William Shakespeare - Early life. William Shakespeare (also spelled Shakspere, Shaksper, and Shake-speare, due to the fact that Elizabethan spelling was very erratic[1]) was born in Henley Street, in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, in April 1564, the son of John Shakespeare, a successful tradesman and alderman, and of Mary Arden, a daughter of the gentry. Shakespeare's baptismal record dates to April 26 of that y ...

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William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare - Life, William Shakespeare - Early life, William Shakespeare - Later years, William Shakespeare - Works, William Shakespeare - Plays, William Shakespeare - Sonnets, William Shakespeare - Other poems, William Shakespeare - Style, William Shakespeare - Reputation, William Shakespeare - Speculations about Shakespeare, William Shakespeare - Identity, William Shakespeare - Religion, William Shakespeare - Sexuality, William Shakespeare - Bibliography, William Shakespeare - Comedies, William Shakespeare - Histories, William Shakespeare - Tragedies, William Shakespeare - Lost plays, William Shakespeare - Poems, William Shakespeare - Apocrypha, William Shakespeare - Notes

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William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare - Life, William Shakespeare - Early life, William Shakespeare - Later years, William Shakespeare - Works, William Shakespeare - Plays, William Shakespeare - Sonnets, William Shakespeare - Other poems, William Shakespeare - Style, William Shakespeare - Reputation, William Shakespeare - Speculations about Shakespeare, William Shakespeare - Identity, William Shakespeare - Religion, William Shakespeare - Sexuality, William Shakespeare - Bibliography, William Shakespeare - Comedies, William Shakespeare - Histories, William Shakespeare - Tragedies, William Shakespeare - Lost plays, William Shakespeare - Poems, William Shakespeare - Apocrypha, William Shakespeare - Notes

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William Shakespeare - Comedies. Main articles: Shakespearean comedies, and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]] ...

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William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare - Life, William Shakespeare - Early life, William Shakespeare - Later years, William Shakespeare - Works, William Shakespeare - Plays, William Shakespeare - Sonnets, William Shakespeare - Other poems, William Shakespeare - Style, William Shakespeare - Reputation, William Shakespeare - Speculations about Shakespeare, William Shakespeare - Identity, William Shakespeare - Religion, William Shakespeare - Sexuality, William Shakespeare - Bibliography, William Shakespeare - Comedies, William Shakespeare - Histories, William Shakespeare - Tragedies, William Shakespeare - Lost plays, William Shakespeare - Poems, William Shakespeare - Apocrypha, William Shakespeare - Notes

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William Shakespeare (baptised April 26, 1564 – April 23, 1616) was an English poet and playwright. Shakespeare is considered by many to be the greatest writer in the English language, as well as one of the greatest in Western literature, and the world's preeminent dramatist. Shakespeare is believed to have produced most of his work between 1586 and 1616, although the exact dates and chronology of the plays attributed to him are often uncertain. He is counted among the very few playwrights who have excelled in both tragedy and comedy, and his plays combine popular appeal with complex ...

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William Shakespeare - Life
William Shakespeare - Early life William Shakespeare - Later years
William Shakespeare - Works
William Shakespeare - Plays William Shakespeare - Sonnets William Shakespeare - Other poems
William Shakespeare - Style William Shakespeare - Reputation William Shakespeare - Speculations about Shakespeare
William Shakespeare - Identity William Shakespeare - Religion William Shakespeare - Sexuality
William Shakespeare - Bibliography
William Shakespeare - Comedies William Shakespeare - Histories William Shakespeare - Tragedies William Shakespeare - Lost plays William Shakespeare - Poems William Shakespeare - Apocrypha
William Shakespeare - Notes

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"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances...” wrote William Shakespeare, one of the greatest dramatists of all time. Shakespeare saw the world as a large theatre. If all the world is indeed a stage, and life is a play, and all of us are mere actors, then this view leads to some interesting corollaries.

Who is the author and the director of this play?

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

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Anne Hathaway (1556 – August 6, 1623) was the wife of William Shakespeare. Little is known about her. Anne Hathaway Shakespeare's wife - Life. Anne Hathaway is believed to have grown up in Shottery, a small village just to the west of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. A cottage said to be the Hathaway family home is located at Shottery, and is a major tourist attraction for the village. Documentary evidence of the claim's authenticity is, however, lacking. Hathaway married Shakespeare in ...

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Anne Hathaway Shakespeare's wife - Life Anne Hathaway Shakespeare's wife - References in Shakespeare's poems Anne Hathaway Shakespeare's wife - References in later texts Anne Hathaway Shakespeare's wife - External link

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Coriolanus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, based on the life of the legendary Roman leader. This is one of Shakespeare's later plays, appearing circa 1607, following on the heels of landmark tragedies such as King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. Shakespeare's play was largely based on the Life of Coriolanus as it was described in Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. The tragic hero is Caius Martius Coriolanus, a Roman soldier. Coriolanus play - The Plot< ...

Including:

Coriolanus play - The Plot Coriolanus play - Text of the play Coriolanus play - Dramatis Personae Coriolanus play - Critical Appraisal

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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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Benjamin Jonson (June 11, 1572 – August 6, 1637) was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. He is best known for his plays Volpone and The Alchemist, his lyrics, his influence on Jacobean and Caroline poets, his theory of humours, his contentious personality, and his friendship and rivalry with William Shakespeare. Ben Jonson - Biography. Ben Jonson - Early life. Although he was born in Westminster, Jonson claimed his family was of Border descent, and ...

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Ben Jonson - Biography
Ben Jonson - Early life Ben Jonson - Theatrical beginnings Ben Jonson - Controversies Ben Jonson - Jonson's ascendence Ben Jonson - Decline and death
Ben Jonson - Relationship with Shakespeare Ben Jonson - Reputation Ben Jonson - Jonson's works
Ben Jonson - Plays Ben Jonson - Masques
Ben Jonson - Biographies of Ben Jonson

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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 ...

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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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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 ...

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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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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

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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 ...

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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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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 ...

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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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Shakespeare's plays have the reputation of being among greatest in the English language and in Western literature and cover the genres of tragedy, history, and comedy. Some of Shakespeare's plays first appeared in print as a series of quartos, but most remained unpublished until 1623 when the posthumous First Folio was published. The traditional division of his plays into tragedies, comedies, and histories follows the logic of the First Folio. However, modern criticism has labelled some of these plays "problem plays" as they elude easy categorization, or perhaps purposefully break generic conventions, and has intro ...

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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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While there is some dispute about the exact Chronology of Shakespeare plays, the plays tend to fall into three main stylistic groupings. The first major grouping of his plays begins with his histories and comedies of the 1590s. Shakespeare's earliest plays tended to be adaptations of other playwright's works and employed blank verse and little variance in rhythm. However, after the plague forced Shakespeare and his company of actors to leave London for periods between 1592 to 1594, Shakespeare began to use rhymed couplets in his plays ...

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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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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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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 ...

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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