William Shakespeare

DIED: 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon, England NATIONALITY: British, English GENRE: Poetry, drama MAJOR WORKS: Romeo and Juliet (1595-1596) Sonnets (1590s) Hamlet (1600-1601) King Lear (1605) The Tempest (1611) William Shakespeare drew upon elements of classical literature to create distinctly English forms of poetry and drama. His work was hardly limited to strict classical idioms, however; he successfully utilized a much broader range of literary sources than any of his contemporaries. Moreover, his extraordinary linguistic abilities—his gift for complex poetic imagery, mixed metaphor, and brilliant puns—combined with a penetrating insight into human nature, are widely recognized as the makings of a unique literary genius. Over the centuries Shakespeare's works have obtained an unparalleled critical significance and exerted an unprecedented influence on the development of world literature. Family and Early Life William Shakespeare was probably born on April 23, 1564, though the precise date of his birth is uncertain. He was the eldest of the five children of John Shakespeare, a tradesman, and Mary Arden Shakespeare, the daughter of a gentleman farmer. It is thought that Shakespeare attended the local grammar school, where the main course of instruction was in Latin. There is no evidence that he attended college. In 1582, he married Ann Hathaway of Stratford; they would have three children together. Shakespeare's life from this date until 1592, when he became known as a dramatist, is not well documented. Early Work Shakespeare's first plays, the three parts of the Henry VI history cycle, were presented in 1589-1591. He also wrote a pair of narrative poems directly modeled after Ovid's Metamorphoses: Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594). These works, which acknowledged the contemporary fashion for poems written with mythological themes, were immensely successful, and established Shakespeare as a poet of the first rank. Success as Actor and Playwright Shakespeare further enhanced his reputation as a professional actor and playwright when he joined the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a well-regarded acting company formed in 1594. The success of the Lord Chamberlain's Men is largely attributable to the fact that after joining the group in 1594, Shakespeare wrote for no other company. In 1603, shortly after his accession to the throne, James I granted the Lord Chamberlain's Men a royal patent, and the company's name was changed to the King's Men to reflect the king's direct patronage. Surviving records of Shakespeare's business transactions indicate that he benefited financially from his long career in the theater. By 1610, with his fortune made and Page 1408 | Top of Article his reputation as the leading English dramatist unchallenged, he appears to have largely retired to Stratford-upon-Avon. Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616. He was buried in the chancel of Trinity Church in Stratford. Publication History The publication history of Shakespeare's plays is extremely complex and the subject of much scholarly debate. The earliest collected edition of his dramas, known as the First Folio, was compiled by two fellow actors and published posthumously in 1623. The First Folio, which classifies the dramas into distinct genres of comedy, history, and tragedy, contains thirty-six of the thirty-seven plays now believed to be written by Shakespeare. Of the works included, thirteen had never before been published. Shakespeare's Comedies The "early" comedies, as the name implies, are among the first works Shakespeare wrote. The plays in this group, such as The Comedy of Errors (1592-1594), The Taming of the Shrew (1593-1594), and Love's Labour's Lost (1594-1595), generally adhere closely to established comedic forms. The "romantic" comedies, including A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595-1596), The Merchant of Venice (1596-1597), As You Like It (1599), and Twelfth Night (1601-1602), display a consistency in style and subject matter and focus on themes of courtship and marriage. As a group, the "romantic" comedies comprise his most popular and critically praised comedies. Shakespeare's "dark" comedies, including All's Well That Ends Well (1602-1603) and Measure for Measure (1604), are characterized by marked seriousness in theme, somberness in tone, and strange, shifting narrative perspectives. This group, which also includes The Tempest (1611), is characterized by an emphasis on themes of separation and loss. These plays typically include a wandering journey that ultimately results in a reunion amid a spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation. Shakespeare's History Plays The most immediate "source" of the English history play in Shakespeare's time appears to have been the heightened sense of national destiny that came in the wake of the British Royal Navy's seemingly God-sent victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588. Eight of the ten history plays collectively trace the English monarchy from the fourteenth century to the sixteenth century. They are commonly grouped in two tetralogies: The first contains the three parts of Henry VI and Richard III (1592-1593); the second, depicting chronologically earlier events but written later in Shakespeare's career, includes Richard II (1595), the two parts of Henry IV (1596-1598), and Henry V (1599). This last work presents the king as the triumphant leader of his people in a glorious battle against the French. Within the history plays Shakespeare demonstrated his capacity for investing plot with extraordinary dramatic tension, and demonstrated his flair for original characterization through the use of subtle, ironic language. Shakespeare's Tragedies Shakespeare's tragedies, like his comedies, are commonly divided into separate though related categories, the "Roman" tragedies and the "great" tragedies. The Roman plays drew their inspiration from histories of classical antiquity. The major tragedies of this type, Julius Caesar (1599) and Antony and Cleopatra (1606-1607), explore the themes of political intrigue and personal revenge and are distinguished by their clear, poetic discourse and ironic representation of historical incidents. The four great tragedies are Hamlet (1600-1601), regarded by many critics as Shakespeare's finest work, King Lear (1605), Macbeth (1606), which explores the issue of regicide, and Othello (1604), a story of domestic intrigue set in the Venetian Republic. In these works Shakespeare characteristically presents the fall of the heroes in terms that suggest a parallel collapse of all human values or a disordering of the universe itself. Although frequently judged by critics to be of a lesser rank than the great tragedies, Romeo and Juliet (1595-1596) remains one of the most frequently performed of Shakespeare's dramas. Shakespeare's Sonnets The Sonnets are also considered a central work in the Shakespeare canon. Shakespeare's sonnets are arranged in a narrative order. They consist of a series of metaphorical dialogues between the poet and two distinct personalities: Sonnets 18 to 126 are addressed to a fair young man, or "Friend," and are concerned with the themes of beauty, friendship, and immortality; Sonnets 127 to 154 are addressed to a "Dark Lady" who is described as sensual, coarse and promiscuous. Their brilliant versification and subtle analysis of human emotion are together regarded as the work of a unique poetic genius. Consequently, scholars often place the Sonnets on an equal level with Shakespeare's dramas.

"Shakespeare, William." Gale Contextual Encyclopedia of World Literature, vol. 4, Gale, 2009, pp. 1407-1411. Student Resources in Context, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=j209901&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CCX2507200424&asid=d6965e4b88f8127e763b54f225e32071. Accessed 28 Apr. 2017.

"He was not of an age, but for all time." So wrote Ben Jonson in his dedicatory verses to the memory of William Shakespeare in 1623, and so we continue to affirm today. No other writer, in English or in any other language, can rival the appeal that Shakespeare has enjoyed. And no one else in any artistic endeavor has projected a cultural influence as broad or as deep. Shakespeare's words and phrases have become so familiar to us that it is sometimes with a start that we realize we have been speaking Shakespeare when we utter a cliche such as "one fell swoop" or "not a mouse stirring." Never mind that many of the expressions we hear most often—"to the manner born," or (from the same speech in Hamlet) "more honored in the breach than the observance"—are misapplied at least as frequently as they are employed with any awareness of their original context and implication. The fact remains that Shakespeare's vocabulary and Shakespeare's cadences are even more pervasive in our ordinary discourse today than the idiom of the King James Bible, which Bartlett lists as only the second most plentiful source of Familiar Quotations. And much the same could be said of those mirrors of our nature, Shakespeare's characters. From small delights like Juliet's nurse, or Bottom the Weaver, or the Gravedigger, to such incomparable creations as Falstaff, King Lear, and Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare has enlarged our world by imitating it. It should not surprise us, therefore, that personalities as vivid as these have gone on, as it were, to lives of their own outside the dramatic settings in which they first thought and spoke and moved. In opera alone there are enough different renderings of characters and scenes from Shakespeare's plays to assure that the devotee of Charles-Francois Gounod or Giuseppe Verdi, Richard Wagner or Benjamin Britten, could attend a different performance every evening for six months and never see the same work twice. Which is not to suggest, of course, that the composers of other musical forms have been remiss: Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Claude Debussy, Jean Sibelius, Sergey Prokofiev, and Aaron Copland are but a few of the major figures who have given us songs, tone poems, ballets, symphonic scores, or other compositions based on Shakespeare. Cole Porter might well have been addressing his fellow composers when he punctuated Kiss Me Kate with the advice to "Brush Up Your Shakespeare." Certainly the painters have never needed such reminders. Artists of the stature of George Romney, William Blake, Henry Fuseli, Eugene Delacroix, John Constable, J. M. W. Turner, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti have drawn inspiration from Shakespeare's dramatis personae; and, thanks to such impresarios as the eighteenth century dealer John Boydell, the rendering of scenes from Shakespeare has long been a significant subgenre of pictorial art. Illustrators of Shakespeare editions have often been notable figures in their own right: George Cruikshank, Arthur Rackham, Rockwell Kent, and Salvador Dali. Meanwhile, the decorative arts have had their Wedgwood platters with pictures from the plays, their Shakespeare portraits carved on scrimshaw, their Anne Hathaway's Cottage tea cozies, their mulberry-wood jewelry boxes, and their Superbard T-shirts.

"William Shakespeare." EXPLORING Shakespeare, Gale, 2003. Student Resources in Context, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=j209901&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CEJ2115002088&asid=4b196aceb1594c44e86782d4d61b3382. Accessed 26 Apr. 2017.

William Shakespeare (c. 1564-1616) was an English poet and playwright known for his prolific creative output during the Elizabethan era (1558-1603) in England. Although he first gained fame as a poet, he became best known for his many plays. Some of his most famous works include Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Shakespeare is responsible for introducing hundreds of invented words into the modern English language through his plays and prose. His works have been translated into more than eighty languages, and many consider him to be one of the greatest English writers in history.

"William Shakespeare." Gale Student Resources in Context, Gale, 2017. Student Resources in Context, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=j209901&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CMYSDSE471056565&asid=cfe20938abe0e49335d9c117b6a7874c. Accessed 26 Apr. 2017.

And finally: Last week brought something of a surprise in the realm of Shakespeare studies: A team of 23 scholars who used sophisticated big-data tools to compare language in the plays with texts written by others concluded that Christopher Marlowe should share credit for collaborating with Shakespeare on all three parts of Henry VI in the Oxford University Press's New Oxford Shakespeare, the first volume of which was published last week. Collaborations were not unusual in Shakespeare's day, scholars say, but they've been hard to prove. Now, as The Guardian put it, researchers say computerized textual analysis "can even distinguish between Shakespeare writing under Marlowe's influence and Marlowe writing alone." Indeed, the scholars say 17 of Shakespeare's 44 plays are not solely his work. Among their other findings: Thomas Middleton should get credit for adapting a script of Shakespeare's into what we know as All's Well That Ends Well.

Biemiller, Lawrence. "And this ends well." The Chronicle of Higher Education, 4 Nov. 2016, p. A4. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=j209901&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA470999464&asid=42f371977e77e392adf8f2a874cee1b8. Accessed 26 Apr. 2017.

Despite the numerous reasons against adapting Shakespeare's works for young children--including the difficult language and mature subject matter of the plays--many authors have done so over the past two hundred years. Why is this? How do authors deal with the difficulties of Shakespeare's texts? What is lost and gained by these adaptations? This article examines the various justifications for presenting Shakespeare to children, from the Lambs' Tales from Shakespeare to the present. It points to the problems inherent in some of these explanations, and suggests that adults must be critical of their motives for, and methods of, presenting Shakespeare to children. To illustrate this claim, the article provides a comparative analysis of a selection of Hamlets for children. ********** Murder, revenge, adultery, suicide--these are hardly the subjects discussed in an elementary school classroom. In fact, often when young children ask adults questions touching on any of these topics, 'grown ups' do their best to avoid directly responding to the inquiry. This is the stuff, however, of which Hamlet, one of the most commonly adapted of Shakespeare's plays for children, is made. Hamlet is an odd choice of text for young people, not only due to its lofty subject matter, but also because of its ostensible lack of interest in children. The play does, admittedly, include one brief discussion of the young, but in it they do not come out looking very good. When Rosencrantz and Guildenstem announce to Hamlet that the Players are coming to Elisnore, the prince asks if the troupe is held in "the same estimation they did when I was in the city" (2.2.321-22). Rosencrantz informs Hamlet that the feud between adult actors and children's companies has harmed the players' reputation: "[T]here is," explains Rosencrantz, "... an eyrie of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of the question and are most tyrannically clapped for't" (326-27). In response, Hamlet sharply critiques the youngsters and those who write for them: What, are they children? Who maintains 'em? How are they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing? Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players--as it is like most will, if their means are not better--their writers do them wrong to make them exclaim against their own succession? (331-36) Here, Hamlet makes reference to the condition of players, both young and old, in the early modern theatre. At the time, playwrights were using child actors, who are here referred to as "eyases" or young hawks, in private theaters, as ventriloquists use dolls, to voice their discontent with adult actors in public theaters. Though an interesting commentary on the theater of the period, this exchange seems to reveal yet another reason why Hamlet should not be adapted for a young audience. Although Hamlet displays some degree of empathy with the child actors, he is ultimately critical of them and, even more so, of the adults who use them as pawns in a battle over cultural supremacy. The children in these companies are pitied perhaps, but ultimately they are deemed foolish creatures, destined only for a sour end. One might guess that this negativity regarding children and the theater, accompanied by the play's mature subject matter and, as the Folger Shakespeare Library notes, the fact that, at 4,042 lines, Hamlet is Shakespeare's longest play, children's authors would want to avoid it (Folger n. pag.). They do not, however; nor are they discouraged by Shakespeare's other works, many of which are equally, if not more, ideologically disturbing than Hamlet. Why is it the case, since there seem to be so many reasons against adapting Shakespeare for young people, that doing so has been popular for the last two hundred years? The answer lies, in part, in the varied visions of children, Shakespeare, and his work over the years. Throughout history, the child's position in society has changed. The Bard has also been viewed in various ways over the centuries, as everything from a good moralist to a good entertainer, and from an icon of high culture to a writer available to all. Somehow, though, no matter which view adapters take of children or the Bard, they are able to justify the need for creating versions of Shakespeare's work for young people. Below I would first like to compare briefly some of the justifications given, from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries, for rewriting Shakespeare for young children. I present this section in order to provide a sense of the variety of justifications for using 'adult' texts like Hamlet with children, and to point out the inherent contradictions in some of the justifications. Then, by analyzing a selection of adaptations of Hamlet for young children, I reveal the further complications that arise in the texts themselves, ranging from issues of language to censorship and interpretation. This analysis will lead us to back to ask the original question: Why adapt Shakespeare for young children? It will also force us to reevaluate how we present Shakespeare to young children. In light of these problems arising from adaptations, ultimately I conclude that if Shakespeare is to be presented to young people, then it should not be through a mediated form like adaptation, but rather through direct contact with the poet's texts themselves. I

Gearhart, Stephannie S. "'Faint and imperfect stamps': the problem with adaptations of Shakespeare for children." Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, no. 27, 2007, p. 44+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=j209901&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA167894993&asid=e222107829a652467e2b5aa60a3674db. Accessed 28 Apr. 2017.

The decision by modern editors to accept Theobald's reassignment of V.iv.97 in 'Much Ado' from Leonato to Benedick is insupportable. The phrase 'stop your mouth' does not necessarily refer to kissing, and can just as easily mean, in this context, Leonato passing Beatrice to Benedick. Earlier in the play Leonato silenced Beatrice by sending her away, and doing so again fits the play's theme of language, speech, and silence. Full Text:

House, Ian. "'Much Ado About Nothing': a line restored to its speaker." Notes and Queries, vol. 41, no. 4, 1994, p. 487. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=j209901&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA16452721&asid=61384a8f2a02c42a41026e108eef4574. Accessed 28 Apr. 2017.

new title from A&E Biography provides an attractive and well-written overview of Shakespeare's life and times. Because relatively little is known about Shakespeare's life, but much is known about the Elizabethan age, this approach makes sense. It locates Shakespeare in his time and provides insights on his assumptions and worldview. Interspersed with the text are summaries and interesting photos and illustrations on subjects such as witches, a housewife's duties, and relative currency values. A one-page account of the Black Death could have used revision. For example, the bubonic plague has a pneumonic as well as a fleaborne form, and the bacillus organism is not "host to the plague"; it is the cause. The text incorporates short excerpts from Shakespeare's work that seem to reveal his own thoughts. There are a number of appendices, including a chart of English monarchs during Shakespeare's life; a genealogy of the Shakespeare family; a timeline of Shakespeare's life, a list of his complete works; and sources and bibliographies. This book will be a useful and popular addition to the Shakespeare collection. Recommended. Rayna Patton, Educational Reviewer, Delaware, Ohio

Patton, Rayna. "William Shakespeare." The Book Report, May-June 2002, p. 62. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=j209901&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA86170388&asid=a492766bf67005b8c61fd9e3d270ebe8. Accessed 28 Apr. 2017.

Two poems by Mildmay Fane, Second Earl of Westmorland, found in a copy of Ben Jonson's 1916 'Workes' indicate contemporary public opinion of Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. The first poem, another version of which can be found in collections of Jonson allusions, eulogizes Jonson's intelligence and his diligent craftsmanship. There is a subtle comparison to Shakespeare and Jonson's plays are described as works. The second poem, which is better crafted, has some important variations in the margin. The spirit of the poem is similar to the first one.

Roy, Joseph T., Jr., and Robert C. Evans. "Fane on Jonson and Shakespeare." Notes and Queries, vol. 41, no. 2, 1994, p. 156+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=j209901&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA15586878&asid=3941ac52934f5abfc1c670889d430e79. Accessed 28 Apr. 2017.

It looks like a trend, if not a movement, by Stratfordians to intensify their search for Will Shakspere in Shakespeare's works. It's been done before in bits and pieces, but now, within four years, three eminent Shakespeare establishment scholars have been driven to publish backwards biography. Lacking an historical biography of their man, they back into one by trying to conjure it from the Shakespeare works. Their sources for biographical facts are not historical documents; they pick what they want from the author's creative fiction and turn it into speculative biography

Whalen, Richard F. "Soul of the Age, the Life, Mind and World of William Shakespeare." Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter, vol. 45, no. 2, 2009, p. 28. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=j209901&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA209235001&asid=7c74b156dcbb69894ee3bb28a433b336. Accessed 26 Apr. 2017.

In an age that offers Breaking Bad as an evening's casual entertainment, welcomes Lady Gaga to the White House as a moral consultant, and allows displays on the Internet that ought to be inconceivable among civilized men and women, the plays of Shakespeare would seem to be a paragon of moral edification. (1) Nevertheless, not every commentator of conservative or Christian disposition has bestowed unqualified praise on Shakespeare, especially as a moralist. In the preface to his 1765 edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson complains, "His first defect is that to which may be imputed most of the evil in books or in men. He sacrifices virtue to convenience and is so much more careful to please than to instruct that he seems to write without any moral purpose." As Johnson continues, he specifies precisely the issue we must consider regarding the relation between literature (or the arts in general) and morality: From his writings indeed a system of social duty may be selected, for he that thinks reasonably must think morally; but his precepts and axioms drop casually from him; he makes no just distribution of good or evil, nor is always careful to show in the virtuous a disapproval of the wicked; he carries his persons indifferently through right and wrong and at the close dismisses them without further care and leaves their examples to operate by chance. This fault the barbarity of his age cannot extenuate; for it is always a writer's duty to make the world better, and justice is a virtue independent on time or place. (2) Although "he that thinks reasonably must think morally," reasonable thought on the part of an author is insufficient: he must be more careful to instruct than to please, and must write with a--presumably explicit--"moral purpose." Johnson thus argues that an accomplished work of literature may have a deleterious influence on the virtue of its readers, with the implication that literary excellence and moral rectitude are not merely distinct but wholly separate qualities. While few contemporary observers are as suspicious of Shakespeare as was Dr. Johnson, we are concerned about the effect of violent computer games, licentious music videos, and vulgar rap lyrics on our children. Many men and women regard the representational arts as they do food: what is exciting and appealing is probably morally dubious, just as tasty foods are usually fattening and raise our cholesterol and blood pressure. Of course many progressive, health-conscious individuals who would never dream of consuming trans fats think nothing of ingesting films and novels that leave all manner of accretions in their souls and lower their levels of moral sensitivity. If there is a clash between morals and aesthetic appeal, so much the worse for morals. Most nutritionists will argue, to the contrary, that an educated palate will find fresh, healthful foods more appealing as well as more nourishing. The same argument can be made about literature, especially from a Christian perspective. If God created everything and created it good, then a just representation of His creation ought to be good. Moreover, if the True and the Beautiful count as transcendentals convertible with the Good, then it is anomalous for what is beautiful to be wicked. If we probe this paradox, we shall discover that the elements of great art are likewise the elements of goodness, that moral and aesthetic considerations, while distinct, are not altogether different, and that artistic excellence cannot be intrinsically contrary to virtue. Nevertheless, the clear distinction remains, and while the highest artistic achievements cannot be evil per se in their essence, literary fiction bears such a complex relation to the reality of human experience that the moral configuration of a play or a novel, as well as its effect on readers and audiences, may always be problematic. Our educational and cultural policies should take this tension into account. Now while it is reasonable to judge that Aristotle has definitively refuted the attack on poetry in the Republic, it would be unwise to dismiss Plato's concerns out of hand. Socrates, you will recall, makes three principal accusations against literary representation. First, he says, it is merely representation, an imitation of an imitation--three removes from the ideal reality of which the phenomenal realm, in turn imitated by the poet, is itself merely a crude approximation. We begin in delusion by taking the shifting, ephemeral world that our senses apprehend for something substantial and reliable and then allow poems, paintings, and the like to plunge us more deeply into the shadows by preoccupying us with images that furnish only a partial, distorted picture of what is already an illusion (597A-598B). Second, not only does poetic representation by its very nature lead us away from truth, but poets are given to repeating lies about gods, and heroes, and the actual nature of human life (380B-383C). Finally, because it is so much easier to imitate the effects of passion than the deliberation of reason in a man, poets and actors are drawn to what is lurid and sensational. Our word aesthetic, is, after all, derived from the Greek word aistheta, "things perceived by the senses, material things." As a result, poetry tends to corrupt the character of even the better sort of men by leading them to indulge unruly emotion, unfettered by reason, as they see it portrayed in others (605C--606D). If Plato's strictures on poetry seem a little extravagant, it may be because we have devised mimetic media that capture our sensations and passions far more effectively. He would doubtless smile triumphantly to see his "Myth of the Cave" realized in exact literal terms in the cinema, a large, darkened room where men and women sit with their backs to the light, engrossed in shadows cast on the wall in front of them. Neil Postman says about television almost exactly what Plato says about poetry: it is an intrinsically flawed medium and leads us away from reality; (3) and modern Platonist Allan Bloom offers this disquieting image that has resonated with many parents and educators: "A pubescent child whose body throbs with orgasmic rhythms; whose feelings are made articulate in hymns to the joys of onanism or the killing of parents; whose ambition is to win fame and wealth in imitating the drag-queen who makes the music. In short, life is made into a nonstop, commercially prepackaged masturbational fantasy." (4) If we are to make Shakespeare and other great writers cultural monuments and a necessary part of education, we must take into account such worries. Is there too much sex and violence on television (or in computer games)? There is hardly anything else in Shakespearean drama--not to mention blasphemy and sedition, as puritans of Shakespeare's own day maintained about the theatre. The answer to this dilemma has almost always been the harnessing of literature to the inculcation of virtue. Dr. Johnson is quite explicit about this in a famous essay in The Rambler. "It is justly considered as the greatest excellency of art to imitate nature; but it is necessary to distinguish those parts of nature which are most proper for imitation: greater care is still required in representing life, which is so often discolored by passion or deformed by wickedness. If the world be promiscuously described, I cannot see of what use it can be to read the account." (5) Given this criterion, it is not difficult to see why Shakespeare falls short of full probity, but it is hard to see how his artistic virtues can be separated from moral vices, any more than his characters can meet Johnson's standard. In the preface, Johnson praises Shakespeare as "above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature, the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life." (6) The reproof that follows in the preface, however, seems the inevitable result of this remarkable gift of representation; and the connection is explicit in the Rambler essay: "Many writers, for the sake of following nature, so mingle good and bad qualities in their principal personages, that they are both equally conspicuous; and as we accompany them through their adventures with delight, and are led by degrees to interest ourselves in their favor, we lose the abhorrence of their faults, because they do not hinder our pleasure, or, perhaps, regard them with some kindness for being united with so much merit." (7) Shakespearean drama is "a faithful mirror of manners and life" precisely because he "so mingle[s] good and bad qualities" in his characters--such is, after all, the nature of fallen men and women. Johnson, however, maintains that "in narratives where historical veracity has no place, I cannot discover why there should not be exhibited the most perfect idea of virtue: of virtue not angelical, nor above probability, for what we cannot credit we shall never imitate, but the highest and purest that humanity can reach." (8) The qualification is not very helpful: what is "the highest and purest" virtue of which we are capable? Plainly it must be high enough that readers are not at all dazzled by the attractions of vice: The Roman tyrant was content to be hated, if he was but feared; and there are thousands of readers of romances willing to be wicked, if they may be allowed to be wits. It is therefore to be steadily inculcated that virtue is the highest proof of understanding, and the only solid basis of greatness; and that vice is the natural consequence of narrow thoughts, that it begins in mistake, and ends in ignominy. (9) In principle this judgment differs little from that of Socrates in the Republic, who was willing to allow "hymns to the gods and praises of good men" in his ideal commonwealth (607A). In both cases the moral valuation of poetry is determined by external, nonpoetic criteria rather than by norms generated within literary art itself. Mimesis or literary representation is at best indifferent, if not simply pernicious. It can only be redeemed by manipulation that heightens the contrast between virtue and vice. The "mirror" held up to nature should be the opposite of a passenger-side rearview mirror on an automobile: it should make objects look larger than they really are. John Keats complains of such explicit didacticism in a letter written about half a century later: "We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us--and if we do not agree, seems to put its hand in its breeches pocket. Poetry should be great & unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself but with its subject." (10) Of course one can only imagine what Dr. Johnson would have made of the famous and obscure close of "Ode on a Grecian Urn": '"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'--that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." (11) It is clear, however, that what for Johnson is a conundrum, for Keats is a glorious liberation: there is no tension between poetry and morals because poetry creates its own independent moral universe: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty." What Keats celebrates is Plato's nightmare: the abandonment of rational self-possession and personal integrity by subjecting oneself to the imitation of the passion of others. In another letter, Keats praises Shakespeare for "Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason." (12) "As to the poetical Character itself," he adds in yet another letter, "it is not itself--it has no self--it is everything and nothing--It has no character--it enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto, be it foul or fair, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated--It has as much delight in conceiving an Iago as an Imogen." (13) "Just so!" exclaims Plato--or Dr. Johnson--the poet is a man without character and destroys the character of his readers by immersing them in representations of what is seductively irrational. Literature must either be banned or rigorously controlled according to standards imposed upon it from without, lest it sweep away social order in a tide of romantic emotion. In order to approach a resolution of such doubts regarding the moral soundness of literary art, it is important to establish a few distinctions among propositions that all too easily coalesce. There is, first, the distinction between the intrinsic moral worth of a work of literature and the effect it may have, which is likely to vary from reader to reader or, in the case of a dramatic presentation, from audience to audience. The effect upon the viewer, however, is a consideration discrete from the intrinsic status of a purported image of a pagan goddess. The system of ratings that prevails in the American film industry, as well as in television and electronic games, is an acknowledgment (perhaps dubious) of the differential effect of media representations on audiences of different ages. It is not so long ago, however, that some works of fiction--even works regarded by some critics as masterpieces, like Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover and Joyce's Ulysses--were regarded as unsuitable for any and all readers. It may be difficult to predict the effect of a given work on a particular individual. I once knew a lady who averred with an air of grievance that she could make no sense at all out of Ulysses, much less find the "good parts." There is also a distinction to be made between the moral character of the writer or artist, his intention, and the effect and nature of his work. Plato and Keats both see the artist as a man whose character dissolves under the pressure of his inspiration and in some measure leads his readers with him. But it must be borne in mind that any work of imaginative literature is a fiction: we cannot reasonably hold the author to strict account for what is literally said. This is obvious in drama. The essayist or orator who intones "This above all, to thine own self be true" (.Hamlet 1.3.78) is quoting not "Shakespeare" but Polonius, who is hardly a reliable source of wisdom. And what is true of drama is also true of narrative fiction, even of lyrical verse: "But even a short lyric poem is dramatic," write Wimsatt and Beardsley, "the response of a speaker (no matter how abstractly conceived) to a situation (no matter how universalized)." (14) The result is that the meaning of a work of imaginative literature is not identical to the meaning of its literal verbal discourse. "As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods," cries out the Earl of Gloucester in King Lear, "They kill us for their sport" (4.1.36-37). "The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices / Make instruments to plague us" (5.3.171-72), says his son Edgar later in the play, in effect contradicting his father. It would be a rash interpreter who tried to make either of these utterances the meaning of the play. What is more, literature is always saying things that, while not true in any factual sense, are still not lies. "Now, for the poet," writes Sir Philip Sidney, "he nothing affirms, and therefore never lieth." Sidney continues, "What child is there, that coming to a play and seeing 'Thebes' written in great letters upon an old door doth believe that it is Thebes?" (15) In order to assess justly the moral status of literature, then, it is necessary to advert to the work itself, rather than to its author or audience. Wimsatt defines the issue clearly: "Neither the qualities of the author's mind nor the effects of the poem upon a reader's mind should be confused with the moral quality of the meaning expressed by the poem itself." (16) Wimsatt is convinced, like Dr. Johnson, that the distinction between moral and literary excellence is sufficiently firm that a first-rate work of literature--an artistic triumph--can be judged in itself immoral; that is, it is possible for a truly fine play or novel to be an intrinsically dishonest and hence a vicious depiction of reality. There are only two alternatives, Wimsatt argues: "Either (1) morals reaches over and claims poetry--not simply as superior to poetry but as defining poetry; or (2) poetry reaches over and claims to define morals." (17) The first of these alternatives is the extreme Platonic view: poetry has no value except insofar as it is expressly contrived to serve a particular moral end. The second sounds like Keats--Wimsatt mentions Matthew Arnold: traditional moral norms are an illusion; what we call "morality" is at best an ephemeral imaginative (or poetic) engagement with the exigencies of the situation in which we find ourselves now. The second is a very attractive option for the contemporary world, which disposes of the issue, as Wimsatt observes, very quickly: It is easy to see that a morality of this sort, determined by poetry, is not really a morality in the sense of a code, but a relative morality of almost indefinite diversity and flexibility--for such is poetry--and that hence what theorists of this school mean in the end is that they do not subscribe to a code. For these we may say that in the large sense the problem discussed in this essay does not exist, since there is no distinction between, and hence no need of explaining the relation between poetry and morals. (18) Wimsatt's careful account of the matter leaves us with a dilemma: either literature is an essentially amoral art, which must be curbed and shaped by external moral norms; or morality is essentially relative, generated by the arbitrary impulses of the imagination with no basis in a permanent order of human nature. It is not my purpose here to refute the latter proposition, because it renders not only our specific question about literature but life itself inconsequential. From the first perspective, however, Dr. Johnson and Wimsatt judge that an admirable artistic achievement--a "good" novel, for instance--may be morally "bad." Johnson reproves Shakespeare for insufficient vigilance in shaping his plays according to moral standards, and Wimsatt offers Antony and Cleopatra as an example of an acknowledged dramatic masterpiece that is fundamentally immoral. Wimsatt quotes Cleopatra's speech as she prepares to take her own life--"Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have / Immortal longings in me..." (5.2.280-81 ff.)--and remarks upon the seductive wickedness that she embodies: There is no escaping the fact that the poetic splendor of this play, and in particular of its concluding scenes, is something which exists in closest juncture with the acts of suicide and with the whole glorified story of passion. The poetic values are strictly dependent--if not upon the immorality as such--yet upon the immoral acts. Even though, or rather because, the play pleads for certain evil choices, it presents these choices in all their mature interest and capacity to arouse human sympathy. The motives are wrong, but they are not base, silly, or degenerate. They are not lacking in the positive being of deep and complex human desire. It is not possible to despise Antony and Cleopatra. (19) Like The English Patient, Antony and Cleopatra is a kind of anti-Casablanca: it suggests that personal desire is more important than patriotism, that self-sacrifice, even self-control, must not cause one to relinquish self-fulfillment. This rather glamorous tragedy would seem to be just what Dr. Johnson deprecated in Shakespeare's theatre: surely it can be said of Antony and Cleopatra that "we lose the abhorrence of their faults, because they do not hinder our pleasure or, perhaps, regard them with some kindness for being united with so much merit." Octavian and his sister Octavia are virtuous and honorable; they are also dull, and it is a rare playgoer who leaves the theatre resolved to emulate their stern Roman constancy. We should, however, at least consider the possibility that the apparent immorality of Antony and Cleopatra is actually a defect in the cultural formation of modern audiences. Wimsatt himself in a note quotes Dryden's preface to All for Love, his adaptation of Shakespeare's original: (20) "I doubt not but the same motive has prevailed with all of us in this attempt: I mean the excellency of the moral. For the chief persons represented were famous patterns of unlawful love; and their end was accordingly unfortunate." (21) Wimsatt finds Dryden's adaptation less provocative than Shakespeare's: "The victimized Octavia is a pallid and remote figure, never (as in Dryden's version) made to appear as a rival motive to the Egyptian seductions." (22) But Dryden himself worries that this is an artistic fault because it was already difficult to build sympathy for the illicit lovers: "for the crimes of love which they both committed were not occasioned by any necessity, or fatal ignorance, but were wholly voluntary; since our passions are, or ought to be, within our power." Hence he worries that he has spoiled the tragic effect by excessively diminishing the moral standing of the tragic hero and heroine by bringing Octavia into Alexandria: I had not enough considered that the compassion she moved to herself and children was destructive to that which I reserved for Antony and Cleopatra; whose mutual love, being founded upon vice, must lessen the favour of the audience to them when virtue and innocence were oppressed by it. (23) Dryden is writing during the Restoration, an era notable for sexual license, at least among the denizens of the Royal Court; nevertheless, he takes it for granted that Antony and Cleopatra are negative exempla for whom sympathy must be shored up in order to attain full tragic effect. We must not be too quick to assume that Dryden is insincere or naive, refusing or failing to see an affirmation by Shakespeare of "unlawful love," which is obvious to us. It is just as likely that the naivete--or insincerity--is ours: modern readers are, after all, the heirs of a romanticism that found Satan in Paradise Lost morally superior to God because he was more glamorous and exciting. It may be that the level of sensual stimulation in the modern world is such that what was quite apparently excess passion to Shakespeare as well as to Dryden seems to us merely an imaginative way "to question the primacy of empire." (24) The difficulty of determining the precise moral valuation of a work of literature need not drive us to despair or to relativism (two names for the same condition, perhaps?). The same difficulty attends determination of meaning, but this does not make interpretation an altogether arbitrary affair, or one wholly determined by the "ideological hegemony" of a particular time or place. Much of the confusion about literary interpretation today arises from equivocal uses of the word interpretation. Theorists who insist that meaning is hopelessly subjective or relative, that discourse is an endless "play of signifiers" that never arrives at the "signified," routinely advert to perennially changing interpretations and valuations of Shakespeare or Milton or Donne. But an argument over the import or significance of a literary work is of a different order than a dispute over its basic or literal meaning, and the latter can easily be resolved. We need only consider the process of translation: scholars will argue endlessly over the ultimate meaning of, say, Don Quixote, but we can distinguish between accurate and inaccurate translations. (25)

Young, R.V. "Literature and morality." Modern Age, vol. 59, no. 1, 2017, p. 39+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=j209901&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA481160860&asid=90468bd78fe01a2b139cbd80e306f401. Accessed 26 Apr. 2017.

April 23, 1564- birth April 23, 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom-die Anne hathaway- wife Hamnet Shakespeare(died)-son Sussana Hall-daughter Judith Quiny-daughter For now at least, it is still safe to say Shakespeare did indeed write the 37 plays and 154 sonnets credited to him. Yes, so much so that in 1597, he bought one of the most prestigious properties in all of Stratford, The New Place.

common knowledge

nalyzes Whitman's 1860 "Calamus" number 9 poem, "Hours continuing long," as an unconventional sonnet that responds thematically and structurally to Shakespeare's Sonnet 29 ("When in disgrace with fortune"), and that echoes Shakespeare's sonnet while simultaneously reshaping his personal poem about same-sex love into a "political protest against having to suffer, like countle others, in silence."

Clausson, Nils. "'Hours continuing long' as Whitman's rewriting of Shakespeare's Sonnet 29." Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, vol. 26, no. 3, 2009, p. 131+. Academic OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=j209901&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA238655055&asid=460ef7de21c2990207dae9af76698a8e. Accessed 28 Apr. 2017.

In sixteenth-century England, one became a Christian when one was baptized, an event that custom had long determined should occur as soon after one's birth as possible, preferably on the next Sunday or holy day. As the sixteenth century opened, this ritual was one of seven sacraments effective for salvation, because children were born in sin, and baptism was necessary to prevent them from dying in sin as well. In other words, baptism was a ritual that formally expelled the devil from newborns and claimed them instead for Christ and the Christian community into which they had been born (Kelly). This is how Joan Shakespeare, the poet's elder sister was baptized on 15 September, 1558, by Roger Dyos, a priest who followed traditional faith and practice, as ordered by Queen Mary, then reigning (Schoenbaum, Documentary 20). (1) Two months later, Queen Mary died and was succeeded by her sister, Elizabeth, who reimposed many of the reforms that had been ordered earlier by her father, Henry VIII, and her brother, Edward VI. While reformers rejected the formal expulsion of the devil at baptism, they continued to interpret the ritual as a "christening" or a claiming of the child for the Christian community and therefore as a sacrament necessary for salvation (Kelly 257-58). The liturgy of the Elizabethan prayer book of 1559 thus continued to require the parents' traditional rejection of the three enemies of the soul--the world, the flesh, and the devil--at the time of the child's baptism. (2) Born in 1564 and baptized by a reformed priest, John Bretchgirdle, William Shakespeare thus became a Christian on 26 April (Schoenbaum, Documentary 20-24), by means of a liturgy that claimed him implicitly for the reformed community rather than the traditional Christian community that had claimed his sister six years earlier.

Cox, John D. "Was Shakespeare a Christian, and if so, what kind of Christian was he?" Christianity and Literature, vol. 55, no. 4, 2006, p. 539+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=j209901&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA152195989&asid=e2f511c6cd6bf41f2f557b3e05dca58e. Accessed 28 Apr. 2017.

Shakespeare wrote a total of thirty-six or thirty-seven plays; scholars think that one late play may be a collaboration. These plays represent a wide range of types. As a young man during the early 1590s, Shakespeare wrote mostly light comedies, such as The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the historical plays. Only one important tragedy belongs to this period--Romeo and Juliet, the romantic tragedy of young lovers undone by family feuds. Most of Shakespeare's sonnets also belong to this period. Between 1595 and 1601 Shakespeare wrote more mature comedies, such as The Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night, which take up the issues of mercy and justice, and the satiric comedy As You Like It. He continued to write history plays as well, including the two plays about Henry IV. The period of Shakespeare's great tragedies is 1602 to 1608, when he produced Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth as well as the dark comedy Measure for Measure. After his retirement from London, Shakespeare wrote some theatrical romances, among them The Tempest, a play that suggests his farewell to the theater. Shakespeare intended his play to be performed; he did not concern himself about publication. During his lifetime, a few of his plays were published in imperfect versions as separate quartos or small books. After his death, two former members of Shakespeare's company, John Heminges and Henry Condell, collected all the plays except Pericles and published them in 1623 in a large book edition called the First Folio. (Quarto and folio refer to the size of the page.) This is the most authoritative edition of Shakespeare's plays. The folio included a complimentary poem by Ben Jonson, a tribute to Shakespeare as the greatest playwright of all time.

Harlan, Judith A.V., and Kathleen McCoy. "The plays of Shakespeare." English Literature to 1785, by Kathleen McCoy and Judith Harlan, HarperPerennial, 1992, p. 78+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=j209901&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA16706508&asid=62a2d67d5428c5f93bd8d841f829fabd. Accessed 28 Apr. 2017.

Such are William Shakespeare's words on life, destiny, and the fate of a human life well lived. Although the poet and playwright probably never considered all the industries involved at every stage of life, there are indeed a few key ones associated with each of the seven ages.

Van Beeck, Toon. "The seven ages of man: .. a light-hearted look at our interaction with the business world ..." The RMA Journal, May 2011, p. 14. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=j209901&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA273787550&asid=c46b53168d6bf0774eec35a712a8d0c0. Accessed 28 Apr. 2017.