Main directions of the English Literature in the Early Middle ages

19. SHAKESPEARE’S BIOGRAPHY, PERIODS OF HIS ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT. William Shakespeare was born in 1564, on April 23 in Stratford-on-Avon, in England. His father, John Shakespeare, was a prosperous glove maker of Stratford, his mother, Mary Arden, came from a family of landowners. In his childhood, Shakespeare attended the Stratford Grammar school. In 1599 the bestknown of Elizabethan theatres, the Globe was built and Shakespeare became a leading shareholder and the principal playwright to the theatre company. He was also an actor, but not a first-rate: the parts he played were the old servant Adam in “As you like it” and the Ghost in “Hamlet”.

In 1613, after the Globe had been destroyed by fire he retired and stopped writing. By then he was very ill. He died on April 23, 1616 and was buried in the Holy Trinity church in Stratford where he was christened.

Although some of Shakespeare’s plays were published during his life-time, not until his death was any attempt made to collect them in a single volume. The first edition of Shakespeare’s collected plays appeared in 1623. Most scholars agree that there exist 37 plays written by Shakespeare. Traditionally, his plays have been divided into 3 groups: comedies, histories, and tragedies.

All of the works of the great playwright are written in four periods of his literary career. Each of these periods reflects a general phase of Shakespeare’s artistic development.

The first period includes all the plays written in 1590-1594. His comedies “The Comedy of Errors”, “The Taming of the threw”, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, the histories “Henry VI”, “Richard III”, “King John” and the tragedy “Titus Andronicus” were written during this period. They belong to different genres, but they have much in common. The plots of these plays follow their sources more mechanically than do the plots of Shakespeare’s later works.

Besides, these plays generally emphasize more than the portrayal of characters.

During the second period (1595-1600), Shakespeare brought historical drama and Elizabeth romantic comedy to near perfection. The comedies: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “Love’s Labor’s Lost”, “The Merchant of Venice”, “As You Like it”, “Much Ado About Nothing”, “Twelfth Night”, the tragedies “Romeo and Juliet”,