William Shakespeare

LECTURE 6

Summary

As one works through a text like the Bleak House passage, it is always important to remember that style comes from the totality of interrelated elements of language rather than from individual features in isolation. While it is not feasible to cover every aspect of language in an analysis, a useful way of dealing with this problem is to make up some sentences that you feel would he at odds with the stylistic tech­niques used in the passage under examination. This exercise, used extensively in a number of other units, helps tease out through contrast the features that are in the text. Here for example is a sample of utterly 'non-fog' language which unravels several of the five features identified above. You can work out which ones by yourself:

Across the Essex Marshes, a thick choking fog of indistinct proportion was sweeping in.

In the context, a thoroughly un-Dickensian sentence to be sure.

(1564—1616)

WHEN KING HENRY V stands before his troops on the eve of the battle of Agincourt, he says that every soldier who survives this battle will look back upon it in his old age and remember the names of the men who fought beside him, names as “familiar in his mouth as household words.” When William Shakespeare wrote this in 1598, halfway through his career, he could not have anticipated that he too would become a household word.

Probably the most famous writer in the world, Shakespeare wrote 37 plays, 2 narrative poems, and 154 sonnets; his work is second only to the Bible in the scope of its translation. Shakespeare’s prodigious career, most of it spent in London, spanned about twenty years, a period that witnessed the rise of public theater, the flourishing of the printed word, the entrenchment of Protestantism, and the reign of two monarchs. When Shakespeare died in 1616 he was part of the throng of a city that was often in crisis, always expanding, and moving into an era that was to see regicide, revolution, and the birth of the modern self.

Nobody could have imagined, least of all Shakespeare, the impact the Warwickshire playwright would have on Western literature: it is estimated that Shakespeare introduced around seventeen hundred words into the English language, many of which we use in ordinary conversation today—“gossip” and “swagger,” for example.

Shakespeare was popular during his lifetime and died a relatively rich man, owning a portion of land outside Stratford-upon-Avon and a fine house in the town, as well as enough money to leave both his daughters a comfortable sum. But the Shakespeare we know, a “genius” and an icon, is largely a product and legacy of the Romantic period of the eighteenth century. The Romantics sought and reified the complexity of human emotion and, as Shakespeare’s work emerged from and articulated the psychological, subjective, political, and social animal that man recognized as his representational self, writers turned again and again to the playwright who, in the words of Harold Bloom, “invented the human.”

William Shakespeare, surely the world's most performed and admired playwright, was born in April, 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, about 100 miles northwest of London. According to the records of Stratford's Holy Trinity Church, he was baptized on April 26. Since it was customary to baptize infants within days of birth, and since Shakespeare died 52 years later on April 23, and--most significantly--since April 23 is St. George's day, the patron saint of England, it has become traditional to assign the birth day of England's most famous poet to April 23. As with most sixteenth century births, the actual day is not recorded. And as with most remarkable men, the power of myth and symmetry has proven irresistible. So April 23 it has become.

Shakespeare's parents were John and Mary Shakespeare, who lived in Henley Street, Stratford. John, the son of Richard Shakespeare, was a maker, worker and seller of leather goods such as purses, belts and gloves and a dealer in agricultural commodities. He was a solid, middle class citizen at the time of William's birth, and a man on the rise. He served in Stratford government successively as a member of the Council (1557), constable (1558), chamberlain (1561), alderman (1565) and finally high bailiff (1568)--the equivalent of town mayor. In about 1557 he married Mary Arden, the daughter of a relatively wealthy landowner, Robert Arden, who had a farm just outside Stratford. When the couple married, neither of them was literate, signing their names with marks in the register. Literacy was not common among rural communities. All this would change, however, over the next fifty years, and Shakespeare’s theaters would become places of dynamic exchange for the written and spoken word.

Mary had in all eight children with John Shakespeare. William arrived as the third child and the first son. William was the oldest surviving son; Joan and Margaret died in infancy, Anne died in 1579, and his brothers Edmund and Gilbert died in 1607 and 1612 respectively. His surviving sister, called Joan after the Shakespeares’ first baby, lived well into her seventies, dying in 1646 and leaving two children.

Of Shakespeare's education we know little, except that for a few years he probably attended the grammar school at Stratford. Records for The King's New School from the time Shakespeare would have attended have been lost, but attend he undoubtedly did since the school was built and maintained expressly for the purpose of educating the sons of prominent citizens (free of charge).

We do not know exactly what sort of education Shakespeare would have received at the King’s New School, but we can suppose that it offered the basics of humanism in the course of study called the trivium, consisting of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Shakespeare’s education—or lack of it—has always been a focal point for scholarly debate. Those scholars who argue that William Shakespeare did not write the plays and poems we have long thought he did focus on the man’s education and suggest that a person without university or classical training could not have produced the material attributed to him. Those who do believe in Shakespeare’s hand, however, want to know more about how such a mind as his made the move from schoolboy to unsurpassed poet and playwright. Shakespeare himself is much concerned with education and often satirizes the schoolboy as well as the scholar.

Shakespeare treats education with a light and humorous touch in his plays, but there is often a more sophisticated discussion at the heart of such moments—the distance between education and experience, for example, and the social significance of learning.

There’s no more damning indictment of learning than that delivered by Caliban in Act 1 of The Tempest. Caliban resists Prospero’s efforts to “civilize” him through education. He denounces his overlord’s patronizing attitude in intense terms:

You taught me language; and my profit on’t

Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you

For learning me your language!

The School of Life is the one educational institution in which Shakespeare believes without reservation, for life teaches the most effective lessons. Here is what Regan from King Lear says about it

To willful men,

The injuries that they themselves procure

Must be their schoolmasters.

As it often happens in Shakespeare’s plays the words of wisdom are spoken by the fools. Here is how the fool teaches a lesson to King Lear:

Have more than thou showest,

Speak less than thou knowest,

Lend less than thou owest,

Ride more than thou goest,

Learn more than thou trowest,

Set less than thou throwest,

Leave thy drink and thy whore

And keep in-a-door,

And thou shalt have more

Than two tens to a score.

No one knows how long Shakespeare remained at the Stratford Grammar School. But then two outward influences were powerful in developing the genius of Shakespeare,--the little village of Stratford, center of the most beautiful and romantic district in rural England, and the great city of London, the center of the world's political activity. In one he learned to know the natural man in his natural environment; in the other, the social, the artificial man in the most unnatural of surroundings. His characters reflect the nobility and the littleness, the gossip, vices, emotions, prejudices, and traditions of the people about him.

So Shakespeare's education was at the hands of Nature, and it came from keeping his heart as well as his eyes wide open to the beauty of the world. He speaks of a horse, and we know the fine points of a thoroughbred; he mentions the duke's hounds, and we hear them clamoring on a fox trail, their voices matched like bells in the frosty air; he stops for an instant in the sweep of a tragedy to note a flower, a star, a moonlit bank, a hilltop touched by the sunrise, and instantly we know what our own hearts felt but could not quite express when we saw the same thing. Because he notes and remembers every significant thing in the changing panorama of earth and sky, no other writer has ever approached him in the perfect natural setting of his characters.

When Shakespeare was about fourteen years old his father lost his little property and fell into debt, and the boy probably left school to help support the family of younger children. What occupation he followed for the next eight years is a matter of speculation. From evidence found in his plays, it is alleged with some show of authority that he was a country schoolmaster and a lawyer's clerk, the character of Holofernes /ˌhɒləˈfɜrniz/, in Love's Labour's Lost, being the warrant for one, and Shakespeare's knowledge of law terms for the other. But if we take such evidence, then Shakespeare must have been a botanist, because of his knowledge of wild flowers; a sailor, because he knows the ropes; a courtier, because of his extraordinary facility in witticisms and compliments and courtly language; a clown, because none other is so dull and foolish; a king, because Richard and Henry are true to life; a woman, because he has sounded the depths of a woman's feelings; and surely a Roman, because in Coriolanus /ˌkɔriəˈleɪnəs/ and Julius Cæsar he has shown us the Roman spirit better than have the Roman writers themselves. He was everything, in his imagination, and it is impossible from a study of his scenes and characters to form a definite opinion as to his early occupation.

We know, however, that he married Anne Hathaway in 1582, when he was still a young man /18/ and she was 26 and several months pregnant.

Much has been imagined over the years of the relationship between Anne and William, not least of all by scholars who have hoped to find what love meant to the man who created some of the most brutal and most beautiful literary lovers.

From numerous sarcastic references to marriage made by the characters in his plays, and from the fact that he soon left his wife and family and went to London, it is generally alleged that the marriage was a hasty and unhappy one. It is true, however, that very few of Shakespeare’s dramatic marriages are sanguine: Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, Gertrude and Claudius, Othello and Desdemona, Richard III and Anne are all profoundly at odds with their loving selves; as Feste puts it in Twelfth Night:

“Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage”.

Or Rosalind from As You Like It

Men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when

they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.

But here again the evidence is entirely untrustworthy. The references to love and home and quiet joys in Shakespeare's plays and sonnets are enough. And the fact that, after his enormous success in London, he retired to Stratford to live quietly with his wife and daughters, tends to the same conclusion.

But love, first learnèd in a lady’s eyes,

Lives not alone immurèd in the brain,

But with the motion of all elements

Courses as swift as thought in every power,

And gives to every power a double power

Above their functions and their offices.

It adds a precious seeing to the eye—

A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind.

A lover’s ear will hear the lowest sound

When the suspicious head of theft is stopped.

Love’s feeling is more soft and sensible

Than are the tender horns of cockled snails.

Love’s tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste.

For valor, is not Love a Hercules,

Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?

Subtle as Sphinx, as sweet and musical

As bright Apollo’s lute strung with his hair;

And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods

Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.

Never durst poet touch a pen to write

Until his ink were tempered with love’s sighs;

O, then his lines would ravish savage ears,

And plant in tyrants mild humility.

—BEROWNE, Love’s Labour’s Lost, 4.3.301–23

Whatever Shakespeare may have felt for his wife, he apparently remained loyal to her and returned to Stratford before he died. Anne bore her husband three children: Susanna, who arrived six months after they were married, and the twins, Judith and Hamnet, who were born two years later. Hamnet died in 1596 at age eleven. Hamnet has always played a fascinating, if mysterious, part in Shakespeare’s biography. The similarities in name to his most famous creation, Hamlet, are obvious, and it is also clear that at about the same time Hamnet died Shakespeare seemed to undergo a metamorphosis from an accomplished poet-playwright to an extraordinary author. Whether losing a son pushed Shakespeare into a period in his career where his work starkly matured—moving toward the great tragedies, via the “problem plays” from the histories—is debatable, but it is a truism that confronting death leads one to contemplate and even interrogate the conditions of life.

There is no documentary record of Shakespeare's activities from the birth of the twins, in 1585 until Robert Greene's complaint about him as an "upstart crow" in 1592. Biographers have therefore called these the lost years.

About the year 1587 Shakespeare left his family and went to London and joined himself to Burbage's company of players. Of his life in London from 1587 to 1611, the period of his greatest literary activity, we know nothing definitely. We can judge only from his plays, and from these it is evident that he entered into the stirring life of England's capital. The first authentic reference to him is in 1592, when Greene's bitter attack appeared, showing plainly that Shakespeare had in five years assumed an important position among playwrights.

To judge from only three of his earliest plays it would seem reasonably evident that in the first five years of his London life he had gained entrance to the society of gentlemen and scholars, had caught their characteristic mannerisms and expressions, and so was ready by knowledge and observation as well as by genius to weave into his dramas the whole stirring life of the English people. The plays themselves, with the testimony of contemporaries and his business success, are strong evidence against the tradition that his life in London was wild and dissolute, like that of the typical actor and playwright of his time.

Shakespeare's first work may well have been that of a general helper, an odd-job man, about the theater; but he soon became an actor, and the records of the old London theaters show that in the next ten years he gained a prominent place, though there is little reason to believe that he was counted among the "stars." Within two years he was at work on plays, and his course here was exactly like that of other playwrights of his time. He worked with other men, and he revised old plays before writing his own, and so gained a practical knowledge of his art.

Shakespeare's chief rival among early Elizabethan playwrights (then as now) was Christopher Marlowe. That William soon fell under Marlowe's influence is evident from the violence and pomposity of Titus Andronicus /ˈtaɪtəs/ and Richard III. The former may have been written by both playwrights in collaboration, or may be one of Marlowe's horrors left unfinished by his early death and brought to an end by Shakespeare. He soon broke away from this apprentice work, and then appeared in rapid succession Love's Labour's Lost, Comedy of Errors, Two Gentlemen of Verona, the first English Chronicle plays, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Romeo and Juliet. This order is more or less hypothetical; but the wide variety of these plays, as well as their unevenness and frequent crudities, marks the first or experimental stage of Shakespeare's work.

Shakespeare's poems, rather than his dramatic work, mark the beginning of his success. "Venus and Adonis" became immensely popular in London, and its dedication to the Earl of Southampton (who was 19 years old at the time) brought, according to tradition, a substantial money gift, which may have laid the foundation for Shakespeare's business success. The "graver labor" followed the next year with the publication of The Rape of Lucrece, whose dedication, to the Earl of Southampton again, is much warmer. Many scholars identify Southampton as the young man of the sonnets, which were also probably largely composed during this period, perhaps initially at the instigation of Southampton's mother in an effort to get her son to marry. (This is but one of many widely differing theories).

Shakespeare's sonnets were part of a fashion for sonneteering which peaked in the mid-90s. The sonnets were not published until 1609, and probably then not by Shakespeare, but nonetheless, they were likely composed during the Southampton years 1592-95. Once again, this is not a certainty and there are many theories concerning the dating and circumstances of the Sonnets. Regardless of the time and circumstance of their composition, several of the sonnets are without doubt among the most perfect poems ever written.

There is a story, first reported in Rowe (1709) and based on a story told by Sir William D'Avenant (a poet known for his exaggerations, one of which was that he, D'Avenant, was the bastard son of Shakespeare) that Southampton rewarded Shakespeare for his poetic labors with 1,000 pounds.

We find Shakespeare, in December 1594, listed by the Treasurer of the Queen's Chamber as receiving payment for two performances at Greenwich. William and 6 others were the charter members of the a new theater company organized under the patronage of Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, Chamberlain to Queen Elizabeth. They were known as the Lord Chamberlain's men. When they preformed publicly, it was at the Theatre, built by James Burbage in 1576 north of the city. Shakespeare became a sharer, or householder, in the company--meaning that he was part owner/manager and as such shared in the profits. This provided him the stability necessary for his most fruitful years, when he, as the company's principal playwright, produced an average of 2 plays per year until about 1611-1612, when he seems to have retired to Stratford. If Southampton rewarded Shakespeare financially, it would explain how Shakespeare could have afforded to become a sharer in the Chamberlain's men--an investment which formed the foundation of his lifelong financial success.

The years 1594-1599 were momentous for Shakespeare. He produced a steady stream of plays of the highest quality and verbal invention. He continued as a principal actor and manager in the Chamberlain's men, blessed with a stable work environment in the all too unstable world of the theater. Consequently, he prospered financially and made investments in his native Stratford, assembling a comfortable life and a solid estate. Finally in 1599, he became part owner in the most prestigious public playhouses in London, the Globe and Blackfriars theaters, in which his plays were presented by his own companies. His success and popularity grew amazingly. Within a decade of his unnoticed arrival in London he was one of the most famous actors and literary men in England.

Blackfriars proved to be something of a new theater: performances were now divided into five acts (partly perhaps based on the classical models but also to provide breaks for candle trimming and musical intervals); the audience was entirely seated, unlike theaters such as the Globe, which had a proportion of standing tickets; and it had the capacity to improve special effects—quieter descents in a flying machine and subtler ascents through the trap door, for example.

With the reopening of the playhouses in the summer of 1594 (after the plague) and the firm foundation of being a Chamberlain's man, Shakespeare began an unprecedented output of works.

Over the years 1594-1599 the Chamberlain's Men had become the most popular acting company in London, being invited to perform at court far more often than any other group.

In 1603 Queen Elizabeth died and James VI of Scotland became James I of England. The Jacobean age was initiated. Its practical impact was that the Chamberlain's Men, the most popular acting company under the old queen, became the King's Men, receiving royal patronage. And no company performed more at court over these years. From November 1, 1604 to October 31, 1605, the King's Men performed 11 performances before the King. (Seven of the performances were plays by Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour's Lost, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Othello, Measure for Measure, and The Merchant of Venice --twice). In spite of the emphasis on comedy, the new reign was known for its cynicism. We also see a shift to darkness in Shakespeare's works of this period.

What caused the shift in vision, from the sparkling comedies of the 90's to the somber period that followed?

Many reasons have been suggested, perhaps all are true:

1. In 1601 (probably the year Hamlet was composed) Shakespeare's father died.

2. In 1601 the Essex rebellion flared and failed, leaving Essex and Shakespeare's patron Southampton condemned to death in the tower. Essex--a larger than life, charismatic spirit of the late Elizabethan age--was executed, Southampton pardoned. In any event, it may have marked an end to Shakespeare's involvement with the Southampton circle.

3. The death of the Queen in 1603.

4. Shakespeare's comedies of the late 90's depended very much on a strong woman's part and engage the battle of the sexes. There are no more great women's roles until Cleopatra, seven or eight years later. Since boys played the women's parts on the Elizabethan stage, perhaps Shakespeare's very talented boy had grown up, or left, or died, and out of necessity he had to change genres to suit the makeup of his company.

5. Tragedies became more popular, along with the growing pessimism of the age, and drew large audiences.

6. A personal psychological crisis, perhaps associated with the stress of writing Hamlet, led to a period of depression and brooding which could not but be reflected in his works.

7. Having the security of being the principal dramatist for the most prestigious acting company in London, Shakespeare could afford to turn to deeper psychological themes that interested him and did not need to write entertainments that catered as much to popular tastes as in his early years. Since tragedy was considered the "higher" art form, Shakespeare was following his life long interests in writing the great tragedies.

1608 marks a change in tone in Shakespeare's work from the dark mood of the tragedies to one of light, magic, music, reconciliation and romance. Beginning with Pericles, Prince of Tyre and moving through Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and finally in The Tempest Shakespeare conducted a grand experiment in form and poetry. Many feel that the view expressed in the romances is the mature Shakespeare's view, having lived long enough to see his way through tragedy to resurrection.

Apparently Shakespeare's wife and children remained home in Stratford while he worked in London. Presumably he made the trip back and forth, a trip that would have taken about 4 days on foot or 2 days on horseback. His home visits grew more and more frequent till, about the year 1611, he left London and retired permanently to Stratford. In these final years Shakespeare seems to have been content to surround himself with his family.

Shakespeare died on the probable anniversary of his birth, April 23, 1616 and was buried in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church April 25. On the slab over his grave appear the words:

GOOD FREND FOR JESUS SAKE FORBEARE,
TO DIGG THE DUST ENCLOASED HEARE.
BLESTE BE Y^e MAN Y^t SPARES THES STONES,
AND CURST BE HE Y^t MOVES MY BONES.

Seven years after his death, Shakespeare's fellows Heminges and Condell brought forth the First Folio: Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies. The First Folio was Shakespeare’s last breath as well as the culmination of his imagination and art.

This “volume” was to become one of the most famous books in the world, of which there are very few left in existence. A folio was an expensive thing to make as well as buy. It ran to 907 pages and took nearly two years to complete. The design was generally reserved for books of significance—history or theology, for example. Shakespeare was the first to have his plays printed as an entirety in folio.

The folio held thirty-six plays, including eighteen plays previously unpublished. When the book went on sale in 1624 it cost £1, four times the cost of a quarto. The First Folio was an immediate success as it ran to a second edition in 1632, a third edition in 1663 (and a second issue in 1664), and a fourth edition in 1685. It is arguably the most important text to be written in the vernacular in the English language and has left the legacy of Shakespeare as the greatest writer we have.

Nowadays only 200 copies of the book are thought to exist. One of those was sold recently for 2 million pounds.

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