A Brief History of William Shakespeare and His Top 5 Publication in Literature

In early life, though no birth records exist, church records indicate that a William Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564. From this, it is believed he was born on or near April 23, 1564, and this is the date scholars acknowledge as William Shakespeare's birthday.

William was the third child of John Shakespeare, a leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a local landed heiress. William had two older sisters, Joan and Judith, and three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard and Edmund.

Scholars have surmised that he most likely attended the King's New School, in Stratford, which taught reading, writing and the classics, and he would have learned such subjects as Latin, Greek, rhetoric, and logic. Being a public official's child, William would have undoubtedly qualified for free tuition. But this uncertainty regarding his education has led some to raise questions about the authorship of his work and even about whether or not William Shakespeare ever existed.

The next documented event is his marriage on November 28, 1582 to Anne Hathaway, the daughter of a local farmer. William Shakespeare was 18 and Anne was eight years older than him. Their first child, Susanna, was born on May 26, 1583. Two years later, on February 2, 1585 the couple had twins, Hamnet and Judith, but their son Hamnet died when he was 11 years old.

After the birth of the twins, there are seven years of William Shakespeare's life where no records exist between 1585 and 1592. Scholars call this period the "lost years," and there is wide speculation on what he was doing during this period. One theory is that he might have gone into hiding for poaching game from the local landlord, Sir Thomas Lucy. Another possibility is that he might have been working as an assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire. It is generally believed he arrived in London in the mid- to late 1580s and may have found work as a horse attendant at some of London's finer theaters, a scenario updated centuries later by the countless aspiring actors and playwrights in Hollywood and Broadway.

By 1592 he reappears again, mentioned in a London pamphlet, Shakespeare has made his way to London without his family and is already working in the theatre. He was in London as an actor and a dramatist.

Theatrical Beginnings by 1592, there is evidence William Shakespeare earned a living as an actor and a playwright in London and possibly had several plays produced. The September 20, 1592 edition of the Stationers' Register (a guild publication) includes an article by London playwright Robert Greene that takes a few jabs at William Shakespeare: "...There is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country," Greene wrote of Shakespeare. Scholars differ on the interpretation of this criticism, but most agree that it was Greene's way of saying Shakespeare was reaching above his rank, trying to match better known and educated playwrights like Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe or Greene himself. By the early 1590s, documents show William Shakespeare was a managing partner in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, an acting company in London. After the crowning of King James I, in 1603, the company changed its name to the King's Men. From all accounts, the King's Men company was very popular, and records show that Shakespeare had works published and sold as popular literature. The theater culture in 16th century England was not highly admired by people of high rank. However, many of the nobility were good patrons of the performing arts and friends of the actors. Early in his career, Shakespeare was able to attract the attention of Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his first- and second-published poems: "Venus and Adonis" (1593) and "The Rape of Lucrece" (1594).

By 1597, 15 of the 37 plays written by William Shakespeare were published. Civil records show that at this time he purchased the second largest house in Stratford, called New House, for his family. By 1599, William Shakespeare and his business partners built their own theater on the south bank of the Thames River, which they called the Globe. His father was buried in Stratford in 1601, followed in 1608 by his mother.  In 1605, Shakespeare purchased leases of real estate near Stratford for 440 pounds, which doubled in value and earned him 60 pounds a year. This made him an entrepreneur as well as an artist, and scholars believe these investments gave him the time to write his plays uninterrupted.

William Shakespeare's writing style in 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. At the same time, there are passages in all the plays that deviate from this and use forms of poetry or simple prose.

In 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. Richard II, Henry VI (parts 1, 2 and 3) and Henry V dramatize the destructive results of weak or corrupt rulers, and have been interpreted by drama historians as Shakespeare's way of justifying the origins of the Tudor Dynasty. Shakespeare also wrote several comedies during his early period: the witty romance A Midsummer Night's Dream, the romantic Merchant of Venice, the wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing, the charming As You Like Itand Twelfth Night. Other plays, possibly written before 1600, include Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew and The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Later Works: Tragedies and Tragicomedies It was in William Shakespeare's later period, after 1600, that he wrote some of his greatest tragedies such as 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. Among these are Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest.

In final years, Shakespeare spent the last five years of his life in New Place in Stratford. He died on 23 April 1616 at the age of 52 and was buried in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford. 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." This has drawn speculation that she had fallen out of favor, or that the couple was not close. However, there is very little evidence the two had a difficult marriage. Other scholars note that the term "second-best bed" often refers to the bed belonging to the household's master and mistres—the marital bed—and the "first-best bed" was reserved for guests.

His 37 plays vary in type:

Comedies ·         All's Well That Ends Well ·         As You Like It ·         The Comedy of Errors ·         Love's Labour's Lost ·         Measure for Measure ·         The Merchant of Venice ·         The Merry Wives of Windsor ·         A Midsummer Night's Dream ·         Much Ado About Nothing ·         Pericles, Prince of Tyre ·         The Taming of the Shrew ·         The Tempest ·         Twelfth Night ·         The Two Gentlemen of Verona ·         The Two Noble Kinsmen ·         The Winter's Tale

Histories ·         King John ·         Richard II ·         Henry IV, Part 1 ·         Henry IV, Part 2 ·         Henry V ·         Henry VI, Part 1 ·         Henry VI, Part 2 ·         Henry VI, Part 3 ·         Richard III ·         Henry VIII

Tragedies ·         Romeo and Juliet ·         Coriolanus ·         Titus Andronicus ·         Timon of Athens ·         Julius Caesar ·         Macbeth ·         Hamlet ·         Troilus and Cressida ·         King Lear ·         Othello ·         Antony and Cleopatra ·         Cymbeline

His top 5 publication in literature are:

1. Romeo and Juliet

2. Othello

3. Hamlet

4. King Lear

5. Macbeth

Sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/william_shakespeare

http://www.stratford-upon-avon.co.uk/soawshst.html

http://www.bl.uk/treasures/shakespeare/life.html

http://www.biography.com/people/william-shakespeare-9480323