The Life of William Shakespeare sparknotes/shakespeare/romeojuliet/context.html

1. The LifeofWilliam Shakespearehttp://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/romeojuliet/context.html

2. The Beginning of Shakespeare • He was born in April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. His actual birthday was not recorded. • He was baptized within days of birth like most of the other infants. • His parents were John and Mary Arden Shakespeare. John was a farm produce dealer and a glove maker who had a brief stint as a city official. • Saw his first play at the age of 4

3. Education • Attended The King’s New School which was Dedicated by Edward VI • Studied Latin Grammar and began reading and writing poetry. • He was inspired by John Lyly, an English writer in the mid 16th Century, and began to read books by Roman authors. • He was educated in the grammar school until 14 and later apprenticed to a butcher.

4. Marriage • When Shakespeare was 18, he married Anne Hathaway. • She was 8 years older than William. • Some think the marriage happened by force because she was 3 months pregnant when they married.

5. Children • May 26, 1583 their first child, Susanna, was baptized. • Two years later Anne gave birth to twins named Hamnet and Judith, named after two of William’s life long friends. • Not much is recorded about Shakespeare’s life during this time. The time that has not been recorded is known as “the lost years.” • Around 1590, he left his family behind and traveled to London to work as an actor and playwright.

6. Entering the Stage • Shakespeare gained a reputation for acting and writing by 1592 and was termed “an upstart crow” in a publication circulated at the time. • He was first a member of and acted in The Rose Theater in Southwark, London. • His playwriting was interrupted by a bout of the plague in London because theatres were closed by authorities. • By 1594, he was back in the world of theater as part of The Lord Chamberlains Men, which later became The King’s Men, who built The Globe Theatre in 1599 • Public and critical success quickly followed, and Shakespeare eventually became the most popular playwright in England and part-owner of the Globe Theater.

7. Serving Royalty • His career bridged the reigns of Elizabeth I (ruled 1558–1603) and James I (ruled 1603–1625), and he was a favorite of both monarchs. • King James granted Shakespeare’s company the greatest possible compliment by bestowing upon its members the title of King’s Men. • No company performed before the king more than the King’s Men. • From Nov 1, 1604 to Oct 31,1605, there were 11 performances before the king. Seven of them were plays written by William Shakespeare.

8. His Literary Works • Shakespeare’s works were collected and printed in various editions in the century following his death, and by the early eighteenth century his reputation as the greatest poet ever to write in English was well established. • Shakespeare, despite the claim that someone else (namely Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford) authored parts of his work, penned 37 plays and 154 sonnets. • A number of Shakespeare’s plays are so brilliant that they forever affected the course of Western literature and culture, Romeo and Juliet being one of them.

9. His Literary Works William Shakespeare. First Folio LONDON: WILLIAM AND ISAAC JAGGARD AND EDWARD BLOUNT, 1623 William Shakespeare. First Folio. Few would dispute the claim that the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays – commonly known as the First Folio – is the most highly prized book in English literature. Because none of the manuscripts for Shakespeare's plays has survived, we must rely on the printed texts as our earliest sources. Of the thirty-six plays contained in the First Folio, eighteen (including such masterpieces as Macbeth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, Twelfth Night and The Tempest) had not appeared in print before. Others, such as Henry V and The Merry Wives of Windsor, were previously available only in truncated, somewhat garbled versions.

10. His Literary Works Out of his 37 plays, these are the top 6 most popular: • Hamlet – a play about the murder of a king and his son’s tragic attempt to discover his father’s murderer • Othello – a play about love, jealousy, racism, and betrayal • Macbeth – a play about the usurping of a king because of a lust for power and a struggle with fate • Romeo and Juliet – a play about two young “star-crossed lovers” whose deaths bring feuding families together • The Tempest – a play about stormy magic that regains what was once lost • Julius Caesar – a play about political power and murder

11. Final moments • Shakespeare’s last play was. King Henry VIII • It was during a performance of this play at The Globe in 1613 that fire broke out and destroyed the theatre. The Globe was rebuilt and operating a year later. • Wealthy and renowned, Shakespeare retired to Stratford and died April 23, 1616 at the age of 52. • At the time of Shakespeare’s death, literary luminaries hailed his works as timeless.

12. Romeo and Juliet Original? • Shakespeare did not invent the story of Romeo and Juliet. He did not, in fact, even introduce the story into the English language. • A poet named Arthur Brooks first brought the story of Romeus and Juliet to an English-speaking audience in a long and plodding poem that was itself not original, but rather an adaptation of adaptations that stretched across nearly a hundred years and two languages. • Many of the details of Shakespeare’s plot are lifted directly from Brooks’s poem, including the meeting of Romeo and Juliet at the ball, their secret marriage, Romeo’s fight with Tybalt, the sleeping potion, and the timing of the lover’s eventual suicides. • Such appropriation of other stories is characteristic of Shakespeare, who often wrote plays based on earlier works.

13. Romeo and Juliet Original? • Shakespeare’s use of existing material as fodder for his plays should not, however, be taken as a lack of originality. Instead, readers should note how Shakespeare crafts his sources in new ways while displaying a remarkable understanding of the literary tradition in which he is working. • Shakespeare’s version of Romeo and Juliet is no exception. The play distinguishes itself from its predecessors in several important aspects: • the subtlety and originality of its characterization (Shakespeare almost wholly created Mercutio); • the intense pace of its action, which is compressed from nine months into four frenetic days; • a powerful enrichment of the story’s thematic aspects; and, above all, • an extraordinary use of language.

14. Is Romeo and Juliet familiar? • Romeo & Juliet is also quite similar in plot, theme, and dramatic ending to the story of “Pyramus and Thisbe,” told by the great Roman poet Ovid. • Pyramus and Thisbe are the two lovers who grew up side by side, fell in love, experienced a tragic misunderstanding, and consequently killed themselves and whose blood colored the snow-white mulberries red.

15. Romeo and Juliet Forever • In writing Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare, then, implicitly set himself the task of telling a love story despite the considerable forces he knew were stacked against its success. • Through the incomparable intensity of his language Shakespeare succeeded in this effort, writing a play that is universally accepted in Western culture as the preeminent, archetypal love story.