ann-iren: William Shakespeare - Skriftlig oppgave i Engelsk

Introduction
William Shakespeare is one of the most famous writers of all times. He lived from 1564 until 1661 and did a lot of great work during this time. I have chosen William Shakespeare as my topic for this project for many reasons. We have recently learned about Shakespeare and his works at school, and through this I discovered what an interesting person he actually was. Shakespeare has written many of the most famous plays today and they have been performed on theatres around the world, in recent years some have even become films. It is also quite common that Shakespeare’s works are being used in literature classes all over the world.

Shakespeare was very famous during his lifetime, but why is he still so famous today?

Shakespeare’s life
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon on the 23rd of April 1564. He was the son of John Shakespeare, a glover and a commodities merchant, and Mary Arden, the daughter of a rich farmer. John and Mary had lost two children before William was born. In addition to William they had five children, and all of them died at a quite young age. During his early years Shakespeare lived in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he attended a junior school before moving on to the grammar school at the age of 7. At this school Shakespeare learned a lot of Latin and literature, which later inspired a lot of his work. In 1582, at the age of 18, Shakespeare married the 8 years older Anne Hathaway. She gave him 3 children, Susanna in 1583 and the twins Hamnet and Judith in 1585, who after some time became just two. Their son, Hamnet, died in 1596, only 11 years old.

While Shakespeare was married to Anne he spent some time in London, working on his career. He did a little acting, wrote a lot and also became a part-owner of the acting company “Lord Chamberlain’s Men”, later known as “King’s Men”. This group consisted of famous people, and had Shakespeare as its regular dramatist. The group was renamed because of king James 1’s huge support, and thereby the name “King’s Men”. In 1599 William Shakespeare established “The Globe”, his world-famous theatre, together with a group of people, and in 1608 he also took over the theatre “Blackfriars”. William acted in both his own and other plays and after some time he started to earn a great deal of money. He became a wealthy man, and in 1586 he bought his family a house in Stratford-upon-Avon.

In 1601 Shakespeare lost his father and in 1611 he moved back to his birthplace, where he wrote his final plays. In 1616 he signed his will, giving his fortune and property away to his friends and family. During the performance of his last play, Henry VIII, “The Globe” burned down, and around the 23rd of April 1616 Shakespeare died, only 52 years old. Shakespeare was buried in Holy Trinity Church two days after his death, and later his family put up a monument next to his grave.

Shakespeare’s works
During his life William Shakespeare became famous. He got to perform his plays before the court in royal palaces and also for the ordinary people in local theatres. He became an inspiration to people and produced many famous works.

Shakespeare was both a poet and a writer of plays, and he is seen as England’s national poet and the world’s greatest dramatist. During his life Shakespeare wrote 38 plays, 154 sonnets, 2 long poems and a number of other poems. Shakespeare started his playwriting with a number of comedies in the late 1500s. Some of the most famous being As You Like It written in 1599, The Comedy of Errors from 1593/94 and Love’s Labour’s Lost written in 1594/95, all of them being adapted into both film and music in later years. During this time he also wrote some historical plays which mainly revolved around the lives of English kings. The Life and Death of King John (1594-96), The Tragedy of King Richard the Second (1595) and The Life of King Henry the Fifth (1599) were some of these.

During Shakespeare’s comedy period the Plague closed all the theatres and Shakespeare took a break from playwriting. Instead he turned to other projects and during the years of the Plague he wrote two long poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, both dedicated to his good friend the Earl of Southampton. He also wrote a number of sonnets in this time period, where the main themes were love, beauty, politics and mortality. The sonnets are all different, but they often refer to the same person and have the same underlying message. The most famous one of Shakespeare’s sonnets is Sonnet 18, which have been refereed to in both films and books. When the theatres opened again Shakespeare stopped writing poems and returned to the world of play writing.

In the early 1600s Shakespeare continued his writing career with some tragedies, Romeo and Juliet (1595/96), Hamlet (1601/02) and Macbeth (1606) being the most famous ones. And at the end of his life he wrote a mixture between these two genres, and also worked with other writers. During his life Shakespeare published some of his plays, but other works, such as his sonnets, were in 1609 published without his consent. In 1623 two of his colleagues gave out a collection of all of Shakespeare’s plays, except for two. They did this to keep the memory of their dear friend alive, and the result was that his plays became extremely famous.

Shakespeare today
Shakespeare was famous in his time, but we can still see a lot of his works being performed today. Plays have always been a popular form of entertainment, and Shakespeare’s works have appealed to all layers of society, from farmers to merchants, for all times. His plays are translated into most of the known languages and they are performed more often than any others. What is common for all of his plays is that they show Shakespeare’s view of life and his moral values. He was great at using old sources, and both Italian and English novels and other plays in his own. The Romantics saw Shakespeare as a genius, and his plays are performed in many different cultural and political settings in today’s world.

In Shakespeare’s time theatre scripts were not regarded as very important. They were seen as the basis for the performance, but they had no meaning when it came to literature. Many of Shakespeare’s plays have been reconstructed from old scripts, and all of his plays belonged to the acting company, like it did for most of the actors who also were writers. In that time it was the performance and not the script that should concern the author, because the performance was what made the play popular. And this was also how the acting company and the shareholding actors made their money.

There have been many discussions about whether or not Shakespeare has written all of the works dedicated to him. There are no manuscripts in Shakespeare’s handwriting and that is also why there are uncertainties connected to his authorship. One reason for this is of course the fact that all of Shakespeare’s plays have been reconstructed and therefore written by the acting company, but many still doubt that one man of such humble origins could be one of the world’s greatest authors. A number of people have been suggested as the authors of some of Shakespeare’s plays, but nothing have ever been significantly proved.

I think that there are many reasons for Shakespeare’s popularity, and for why he is still famous so many years after his death. One of the reasons might be that Shakespeare’s work has inspired a great number of people and new work has come from this inspiration. Another reason why the world loves this great author is that his plays are meaningful and touch people’s hearts. His plays show people in familiar situations that we find ourselves in today and they do it in a way that seems human and wise. Shakespeare’s plays can be upgraded all the time and can therefore be adapted to fit in a special time or place. The language is very expressive and powerful and the actors bring the play to life. These plays can therefore help us to cope with the problems we face in real life and help us to understand how they can be resolved. Shakespeare’s plays often have themes like love, peace and war, and this is perhaps what makes them universal. All over the world people deal with these issues every day, and no matter how rich, poor, old or young humans are these are things we all have to face in our every-day life. Love, peace and war were important issues in Shakespeare’s time, they are important now and they will still be important in the future.

Plays used to be a very important form of entertainment and nearly all of Shakespeare’s plays are still being performed. Romeo and Juliet is one of his most famous plays and was performed in the US, at the Sidney Harman Hall in Washington DC, from September to October 2008. This play was directed by David Muse and had the same concept as Shakespeare’s original plays, where all roles were played by men. Twelfth Night is also one of Shakespeare’s plays and has been performed in January and February 2009, also at the Sidney Harman Hall. Rebecca Bayla Taichman directed it, and the play is one of Shakespeare’s greatest comedies. King Lear is a drama by Shakespeare and is going to be shown at the Sidney Harman Hall in June and July 2009. Robert Falls has directed the play, and together with the other two, they have been shown in the US during 2008/2009. I think that these plays have been performed in Washington DC because they all represent a part of today’s life in America. King Lear is a family drama and also a political epic, and because of all the basic questions of human existence I think that this play represents modern society in America. Romeo and Juliet is on the other hand a love story. It tells us about a young couple’s struggle to be together and about all the challenges they face. Twelfth Night is about love and loss and is therefore something most people face in the modern life.

Shakespeare is of course very famous in Great Britain, and during 2009 there will be over 20 productions set up all over the country. Everyone who wants to see a work of Shakespeare will have the opportunity to. But it is not only in English-speaking countries like the US and Britain Shakespeare’s plays are famous. As I mentioned earlier his plays have been translated into a number of languages, and we can also see that his plays are being performed in all parts of the world. In Asia for instance it has become extremely popular to renew Shakespeare, and this is often done by comparing his plays to the traditional Asian theatre. In Norway Shakespeare has also become more popular during the years, and the 24th of January this year one of his plays had a premier in Hammerfest. It was Shakespeare’s last play, The Tempest, that was put up and the director decided to perform it with a lot of dancing and live music. This play is seen as a recapture of Shakespeare’s entire career and what makes this particular performance so interesting is that the director, Stinnerbom, putts an interesting meeting between Norwegian and Sámi culture into the story. From 1986 to 2007 there was conducted a survey to discover which dramatist that were set up the most in Norway. Henrik Ibsen was the most popular one, but Shakespeare came in second with 27 performances.

Many movies have been produced based on the plays of Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet, King Lear and a number of others have been released as films and because of this Shakespeare has become even more famous. The Lion King, one of Disney’s most famous animated films, is based on the story of Hamlet. Hamlet is a young prince who seeks vengeance on his uncle, who has murdered Hamlet’s father. This is also what we see in The Lion King, and is a good example on how Shakespeare’s plays have been renewed and made into modern entertainment.