Do you know who Shakespeare is? Do you know any of his works? Read about him and let’s have a look at one of his most famous tragedies: Hamlet.
William Shakespeare (also spelled Shakspere, Shaksper and Shake-speare, as spelling in Elizabethan times was not fixed and absolute)[1] was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, the son of John Shakespeare, a successful glover and alderman from Snitterfield, and of Mary Arden, a daughter of the gentry. They lived on Henley Street, having married around 1557.
The date of his birth is not known, but his baptismal record was dated April 26, 1564. This is the first official record of Shakespeare, as birth certificates were not issued during Queen Elizabeth's time. Because baptisms were normally performed within a few days of birth, a tradition arose that he was born on April 23, but this has no historical basis. It is the Feast Day of Saint George, the patron saint of England, which might seem appropriate for England's greatest playwright. This date provides a convenient symmetry because Shakespeare died on the same day, April 23 (May 3 on the Gregorian calendar), in 1616.Shakespeare's parents had eight children: Joan (1558), Margaret (1562-63), William, Gilbert (1566-1612), Joan (1569-1646), Anne (1571-79), Richard (1574-1613), and Edmund (1580-1607).[2]The house in Stratford known as 'Shakespeare's Birthplace (although this status is uncertain).Shakespeare's father, prosperous at the time of William's birth, was prosecuted for participating in the black market in wool, and later lost his position as an alderman. Some evidence pointed to possible Roman Catholic sympathies on both sides of the family.[3]Shakespeare probably attended King Edward VI Grammar School in central Stratford.[4] The King honored in the school's name (Edward VI) had nothing to do with the original founding of the school, which had Roman Catholic origins. It had been established in the early fifteenth century, far before Edward's time.[5] While the quality of Elizabethan-era grammar schools was uneven, the school probably would have provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and literature. As a part of this education, the students would likely have been exposed to Latin plays, in which students performed to better understand the language. One of Shakespeare's earliest plays, The Comedy of Errors, bears similarity to Plautus The Two Menaechmuses, which could well have been performed at the school.[6] It is presumed that the young Shakespeare attended this school,[7] although his attendance cannot be confirmed because the school's records have not survived. This school, which made frequent use of corporal punishment, was free to male children in Stratford dating from an endowment by a Catholic chaplain in 1482.[8] There is no evidence that his formal education extended beyond grammar school.Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway (who was 26) at the age of 18, on November 29, 1582 at Temple Grafton, near Stratford. Two neighbours of Hathaway, Fulk Sandalls and John Richardson, posted bond that there were no impediments to the marriage. There appears to have been some haste in arranging the ceremony: Hathaway was three months pregnant.On May 26, 1583, Shakespeare's first child, Susanna, was baptized at Stratford. Twin children, a son, Hamnet, and a daughter, Judith, were baptized on February 2, 1585. Hamnet died in 1596, Susanna in 1649 and Judith in 1662.After his marriage, Shakespeare left few traces in the historical record until he appeared on the London theatrical scene. Indeed, the period from 1585 (when his twin children were born) until 1592 (when Robert Greene called him an "upstart crow") is known as Shakespeare's "lost years" because no evidence has survived to show exactly where he was or why he left Stratford for London.[9] A number of stories are given to account for his life during this time, including that Shakespeare got in trouble for poaching deer, that he worked as a country school teacher, and that he minded the horses of theater patrons in London. There is no direct evidence to support any of these stories and they all appeared to have started after Shakespeare's death.[10]The theory that Shakespeare acted as a schoolmaster in Lancashire was proposed by E. A. J. Honigmann in 1985, founded on evidence in the will of a member of the Hoghton family, referring to plays and play-clothes and asking his kinsman to take care of "...William Shakeshaft, now dwelling with me...".[11] The asserted nexus was John Cottom, Shakespeare's reputed last schoolmaster, who was purported to have recommended the Bard.[12][13] Michael Wood points out that Thomas Savage, Shakespeare's trustee at the Globe some twenty years later, was related by marriage to a neighbour to whom the will was also addressed. He allows, however, that Shakeshaft was a common name in Lancashire at the time.[14] Ackroyd adds that study of the marginal notes in the Hoghton family copy of Edward Hall's Chronicles, an important source for Shakespeare's early histories, shows that they were in "probability" in Shakespeare's writing.
By Wikipedia
Hamlet’s soliloquy
What is a soliloquy? Have you seen Hamlet’s film? Do you remember a very famous quotation in the film? Do you remember the meaning of this quotation?
“To be or not to be”
What was Hamlet’s problem? Why did he say this sentence? What was he worried about? Have a look at this video of a theatre play. Who is this character? What is he talking about?
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/-JD6gOrARk4" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
Now, try to imitate this actor and rehearse the soliloquy aloud. Try to imagine Hamlet’s feelings in that moment of his life. The woman she loves has just died and he feels guilty for that. He starts thinking about death.What is he talking about in these sentences?
"To be, or not to be--that is the question:Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortuneOr to take arms against a sea of troublesAnd by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--No more--and by a sleep to say we endThe heartache, and the thousand natural shocksThat flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummationDevoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,For in that sleep of death what dreams may comeWhen we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause. There's the respectThat makes calamity of so long life.For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumelyThe pangs of despised love, the law's delay,The insolence of office, and the spurnsThat patient merit of th' unworthy takes,When he himself might his quietus makeWith a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,To grunt and sweat under a weary life,But that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country, from whose bourn.No traveller returns, puzzles the will,And makes us rather bear those ills we haveThan fly to others that we know not of?Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,And thus the native hue of resolutionIs sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,And enterprise of great pitch and momentWith this regard their currents turn awryAnd lose the name of action. -- Soft you now,The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in thy orisonsBe all my sins remembered."
Do you remember how the story ends?
If you want to go further with Shakespeare’s films, visit the following site: