William Shakespeare

For all his fame and celebration, William Shakespeare remains a mysterious figure with regards to personal history.

There are just two primary sources for information on the Bard: his works, and various legal and church documents that have survived from Elizabethan times. Naturally, there are many gaps in this body of information, which tells us little about Shakespeare the man.

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, allegedly on April 23, 1564. Holy Trinity Church records indicate that he was baptized there on April 26, 1564. Young William was born of John Shakespeare, a glover and leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a landed heiress. William, according to the church register, was the third of eight children the Shakespeare household-three of whom died in childhood. John Shakespeare had a remarkable run of success as a merchant, and later as an alderman and high bailiff of Stratford, during William's early childhood. His fortunes declined, however, in the 1570s.

William Shakesspeare's plays generally fall into 4 periods...

The first period has its roots in Roman and medieval drama-the construction of the plays, while good, is obvious and shows the author's hand moreso than the later works. The earliest Shakespeare also owes a debt to Christopher Marlowe, whose writing probably gave much inspiration at the onset of the Bard's career.

The second period showed more growth in style, and the construction becoming less labored. The histories of this period are Shakespeare's best, portraying the lives of kings and royalty in most human terms. He also begins the interweaving, in these histories, of comedy and tragedy which would become one of his stylistic signatures. His comedies mature in this period as well, portraying more characterization in their subjects than previously.

The third period marks the great tragedies, and the principal works which would earn the Bard his fame in later centuries. His tragic figures rival those of Sophocles, and might well have walked off the Greek stage straight onto the Elizabethan. Shakespeare is at his best in these tragedies. The comedies of this period, however, show Shakespeare at a literary crossroads-moody and without the clear comic resolution of previous comedies. Hence, the term "problem plays" to describe them.

The fourth period encompasses romantic tragicomedy. Shakespeare at the end of his career seemed preoccupied with themes of redemption. The writing is more serious yet more lyrical, and the plays show Shakespeare at his most symbolic. It is argued between scholars whether this period owed more to Shakespeare's maturity as a playwright or merely signified a changing trend in Elizabethan theatre at the time.

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