William Shakespeare
People note exceptional verbal wit, psychological depth, and emotional range of English playwright and poet William Shakespeare, who included such historical works as
Richard II
, comedies like
Much Ado about Nothing
, and such tragedies as
Hamlet
,
Othello
, and
King Lear
and also composed 154 sonnets before people published posthumously
First Folio
, which collected and contained edition of 36 plays in 1623.
He and Anne Hathaway, his wife, married in 1582.
Forest of Arden, a formerly very extensive wooded area, north of Stratford-upon-Avon of central England provided the setting for
As You Like It
of Shakespeare.
People widely regard William Shakespeare (baptized 26 April 1564) as the greatest writer in the language and the pre-eminent dramatist of the world. They often call him simply the national "bard of Avon." Surviving writings consist of 38 dramas, two long narratives, and several other books. People translate them into every major living language and performed them most often.
Anne bore him Susanna Shakespeare, and twins Hamnet Shakespeare and Judith Shakespeare. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, the company, later known as the King's Men.
Shakespeare wrote throughout the span of his life. He started writing in 1589 and afterward averaged 1.5 dramas a year. From 1590, Shakespeare produced most of his known literature. He early mainly raised genres to the peak of sophistication and artistry before 1601. Next, he wrote mainly Macbeth and similar dramas, considered some of the finest examples in the language, until 1608. In his last phase, he wrote also known romances and collaborated until 1613.
He apparently retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later on day of Saint George, his 52nd birthday. Few records of private life of Shakespeare survive with considerable speculation about such matters as his sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether he wrote all attributed literature.
People inscribed many books of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime, and in 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues issued all but two now recognized dramas of Shakespeare. Shakespeare, the great master of language and literature authentically wrote not all that people attribute.
People respected Shakespeare in his own day, but his reputation rose to its present heights not until the nineteenth century. The romantics in particular acclaimed genius of Shakespeare, and the Victorians hero-worshiped him with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry." In the 20th century, new movements in scholarship and performance repeatedly adopted and rediscovered his dramas. People consistently perform and reinterpret his highly popular dramas today in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.
“Virtue is chok'd with foul ambition”
“Happy thou art not; for what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get; and what thou hast, forgettest.”
“Love asks me no questions, and gives me endless support.”
“This rough magicI here abjure, and, when I have requiredSome heavenly music, which even now I do,To work mine end upon their senses thatThis airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,And deeper than did ever plummet soundI'll drown my book.”
“Things base and vile, holding no quantity,Love can transpose to form and dignity.Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.”
“Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that. It was the very day that young Hamlet was born, he that is mad and sent into England.""Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?""Why, because he was mad. He shall recover his wits there, or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.""Why?""'Twill not be seen in him there. There the men are as mad as he.”
“Now I will believe that there are unicorns...”
“Art thou afeardTo be the same in thine own act and valourAs thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have thatWhich thou esteem'st the ornament of life,And live a coward in thine own esteem,Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'Like the poor cat i' the adage?”
“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.”
“I could be well moved, if I were as you;If I could pray to move, prayers would move me:But I am constant as the northern star,Of whose true-fix'd and resting qualityThere is no fellow in the firmament.”
“I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me.”
“No sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage...”
“The quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself”
“Our bodies are our gardens to which our wills are gardeners.”
“O, but they say, the tongues of dying men enforce attention, like deep harmony: where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain: for they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain. he, that no more must say, is listened more than they whom youth and ease have taught to gloze; more are men's ends marked, than their lives before: the setting sun, and music at the close, as the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last; writ in rememberance more than things long past”
“He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace and fear:And you all know, securityIs mortals' chiefest enemy.”
“Things without all remedy should be without regard: what's done is done.”
“So we grew together,Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,But yet an union in partition,Two lovely berries moulded on one stem.”
“You have dancing shoes with nimble soles. I have a soul of lead.”
“Death, a necessary end, will come when it will come”
“When Rosencrantz asks Hamlet, "Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do surely bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your grief to your friends"(III, ii, 844-846), Hamlet responds, "Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me." (III,ii, 371-380)”
“What piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god! The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”
“But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,And, constant stars, in them I read such art,As truth and beauty shall together thriveIf from thyself to store thou wouldst convert;Or else of thee I prognosticate,Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.”
“O, love's best habit is in seeming trust, And age in love loves not to have years told: Therefore I lie with her and she with me, And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.”
“This making of Christians will raise the price of hogs.”
“But Kate, dost thou understand thus much English? Canst thou love me?"Catherine: "I cannot tell."Henry: "Can any of your neighbours tell, Kate? I'll ask them.”
“Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak; Lay open to my earthy-gross conceit, Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak, The folded meaning of your words' deceit.”
“What is the course and drift of your compact?”
“Thus play I in one person many people, And none contented: sometimes am I king; Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar, And so I am: then crushing penury Persuades me I was better when a king; Then am I king'd again: and by and by Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke, And straight am nothing: but whate'er I be, Nor I nor any man that but man is With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased With being nothing.”
“As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.”
“My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,Shakes so my single state of manThat function is smothered in surmise,And nothing is but what is not.”
“This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong:To love that well which thou must leave ere long.”
“Make the upcoming hour overflow with joy, and let pleasure drown the brim.”
“True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings.”
“C'est à l'endroit où l'eau est la plus profonde qu'elle est la plus calme.”
“By innocence I swear, and by my youth, I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth. And that no woman has, nor never none Shall mistress be of it, save I alone. And so, adieu, good madam; never more Will I my master’s tears to you deplore.”
“Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man; And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste, That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.”
“Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.”
“Get thee to a nunnery.”
“O teach me how I should forget to think (1.1.224)”
“Our son shall win.QUEEN-He is fat and scant of breath. Here Hamlet, Wipe thy brow.”
“Despair and die.The ghosts”
“While he was drunk asleep, or in his rage, or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed.”
“You speak like a green girl / unsifted in such perilous circumstances.”
“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”
“If it be true that good wine needs no bush,'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue;yet to good wine they do use good bushes,and good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues.”
“She dreams of him that has forgot her love;You dote on her that cares not for your love.'Tis pity love should be so contrary;And thinking of it makes me cry 'alas!”
“Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones;Who, though they cannot answer my distress,Yet in some sort they are better than the tribunes,For that they will not intercept my tale:When I do weep, they humbly at my feetReceive my tears and seem to weep with me;And, were they but attired in grave weeds,Rome could afford no tribune like to these.”
“Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a specialprovidence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will benow; if it be not now, yet it will come: thereadiness is all.”
“Sit down: thou art no flatterer:I thank thee for it; and heaven forbidThat kings should let their ears hear theirfaults hid!”