William Shakespeare

Who doesn’t know Shakespeare, may be only those who don’t know how to be charmed by literature. William Shakespeare’s [1564-1616] life is related with superlatives and his works are master-piece in English literature. He wrote about 38 plays with each play resembling like a bright star in the skies of literature and language. He was a genius whose creativity and class, whose magnificent dramatic style, whose inspirational language and expression could never be thought to be surpassed even till today starting from the days he was alive and prior period.

William Shakespeare is the most quoted of all literary figures and without doubt since his death there have been thousands of biographies written on him in the whole world in almost every language yet he can be explored further to the heights of infinity. He is independent of age, time or society and is widely popular today as he was in his own era, the Elizabethan age. Such criteria to know him is a necessity otherwise so much written on him can make a reader bore to even think about the idea of studying one more biography. A reader may yell “eh, one more? “To be honest, he is absolutely right and spot on.

Shakespeare’s life has marriage, kids, moving to London, getting rich by writing plays and staging them, becoming famous and then like any human being he died. But finding nothing much to write about him after millions of essays, articles, biographies and blah blah blah the writers were compelled to Create Stuff in peeping to the microscopic analysis of Shakespeare’s life and works , critical , analytical , philosophical, psychological , inspirational and classical as well as modern writers then had nothing sensible to write but they had to keep writing , just for the sake of their earning alone along with art and literature , many comedy of ideas and comedy of errors occur in reviews , books and articles about him. Even still he holds his first place in literary figures which is not only great on his part but wonderful on part of such writers too. Another day to live, another day to write, another day to earn another $.

There were great reviews as well, and still many are, though less in number than those absurdities about him. This article has no verification of which category it will fall, it’s all in the hands of lord and reader and a bit in William Shakespeare.

THINGS ABOUT WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

* Despite the frustration of sufficient information regarding his life there is enough to say we know him. He is not obscure at all.
* There are over 100 references to his day’s .Though fancies and stories and scandals about him are not referred by anyone.
* The lifelong accusation of his plays written by either sir Francis bacon or Philip Sidney has died in modern times, may be giving must relief to his soul.

FACT ABOUT WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

* He was born on 26 April, 1564 in Stratford-an Avon, England. [Though there are some differences over the date among critics.]
* He attended Stratford grammar school. The period of [1585-1592] of his life has very little details available; therefore, critics usually ignored the period.
* He married Anne Hathaway and after six months Shakespeare was father of his first child, a daughter, Susanna. His only son, hamnet, died at the age of eleven.
* In early 1590s there is evidence of his first play [the comedy of errors].
* His last being [the tempest in 1611].
* In 1597, Shakespeare purchased a splendid house in his home town known as the new place.
* During the period of 1597 to 1611, he spent most of his time in London and went on to a semi-retirement in 1612 professionally.
* He died on or about 23 April, 1616 of unknown causes.

HIS WORKS

* Comedy
* History
* Tragedy
* Poetry

COMEDY INCLUDED

* All’s Well That Ends Well
* As You Like It
* The Comedy of Errors
* Cymbeline
* Love’s Labours Lost
* Measure for Measure
* The Merry Wives of Windsor
* The Merchant of Venice
* A Midsummer Night’s Dream
* Much Ado About Nothing
* Pericles, Prince of Tyre
* Taming of the Shrew
* The Tempest
* Troilus and Cressida
* Twelfth Night
* Two Gentlemen of Verona
* Winter’s Tale

HISTORY INCLUDED

• Henry IV, part 1
• Henry IV, part 2
• Henry V
• Henry VI, part 1
• Henry VI, part 2
• Henry VI, part 3
• Henry VIII
• King John
• Richard II
• Richard III

TRAGEDY INCLUDED

• Antony and Cleopatra
• Coriolanus
• Hamlet
• Julius Caesar
• King Lear
• Macbeth
• Othello
• Romeo and Juliet
• Timon of Athens
• Titus Andronicu

AND POETRY INCLUDED

• THE SONNETS
• A LOVER’S COMPLAINT
• THE RAPE OF LUCRECE
• VENUS AND ADONIS
• FUNERAL ELEGY BY W.S.

THE BRIEF ANALYSIS OF HIS WORKS AND SOME INFORMATION

• All plays were registered before publication or staged. The playwrights used the stage as a tool for the expression of their ideas, the great reason, why Elizabethan theater arose to its own heights.

• He never published any of his plays and no manuscript survived. The intention was staging them not publishing as the popular way of the age.

• In 1623 the first collection of his works appeared, obviously, some 7 years after his death.

• His plays and characters are even loved today along with the splendid language and creativity .For example who can forget hamlet’s” to be or not to be “.

• Some of the language of his works contained words which a modern English reader is not familiar. Either one should go back in his time via time machine else simply ignore it or the best option is taking pains on searching a critic who used his philosophies. The relief factor is that such words and works of Shakespeare are very limited in number and we understand good majority of his language and works.

• Some of his plays brought him fortune and fame instantly. The list includes Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet etc. In fact, the genre of literature is divided in poetry, drama, prose and essay with Drama his specialty. It earned him his fame as no one could or can or may be never will write such powerful and glorious tragedies like he did. It is becoming a universal truth, so to say.

• The other dramatists of the age, Marlow and Johnson with VOLPONE and DR Faustus still stand nowhere near Shakespeare owing to the quantity and quality he produced in such short time.

SOME OF HIS FAMOUS QUOTES

• “To be, or not to be: that is the question”. - HAMLET (ACT III, SCENE I).

• “Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry”. - HAMLET (ACT I, SCENE III).

• “This above all: to thine own self be true”. - HAMLET (ACT I, SCENE III).

• “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him”. - (ACT III, SCENE II).

• “But, for my own part, it was Greek to me”. - (ACT I, SCENE II).

• “The course of true love never did run smooth”. - (ACT I, SCENE I).

QUOTES ABOUT SHAKESPEARE BY OTHER

• He was not of an age, but for all time! - BEN JONSON QUOTE (1573 - 1637)

• I have of late had the same thought - for things which I do half at Random are afterwards confirmed by my judgment in a dozen features of Propriety. Is it too daring to fancy Shakespeare this Presider? - JOHN KEATS QUOTE (1795 - 1821), “LETTER TO B.R. HAYDON, MAY 1817″

• And one wild Shakespear, following Nature’s lights, Is worth whole planets, filled with Stagyrites. - THOMAS MORE QUOTE (1779 - 1852), “THE SCEPTIC”

• Shakespeare - The nearest thing in incarnation to the eye of God. - LAURENCE OLIVIER QUOTE (1907 - 1989)

• Wonderful women! Have you ever thought how much we all, and women especially, owe to Shakespear for his vindication of women in these fearless, high-spirited, resolute and intelligent heroines - DAME ELLEN TERRY QUOTE (1848 - 1928)

• One of the greatest geniuses that ever existed, Shakespeare, undoubtedly wanted taste. - HORACE WALPOLE QUOTE (1717 - 1797), “LETTER TO WREN, 1764″

• Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shake-speare unlocked his heart.
- WILLIAM WORDSWORTH QUOTE (1770 - 1850), “MISCELLANEOUS SONNETS”

• There Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb
The crowns o’ the world; oh, eyes sublime
With tears and laughter for all time!
- ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING QUOTE (1806 - 1861), “A VISION OF POETS”

? With this same key
Shake-speare unlocked his heart’ once more!
Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shake-speare he!
ROBERT BROWNING QUOTE (1812 - 1899), “HOUSE”

? And yet, very literally, it is a priceless thing..
THOMAS CARLYLE QUOTE (1795 - 1881) “HEROES, HERO-WORSHIP AND THE HEROIC IN HISTORY”

? If called to define Shakespeare’s faculty, I should say superiority of intellect, and think I had included all under that.
THOMAS CARLYLE QUOTE (1795 - 1881) “HEROES, HERO-WORSHIP AND THE HEROIC IN HISTORY”

? The souls most fed with Shakespeare’s flame
Still sat unconquered in a ring,
Remembering him like anything.
G. K. CHESTERTON (1874 - 1936) “THE SHAKESPEARE MEMORIAL”

? Our myriad-minded Shakespear.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE QUOTE (1772 - 1834), “BIOGRAPHY. CHAP. XV”

? He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul.
JOHN DRYDEN QUOTE (1631 - 1700), “ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY”

CONCLUSION FINALLY
William Shakespeare stands alone with all his greatness in English literature. No match for him. From hamlet to Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet to Anthony and Cleopatra, from a comedy of errors to the tempest he shows us his art through his mind and touches our soul in the most elegant and impressive manner possible , all hail his art and long live the king.

The importance and meaning of Literature

When we begin the study of literature,we find it has always two aspects,one of the simple enjoyment and appreciation and the other of analysis and exact description. Usually what happen when we go through literature in our classroom either by ourselves or teacher use to teach one thing matters very much and that is the importance of literature for students. Until our concept is not clear we can never understand what literature is? We need time and understanding to nurture our spirits.

I read somewhere in a short story of “The shell and the Book”. A child and a man were one day walking on the seashore when the child found a little shell and held it to his ear. Suddenly he heard sounds, strange, low, melodious sounds, as if the shell were remembering and repeating to itself the murmurs of its ocean home.The child’s face filled with wonder as he listened.

Here in the little shell,apparently,was a voice from another world, and he listened with delight to its mystery and music.Then came the man, explaining that the child heard nothing strange; that the pearly curves of the shell simply caught a multitude of sounds too faint for human ears, and filled the glimmering hollows with the murmur of innumerable echoes.It was not a new world,but only the unnoticed harmony of the old that had aroused the child’s wonder.

So some such experience as this awaits us when we begin the study of literature with its two aspects of simple enjoyment and appreciation and the other if analysis and exact description.Like when a song appeal to the ear, or a noble book to the heart we discover a new world for the moment, at least,a completely new world which is very different from our own world and it sees that we are in a place of dreams and magic.

“Behind every books is a man;behind the man is a race;and behind the race are the natural and social environments whose influence is unconsciously reflected”,this we must know,if the book is to speak its whole message.In simple word, we have now reached at the point where we wish to understand and enjoy literature,and the first step toward it is to know its essential qualities as exact definition is impossible.

In broader sense,perhaps literature means simply a written records of the race,including all its history and sciences,as well as its poems and novels,and in narrower sense literature is the artistic record of life and most of our writing excluded from it.A history or a science may be a literature sometimes but only when we forget the subject matter and the presentation of facts in the simple beauty of its expression.

Qualities of Literature

The first significant thing is the artistic quality of all literature.All art is the expression of life in forms of truth and beauty or in another word which exist in this world and which remain unnoticed until bought to our attention by some sensitive human soul same like the delicate curves of the shell reflects sounds and harmonies too faint to be otherwise noticed. In the same pleasing,surprising way,all artistic work must be a kind of revelation as architecture is probably the oldest creative work of arts and yet we still have many builders but few architects,that is,men whose work in wood or stone suggests some hidden truth and beauty to the human senses.
Suggestiveness

The second significant quality of literature is its suggestiveness,its appeal to our emotions and imagination rather to our intellect.

Permanence

The third characteristic of literature is arising itself directly from the other two and that is permanence.
The importance of Literature

It is a prevalent opinion that literature is like all arts is mere play of imagination,pleasing enough like a new novel without any serious or practical importance.Nothing could be farther from the truth, Literature preserves the ideals of a people and these ideal are love, faith, duty, friendship, freedom and reverence which are the part of human life most worthy of preservation.
Lastly in summary we can say Literature is the expression of life in words of truth and beauty,it is the written record of man’s spirit of his thoughts, emotions, aspirations, it is the history and only the history of the human soul having characteristics of its artistic quality, its suggestiveness and its permanent qualities which will never fade.

A short note on Romanticism

As the word symbolize, the actual meaning is not the same because it has nothing to do with romance or romantic mood but it is really a movement run by intellectual and literary men, mainly in English society and throughout the literary world as well, in every field of life in revolt of their predecessor who were following the norms of Greeks and medievalism which were quite alien to common man. If we specify it in English we come to know that it had started from middle of eighteenth century to end of the nineteenth century and is still alive to our age.

This movement was against monotonous norms prevalent in the society of that time which had always ignored the individual and his problems and given priority to a specific stratum mainly of court or of gods and goddesses in relation to moralize the society as a whole. This thing had no interest of a common man who was less educated and less developed and looked eager to be characterized and discussed somewhere. When things of his interest, through this, came out in every field of life whether it was of literature, of art, of music, of sculpture or of architecture, the whole of the society, mainly comprised of common persons, shook towards it. The most important role was played by the English writers of that time, who with their faculties impressed everyone to the greatest extent. The pioneers of this movement are named as William Wordsworth, ST Coleridge, Shelly, Lord Byron and John Keats. These writers have done unprecedented job in establishing their ideas and affecting the literary circle to its roots.

They did not emphasize the betterment of the society as a whole but elevated the individual’s condition by taking him into another peaceful and imaginary world which was concerned only to him and gave him some relaxation and purged his soul out of routine tensions. The main concerns of this movement were use of imagination to the highest degrees, use of nature only to relate its beauties, the personality of common man and his mental pretensions, freedom from society and mainly no concerns of teaching or moralizing the society.

Psychoanalytic Criticism Of Literature

Literature is the true depiction of human life in all eras and throughout the centuries. It provides an insight to human life, the behaviors and conducts of humans, as well an access to their inner realms. This quality of literature has forced critics to analyze literature on psychological grounds in order to get the gist in depths than merely the face value.

Analysis means breaking down a subject to understand it in details and discover its essential features. Psychological critical analysis of literature means to break down literature in order to understand it on psychological grounds. This has helped out the critics to present various interpretations of a single phrase apparently looking simple and uncomplicated.

Literary criticism dates back to Aristotle with his publication of Poetics, in which he describes the meters of criticism. Plato also marked the criticism by calling poetry an imitative form of art. Most of the classical and medieval criticism; the birth period of literary criticism, is marked with criticism of religious texts.

With the passage of time, literature saw many developments and criticism as well. Going through medieval to renaissance, and then 19th century, literature was not spared from criticism. In the 20th century, however, criticism took a new shape and form from merely referring to the classical literary works or detailed descriptive analysis of the literary diction.

The early 20th century is marked with ‘Anatomy of Criticism’ by Northrop Frye, in which he criticized the style of critics who adhered to their own ideologies to analyze a literary piece. In this period, the criticism became a more subject based criticism than looking into an author’s personality. In psychoanalytic criticism of literature, literature is taken on psychological grounds. It is read as if it is not latent, a manifest, and a dream work.

psychoanalytic-iterary-criticism1.gifPsychoanalytic literary criticism started with the development of psychoanalysis itself, and induced into literature by Sigmund Freud. This form of criticism essentially requires displacement and deep concentration operations. It is a keen study of symbolism and diction. Freud’s works include several extensive literary essays that explain the psychic exploration of the characters, texts and authors themselves.

Freud’s theory was acclaimed and followed by many like Jacques Lacan and Carl Jung. Though, Freud’s concepts of psycho analysis of literature circles around characters and authors’ psyche reading to explore the mysteries of literary narratives. It can have a wide scope by analyzing the diction and dialect, baffling symbols, actions, scene settings and content resemblance and reference. Psychological critical analysis of literature can also be divided into several branches as was done by Karen Horney’s approaches including womb envy.

William Wordsworth’s ‘Lyrical Ballads’

Lyrical Ballads written and published in 1798 hold a special place in the world of literature. It was a joint venture by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge; a result of their close friendship. It is remarkable in establishing Romantic Movement, which broke away from the prevailing norms of the contemporary era.

The poems in ‘Lyrical Ballads’ hold an important place because they had different subjects, a new poetic style, simple diction and easy to understand verses. They were a revolution in themselves. In the ‘Preface to Lyrical Ballads’, also a remarkable production of Wordsworth Nature-loving soul, also called the ‘manifesto’ of English criticism, Wordsworth has commented on ‘Lyrical Ballads’ as ‘experimental’:

“The majority of the following poems are to be considered as experiments. They were written chiefly with a view to ascertain how far the language of conversation in the middle and lower classes of society is adapted to the purpose of poetic pleasure.”

Coleridge and Wordsworth did not consider the classical and contemporary poems to be the true depiction of life. They thought that usage of high sounding and pompous words, and intricate metaphors can only be understood by a specific class, and thence they discuss the people of that class only. He condemned the contemporary literature as “a mechanical adoption of… figures of speech, … sometimes with propriety, but much more frequently applied… to feelings and ideas with which they had no natural connection whatsoever”.

To advocate his case, Wordsworth writes, “its influence in impressing a notion of the peculiarity and exaltation of the Poet’s character, and in flattering the Reader’s self-love by bringing him nearer to a sympathy with that character.”

The purpose behind the composition of ‘Lyrical Ballads’ was to make literature a true depiction of life; life of a common man. They worked for a simple style so that poetry could be read and understood by everyone easily. The reaction of critics at that time was modest, but many today comment that it is unfair to call these writings ‘lyrical’.

Poetry is ‘a spontaneous over flow of powerful feelings’ and that is what Wordsworth has done to compose his ballads. He chose to write whatever influenced Wordsworth from his surroundings came to paper. He was in love with Nature from his early child hood. His ‘lyrical Ballads’ comprises of poems that hold picturesque qualities. He has chosen incidents and happening from everyday life, so that anyone and everyone can relate himself to them.

The use of ‘rustic’ and rural description is again a reference of Wordsworth love of Nature. His simple language contains in it real and great values of life. His diction emphasizes that feelings no matter how delicate, can be easily described in a simple and plain language.

The poems in it are:

* Expostulation and Reply
* The Tables turned; an Evening Scene, on the same subject
* Old Man Travelling; Animal Tranquillity and Decay, a Sketch
* The Complaint of a forsaken Indian Woman
* The Last of the Flock
* Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree which stands near the Lake of Esthwaite
* The Foster-Mother’s Tale
* Goody Blake and Harry Gill
* The Thorn
* We are Seven
* Anecdote for Fathers
* Lines written at a small distance from my House and sent me by my little Boy to the Person to whom they are addressed
* The Female Vagrant
* The Dungeon
* Simon Lee, the old Huntsman
* Lines written in early Spring
* The Nightingale
* Lines written when sailing in a Boat at Evening
* Lines written near Richmond, upon the Thames
* The Idiot Boy
* Love
* The Mad Mother
* The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere
* Lines written above Tintern Abbey
* Hart-leap Well
* There was a Boy, &c
* The Brothers, a Pastoral Poem
* Ellen Irwin, or the Braes of Kirtle
* Strange fits of passion have I known, &c.
* Song
* She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways
* A slumber did my spirit seal, &c
* The Waterfall and the Eglantine
* The Oak and the Broom, a Pastoral
* Lucy Gray
* The Idle Shepherd-Boys or Dungeon-Gill Force, a Pastoral
* ‘Tis said that some have died for love, &c.
* Poor Susan
* Inscription for the Spot where the Hermitage stood on St. Herbert’s Island, Derwent-Water
* Inscription for the House (an Out-house) on the Island at Grasmere
* To a Sexton
* Andrew Jones
* The two Thieves, or the last stage of Avarice
* A whirl-blast from behind the Hill, &c.
* Song for the wandering Jew
* Ruth
* Lines written with a Slate-Pencil upon a Stone, &c.
* Lines written on a Tablet in a School
* The two April Mornings
* The Fountain, a conversation
* Nutting
* Three years she grew in sun and shower, &c.
* The Pet-Lamb, a Pastoral
* Written in Germany on one of the coldest days of the century
* The Childless Father
* The Old Cumberland Beggar, a Description
* Rural Architecture
* A Poet’s Epitaph
* A Character
* A Fragment
* Poems on the Naming of Places,
* Michael, a Pastoral

“There will also be found in these volumes little of what is usually called poetic diction; I have taken as much pains to avoid it as others ordinarily take to produce it; this I have done for the reason already alleged, to bring my language near to the language of men, and further, because the pleasure which I have proposed to myself to impart is of a kind very different from that which is supposed by many persons to be the proper object of poetry.”

Though Coleridge worked in collaboration with Wordsworth, he only wrote 4 poems. His poems were not much liked as they comprise of supernatural elements, withholding a contradiction of Wordsworth’s effort of writing about the common people of middle and lower class.

Regardless of the era, literature depicts the ongoing life style of that era. It is a true depiction of human life. Different genres deal the subject differently. Different literary works men have chosen different subjects from the real life to comment and research. Wordsworth sticking to project a common man’s life holds a lot of attraction for the reader of modern era too.