Shakespeare

by abdo Wed Apr 06, 2011 2:50 pm

William
Shakespeare

William Shakespeare
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] The [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], artist and authenticity unconfirmed. National Portrait Gallery, London.
Born	Baptised 26 April 1564 (birth date unknown) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Died	23 April 1616 (aged 52) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Occupation	[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Literary movement	English Renaissance theatre
Spouse(s)	[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (m. 1582–1616) «start: (1582)–end+1: (1617)»"Marriage: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] to William Shakespeare" Location: (linkback:[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.])
Children	[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Relative(s)	[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (father) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (mother)

Signature	[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

William Shakespeare ([You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] 26 April
1564; died 23 April 1616)^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
was an [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], widely
regarded as the greatest writer in the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and
the world's pre-eminent dramatist.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} He is
often called England's
national
poet and the "Bard of Avon".^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.][nb
2]} His surviving works, including some [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], consist of about 38 [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],^[nb
3] 154 [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], two long narrative
poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every
major living language and are performed more often than those of any other
playwright.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Shakespeare was born and
raised in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
At the age of 18, he married [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], with whom he had three
children: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], and twins [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] as an actor, writer, and
part owner of a playing
company called the Lord Chamberlain's
Men, later known as the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. He appears to have retired
to Stratford
around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's
private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such
matters as his [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], and whether the works
attributed to him were [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Shakespeare produced most of
his known work between 1589 and 1613.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
His early plays were mainly [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], genres he raised to the peak of
sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16th century. He then wrote
mainly [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] until about 1608, including [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], considered some of
the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], also known as romances,
and collaborated with other playwrights.

Many of his plays were
published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In
1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], a collected
edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now
recognised as Shakespeare's.

Shakespeare was a respected
poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its
present heights until the 19th century. The [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], in
particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
called "[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]".^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} In
the 20th century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new
movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today
and are constantly studied, performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and
political contexts throughout the world.

Life

Early life

William Shakespeare was the
son of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
a successful [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] originally
from [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], and Mary
Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} He
was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised
there on 26 April 1564. His actual birthdate remains unknown, but is
traditionally observed on 23 April, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} This
date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholar's mistake, has proved
appealing to biographers, since Shakespeare died 23 April 1616.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} He
was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Although no attendance
records for the period survive, most biographers agree that Shakespeare
probably was educated at the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] in
Stratford,^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
a free school chartered in 1553,^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
about a quarter-mile from his home. Grammar
schools varied in quality during the Elizabethan era, but the curriculum
was dictated by law throughout England,^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} and
the school would have provided an intensive education in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] grammar and the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

John
Shakespeare's house, believed to be Shakespeare's
birthplace, in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

At the age of 18, Shakespeare
married the 26-year-old [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. The [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] of
the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] issued a
marriage licence 27 November 1582. The next day two of Hathaway's neighbours
posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} The
ceremony may have been arranged in some haste, since the Worcester [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] allowed the marriage
banns to be read once instead of the usual three times,^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} and
six months after the marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
baptised 26 May 1583.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Twins, son [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and daughter [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

After the birth of the twins,
Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in
1592, and scholars refer to the years between 1585 and 1592 as Shakespeare's
"lost years".^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Biographers attempting to account for this period have reported many [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
stories. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], Shakespeare’s first
biographer, recounted a Stratford legend that
Shakespeare fled the town for London
to escape prosecution for deer [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare starting his theatrical career
minding the horses of theatre patrons in London.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] reported that
Shakespeare had been a country schoolmaster.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Some 20th-century scholars have suggested that Shakespeare may have been
employed as a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], a Catholic
landowner who named a certain "William Shakeshafte" in his will.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} No
evidence substantiates such stories other than [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
collected after his death, and Shakeshafte was a common name in the Lancashire area.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

London and theatrical career

"All the world's a stage,

and all the men and women merely players:

they have their exits and their entrances;

and one man in his time plays many parts..."

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], Act II, Scene 7, 139–42.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

It is not known exactly when
Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of
performances show that several of his plays were on the London stage by 1592.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} He
was well enough known in London
by then to be attacked in print by the playwright [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] in his [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]:

...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.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Scholars differ on the exact
meaning of these words,^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} but
most agree that Greene is accusing Shakespeare of reaching above his rank in
trying to match university-educated writers, such as [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and Greene
himself.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
The italicised phrase parodying the line "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in a
woman's hide" from Shakespeare’s [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
along with the pun "Shake-scene", identifies Shakespeare as Greene’s
target.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Greene’s attack is the first
recorded mention of Shakespeare’s career in the theatre. Biographers suggest
that his career may have begun any time from the mid-1580s to just before
Greene’s remarks.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
From 1594, Shakespeare's plays were performed only by the Lord Chamberlain's
Men, a company owned by a group of players, including Shakespeare, that
soon became the leading playing
company in London.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
After the death of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] in 1603, the company was
awarded a royal patent by the new king, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], and changed its name to the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

In 1599, a partnership of
company members built their own theatre on the south bank of the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], which they
called the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. In 1608, the partnership also took over the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. Records of Shakespeare's
property purchases and investments indicate that the company made him a wealthy
man.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
In 1597, he bought the second-largest house in Stratford,
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], and in 1605, he
invested in a share of the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] in Stratford.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Some of Shakespeare's plays
were published in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] editions from 1594. By 1598, his name had
become a selling point and began to appear on the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Shakespeare continued to act in his own and other plays after his success as a
playwright. The 1616 edition of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]'s Works
names him on the cast lists for Every Man in His
Humour (1598) and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
(1603).^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
The absence of his name from the 1605 cast list for Jonson’s [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] is taken by some
scholars as a sign that his acting career was nearing its end.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} The
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] of 1623,
however, lists Shakespeare as one of "the Principal Actors in all these
Plays", some of which were first staged after Volpone, although we
cannot know for certain which roles he played.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} In
1610, John
Davies of Hereford wrote that "good Will" played
"kingly" roles.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} In
1709, Rowe passed down a tradition that Shakespeare played the ghost of
Hamlet's father.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Later traditions maintain that he also played Adam in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and
the Chorus in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
though scholars doubt the sources of the information.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Shakespeare divided his time
between London and Stratford during his career. In 1596, the
year before he bought New Place
as his family home in Stratford,
Shakespeare was living in the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
of St. Helen's, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
north of the River Thames.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} He
moved across the river to [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
by 1599, the year his company constructed the Globe Theatre there.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} By
1604, he had moved north of the river again, to an area north of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
with many fine houses. There he rented rooms from a French [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] called Christopher
Mountjoy, a maker of ladies' wigs and other headgear.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Later years and death

Rowe was the first biographer
to pass down the tradition that Shakespeare retired to Stratford
some years before his death;^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
but retirement from all work was uncommon at that time,^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} and
Shakespeare continued to visit London.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
In 1612 he was called as a witness in a court case concerning the marriage
settlement of Mountjoy's daughter, Mary.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} In
March 1613 he bought a [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
in the former [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.];^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} and
from November 1614 he was in London for several weeks with his son-in-law, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Shakespeare's
funerary monument in Stratford-upon-Avon.

After 1606–1607, Shakespeare
wrote fewer plays, and none are attributed to him after 1613.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} His
last three plays were collaborations, probably with [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} who
succeeded him as the house playwright for the King’s Men.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Shakespeare died on 23 April
1616^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
and was survived by his wife and two daughters. Susanna had married a
physician, John Hall, in 1607,^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} and
Judith had married Thomas
Quiney, a [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], two
months before Shakespeare’s death.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

In his will, Shakespeare left
the bulk of his large estate to his elder daughter Susanna.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} The
terms instructed that she pass it down intact to "the first son of her
body".^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
The Quineys had three children, all of whom died without marrying.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} The
Halls had one child, Elizabeth, who married twice but died without children in
1670, ending Shakespeare’s direct line.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Shakespeare's will scarcely mentions his wife, Anne, who was probably entitled
to one third of his estate automatically.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} He
did make a point, however, of leaving her "my second best bed", a
bequest that has led to much speculation.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Some scholars see the bequest as an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that
the second-best bed would have been the matrimonial bed and therefore rich in
significance.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Shakespeare was buried in the
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] of the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] two
days after his death.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} The
epitaph carved into the stone slab covering his grave includes a [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] against moving his bones,
which was carefully avoided during restoration of the church in 2008:^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Shakespeare's
grave.

Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare,

To digg the dvst encloased heare.

Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones,

And cvrst be he yt moves my bones.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Modern spelling:

"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear,"

"To dig the dust enclosed here."

"Blessed be the man that spares these stones,"

"And cursed be he who moves my bones."^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Sometime before 1623, a [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] was erected in
his memory on the north wall, with a half-effigy of him in the act of writing.
Its plaque compares him to [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} In 1623, in conjunction with
the publication of the First
Folio, the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] was published.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Shakespeare has been
commemorated in many [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] around the
world, including funeral monuments in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] in
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

Plays

Main
articles: Shakespeare's
plays and Shakespeare's
collaborations

Most playwrights of the
period typically collaborated with others at some point, and critics agree that
Shakespeare did the same, mostly early and late in his career.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Some attributions, such as [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
and the early history plays, remain controversial, while [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
and the lost [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
have well-attested contemporary documentation. Textual evidence also supports
the view that several of the plays were revised by other writers after their
original composition.

The first recorded works of
Shakespeare are [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and the three parts of Henry
VI, written in the early 1590s during a vogue for historical drama.
Shakespeare's plays are difficult to date, however,^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} and
studies of the texts suggest that [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
The Taming of
the Shrew and The Two
Gentlemen of Verona may also belong to Shakespeare’s earliest period.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} His
first [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], which draw heavily on the 1587
edition of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Chronicles of England,
Scotland, and Ireland,^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
dramatise the destructive results of weak or corrupt rule and have been
interpreted as a justification for the origins of the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} The
early plays were influenced by the works of other Elizabethan dramatists,
especially [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
by the traditions of medieval drama, and by the plays of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} The
Comedy of Errors was also based on classical models, but no source for The
Taming of the Shrew has been found, though it is related to a separate play
of the same name and may have derived from a folk story.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Like The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which two friends appear to approve
of rape,^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
the Shrew's story of the taming of a woman's independent spirit by a man
sometimes troubles modern critics and directors.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Oberon,
Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing. By [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], c. 1786. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

Shakespeare's early classical
and Italianate comedies, containing tight double plots and precise comic
sequences, give way in the mid-1590s to the romantic atmosphere of his greatest
comedies.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
A
Midsummer Night's Dream is a witty mixture of romance, fairy magic, and
comic lowlife scenes.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Shakespeare's next comedy, the equally romantic [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], contains a portrayal
of the vengeful Jewish moneylender [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], which reflects
Elizabethan views but may appear derogatory to modern audiences.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} The
wit and wordplay of Much Ado About
Nothing,^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} the
charming rural setting of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], and
the lively merrymaking of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
complete Shakespeare's sequence of great comedies.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
After the lyrical [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], written almost entirely in verse,
Shakespeare introduced prose comedy into the histories of the late 1590s, Henry
IV, parts 1 and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. His characters become more complex and
tender as he switches deftly between comic and serious scenes, prose and
poetry, and achieves the narrative variety of his mature work.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
This period begins and ends with two tragedies: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
the famous romantic tragedy of sexually charged adolescence, love, and death;^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} and
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]—based on Sir Thomas
North's 1579 translation of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]—which
introduced a new kind of drama.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
According to Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro, in Julius Caesar
"the various strands of politics, character, inwardness, contemporary
events, even Shakespeare's own reflections on the act of writing, began to
infuse each other".^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Hamlet,
Horatio, Marcellus, and the Ghost of Hamlet's Father. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], 1780–5. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

In the early 17th century,
Shakespeare wrote the so-called "[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]" [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
Troilus and
Cressida, and All's Well That
Ends Well and a number of his best known [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Many critics believe that Shakespeare's greatest tragedies represent the peak
of his art. The titular hero of one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], has probably been
discussed more than any other Shakespearean character, especially for his
famous [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] "[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]".^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Unlike the introverted Hamlet, whose fatal flaw is hesitation, the heroes of
the tragedies that followed, Othello and King Lear, are undone by hasty errors
of judgement.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} The
plots of Shakespeare's tragedies often hinge on such fatal errors or flaws,
which overturn order and destroy the hero and those he loves.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} In [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], the villain [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] stokes Othello's sexual
jealousy to the point where he murders the innocent wife who loves him.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} In [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], the old king
commits the tragic error of giving up his powers, initiating the events which
lead to the murder of his daughter and the torture and blinding of the Earl of
Gloucester. According to the critic Frank Kermode, "the play offers
neither its good characters nor its audience any relief from its cruelty".^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} In [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], the shortest and
most compressed of Shakespeare's tragedies,^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
uncontrollable ambition incites Macbeth and his wife, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], to murder
the rightful king and usurp the throne, until their own guilt destroys them in
turn.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
In this play, Shakespeare adds a supernatural element to the tragic structure.
His last major tragedies, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
contain some of Shakespeare's finest poetry and were considered his most
successful tragedies by the poet and critic [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

In his final period,
Shakespeare turned to [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] or [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and completed
three more major plays: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
as well as the collaboration, Pericles, Prince
of Tyre. Less bleak than the tragedies, these four plays are graver in
tone than the comedies of the 1590s, but they end with reconciliation and the
forgiveness of potentially tragic errors.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Some commentators have seen this change in mood as evidence of a more serene
view of life on Shakespeare's part, but it may merely reflect the theatrical
fashion of the day.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Shakespeare collaborated on two further surviving plays, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
probably with [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

Performances

Main
article: Shakespeare
in performance

It is not clear for which
companies Shakespeare wrote his early plays. The title page of the 1594 edition
of Titus Andronicus reveals that the play had been acted by three
different troupes.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
After the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
of 1592–3, Shakespeare's plays were performed by his own company at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], north of
the Thames.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Londoners flocked there to see the first part of Henry IV, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] recording, "Let but
Falstaff come, Hal, Poins, the rest...and you scarce shall have a room".^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
When the company found themselves in dispute with their landlord, they pulled
The Theatre down and used the timbers to construct the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], the first
playhouse built by actors for actors, on the south bank of the Thames at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
The Globe opened in autumn 1599, with Julius Caesar one of the first
plays staged. Most of Shakespeare's greatest post-1599 plays were written for
the Globe, including Hamlet, Othello and King Lear.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The
reconstructed [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
London.

After the Lord Chamberlain's
Men were renamed the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] in 1603, they entered a
special relationship with the new [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. Although the performance records are
patchy, the King's Men performed seven of Shakespeare's plays at court between
1 November 1604 and 31 October 1605, including two performances of The
Merchant of Venice.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
After 1608, they performed at the indoor [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
during the winter and the Globe during the summer.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
The indoor setting, combined with the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
fashion for lavishly staged [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], allowed Shakespeare to introduce more elaborate
stage devices. In Cymbeline, for example, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] descends "in thunder and
lightning, sitting upon an eagle: he throws a thunderbolt. The ghosts fall on
their knees."^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

The actors in Shakespeare's
company included the famous [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. Burbage
played the leading role in the first performances of many of Shakespeare's
plays, including Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, and King
Lear.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
The popular comic actor Will Kempe played the servant Peter in Romeo and
Juliet and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] in Much
Ado About Nothing, among other characters.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
He was replaced around the turn of the 16th century by [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], who played
roles such as [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] in As You Like It and
the fool in King Lear.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
In 1613, Sir [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
recorded that Henry VIII "was set forth with many extraordinary
circumstances of pomp and ceremony".^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
On 29 June, however, a cannon set fire to the thatch of the Globe and burned
the theatre to the ground, an event which pinpoints the date of a Shakespeare
play with rare precision.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}