4. SHAKESPEARE
William Shakespeare was born
on 23 April 1564. He was an
English poet, playwright, and actor, widely
regarded as the greatest writer in
the English language and the world's pre-
eminent dramatist. He is often called
England's national poet, and the "Bard of
Avon“. His extant works,
including collaborations, consist of
approximately 37 plays, 154 sonnets, two
long narrative poems, and a few other
verses, some of uncertain authorship.
5. EARLY LIFE
William Shakespeare was the son of John
Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover
and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent
landowning farmer.He was born in Stratford-upon-
Avon and baptised there on 26 April 1564. Although
no attendance records for the period survive, most
biographers agree that Shakespeare was probably
educated at the King's New School in Stratford.
7. MARRIED LIFE
Shakespeare married Anne
Hathaway, at the age of 18. He had three
children: Susanna, and
twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between
1585 and 1592, he began a successful
career in London as an actor, writer, and part-
owner of a playing company called the Lord
Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's
Men.
8. THE 37 PLAYS….
1. All's Well That Ends Well
2. As You Like It
3. The Comedy of Errors
4. Cymbeline
5. Love's Labours Lost
6. Measure for Measure
7. The Merry Wives of Windsor
8. The Merchant of Venice
9. A Midsummer Night's Dream
9. 10. Much Ado About Nothing
11. Pericles, Prince of Tyre
12. Taming of the Shrew
13. The Tempest
14. Troilus and Cressida
15. Twelfth Night
16. Two Gentlemen of Verona
17. Winter's Tale
10. 18. Antony and Cleopatra
19. Coriolanus
20. Hamlet
21. Julius Caesar
22. King Lear
23. Macbeth
24. Othello
25. Romeo and Juliet
11. 26.Timon of Athens
27.Titus Andronicus
28.Henry IV, part 1
29.Henry IV, part 2
30.Henry V
31.Henry VI, part 1
32.Henry VI, part 2
33.Henry VI, part 3
14. WRITING 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.
15. 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. At the same time, there are passages in
all the plays that deviate from this and use
forms of poetry or simple prose.
16.
17.
18. The Shakespearean Theatre
By 1592, there is evidence
William Shakespeare earned a living as an
actor and a playwright in London and
possibly had several plays produced. By
1597, the 37 plays written by William
Shakespeare were published. By 1599,
William Shakespeare and his business
partners built their own theatre on the
south bank of the Thames River, which they
called the Globe.
19. Famous Quotes By
Shakespeare
◦ To be, or not to be: that is the
question. (Hamlet)
◦ All the world ‘s a stage, and all the men and
women merely players. They have
their exits and their entrances; And one
man in his time plays many parts. (As You
Like it)
◦ Some are born great, some achieve
greatness, and some have greatness thrust
upon them. (Twelfth Night)
20. Cowards die many times before their deaths;
the valiant never taste of death but
once. (Julius Caesar)
There is nothing either good or bad, but
thinking makes it so. (Hamlet)
All that glisters is not gold. (The Merchant of
Venice)
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your
ears: I come to bury Caesar, not to
praise him. (Julius Caesar)
What’s in a name? A rose by any name would
smell as sweet. (Romeo and Juliet)
21.
22. Later Years And Death
After 1610, Shakespeare wrote fewer
plays, and none are attributed to him
after 1613. His last three plays were
collaborations, probably with John
Fletcher, who succeeded him as the house
playwright of the King's Men.
Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, at
the age of 52. He died within a month of
signing his will, a document which he
begins by describing himself as being in
"perfect health".
23. Beginning with the Romantic period of the
early 1800s and continuing through the Victorian
period, acclaim and reverence for William Shakespeare
and his work reached its height. In the 20th century,
new movements in scholarship and performance have
rediscovered and adopted his works.
