A Lover's Complaint is a narrative poem usually attributed to William Shakespeare, although the poem's authorship is a matter of critical debate. A Lover's Complaint - Form and Content. The poem consists of forty-nine seven-line stanzas written in the rhyme royal (with the rhyme scheme ababbcc), a metre and structure identical to that of Shakespeare's poem The Rape of Lucrece. In the poem, the speaker sees a young woman weeping at the bank of a river, in which she ...

Including:

• A Lover's Complaint - Form and Content
• A Lover's Complaint - History and Authorship

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1595 - Events. January 30 - William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is performed for the first time. William Shakespeare writes A Midsummer Night's Dream. May 24 - Nomenclator of Leiden University Library appears, the first printed catalog of an institutional library. June 9 - Battle of Fontaine-Française. Henry IV of France defeats the Spanish, but is nearly killed due to his rashness. September 15 - Group of pupils of Edinburgh High School barricade ...

Including:

• 1595 - Events
• 1595 - Births
• 1595 - Deaths

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The Mythical British King Cymbeline is identified with Cunobelinus Cymbeline is a play by William Shakespeare. Critics often put it in a grouping called Shakespeare's Late Romances along with Pericles, Prince of Tyre, The Tempest, and The Winter's Tale. The King, Cymbeline himself, is based on a British chieftain, Cunobelinus, who reigned before the time of the Roman invasion. Though once held in very high regard, Cymbeline has lost popularity over the past century. ...

Including:

• Cymbeline - Plot Synopsis
• Cymbeline - Notes

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1530s 1540s 1550s - 1560s - 1570s 1580s 1590s 1560 1561 1562 1563 1564 1565 1566 1567 1568 1569 Events and Trends In 1564 William Shakespeare was born. In 1565 St. Augustine is founded by the Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés on August 28 in modern-day Florida. The city is the oldest continually occupied European settlement in the continental United States. In 1569 Poli ...

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Cressida (kres'-i-da) is a moon of Uranus. It was named after the Trojan daughter of Calchas, a tragic heroine who appears in William Shakespeare's play Troilus and Cressida (as well as in tales by Geoffrey Chaucer and others). Other than its size and orbit, virtually nothing is known about it. It was discovered from the images taken by Voyager 2 on 1986-01-09, ...

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Faggot derives through the Old French fagot from the Latin facus ("bundle") (see also fasces), coming into Middle English on or around the 13th century as a reference to a bundle of sticks or branches meant for firewood. It has also been used on occasion to refer to wood for funeral pyres or a burning at the stake. What fool hath added water to the sea, Or brought a faggot to bright-burning Troy? —William Shakespeare, T ...

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1604 - Events. January 14 – Hampton Court conference with James I of England, the Anglican bishops and representatives of Puritans September 20 – Capture of Ostend by Spanish forces under Ambrosio Spinola after a three year siege. October 9 – Supernova 1604 is observed. As of this writing, this was the last supernova to be observed in the Milky Way. November 1 – At Whitehall Palace in London, the William Shakespeare tragedy Othello is presented for the first time.Including:

• 1604 - Events
• 1604 - Births
• 1604 - Deaths

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Ariel is a fictional sprite who appears in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. He is bound to serve the magician Prospero, who rescued him from Sycorax, the witch who previously inhabited the island. Ariel, much like Puck in "A Midsummer Night's Dream", is given many of the play's most lyrical passages, which are sung by Ariel to befuddle and enchant the other characters. The name, which is a variation of the word "air" from which the spirit comes, is reused in later literature for other sprites, most notably ...

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Caratacus (also spelled Caractacus) was a historical British chieftain of the Catuvellauni tribe, who led the British resistance to the Roman conquest. He may correspond with the legendary Welsh character Caradog (also written Caradoc, Caradawg) and the legendary British king Arvirargus. Caratacus - History. Caratacus is named by Dio Cassius as a son of the Catuvellaunian king Cunobelinus (the inspiration for William Shakespeare's Cymbeline).^Including:

• Caratacus - History
• Caratacus - Caratacus's name
• Caratacus - British legend
• Caratacus - Caratacus and Christianity
• Caratacus - Notes

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A cockpit was originally a pit used for cockfighting, where owners would pit fighting birds against each other for the purpose of gambling. In the 16th century, it was used to mean a place of entertainment or frenzied activity. William Shakespeare used the term in Henry V to specifically mean the area around the stage of a theater. In 1759, the English artist William Hogarth produced a satirical print called The Cockpit showing the enthusiasm of the gamblers during a cockfight. The word "cockpit" came to be used for any area that was the scene of grisly fighting. Belgium ...

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The Battle of Agincourt was fought on 25 October 1415, (Saint Crispin's Day), in northern France as part of the Hundred Years' War. The combatants were the English army of King Henry V (traditionally thought to be highly outnumbered, though this is now disputed, see below), and that of Charles VI of France. The latter was not commanded by the incapacitated king himself, but by the Constable Charles d'Albret and various notable French noblemen of the Armagnac party. The battle is notable for the use of the English longbow, which helped ...

Including:

• Battle of Agincourt - The campaign
• Battle of Agincourt - The Battle
• Battle of Agincourt - Notable casualties
• Battle of Agincourt - Modern re-assessment of Agincourt
• Battle of Agincourt - Were archers as effective as traditionally thought?
• Battle of Agincourt - Were the English as outnumbered as traditionally thought?
• Battle of Agincourt - The Battle of Agincourt as an English patriotic myth
• Battle of Agincourt - Popular Myths
• Battle of Agincourt - Bibliography
• Battle of Agincourt - External references
• Battle of Agincourt - Notes

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Antony and Cleopatra is a historical tragedy by William Shakespeare, first performed in 1607 or 1608 and printed in the First Folio, 1623. The major source for the story is Plutarch's "Life of Mark Antony" from "Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Compared Together" in the translation made by Sir Thomas North in 1579. An astonishing number of phrases within Shakespeare's play are taken directly from North's prose, including Enobarbus's famous description of Cleopatra's barge, beginning "The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne/Burned on the water." Only the scenes ...

Including:

• Antony and Cleopatra - Synopsis
• Antony and Cleopatra - Text of the play
• Antony and Cleopatra - Critical issues
• Antony and Cleopatra - Films of the play

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Cardenio is a lost play, known to have been performed by the King's Men, a London theatre company, in 1613. It is believed to have been written by William Shakespeare, probably in collaboration with John Fletcher. The play may have been lost with the burning of the Globe Theatre in 1613. The content of the play is not known, and only one song survives. However, it is likely based on incidents in Don Quixote, of which the 1612 translation by John Shelton would have been available to the authors. Fletcher is know ...

Including:

• Cardenio - Lewis Theobald and Double Falshood
• Cardenio - Charles Hamilton and The Second Maiden's Tragedy

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Shakespeare's Sonnets are the principal evidence for his possible bisexuality. The poems were initially published, perhaps without his approval, in 1609. One hundred and twenty-six of them appear to be love poems addressed to a young man (known as the "Fair Lord"), and twenty-six are addressed to a married woman (known as the "Dark Lady"). There are numerous passages in the Sonnets that can be read as homosexual or bisexual. In Sonnet 13, the young man is called "dear my love" and Sonnet 15 announces that the poet is at "war with Time ...

See also:

Sexuality of William Shakespeare, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Elizabethan sexual identities, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Sexuality in the Sonnets, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Sexuality in the plays, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Biographical evidence, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Authorship doubters, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Notes, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Additional reading

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William Shakespeare (also spelled Shakspere, Shaksper, and Shake-speare, due to the fact that Elizabethan spelling was very erratic[1]) was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England, in April 1564, the son of John Shakespeare, a successful tradesman and alderman, and of Mary Arden, a daughter of the gentry. They lived on Henley Street. His baptismal record dates to April 26 of that year. Because baptisms were performed within a few days of bi ...

See also:

Shakespeare's life, Shakespeare's life - Early life, Shakespeare's life - London and theatrical career, Shakespeare's life - Later years, Shakespeare's life - Notes

Read more here: » Shakespeare's life: Encyclopedia II - Shakespeare's life - Early life

Shakespeare's plays - Comedies. Main articles: Shakespearean comedies, and [[{{{2}}}]], and [[{{{3}}}]], and [[{{{4}}}]]See also:

Shakespeare's plays, Shakespeare's plays - The plays, Shakespeare's plays - Source material of plays, Shakespeare's plays - Stylistic groupings of the plays, Shakespeare's plays - Canonical Plays, Shakespeare's plays - Comedies, Shakespeare's plays - Histories, Shakespeare's plays - Tragedies, Shakespeare's plays - Dramatic collaborations, Shakespeare's plays - Lost plays, Shakespeare's plays - Plays possibly by Shakespeare, Shakespeare's plays - Shakespeare and the textual problem, Shakespeare's plays - Notes

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There is little in the historical record about Shakespeare's sexuality. However, it has often been noted that despite their three children, he and his wife may not have been close. Shakespeare spent much of his life in London, away from her and the children. He and his Anne were buried in separate (but adjoining) graves. In additon, it has often been noted that Shakespeare's will makes no specific bequeath to his wife aside from "the second best bed with the furniture". This may seem like a slight, but many historians contend that the second ...

See also:

Sexuality of William Shakespeare, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Elizabethan sexual identities, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Sexuality in the Sonnets, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Sexuality in the plays, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Biographical evidence, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Authorship doubters, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Notes, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Additional reading

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Some readers have found similar evidence in Shakespeare's plays. The most often-cited evidence is several comedies, including Twelfth Night and As You Like It, which contain comic situations in which a woman poses as a man, a device which exploits the fact that in Shakespeare's day women's roles were played by boys. While the situations thus presented are heterosexual in terms of the story, the stage image of men wooing and kissing may well have been titillating to those of a homosexual orientation, and while other dramatists occasionally used the same device, Shakespeare seems t ...

See also:

Sexuality of William Shakespeare, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Elizabethan sexual identities, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Sexuality in the Sonnets, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Sexuality in the plays, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Biographical evidence, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Authorship doubters, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Notes, Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Additional reading

Read more here: » Sexuality of William Shakespeare: Encyclopedia II - Sexuality of William Shakespeare - Sexuality in the plays

By 1592 Shakespeare was a playwright in London and had enough of a reputation for Robert Greene to denounce him as "an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey." (The italicised line parodies the phrase, "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in a ...

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Shakespeare's life, Shakespeare's life - Early life, Shakespeare's life - London and theatrical career, Shakespeare's life - Later years, Shakespeare's life - Notes

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Shakespeare retired in about 1611. His retirement was not entirely without controversy. He was drawn into a legal quarrel regarding the enclosure of common lands. (Enclosure enabled land to be converted to pasture for sheep, but removed it as a resource for the poor.) Shakespeare had a financial interest in the land, and to the chagrin of some, he took a neutral position, making sure only that his own income from the land was protected. In the last few weeks of Shakespeare's life, the man who was to marry his younger daughter Judith â ...

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Shakespeare's life, Shakespeare's life - Early life, Shakespeare's life - London and theatrical career, Shakespeare's life - Later years, Shakespeare's life - Notes

Read more here: » Shakespeare's life: Encyclopedia II - Shakespeare's life - Later years

Unlike his contemporary Ben Jonson, Shakespeare did not have direct involvement in publishing his plays and produced no overall authoritative version of his plays before he died. As a result, the problem of identifying what Shakespeare actually wrote is a major concern for most modern editions. One of the reasons there are textual problems is that there was no copyright of writings at the time. As a result, Shakespeare and the playing companies he worked with did not distribute scripts of his plays, for fear that the plays would be stolen. This led to bootleg copies of his plays, which were ofte ...

See also:

Shakespeare's plays, Shakespeare's plays - The plays, Shakespeare's plays - Source material of plays, Shakespeare's plays - Stylistic groupings of the plays, Shakespeare's plays - Canonical Plays, Shakespeare's plays - Comedies, Shakespeare's plays - Histories, Shakespeare's plays - Tragedies, Shakespeare's plays - Dramatic collaborations, Shakespeare's plays - Lost plays, Shakespeare's plays - Plays possibly by Shakespeare, Shakespeare's plays - Shakespeare and the textual problem, Shakespeare's plays - Notes

Read more here: » Shakespeare's plays: Encyclopedia II - Shakespeare's plays - Shakespeare and the textual problem