William Shakespeare

Life

Born: c 1564

Died: 1616

Biography

William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616)[a] was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.[1] He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard"). His surviving works consist of 38 plays,[b] 154 sonnets, 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.[2]

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of the playing company the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. 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 sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.[3]

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1590 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. Next he wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest examples in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, 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, and in 1623 two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, 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 nineteenth century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians hero-worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry".[4] In the twentieth century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are consistently performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world. ( Abreviated Biography from WikiPedia.)

View the Wikipedia article on William Shakespeare.

List of poetic works

L E G E N D

Disclaimer

How to download

ICON	SOURCE
	File details
	Help

• A Garland of Shakesperian and Other Old - Fashioned Songs, Opus 21 - (1873)

A Sea Dirge / Full Fathom Five - (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)

A Spring Song / It was a lover and his lass; with a hey and a ho, and a hey nonino ! - (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)

Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind - (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)   (   Sibelius 4 )

• Crabbed Age and Youth - (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)   (   Sibelius 4 )

• Four Sonnets of Shakespeare - (1887)

When In Disgrace With Fortune / And Men’s Eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state - (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)

Farewell, Thou Art Too Dear / For My Possessing, and like enough thou know’st thy estimate - (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)

Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate - (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)

When To The Sessions Of Sweet Silent Thought, / I summon up remembrance of things past - (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)

• Love's Perjuries / On a Day, Alack the Day - (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)
• No longer mourn for me - (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)   (   Sibelius 4 )
• O Mistress Mine - (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)   (   Sibelius 4 )
• O never say that I was false of heart - (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)
• Sonnet XXIX - (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)
• Tell me Where is Fancy Bred ? - (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry) - (1864)
• Take, O Take Those Lips Away - (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)   (   Sibelius 4 )
• Under the Greenwood Tree - (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)   (   Sibelius 4 )
• When Icicles Hang by the Wall - (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)   (   Sibelius 4 )
• Willow, Willow, Willow / The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree - (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)   (   Sibelius 4 )
  

External links

• Complete on-line works of William Shakespeare.
• On-Line guide to scholarly Shakespeare resourses.
• Another biography of William Shakespeare.