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William Shakespeare Biography Poet, Playwright (c. 1564 – 1616) Mysterious OriginsWilliam Shakespeare BiographyWriting Style
William Shakespeare's early plays were written in the conventional style of the day, with elaborate metaphors
and rhetorical phrases that didn't always align naturally with the story's plot or characters. However,
Shakespeare was very innovative, adapting the traditional style to his own purposes and creating a freer flow
of words. With only small degrees of variation, Shakespeare primarily used a metrical pattern consisting of
lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse, to compose his plays.
Early Works: Histories and Comedies
With the exception of
Romeo and Juliet
, William Shakespeare's first plays were mostly histories written in the
early 1590s. Shakespeare also wrote several comedies during his early period including the romantic
Merchant
of Venice
.
Later Works: Tragedies and Tragicomedies
It was in William Shakespeare's later period, after 1600, that he wrote the great tragedies;
Hamlet
,
King
Lear
,
Othello
and
Macbeth
. In these, Shakespeare's characters present vivid impressions of human
temperament that are timeless and universal. Possibly the best known of these plays is
Hamlet
, which
explores betrayal, retribution, incest and moral failure. These moral failures often drive the twists and turns of
Shakespeare's plots, destroying the hero and those he loves.
In William Shakespeare's final period, he wrote several tragicomedies. Though graver in tone than the
comedies, they are not the dark tragedies of
King Lear
or
Macbeth
because they end with reconciliation and
forgiveness.
Death and Legacy
Tradition has it that William Shakespeare died on his birthday, April 23, 1616, though many scholars believe
this is a myth. Church records show he was interred at Trinity Church on April 5, 1616.
In his will, he left the bulk of his possessions to his eldest daughter, Susanna. Though entitled to a third of his
estate, little seems to have gone to his wife, Anne, whom he bequeathed his "second-best bed."
William Shakespeare was a respected man of the dramatic arts in his time but his reputation as a dramatic
genius wasn't recognized until after his death in the 19th century.
Today, his plays are highly popular and constantly studied and reinterpreted in performances with diverse
cultural and political contexts. The genius of Shakespeare's characters and plots are that they present real
human beings in a wide range of emotions and conflicts that transcend their origins in Elizabethan England.
A contemporary and fell
ow playwright, Ben Jonson, said of Shakespeare, “he was not of an age, but for all
time.”
Adapted from: http://www.biography.com/people/william-shakespeare
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