Political Philosophy
• Political Sociology
• Politics and Law
• Public Policy
• Public Administration
• Quantitative Political Methodology
• Regional Political Studies
• Russian Politics
• Security Studies
• State and Local Government
• UK Politics
• US Politics
• Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
• African Studies
• Asian Studies
• East Asian Studies
• Japanese Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Native American Studies
• Scottish Studies
• Browse content in Research and Information
• Research Methods
• Browse content in Social Work
• Addictions and Substance Misuse
• Adoption and Fostering
• Care of the Elderly
• Child and Adolescent Social Work
• Couple and Family Social Work
• Developmental and Physical Disabilities Social Work
• Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
• Emergency Services
• Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
• International and Global Issues in Social Work
• Mental and Behavioural Health
• Social Justice and Human Rights
• Social Policy and Advocacy
• Social Work and Crime and Justice
• Social Work Macro Practice
• Social Work Practice Settings
• Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
• Welfare and Benefit Systems
• Browse content in Sociology
• Childhood Studies
• Community Development
• Comparative and Historical Sociology
• Economic Sociology
• Gender and Sexuality
• Gerontology and Ageing
• Health, Illness, and Medicine
• Marriage and the Family
• Migration Studies
• Occupations, Professions, and Work
• Organizations
• Population and Demography
• Race and Ethnicity
• Social Theory
• Social Movements and Social Change
• Social Research and Statistics
• Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
• Sociology of Religion
• Sociology of Education
• Sport and Leisure
• Urban and Rural Studies
• Browse content in Warfare and Defence
• Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
• Land Forces and Warfare
• Military Administration
• Military Life and Institutions
• Naval Forces and Warfare
• Other Warfare and Defence Issues
• Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
• Weapons and Equipment

The Oxford Handbook of the Age of Shakespeare

R. Malcolm Smuts is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Massachusetts Boston. His publications include Court Culture and the Origins of a Royalist Tradition in Early Stuart England (1987), Culture and Power in England 1585-1685 (1998) and numerous articles and edited works relating to the politics and culture of early modern England and Europe.

• Cite Icon Cite
• Permissions Icon Permissions

This handbook presents a broad sampling of current historical scholarship on Shakespeare’s period that it is hoped will prove useful to scholars of his poems and plays. Rather than attempting to summarize the historical ‘background’ to Shakespeare, individual chapters explore numerous topics and methodologies at the forefront of current historical research. An initial cluster shows how political history has expanded beyond a traditional focus on relations between Crown and Parliament to encompass attention to attempts by the government to manage opinion; military challenges; problems in subduing Ireland and mediating relations between the British kingdoms; and the interplay between national affairs and local factions and concerns. Additional chapters deal with relationships between intellectual culture and political imagination, with detailed attention to varieties of early modern historical thought and the emergence of a ‘public sphere’. Other contributors examine facets of religious and social history, including scriptural translation, concepts of the devil, cultural attitudes concerning honour, shame and emotion, and life in London. A final section deals with vernacular architecture, Renaissance gardens, visual culture and theatrical music.

Signed in as

Institutional accounts.

• GoogleCrawler [DO NOT DELETE]
• Google Scholar Indexing

Personal account

• Sign in with email/username & password
• Get email alerts
• Save searches
• Purchase content
• Activate your purchase/trial code

Institutional access

• Sign in with a library card Sign in with username/password Recommend to your librarian
• Institutional account management
• Get help with access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Sign in through your institution

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.

• Click Sign in through your institution.
• Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
• When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
• Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Sign in with a library card

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:

• Click Sign in through society site.
• When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

• View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
• View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Our books are available by subscription or purchase to libraries and institutions.

• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Rights and permissions
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

• CBSE Class 10th
• CBSE Class 12th
• UP Board 10th
• UP Board 12th
• Bihar Board 10th
• Bihar Board 12th
• Top Schools in India
• Top Schools in Delhi
• Top Schools in Mumbai
• Top Schools in Chennai
• Top Schools in Hyderabad
• Top Schools in Kolkata
• Top Schools in Pune
• Top Schools in Bangalore

Products & Resources

• JEE Main Knockout April
• Free Sample Papers
• Free Ebooks
• NCERT Notes
• NCERT Syllabus
• NCERT Books
• RD Sharma Solutions
• Navodaya Vidyalaya Admission 2024-25
• NCERT Solutions
• NCERT Solutions for Class 12
• NCERT Solutions for Class 11
• NCERT solutions for Class 10
• NCERT solutions for Class 9
• NCERT solutions for Class 8
• NCERT Solutions for Class 7
• JEE Main 2024
• JEE Advanced 2024
• BITSAT 2024
• View All Engineering Exams
• Colleges Accepting B.Tech Applications
• Top Engineering Colleges in India
• Engineering Colleges in India
• Engineering Colleges in Tamil Nadu
• Engineering Colleges Accepting JEE Main
• Top IITs in India
• Top NITs in India
• Top IIITs in India
• JEE Main College Predictor
• JEE Main Rank Predictor
• MHT CET College Predictor
• AP EAMCET College Predictor
• GATE College Predictor
• KCET College Predictor
• JEE Advanced College Predictor
• View All College Predictors
• JEE Main Question Paper
• JEE Main Mock Test
• JEE Main Registration
• JEE Main Syllabus
• Download E-Books and Sample Papers
• Compare Colleges
• B.Tech College Applications
• GATE 2024 Result
• MAH MBA CET Exam
• View All Management Exams

Colleges & Courses

• MBA College Admissions
• MBA Colleges in India
• Top IIMs Colleges in India
• Top Online MBA Colleges in India
• MBA Colleges Accepting XAT Score
• BBA Colleges in India
• XAT College Predictor 2024
• SNAP College Predictor
• NMAT College Predictor
• MAT College Predictor 2024
• CMAT College Predictor 2024
• CAT Percentile Predictor 2023
• CAT 2023 College Predictor
• CMAT 2024 Registration
• TS ICET 2024 Registration
• CMAT Exam Date 2024
• MAH MBA CET Cutoff 2024
• Download Helpful Ebooks
• List of Popular Branches
• QnA - Get answers to your doubts
• IIM Fees Structure
• AIIMS Nursing
• Top Medical Colleges in India
• Top Medical Colleges in India accepting NEET Score
• Medical Colleges accepting NEET
• List of Medical Colleges in India
• List of AIIMS Colleges In India
• Medical Colleges in Maharashtra
• Medical Colleges in India Accepting NEET PG
• NEET College Predictor
• NEET PG College Predictor
• NEET MDS College Predictor
• DNB CET College Predictor
• DNB PDCET College Predictor
• NEET Application Form 2024
• NEET PG Application Form 2024
• NEET Cut off
• NEET Online Preparation
• Download Helpful E-books
• LSAT India 2024
• Colleges Accepting Admissions
• Top Law Colleges in India
• Law College Accepting CLAT Score
• List of Law Colleges in India
• Top Law Colleges in Delhi
• Top Law Collages in Indore
• Top Law Colleges in Chandigarh
• Top Law Collages in Lucknow

Predictors & E-Books

• CLAT College Predictor
• MHCET Law ( 5 Year L.L.B) College Predictor
• AILET College Predictor
• Sample Papers
• Compare Law Collages
• Careers360 Youtube Channel
• CLAT Syllabus 2025
• CLAT Previous Year Question Paper
• AIBE 18 Result 2023
• NID DAT Exam
• Pearl Academy Exam

Animation Courses

• Animation Courses in India
• Animation Courses in Bangalore
• Animation Courses in Mumbai
• Animation Courses in Pune
• Animation Courses in Chennai
• Animation Courses in Hyderabad
• Design Colleges in India
• Fashion Design Colleges in Bangalore
• Fashion Design Colleges in Mumbai
• Fashion Design Colleges in Pune
• Fashion Design Colleges in Delhi
• Fashion Design Colleges in Hyderabad
• Fashion Design Colleges in India
• Top Design Colleges in India
• Free Design E-books
• List of Branches
• Careers360 Youtube channel
• NIFT College Predictor
• UCEED College Predictor
• NID DAT College Predictor
• IPU CET BJMC
• JMI Mass Communication Entrance Exam
• IIMC Entrance Exam
• Media & Journalism colleges in Delhi
• Media & Journalism colleges in Bangalore
• Media & Journalism colleges in Mumbai
• List of Media & Journalism Colleges in India
• CA Intermediate
• CA Foundation
• CS Executive
• CS Professional
• Difference between CA and CS
• Difference between CA and CMA
• CA Full form
• CMA Full form
• CS Full form
• CA Salary In India

Top Courses & Careers

• Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com)
• Master of Commerce (M.Com)
• Company Secretary
• Cost Accountant
• Charted Accountant
• Credit Manager
• Financial Advisor
• Top Commerce Colleges in India
• Top Government Commerce Colleges in India
• Top Private Commerce Colleges in India
• Top M.Com Colleges in Mumbai
• Top B.Com Colleges in India
• IT Colleges in Tamil Nadu
• IT Colleges in Uttar Pradesh
• MCA Colleges in India
• BCA Colleges in India

Quick Links

• Information Technology Courses
• Programming Courses
• Web Development Courses
• Data Analytics Courses
• Big Data Analytics Courses
• RUHS Pharmacy Admission Test
• Top Pharmacy Colleges in India
• Pharmacy Colleges in Pune
• Pharmacy Colleges in Mumbai
• Colleges Accepting GPAT Score
• Pharmacy Colleges in Lucknow
• List of Pharmacy Colleges in Nagpur
• GPAT Result
• GPAT 2024 Admit Card
• GPAT Question Papers
• NCHMCT JEE 2024
• Mah BHMCT CET
• Top Hotel Management Colleges in Delhi
• Top Hotel Management Colleges in Hyderabad
• Top Hotel Management Colleges in Mumbai
• Top Hotel Management Colleges in Tamil Nadu
• Top Hotel Management Colleges in Maharashtra
• B.Sc Hotel Management
• Hotel Management
• Diploma in Hotel Management and Catering Technology

Diploma Colleges

• Top Diploma Colleges in Maharashtra
• UPSC IAS 2024
• SSC CGL 2024
• IBPS RRB 2024
• Previous Year Sample Papers
• Free Competition E-books
• Sarkari Result
• QnA- Get your doubts answered
• UPSC Previous Year Sample Papers
• CTET Previous Year Sample Papers
• SBI Clerk Previous Year Sample Papers
• NDA Previous Year Sample Papers

Upcoming Events

• NDA Application Form 2024
• UPSC IAS Application Form 2024
• CDS Application Form 2024
• CTET Admit card 2024
• HP TET Result 2023
• SSC GD Constable Admit Card 2024
• UPTET Notification 2024
• SBI Clerk Result 2024

Other Exams

• SSC CHSL 2024
• UP PCS 2024
• UGC NET 2024
• RRB NTPC 2024
• IBPS PO 2024
• IBPS Clerk 2024
• IBPS SO 2024
• Top University in USA
• Top University in Canada
• Top University in Ireland
• Top Universities in UK
• Top Universities in Australia
• Best MBA Colleges in Abroad
• Business Management Studies Colleges

Top Countries

• Study in USA
• Study in UK
• Study in Canada
• Study in Australia
• Study in Ireland
• Study in Germany
• Study in China
• Study in Europe

Student Visas

• Student Visa Canada
• Student Visa UK
• Student Visa USA
• Student Visa Australia
• Student Visa Germany
• Student Visa New Zealand
• Student Visa Ireland
• CUET PG 2024
• IGNOU B.Ed Admission 2024
• DU Admission
• UP B.Ed JEE 2024
• DDU Entrance Exam
• IIT JAM 2024
• IGNOU Online Admission 2024
• Universities in India
• Top Universities in India 2024
• Top Colleges in India
• Top Universities in Uttar Pradesh 2024
• Top Universities in Bihar
• Top Universities in Madhya Pradesh 2024
• Top Universities in Tamil Nadu 2024
• Central Universities in India
• CUET PG Admit Card 2024
• IGNOU Date Sheet
• CUET Mock Test 2024
• CUET Application Form 2024
• CUET PG Syllabus 2024
• CUET Participating Universities 2024
• CUET Previous Year Question Paper
• CUET Syllabus 2024 for Science Students
• E-Books and Sample Papers
• CUET Exam Pattern 2024
• CUET Exam Date 2024
• CUET Syllabus 2024
• IGNOU Exam Form 2024
• IGNOU Result
• CUET PG Courses 2024

Engineering Preparation

• Knockout JEE Main 2024
• Test Series JEE Main 2024
• JEE Main 2024 Rank Booster

Medical Preparation

• Knockout NEET 2024
• Test Series NEET 2024
• Rank Booster NEET 2024

Online Courses

• JEE Main One Month Course
• NEET One Month Course
• IBSAT Free Mock Tests
• IIT JEE Foundation Course
• Knockout BITSAT 2024
• Career Guidance Tool

Top Streams

• IT & Software Certification Courses
• Engineering and Architecture Certification Courses
• Programming And Development Certification Courses
• Business and Management Certification Courses
• Marketing Certification Courses
• Health and Fitness Certification Courses
• Design Certification Courses

Specializations

• Digital Marketing Certification Courses
• Cyber Security Certification Courses
• Artificial Intelligence Certification Courses
• Business Analytics Certification Courses
• Data Science Certification Courses
• Cloud Computing Certification Courses
• Machine Learning Certification Courses
• View All Certification Courses
• UG Degree Courses
• PG Degree Courses
• Short Term Courses
• Free Courses
• Online Degrees and Diplomas
• Compare Courses

Top Providers

• Coursera Courses
• Udemy Courses
• Edx Courses
• Swayam Courses
• upGrad Courses
• Simplilearn Courses
• Great Learning Courses

Access premium articles, webinars, resources to make the best decisions for career, course, exams, scholarships, study abroad and much more with

Plan, Prepare & Make the Best Career Choices

Essay on William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is one of the first names that come to our mind when we talk about English Literature. He was a famous writer of his time. His remarkable work in the field of literature left an everlasting impression on this world for forever. He wrote about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, 2 narrative poems and many other poems which are recognized as some of the greatest works in the history of English literature. He was an incredible writer whose works were so extraordinary that some had raised many speculations on the true origin of his works many years back. Here are a few sample essays on William Shakespeare.

100 Words Essay on William Shakespeare

A legendary writer and actor William Shakespeare was born on the 23April in 1564 to Mary Shakespeare and John Shakespeare. He was known for his works in the field of English Literature. He produced many plays, sonnets, poems, and verses. He was also known as a well-known stage actor. He completed his schooling at Stratford Grammar School.

He wrote almost every genre of work. Some of his famous comedy genre works are: The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew and The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Romeo Juliet, Julius Caesar, and Titus Andronicus are some of his famous tragic genre works. Richard II, Richard III, and Henry V are some of his historic genre plays. This shows that William Shakespeare was a multi-talented man.

William Shakespeare died on the 23 April, in the year 1616. Shakespeare died at the age of 52 in his hometown Warwickshire, England. He died physically but his existence through his extraordinary work will live forever in this world.

200 Words Essay on William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is one of the renowned names of English playwrights. He was a multi-talented man who was a writer, poet and actor. He produced about one hundred and fifty-four sonnets, two narrative poems, thirty-eight plays and a few verses. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon to a good family with good financial status on 23 April, 1564.

He started his career as an actor and then he started writing. He produced most of his works from 1589 to 1613. He wrote many famous plays like Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar , etc. In the year 1608, Shakespeare wrote some of his finest works of the tragic genre like Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear. These tragic genre works were some of the last works which he wrote in his last few years of life. Julius Caesar and Romeo and Juliet are some of his most famous plays which are played in schools and colleges on various occasions. He wrote vast, voluminous, unique and every different genre of plays.

Several of Shakespeare’s works have been translated into other languages. Several movies and plays are also played in his plays. His works are loved by everyone of every age group. He is one of the most precious playwrights of the times. He died in his hometown at the age of 52 on 23 of April, 1616.

500 Words Essay on William Shakespeare

One of the world's most famous playwrights and a dramatist William Shakespeare was known for his works in English literature. He was also known as Bard of Avon (England’s national poet) for his outstanding and incredible writing skills. He wrote amazing and unbelievable 38 plays, 154 sonnets, 2 narrative poems and a few verses in the English language.

Early life Of Shakespeare

He was born at Stratford-upon-Avon on 23 April in the year 1564. His father was a successful businessman and his mother was a landowner’s daughter. He started his schooling at the age of 7 at Stratford Grammar School. School timing was long and the teachers there were strict. His school was surrounded by woods and fields, which could have influenced his writing skills which are full of nature. Avon is a river which flows in his town, and he was nicknamed Bard of Avon on this basis. He married an eight years older woman Anne Hathaway at the age of 18. They had three kids Susanna, and the twins Judith and Hamnet.

Shakespeare’s Inspirational Career

After completing his education, he moved to London where he started his career as an actor. He became a very famous actor by 1592. It was here that his career started taking shape. He was a member of “The Lord Chamberlain’s Men” one of the very famous theatre companies in the city. By the year 1594, he had produced about six plays which were performed in the company. He played in many of the plays as an actor at various places.

He produced many famous plays like Romeo and Juliet, Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V and many more. Julius Caesar was a tragic play he wrote in the last few years of his life. It was all about a bad omen that the king saw and it came true. In this play, the king is killed by his loyal and trustworthy people and friends. Romeo and Juliet are one of his other plays which were known for the beauty of the love Romeo and Juliet have for each other. All his plays give some morals to learn. His works were full of nature and he had written in almost every kind of genre. His works are known for unforgettable characters full of human qualities. In 1613, he took a break from acting and fully devoted himself to writing. And on 23 April, 1616 he died leaving this world with his incredible and irreplaceable works.

Shakespeare was a legend of English literature. His fantastic writing skills can take away anyone’s heart. His works are known for being character-centric, narrative-building, natural, realistic, and fictional and he has excellent writing skills. There is a saying that “People die but their words won’t” and it is true William Shakespeare, one of the greatest writers of all time will live forever through his words of writing and his works will always inspire and motivate us to do incredible things in our lives.

Explore Career Options (By Industry)

• Construction
• Entertainment
• Manufacturing
• Information Technology

Bio Medical Engineer

The field of biomedical engineering opens up a universe of expert chances. An Individual in the biomedical engineering career path work in the field of engineering as well as medicine, in order to find out solutions to common problems of the two fields. The biomedical engineering job opportunities are to collaborate with doctors and researchers to develop medical systems, equipment, or devices that can solve clinical problems. Here we will be discussing jobs after biomedical engineering, how to get a job in biomedical engineering, biomedical engineering scope, and salary. 

Data Administrator

Database professionals use software to store and organise data such as financial information, and customer shipping records. Individuals who opt for a career as data administrators ensure that data is available for users and secured from unauthorised sales. DB administrators may work in various types of industries. It may involve computer systems design, service firms, insurance companies, banks and hospitals.

Ethical Hacker

A career as ethical hacker involves various challenges and provides lucrative opportunities in the digital era where every giant business and startup owns its cyberspace on the world wide web. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path try to find the vulnerabilities in the cyber system to get its authority. If he or she succeeds in it then he or she gets its illegal authority. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path then steal information or delete the file that could affect the business, functioning, or services of the organization.

Data Analyst

The invention of the database has given fresh breath to the people involved in the data analytics career path. Analysis refers to splitting up a whole into its individual components for individual analysis. Data analysis is a method through which raw data are processed and transformed into information that would be beneficial for user strategic thinking.

Data are collected and examined to respond to questions, evaluate hypotheses or contradict theories. It is a tool for analyzing, transforming, modeling, and arranging data with useful knowledge, to assist in decision-making and methods, encompassing various strategies, and is used in different fields of business, research, and social science.

Geothermal Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as geothermal engineers are the professionals involved in the processing of geothermal energy. The responsibilities of geothermal engineers may vary depending on the workplace location. Those who work in fields design facilities to process and distribute geothermal energy. They oversee the functioning of machinery used in the field.

Remote Sensing Technician

Individuals who opt for a career as a remote sensing technician possess unique personalities. Remote sensing analysts seem to be rational human beings, they are strong, independent, persistent, sincere, realistic and resourceful. Some of them are analytical as well, which means they are intelligent, introspective and inquisitive. 

Remote sensing scientists use remote sensing technology to support scientists in fields such as community planning, flight planning or the management of natural resources. Analysing data collected from aircraft, satellites or ground-based platforms using statistical analysis software, image analysis software or Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a significant part of their work. Do you want to learn how to become remote sensing technician? There's no need to be concerned; we've devised a simple remote sensing technician career path for you. Scroll through the pages and read.

Geotechnical engineer

The role of geotechnical engineer starts with reviewing the projects needed to define the required material properties. The work responsibilities are followed by a site investigation of rock, soil, fault distribution and bedrock properties on and below an area of interest. The investigation is aimed to improve the ground engineering design and determine their engineering properties that include how they will interact with, on or in a proposed construction. 

The role of geotechnical engineer in mining includes designing and determining the type of foundations, earthworks, and or pavement subgrades required for the intended man-made structures to be made. Geotechnical engineering jobs are involved in earthen and concrete dam construction projects, working under a range of normal and extreme loading conditions. 

Cartographer

How fascinating it is to represent the whole world on just a piece of paper or a sphere. With the help of maps, we are able to represent the real world on a much smaller scale. Individuals who opt for a career as a cartographer are those who make maps. But, cartography is not just limited to maps, it is about a mixture of art , science , and technology. As a cartographer, not only you will create maps but use various geodetic surveys and remote sensing systems to measure, analyse, and create different maps for political, cultural or educational purposes.

Budget Analyst

Budget analysis, in a nutshell, entails thoroughly analyzing the details of a financial budget. The budget analysis aims to better understand and manage revenue. Budget analysts assist in the achievement of financial targets, the preservation of profitability, and the pursuit of long-term growth for a business. Budget analysts generally have a bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, economics, or a closely related field. Knowledge of Financial Management is of prime importance in this career.

Product Manager

A Product Manager is a professional responsible for product planning and marketing. He or she manages the product throughout the Product Life Cycle, gathering and prioritising the product. A product manager job description includes defining the product vision and working closely with team members of other departments to deliver winning products.  

Underwriter

An underwriter is a person who assesses and evaluates the risk of insurance in his or her field like mortgage, loan, health policy, investment, and so on and so forth. The underwriter career path does involve risks as analysing the risks means finding out if there is a way for the insurance underwriter jobs to recover the money from its clients. If the risk turns out to be too much for the company then in the future it is an underwriter who will be held accountable for it. Therefore, one must carry out his or her job with a lot of attention and diligence.

Finance Executive

Operations manager.

Individuals in the operations manager jobs are responsible for ensuring the efficiency of each department to acquire its optimal goal. They plan the use of resources and distribution of materials. The operations manager's job description includes managing budgets, negotiating contracts, and performing administrative tasks.

Bank Probationary Officer (PO)

Investment director.

An investment director is a person who helps corporations and individuals manage their finances. They can help them develop a strategy to achieve their goals, including paying off debts and investing in the future. In addition, he or she can help individuals make informed decisions.

Welding Engineer

Welding Engineer Job Description: A Welding Engineer work involves managing welding projects and supervising welding teams. He or she is responsible for reviewing welding procedures, processes and documentation. A career as Welding Engineer involves conducting failure analyses and causes on welding issues. 

Transportation Planner

A career as Transportation Planner requires technical application of science and technology in engineering, particularly the concepts, equipment and technologies involved in the production of products and services. In fields like land use, infrastructure review, ecological standards and street design, he or she considers issues of health, environment and performance. A Transportation Planner assigns resources for implementing and designing programmes. He or she is responsible for assessing needs, preparing plans and forecasts and compliance with regulations.

An expert in plumbing is aware of building regulations and safety standards and works to make sure these standards are upheld. Testing pipes for leakage using air pressure and other gauges, and also the ability to construct new pipe systems by cutting, fitting, measuring and threading pipes are some of the other more involved aspects of plumbing. Individuals in the plumber career path are self-employed or work for a small business employing less than ten people, though some might find working for larger entities or the government more desirable.

Construction Manager

Individuals who opt for a career as construction managers have a senior-level management role offered in construction firms. Responsibilities in the construction management career path are assigning tasks to workers, inspecting their work, and coordinating with other professionals including architects, subcontractors, and building services engineers.

Urban Planner

Urban Planning careers revolve around the idea of developing a plan to use the land optimally, without affecting the environment. Urban planning jobs are offered to those candidates who are skilled in making the right use of land to distribute the growing population, to create various communities. 

Urban planning careers come with the opportunity to make changes to the existing cities and towns. They identify various community needs and make short and long-term plans accordingly.

Highway Engineer

Highway Engineer Job Description:  A Highway Engineer is a civil engineer who specialises in planning and building thousands of miles of roads that support connectivity and allow transportation across the country. He or she ensures that traffic management schemes are effectively planned concerning economic sustainability and successful implementation.

Environmental Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as an environmental engineer are construction professionals who utilise the skills and knowledge of biology, soil science, chemistry and the concept of engineering to design and develop projects that serve as solutions to various environmental problems. 

Naval Architect

A Naval Architect is a professional who designs, produces and repairs safe and sea-worthy surfaces or underwater structures. A Naval Architect stays involved in creating and designing ships, ferries, submarines and yachts with implementation of various principles such as gravity, ideal hull form, buoyancy and stability. 

Orthotist and Prosthetist

Orthotists and Prosthetists are professionals who provide aid to patients with disabilities. They fix them to artificial limbs (prosthetics) and help them to regain stability. There are times when people lose their limbs in an accident. In some other occasions, they are born without a limb or orthopaedic impairment. Orthotists and prosthetists play a crucial role in their lives with fixing them to assistive devices and provide mobility.

Veterinary Doctor

Pathologist.

A career in pathology in India is filled with several responsibilities as it is a medical branch and affects human lives. The demand for pathologists has been increasing over the past few years as people are getting more aware of different diseases. Not only that, but an increase in population and lifestyle changes have also contributed to the increase in a pathologist’s demand. The pathology careers provide an extremely huge number of opportunities and if you want to be a part of the medical field you can consider being a pathologist. If you want to know more about a career in pathology in India then continue reading this article.

Speech Therapist

Gynaecologist.

Gynaecology can be defined as the study of the female body. The job outlook for gynaecology is excellent since there is evergreen demand for one because of their responsibility of dealing with not only women’s health but also fertility and pregnancy issues. Although most women prefer to have a women obstetrician gynaecologist as their doctor, men also explore a career as a gynaecologist and there are ample amounts of male doctors in the field who are gynaecologists and aid women during delivery and childbirth. 

An oncologist is a specialised doctor responsible for providing medical care to patients diagnosed with cancer. He or she uses several therapies to control the cancer and its effect on the human body such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy and biopsy. An oncologist designs a treatment plan based on a pathology report after diagnosing the type of cancer and where it is spreading inside the body.

Audiologist

The audiologist career involves audiology professionals who are responsible to treat hearing loss and proactively preventing the relevant damage. Individuals who opt for a career as an audiologist use various testing strategies with the aim to determine if someone has a normal sensitivity to sounds or not. After the identification of hearing loss, a hearing doctor is required to determine which sections of the hearing are affected, to what extent they are affected, and where the wound causing the hearing loss is found. As soon as the hearing loss is identified, the patients are provided with recommendations for interventions and rehabilitation such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, and appropriate medical referrals. While audiology is a branch of science that studies and researches hearing, balance, and related disorders.

Hospital Administrator

The hospital Administrator is in charge of organising and supervising the daily operations of medical services and facilities. This organising includes managing of organisation’s staff and its members in service, budgets, service reports, departmental reporting and taking reminders of patient care and services.

For an individual who opts for a career as an actor, the primary responsibility is to completely speak to the character he or she is playing and to persuade the crowd that the character is genuine by connecting with them and bringing them into the story. This applies to significant roles and littler parts, as all roles join to make an effective creation. Here in this article, we will discuss how to become an actor in India, actor exams, actor salary in India, and actor jobs. 

Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats create and direct original routines for themselves, in addition to developing interpretations of existing routines. The work of circus acrobats can be seen in a variety of performance settings, including circus, reality shows, sports events like the Olympics, movies and commercials. Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats must be prepared to face rejections and intermittent periods of work. The creativity of acrobats may extend to other aspects of the performance. For example, acrobats in the circus may work with gym trainers, celebrities or collaborate with other professionals to enhance such performance elements as costume and or maybe at the teaching end of the career.

Video Game Designer

Career as a video game designer is filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. A video game designer is someone who is involved in the process of creating a game from day one. He or she is responsible for fulfilling duties like designing the character of the game, the several levels involved, plot, art and similar other elements. Individuals who opt for a career as a video game designer may also write the codes for the game using different programming languages.

Depending on the video game designer job description and experience they may also have to lead a team and do the early testing of the game in order to suggest changes and find loopholes.

Radio Jockey

Radio Jockey is an exciting, promising career and a great challenge for music lovers. If you are really interested in a career as radio jockey, then it is very important for an RJ to have an automatic, fun, and friendly personality. If you want to get a job done in this field, a strong command of the language and a good voice are always good things. Apart from this, in order to be a good radio jockey, you will also listen to good radio jockeys so that you can understand their style and later make your own by practicing.

A career as radio jockey has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. If you want to know more about a career as radio jockey, and how to become a radio jockey then continue reading the article.

Choreographer

The word “choreography" actually comes from Greek words that mean “dance writing." Individuals who opt for a career as a choreographer create and direct original dances, in addition to developing interpretations of existing dances. A Choreographer dances and utilises his or her creativity in other aspects of dance performance. For example, he or she may work with the music director to select music or collaborate with other famous choreographers to enhance such performance elements as lighting, costume and set design.

Videographer

Multimedia specialist.

A multimedia specialist is a media professional who creates, audio, videos, graphic image files, computer animations for multimedia applications. He or she is responsible for planning, producing, and maintaining websites and applications. 

Social Media Manager

A career as social media manager involves implementing the company’s or brand’s marketing plan across all social media channels. Social media managers help in building or improving a brand’s or a company’s website traffic, build brand awareness, create and implement marketing and brand strategy. Social media managers are key to important social communication as well.

Copy Writer

In a career as a copywriter, one has to consult with the client and understand the brief well. A career as a copywriter has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. Several new mediums of advertising are opening therefore making it a lucrative career choice. Students can pursue various copywriter courses such as Journalism , Advertising , Marketing Management . Here, we have discussed how to become a freelance copywriter, copywriter career path, how to become a copywriter in India, and copywriting career outlook. 

Careers in journalism are filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. One cannot afford to miss out on the details. As it is the small details that provide insights into a story. Depending on those insights a journalist goes about writing a news article. A journalism career can be stressful at times but if you are someone who is passionate about it then it is the right choice for you. If you want to know more about the media field and journalist career then continue reading this article.

For publishing books, newspapers, magazines and digital material, editorial and commercial strategies are set by publishers. Individuals in publishing career paths make choices about the markets their businesses will reach and the type of content that their audience will be served. Individuals in book publisher careers collaborate with editorial staff, designers, authors, and freelance contributors who develop and manage the creation of content.

In a career as a vlogger, one generally works for himself or herself. However, once an individual has gained viewership there are several brands and companies that approach them for paid collaboration. It is one of those fields where an individual can earn well while following his or her passion. 

Ever since internet costs got reduced the viewership for these types of content has increased on a large scale. Therefore, a career as a vlogger has a lot to offer. If you want to know more about the Vlogger eligibility, roles and responsibilities then continue reading the article. 

Individuals in the editor career path is an unsung hero of the news industry who polishes the language of the news stories provided by stringers, reporters, copywriters and content writers and also news agencies. Individuals who opt for a career as an editor make it more persuasive, concise and clear for readers. In this article, we will discuss the details of the editor's career path such as how to become an editor in India, editor salary in India and editor skills and qualities.

Linguistic meaning is related to language or Linguistics which is the study of languages. A career as a linguistic meaning, a profession that is based on the scientific study of language, and it's a very broad field with many specialities. Famous linguists work in academia, researching and teaching different areas of language, such as phonetics (sounds), syntax (word order) and semantics (meaning). 

Other researchers focus on specialities like computational linguistics, which seeks to better match human and computer language capacities, or applied linguistics, which is concerned with improving language education. Still, others work as language experts for the government, advertising companies, dictionary publishers and various other private enterprises. Some might work from home as freelance linguists. Philologist, phonologist, and dialectician are some of Linguist synonym. Linguists can study French , German , Italian . 

Public Relation Executive

Travel journalist.

The career of a travel journalist is full of passion, excitement and responsibility. Journalism as a career could be challenging at times, but if you're someone who has been genuinely enthusiastic about all this, then it is the best decision for you. Travel journalism jobs are all about insightful, artfully written, informative narratives designed to cover the travel industry. Travel Journalist is someone who explores, gathers and presents information as a news article.

Quality Controller

A quality controller plays a crucial role in an organisation. He or she is responsible for performing quality checks on manufactured products. He or she identifies the defects in a product and rejects the product. 

A quality controller records detailed information about products with defects and sends it to the supervisor or plant manager to take necessary actions to improve the production process.

Production Manager

Merchandiser.

A QA Lead is in charge of the QA Team. The role of QA Lead comes with the responsibility of assessing services and products in order to determine that he or she meets the quality standards. He or she develops, implements and manages test plans. 

Metallurgical Engineer

A metallurgical engineer is a professional who studies and produces materials that bring power to our world. He or she extracts metals from ores and rocks and transforms them into alloys, high-purity metals and other materials used in developing infrastructure, transportation and healthcare equipment. 

Azure Administrator

An Azure Administrator is a professional responsible for implementing, monitoring, and maintaining Azure Solutions. He or she manages cloud infrastructure service instances and various cloud servers as well as sets up public and private cloud systems. 

AWS Solution Architect

An AWS Solution Architect is someone who specializes in developing and implementing cloud computing systems. He or she has a good understanding of the various aspects of cloud computing and can confidently deploy and manage their systems. He or she troubleshoots the issues and evaluates the risk from the third party. 

Computer Programmer

Careers in computer programming primarily refer to the systematic act of writing code and moreover include wider computer science areas. The word 'programmer' or 'coder' has entered into practice with the growing number of newly self-taught tech enthusiasts. Computer programming careers involve the use of designs created by software developers and engineers and transforming them into commands that can be implemented by computers. These commands result in regular usage of social media sites, word-processing applications and browsers.

ITSM Manager

Information security manager.

Individuals in the information security manager career path involves in overseeing and controlling all aspects of computer security. The IT security manager job description includes planning and carrying out security measures to protect the business data and information from corruption, theft, unauthorised access, and deliberate attack 

Business Intelligence Developer

Everything about education.

Latest updates, Exclusive Content, Webinars and more.

Download Careers360 App's

Regular exam updates, QnA, Predictors, College Applications & E-books now on your Mobile

Cetifications

We Appeared in

Shakespeare as a dramatist

William Shakespeare, who lived from 1564 to 1616, is often regarded as the greatest poet and dramatist in history. He is frequently referred to as the “Bard of Avon” and England’s national poet. He has written about 39 plays, 154 sonnets, two lengthy narrative poems, and a few other verses, including works with collaborators. Ben Jonson comments, “He was not of an age, but for all time,” paying him a high tribute. Shakespeare is the Proteus of the theater, taking on every persona and experiencing all aspects of human nature.

He penned comedies and tragedies equally well and artistically. He was a thinker whose waves reached all intellectual coasts. Shakespeare is not without flaws, though, as Hudson notes: “At times, his manner is cruel; his wit is forced and inadequate; and his dramatic language is pompous.” But in comparison to the essential traits that have earned him the top spot among playwrights worldwide, these are insignificant.

Table of Contents

Dramatic mastery of Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s dramatic talent is distinctive in many ways, but its universality stands out the most. No other playwright has ever been able to so effortlessly and profoundly penetrate the core of all human hearts. “A true poet is always of our time.” Shakespeare is a genuine poet. He does not fit into any single age; he exists in all eras and among all people.

Read More: The Tempest as a tragi-comedy

Shakespeare’s mastery of characterization impressively reveals his universality. His figures do not represent a particular ideology or belief. They are actual men and women. They are unique and peculiar in their own right. His Cleopatra is unmistakably a unique woman. His Othello stands for a particular soul that is suffering from the alleged betrayal of his faith. Without a doubt, his Shylock stands in for the persecuted Jew of the Middle Ages.

Shakespeare is a dramatist. However, he is also a poet. Shakespeare’s artistry is so astounding because of the way in which he seamlessly combines his talents as a playwright and poet. His poetry has a captivating charm that is hard to resist. His sentences’ wonderful melody arouses emotions and stimulates thought. His blank verse is there as well. Perhaps no one has ever been able to harmonize and effectively use the blank verse than Shakespeare.

Shakespeare’s Romances and Comedies:

Shakespeare’s comedies are known for being full of wit, irony, and clever wordplay. Shakespeare also wrote romances. They also have a lot of disguises and misidentifications, complicated plots that are hard to follow, and incredibly clumsy conclusions. Shakespeare’s comedies that are most well-known include “All’s Well That Ends Well” , “As You Like It” , “Measure for Measure” , “The Merchant of Venice” , “ A Midsummer Night’s Dream “ , and others. Shakespeare’s comedies are characterized by love, a predominance of female characters, wit, music, a blending of realism and romance, sophisticated character development, and complicated situations.

Read More: A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a romantic comedy

The plays “ Pericles “, “Cymbeline” , “The Tempest” , and “The Winter’s Tale” are neither true tragedies nor true comedies. They are referred to as “romances” for lack of a better term. In stark contrast to the violent fury of the major tragedies that came before them, their tone is quiet and serene. Their core message is one of forgiveness and reconciliation. Romances deal with romance, marriage and have happy endings, much like comedies.

Shakespeare’s Tragedies:

According to A.C. Bradley, Shakespeare had a feeling of tragedy, not a philosophy of it, but practically every Shakespearean tragedy is based on a set of solid principles. The protagonist is the central character who towers over other characters in a Shakespearean tragedy. The “female lead” only receives attention in love tragedies like Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra.

Shakespearean tragedies almost usually include a man of exceptional social rank as the hero. Lear and Julius Caesar, for instance, were kings; Hamlet was a prince; Macbeth and Brutus were nobles; and Othello was a general. “The greater a man, the more stumping and effective is his fall,” says Bradley in favor of this Shakespearean hero idea.

Read More: Hamlet as a tragic hero

The fate of the hero is affected to some extent by the supernatural and chance. The three witches in Macbeth, the ghost in Hamlet , and Desdemona’s dropping the handkerchief at the key moment all have an impact in the tragedy. Shakespearean tragedy, however, largely embodies the proverb “Character is destiny.” “Lear’s tragedy is the tragedy of older years and poor decision making,” says Bradley, “just as Othello’s tragedy is the tragedy of faith, Hamlet’s tragedy is the tragedy of hesitation, Macbeth’s tragedy is the tragedy of aspiration, Antony’s tragedy is the tragedy of abandonment of responsibility, and so on.”

Shakespeare’s historical plays

Raphael Holinshed’s “Chronicles,” a combined collection of reality, hearsay, and fiction, served as the historical framework for all of Shakespeare’s historical plays. “Henry IV” (Parts I and II), “Henry V” , “Henry VI” (Parts I, II, and III), “Henry VIII” , “King John” , and “Richard II” and “Richard III” are among the ten historical dramas that Shakespeare created. Shakespeare’s primary goal in writing historical plays was to instill a sense of national pride in English men. In these plays, England is the hero, to paraphrase Hardian Craige. These plays were motivated by a sense of patriotism.

Read More: Hamlet as a Revenge Tragedy

Later theater and literature have been profoundly influenced by Shakespeare’s work. In particular, he enhanced the dramatic possibilities of characters, story, language, and genre, in particular. For instance, until Romeo and Juliet, romance was not seen to be a suitable subject for tragedy.

Shakespeare employed soliloquies to delve into characters’ minds rather than the traditional usage of them to impart information about people or events. Novelists including Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, and Charles Dickens were affected by Shakespeare. Shakespeare has a big influence on the soliloquies of American author Herman Melville; his captain Ahab in Moby-Dick is a traditional tragic figure who draws inspiration from King Lear.

Shakespeare’s language use contributed to the development of contemporary English because English grammar, spelling, and pronunciation were less standardized in Shakespeare’s time. Samuel Johnson’s “A Dictionary of the English Language,” the first significant work of its kind, contains more quotations from Shakespeare than from any other author. The language of daily English speaking now includes Shakespeare’s phrases like “with bated breath” and “a foregone conclusion.”

Conclusion:

Hudson claims that when viewed as a whole, Shakespeare’s plays represent the finest single body of work that any author has produced for our English literature. He was unsurpassed not only as a playwright but also as a poet, with unrestricted access to the realms of high imagination and exquisite fantasy.

• Women Characters in Pride and Prejudice
• The Monk in “The Canterbury Tales”
• Charles Lamb as an essayist
• Henrik Ibsen as a dramatist
• Jane Eyre as a Victorian Novel

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Advertisement

Supported by

First Chapter

’The Age of Shakespeare’

• Share full article

By Frank Kermode

• Feb. 28, 2004

The first task of one who sets out to write briefly on Shakespeare and his age must be to move the focus back from the life of the playhouse and say something about the greater world of national politics. One dominant concern in that world throughout the Tudor period was the precariousness of the royal succession. If this now seems a relatively remote and unimportant matter, it is worth recalling that Shakespeare's history plays, a good quarter of his entire output, dealt with anxieties, indeed with civil wars, about succession, and even portrayed the events leading up to the dubiously valid accession of Henry VII, Queen Elizabeth's grandfather. The succession was a matter of concern to everybody, not only because the monarchy then had more personal power than it has been able to keep, but because in Tudor times the whole issue was bound up inseparably with religious differences, and religion could mean war. The expansion of the empire under the Protestant Elizabeth inevitably caused conflict with Catholic Spain and allowed her the triumph over the Spanish Armada; but there were still English Catholics who had been instructed by the Pope that Elizabeth was an illegitimate usurper and that one could be forgiven for eliminating her. The plots against Elizabeth of her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, and Mary's Catholic followers were a serious recurrent anxiety.

By the date of Shakespeare's birth (1564) Elizabeth had been on the throne for almost six years, and the "Elizabethan Settlement" had established the Church of England as Protestant. Though "Anglo-Catholic" (to apply a later description), the English church was now entirely severed from Rome. The events that brought about great changes in English social and economic life had occurred in the reigns of Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, and of his son Edward VI. It is traditional to say that the "English Reformation" took place from 1529 to 1559-the latter is the date of the Elizabethan Acts of Uniformity and Supremacy, and the former the date when Henry, failing to obtain the Pope's consent to his divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, made himself supreme head of the Church in the Pope's place. This neat formulation overlooks the history of dissent from Wyclif and the Lollards in the late fourteenth century, a reform movement not forgotten in the years before Henry's catastrophic break with Rome. But that break, and the proclamation of the English as the true Catholic yet vernacular church, was, despite opposition, decisive in the long run.

Henry very much wanted a male heir, but the surviving child of his first, supposedly invalid, marriage was a daughter, Mary. His second wife, Anne Boleyn, produced another daughter, Elizabeth, and it was Jane Seymour, the third of his wives, who gave birth to a son, Edward. He succeeded his father in 1547, and his brief rule was dominated by a harsh Protestant regency. His successor, his elder half-sister Mary, was, like her mother, a devout Catholic and did all she could to restore relations with the Papacy. Her too-late marriage to Philip of Spain was barren. At the end of her short reign she was succeeded by Elizabeth, who resumed her father's title as supreme head of the Church, and was able to withstand both the Catholic and the growing Puritan oppositions.

The Reformation affected not only theology and liturgy; the distribution of national wealth and political power was greatly altered by the dissolution of monasteries and other rich ecclesiastical establishments. The upheaval affected not only the clergy; ordinary people had to accommodate themselves to radical change. Historians argue about the exact nature of that change. We used to be taught about the "waning" or the "autumn" of the Middle Ages-a story of loss, or at least of a late flowering that preceded loss. An age had ended when most people derived their religious knowledge not from printed books but from the imagery and symbolism of the wall paintings and stained glass of the churches, a huge non-literary context for the Catholic sacraments (immemorially seven, but now reduced by the theologians of Reformation to two). It used to be taken for granted that those old-fashioned ways of worship and instruction had become self-evidently obsolescent. The Roman church had permitted all manner of abuses as well as forbidding translation of the Bible, the Word of God, so that by the time Reformation arrived it was badly needed. Now there are historians who dispute this account of the matter, and lament the rapid extinction of the old faith and its attributes-its arts and rituals, its control over the pattern of life over so many generations.

This is in part the thesis of Eamon Duffy's remarkable book The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c. 1400-1580 (1992). Duffy emphasizes the degree to which almost every aspect of daily life had been consonant with the liturgy, and the ways in which religious doctrine was taught-not only by pictures but by many liturgical acts not properly part of the Mass-instances of traditional piety, as when the episodes of the Passion were annually reenacted by the clergy but also, in dramas of their own devising, by the laity. For example, since St. John spoke of the parting of Christ's garments, two linen cloths were removed from the altar at the appropriate moment. A sepulchre was prepared in which the Host was reverently laid-for of course the Host was literally corpus Christi, the body of Christ. And such enactments should be borne in mind when one reflects on the extraordinary persistence of quasi-dramatic traditions throughout the entire period before the professionals began, in the new world of the later sixteenth century, to absorb and secularize play-acting and translate it from these quiet devotional origins to the inns and theaters of London.

The commercial development of drama was one more sign that the world as regulated by liturgy was being supplanted by a world more concerned with capital and labor-a world in which time itself had a different quality. "The rhythms of the liturgy," writes Duffy, "were the rhythms of life itself." The rhythms of work and of pleasure reflected the routines of liturgy and prayer. The doctrine of Purgatory, which the Reformers especially detested, had for centuries exerted a powerful influence on conduct, whether in the ordinary course of life or on the deathbed, and its hold over people's minds remained strong long after it was condemned, in ways well illustrated by Stephen Greenblatt in his Hamlet in Purgatory (2001).

Duffy's account of the stripping of the churches-the altars were now considered idolatrous and were replaced by "communion tables"-emphasizes the tragic aspect of these losses. Dissident commentators dispute his contention that in the period just before the Reformation the Catholic religion, far from being in decay, was indeed in a perfectly healthy state. Of course a case can also be made for the beneficial effects of the new Protestantism, and indeed some say that the notion of undisturbed Catholic contentment suddenly and barbarously interrupted by Reform is mere propaganda. The intellectual and educational achievements of Protestantism, it is argued, are in the Catholic version of events much undervalued. So is the fact that throughout Elizabeth's reign Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer, containing not only his celebrated prose but also the Articles of the reformed Church of England-various in number but eventually settled as thirty-nine. These Articles defined the differences between Roman and English doctrine and could be consulted in every parish church. Also to be found in the churches were the Great Bible and Foxe's Acts and Monuments (1563), better known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, powerful propaganda for the true (English) Protestant-Catholic faith, and for the royal and imperial claims of Elizabeth. The book remains notorious for its polemic against Rome and the Marian persecutions.

These books in part replaced the old images-wall paintings, stained glass, rood screens, decorated altars-of the old régime, and, to judge from the growing strength of Protestant feeling, their effect was, in its different way, as powerful. One estimate holds that in 1585 the population of England was five percent Catholic and fifteen percent Puritan, the rest accepting the middle way prescribed by Elizabeth. Such estimates are of course just more or less well informed guesses. There was certainly a rump of faithful Catholics, but England in the time of Elizabeth should probably be thought of as primarily a Protestant nation, at war ideologically as well as militarily with Rome.

Both sides were equipped for international conflict, not least as to the war of ideas. England had theologians like Cranmer and Jewel (defender of the antiquity of the English Church), while Rome used such propagandists as Cardinal Borromeo, whose apologetics became well known in England when distributed by Jesuit missionaries. Shakespeare's father seems to have owned a copy of Borromeo's Spiritual Testament, a guide for perplexed and oppressed Catholics. In the active as opposed to the contemplative life, the age is famous for its seamen pirates and for the secret services that employed such gifted spies as Christopher Marlowe. There were some, among them the poet John Donne, who hoped for a theological compromise, believing some move toward reunification might be possible, but the differences, for instance those concerning the doctrine of the Real Presence and the celibacy of the clergy, were too stubborn to be reasoned away.

Orders relating to the nature of divine service and attendance at church were now issued by the State, replacing the older priestly sanctions that were backed by the authority of Rome. Above all, the vernacular Bible, long denied to the Catholic laity, was now made the foundation of faith. The reformed church believed it had gone back beyond a millennium of papistical distortions and rediscovered the true Christian message of the New Testament. It is not surprising that some lay people, especially those born under the old régime, might cling almost unconsciously to the religious practices of their youth. Moreover, there were bitter factions within the reform movement, and the extremists tended to gain ground, zealous in the detection and destruction of anything that could be labeled idolatrous.

They had no time for such festivals as Corpus Christi, instituted in 1264-a feast of central theological importance as a celebration of the Real Presence in the sacrament, but also the occasion of great civic festivities, including the cycles of plays organized and financed by the craftsmen's guilds of the towns. Of these remarkable works the "mystery plays" of Coventry, York, and Wakefield are the most famous ("mystery" was a word for "trade" or "craft") and they continued into Elizabeth's reign. Shakespeare as a child could well have seen them at Coventry; but by his time they were frowned upon. The feast itself was no longer legal, and the expense of these elaborate displays had probably grown too great, and so they expired.

These productions had a didactic purpose, offering in the vernacular a long series of plays about sacred history. Events in the Old Testament were presented as prefiguring the truths of the New (much as church glass and paintings did, or had done), together with scenes from the lives of the Virgin and Christ. Performances were on "pageants" or carts, stages that could be moved from one site to the next. As far as possible, each guild chose a subject appropriate to its particular mystery. Costumes were elaborate, and there was some use of stage machinery. Solemnity was mixed with broad humor, and some stock characters became famous-when Hamlet tells the traveling actors not to out-Herod Herod, he is alluding to the traditional rant of that character in the Corpus Christi plays. Spectacle was provided; hell yawned and devils vomited smoke. Some of the plays are more subtle than this account suggests-the Wakefield (or Towneley) Second Shepherds' Play is renowned for the daring of its double-plotting, mixing the serious theme of the Nativity with farce-indeed, the kind of mixture to be found later in some of the plays of Shakespeare's contemporaries; for a celebrated example, see Middleton's tragedy The Changeling.

The mystery plays testify to the ingenuity of their authors and actors, and also to the strong desire of late-medieval Englishmen to perform their beliefs, to act out in their own persons the sacred truths as they had been taught them in sermons and paintings. These plays translate into their own popular style the patterns and narratives of medieval piety; and they were fun, occasions for holidays. They prove that the English had long been well attuned to dramatic display, whether as actors or audience. These tastes were inherited, in very different circumstances, by their descendants. A common purpose had brought together the variously gifted craftsmen of the town, and they made a solemn feast over into a universal holiday. But they could not survive the threat of Reform forever. That they lasted so long is a tribute to the staying power of the old style of popular religion even when powerful forces were at work to destroy it.

For a time it had seemed possible to retain much of the old way of life while acquiescing in the new. Henry VIII himself remained attached to much that was traditionally Catholic, and up to the date of his death in 1547, people could keep to their old ways. Mass was celebrated with impunity. Elizabeth, when her time came, had a fondness for some old habits and customs, and favored compromise and moderation. When she was excommunicated, threatened with assassination, and opposed by the great Catholic powers, she adopted a more severe, more warlike attitude. Nevertheless she wanted the English church to be a via media between Rome and Calvinist Geneva. The difficulties of the situation-between hostile Rome and burgeoning Calvinism-are well illustrated by John Donne's Satire 3, an excited, disturbed reflection on his own need to choose (he was brought up a Catholic) that must have been echoed by many intellectuals of the time.

Between the reign of Henry and that of his younger daughter came those of Edward and Mary. Edward's counsellors were hard-line opponents of Rome, and through them he condemned all "papistical superstitions" such as rosaries, holy water, prayers to the saints, ceremonial candles, fasting, indulgences, relics, and the existence of Purgatory. Edward was probably predisposed to the Protestant cause by the influence of his father's sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr, a devout adherent of Reform, and as he grew toward maturity he became as fiercely Protestant as his advisers.

Continues...

Excerpted from The Age of Shakespeare by Frank Kermode Copyright © 2004 by Frank Kermode. Excerpted by permission.

All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Explore More in Books

Want to know about the best books to read and the latest news start here..

James McBride’s novel sold a million copies, and he isn’t sure how he feels about that, as he considers the critical and commercial success  of “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.”

How did gender become a scary word? Judith Butler, the theorist who got us talking about the subject , has answers.

You never know what’s going to go wrong in these graphic novels, where Circus tigers, giant spiders, shifting borders and motherhood all threaten to end life as we know it .

When the author Tommy Orange received an impassioned email from a teacher in the Bronx, he dropped everything to visit the students  who inspired it.

Do you want to be a better reader?   Here’s some helpful advice to show you how to get the most out of your literary endeavor .

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

Theatre in the Age of Shakespeare

William Shakespeare’s plays have the outstanding status of being in the midst of the greatest in English language and literature. Historians have often regarded the fact that the fame of Shakespeare basically rests on his understanding of his human nature. Shakespearean theatre (Elizabethan theatre) plays a vital role in Western culture and literature. Shakespeare’s plays have utilized maximum possibilities of Elizabethan Theatre.

Glob theatre is considered as the one and only Elizabethan theatre which produced most of the Shakespearean plays. Shakespearean theatres were prepared in to three layers and around an open space at the middle. It has a hexagonal structure with wide inner court. Analyzing history one can find that people from all social backgrounds presented the Elizabethan theatre. Shakespeare’s dramatic craftsmanship satisfies the high-class people as well as the slaves. Shakespearean theatres were decorated in an open way to the public eye. The stage has mainly two parts: the outer stage which is prepared in a rectangular form with a projecting shape.

Shakespeare creates great scenes of soliloquy’s which reveals the inner conflicts of the character perfectly. The outer stage is prescribed for these kinds of scenes. The second one is the inner stage which is used to perform the actors who were in a scene but never directly joined the play. Banquet scene in Macbeth and temptation scene in Othello are succeeding to give great aesthetic pleasure for the audience. Shakespearean plays like The Tempest, Macbeth, and Hamlet permit the viewer to watch supernatural events and characters. Instead of the two stages they have a large cellar named hell arranged in Shakespearean Theatre.

The ghost of King Hamlet in Hamlet attracts millions through its magnificent performance at the underground stage. The three layers of the theatre contain dressing rooms, prop room, musician’s gallery and linking passage ways. The curtains hide the dramatic elements from the audience. One can find that Shakespearean plays call for a scene within a scene, such as the combination scene between Miranda and Ferdinand playing chess in the play The Tempest and the conversation between Nerissa and Portia about the caskets.

The online article entitled Elizabethan Theatre comments that; “Behind the stage there is a curtained “discovery space” – a small room behind a curtain – which allows characters to be suddenly revealed by opening the curtain (as Ferdinand and Miranda are suddenly revealed in Shakespeare’s The Tempest , playing chess)” (Larque).

Modern stages constitute various visual feasts such as lightings, artificial settings, actors with different costumes and perfect sound systems. Shakespearean plays consists all these things through languages. The stages were raised from the floor and the roofless yard informant of the stage prepared for groundlings. Instead of electric lights and stage settings a stagehand set off fireworks makes omens, comets and other supernatural elements. In Elizabethan time male people play the role of females on plays and operas.

The presence of a back draped background helps the audience to understand the fact that the play is a tragedy. Knocking sounds creates the mood of horror and storm. Speeches and narrative situations in both tragedies and comedies unambiguously illustrate the changing of scenes. These were written in to the text by the dramatist and the audience can grasp the changes through various speech forms. Elizabethan audience includes Kings, queens, Dukes, Lords, merchants, peasants and slaves with extreme aesthetic pleasure.

Works Cited

Larque, Thomas. A Lecture on Elizabethan Theatre . Shakespeare and His Critics. 2001. Web.

Cite this paper

• Chicago (N-B)
• Chicago (A-D)

StudyCorgi. (2021, December 16). Theatre in the Age of Shakespeare. https://studycorgi.com/theatre-in-the-age-of-shakespeare/

"Theatre in the Age of Shakespeare." StudyCorgi , 16 Dec. 2021, studycorgi.com/theatre-in-the-age-of-shakespeare/.

StudyCorgi . (2021) 'Theatre in the Age of Shakespeare'. 16 December.

1. StudyCorgi . "Theatre in the Age of Shakespeare." December 16, 2021. https://studycorgi.com/theatre-in-the-age-of-shakespeare/.

Bibliography

StudyCorgi . "Theatre in the Age of Shakespeare." December 16, 2021. https://studycorgi.com/theatre-in-the-age-of-shakespeare/.

StudyCorgi . 2021. "Theatre in the Age of Shakespeare." December 16, 2021. https://studycorgi.com/theatre-in-the-age-of-shakespeare/.

This paper, “Theatre in the Age of Shakespeare”, was written and voluntary submitted to our free essay database by a straight-A student. Please ensure you properly reference the paper if you're using it to write your assignment.

Before publication, the StudyCorgi editorial team proofread and checked the paper to make sure it meets the highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, fact accuracy, copyright issues, and inclusive language. Last updated: December 16, 2021 .

If you are the author of this paper and no longer wish to have it published on StudyCorgi, request the removal . Please use the “ Donate your paper ” form to submit an essay.

Money and the Age of Shakespeare: Essays in New Economic Criticism

• © 2003
• Linda Woodbridge (Distinguished Professor of English) 0

Pennsylvania State University, USA

You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

Part of the book series: Early Modern Cultural Studies 1500–1700 (EMCSS)

2435 Accesses

51 Citations

• Table of contents

About this book

Editors and affiliations, about the editor, bibliographic information.

• Publish with us

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Compact, lightweight edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info
• Durable hardcover edition

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents(17 chapters)

Front matter, introduction.

Linda Woodbridge

Monetary Compensation for Injuries to the Body, A.D. 602–1697

• Luke Wilson

Commerce, Community, and Nostalgia in The Comedy of Errors

• Curtis Perry

Scene Stealers: Autolycus, The Winter’s Tale and Economic Criticism

• Barbara Correll

On a Certain Tendency in Economic Criticism of Shakespeare

• Douglas Bruster

Exchange Value and Empiricism in the Poetry of George Herbert

• David Hawkes

Work and the Gift: Notes Toward an Investigation

• Scott Cutler Shershow

Material Dispossessions and Counterfeit Investments: The Economies of Twelfth Night

• Valerie Forman

Gift Exchange and Social Hierarchy in Thomas Deloney’s Jack of Newbury

• Michael L. LeMahieu

Taking Excess, Exceeding Account: Aristotle Meets The Merchant of Venice

• Eric Spencer

The Lead Casket: Capital, Mercantilism, and The Merchant of Venice

• Mark Netzloff

The Fiend Gives Friendly Counsel: Launcelot Gobbo and Polyglot Economics in The Merchant of Venice

• Steven R. Mentz

Freeing Daughters on Open Markets: The Incest Clause in The Merchant of Venice

• Robert F. Darcy

Usury and Counterfeiting in Wilson’s The Three Ladies of London and The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London, and in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure

• Teresa Lanpher Nugent

Middleton and Debt in Timon of Athens

• John Jowett

Singlewomen and the Properties of Poverty in Measure for Measure

• Natasha Korda

Fetish and Poem: Ben Jonson’s Dilemma

• Katharine Eisaman Maus

Back Matter

• English literature
• Renaissance
• William Shakespeare
• British and Irish Literature

Book Title : Money and the Age of Shakespeare: Essays in New Economic Criticism

Editors : Linda Woodbridge

Series Title : Early Modern Cultural Studies 1500–1700

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403982469

Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan New York

eBook Packages : Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts Collection , Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

Copyright Information : Linda Woodbridge 2003

Hardcover ISBN : 978-1-4039-6307-9 Published: 29 January 2004

Softcover ISBN : 978-1-349-52730-4 Published: 29 January 2004

eBook ISBN : 978-1-4039-8246-9 Published: 25 December 2015

Series ISSN : 2634-5897

Series E-ISSN : 2634-5900

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : XIII, 281

Topics : Poetry and Poetics , Early Modern/Renaissance Literature , British and Irish Literature , History of Britain and Ireland , European History , History of Early Modern Europe

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research