Bishop harrison nganga biography of william shakespeare

Relatively prosperous, it is likely the family paid for Williams education, although there is no evidence he attended university. In William, aged only 18, married an older woman named Anne Hathaway. They had three children, Susanna, Hamnet and Juliet. Their only son Hamnet died aged just After his marriage, information about the life of Shakespeare is sketchy, but it seems he spent most of his time in London — writing and acting in his plays.

Due to some well-timed investments, Shakespeare was able to secure a firm financial background, leaving time for writing and acting. The best of these investments was buying some real estate near Stratford inwhich soon doubled in value. It is thought that during the s he wrote the majority of his sonnets. This was a time of prolific writing and his plays developed a good deal of interest and controversy.

His early plays were mainly comedies e. Henry V. By the early Seventeenth Century, Shakespeare had begun to write plays in the genre of tragedy. These plays, such as HamletOthello and King Learoften hinge on some fatal error or flaw in the lead character and provide fascinating insights into the darker aspects of human nature. William Shakespeare wrote sonnets mostly in the s.

These short poems, deal with issues such as lost love. His sonnets have an enduring appeal due to his formidable skill with language and words. The plays of Shakespeare have been studied more than any other writing in the English language and have been translated into numerous languages. He was rare as a play-write for excelling in tragedies, comedies and histories.

He deftly combined popular entertainment with an extraordinary poetic capacity for expression which is almost mantric in quality. Farewell: my blessing season this in thee! During his lifetime, Shakespeare was not without controversy, but he also received lavish praise for his plays which were very popular and commercially successful. His plays have retained an enduring appeal throughout history and the world.

Some of his most popular plays include:. Shakespeare died in ; it is not clear how he died, and numerous suggestions have been put forward. John Ward, the local vicar of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford where Shakespeare is buriedwrites in a diary account that:. Some plays blur these lines, and over time, our interpretation of them has changed, too.

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.

Download our complete William Shakespeare Study Guide for free to explore the key themes and characters from three of his most important plays. Download Free Study Guide. Character in OthelloKing Learand Macbeth present vivid impressions of human temperament that are timeless and universal. Possibly the best known of these plays is Hamletwhich explores betrayal, retribution, incest, and moral failure.

Shakespeare wrote comedies throughout his career, including his first play The Taming of the Shrew. Some of his comedies might be better described as tragicomedies. Although graver in tone than the comedies, they are not the dark tragedies of King Lear or Macbeth because they end with reconciliation and forgiveness.

Bishop harrison nganga biography of william shakespeare

Additional Shakespeare comedies include:. Shakespeare is known to have created plays with other writers, such as John Fletcher. They also collaborated on Cardenioa play which was not preserved. When including these works, Shakespeare has 41 plays to his name. Around the turn of the 17 th century, Shakespeare became a more extensive property owner in Stratford.

When his father, John, died inhe inherited the family home. Then, inhe purchased about acres for pounds. InShakespeare purchased leases of real estate near Stratford for 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 uninterrupted time to write his plays.

He likely spent the last three years of his life in Stratford. Tradition holds that Shakespeare died on his 52 nd birthday, April 23,but some scholars believe this is a myth. Church records show he was interred at Holy Trinity Church on April 25, In his will, he left the bulk of his possessions to his eldest daughter, Susanna, who by then was married.

However, there is very little evidence the two had a difficult marriage. He is credited with inventing or introducing more than 1, words to the English language, often as a result of combining words, changing usages, or blending in foreign root words. It was published with the title Mr. In addition to its literary importance, the First Folio contains an original portrait of Shakespeare on the title page.

The other is a memorial bust at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford. Today, there are surviving copies of the First Folio that date back tobut experts estimate roughly First Folios were printed. Scholars and literary critics began to float names like Christopher Marlowe, Edward de Vere, and Francis Bacon —men of more known backgrounds, literary accreditation, or inspiration—as the true authors of the plays.

Official records from the Holy Trinity Church and the Stratford government record the existence of Shakespeare, but none of these attest to him being an actor or playwright. The most serious and intense skepticism began in the 19 th century when adoration for Shakespeare was at its highest. The detractors believed that the only hard evidence surrounding Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon described a man from modest beginnings who married young and became successful in real estate.

They contend that Shakespeare had neither the education nor the literary training to write such eloquent prose and create such rich characters. However, the vast majority of Shakespearean scholars contend that Shakespeare wrote all his own plays. They point out that other playwrights of the time also had sketchy histories and came from modest backgrounds.

They point to evidence that displays his name on the title pages of published poems and plays. There is also strong circumstantial evidence of personal relationships by contemporaries who interacted with Shakespeare as an actor and a playwright. What seems to be true is that Shakespeare was a respected man of the dramatic arts who wrote plays and acted in the late 16 th and early 17 th centuries.

Beginning with the Romantic period of the early s and continuing through the Victorian period, acclaim and reverence for Shakespeare and his work reached its height. In the 20 th century, new movements in scholarship and performance rediscovered and adopted his works. Today, his plays remain highly popular and are constantly studied and reinterpreted in performances with diverse cultural and political contexts.

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