Учебное пособие 4 unit I. The renaissance 1485-1649

part of a redevelopment plan scheduled for completion in 2008. The annual
Shakespeare Festival of Stratford, Ontario, presented its first Shakespeare
plays in 1953. New York City has held an outdoor Shakespeare in Central
Park festival since 1957. A reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe was
erected on London’s South Bank and opened in 1997. By the early 2000s,
numerous British, Canadian, and American towns and cities held annual
Shakespeare festivals.
UNIT XV.
TO THE HISTORY OF
SHAKESPEAREN QUESTION
The Renaissance in the 16
th
century gave a great impulse to literary
production and in the midst of a more wonderful galaxy of dramatic authors
than the world has ever seen, the work of Shakespeare stands pre-eminent.
Nowadays Shakespeare is the subject of innumerable books, written in all
languages of the world, he has been studied exhaustively. Every line of every
one of his plays has been analyzed, reanalyzed, edited and re-edited. The
scanty details of his life has been examined under countless microscopes.
The world has judged him and found him the greatest playwright, perhaps the
greatest writer of all time. But the 19
th
century Shakespeare is different from
the 20
th
or 21
st
century Shakespeare, - so it will go on as long as civilization
lasts, and every new aspect of Shakespeare will be as true as any other. It is
not possible to imagine the world culture without Shakespeare. He is a person
of millenium, about 3-4 thousands annual publications, renewed editions,
researches, theses, special Shakespeare year-book annuals, monthly
magazines are published; international and national conferences devoted to
the great English playwright are held all over the world.
Shakesperian scholarship is a special international science with it’s
history and traditions. In Russia a special conference – Shakespeare Readings
took place in 1985, 1987, 1990, 1993, so called Russian-British Colloquium.
Such outstanding British Shakespeare scholars as Stanly Wells (the publisher

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of Oxford edition of Shakespeare’s works), Peter Holland (Cambridge), Ann
– Pasternak – Slater (Oxford) and Russian scholars – Ilija Gililov, Marina
Litvinova, Yuri Levin and others took part in these conferences.
First consider the genesis of the problem, the main aspect of which is the
cleavage between the documentary facts about Shakespeare and how his life
and personality come out from his work. The discussion of who was
Shakespeare and who was the author of his works is nearly two centuries old.
In our country this discussion was aborted of about 30-ies, the access to the
information was reduced and only in 1990-ies the explanation of numerous
hypothesis – the Stratfordian one and non-Stratfordian ones (Baconian,
Oxfordian and others) appeared being often based on non-critical, non-
scientific approach. The problem of such sophistication may be solved only
against a steadious accumulation of facts, objective data.
According to Stratfordian version William Shakespeare was born at
Stratford upon Avon in April, 1564. He was the third child, and eldest son, of
John Shakespeare and Mary Arden. His father was one of the most
prosperous men of Stratford, who held in turn the chief offices in town. His
mother was of gentle birth, the daughter of Robert Arden of Wilmcote. In
December, 1582, Shakespeare married Ann Hathaway, daughter of a farmer
of Shottery, near Stratford; their first child Susanna was baptized on May 6,
1583, and twins, Hamnet and Judith, on February 22, 1585. Little is known
of Shakespeare’s early life; but it is unlikely that a writer who dramatized
such an incomparable range and variety of human kinds and experiences
should have spent his early manhood entirely in placid pursuits in a country
town.
There is one tradition, not universally accepted, that he fled from
Stratford because he was in trouble for deer stealing, and had fallen foul of
Sir Thomas Lucy, the local magnate; another that he was for some time a
schoolmaster.
The order in which the plays of Shakespeare were written is
uncertain.From 1592 onwards the records are much fuller. In March, 1592,
the Lord Strange’s players produced a new play at the Rose Theatre called
“Harry the Sixth”, which was very successful, and was probably the “First