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.
“Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursuesPursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.”
“The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, doth glance from heaven to Earth, from Earth to heaven; and as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown, the poet's pen turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name; such tricks hath strong imagination.”
“I have no spurTo prick the sides of my intent, but onlyVaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itselfAnd falls on the other.”
“Fragilidad tiene nombre de mujer.”
“How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a thankless child!”
“Your "if" is the only peacemaker; much virtue in "if.”
“To die, - To sleep, - To sleep!Perchance to dream: - ay, there's the rub;For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause: there's the respectThat makes calamity of so long life;”
“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”
“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,Is the immediate jewel of their souls:Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;’twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;But he that filches from me my good nameRobs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.”
“Then others for breath of words respect,Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.”
“They say best men are molded out of faults,And, for the most, become much more the betterFor being a little bad”
“The Play's the Thing, wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.”
“Frame your mind to mirth and merriment which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.”
“There's small choice in rotten apples.”
“And therefore, — since I cannot prove a lover,To entertain these fair well-spoken days, —I am determined to prove a villain,And hate the idle pleasures of these days.”
“Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.”
“Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none. A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.”
“Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more. Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore, To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no more Of dumps so dull and heavy. The fraud of men was ever so Since summer first was leafy. Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into hey, nonny, nonny.”
“A Loud Laugh Bespeaks a Vacant Mind!”
“When sorrows come, they come not single spies. But in battalions!”
“I can see he's not in your good books,' said the messenger.'No, and if he were I would burn my library.”
“Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?SAMPSON [Aside to Gregory]: Is the law of our side, if I say ay?GREGORY [Aside to Sampson]: No.SAMPSON: No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir.”
“Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drenched our teeples, drowned the cocks! You sulphurour and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world! Crack nature's molds, all germens spill at once That make ingrateful man!”
“False face must hide what the false heart doth know.”
“The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wondersAt out quaint spirits.”
“But I will wear my heart upon my sleeveFor daws to peck at: I am not what I am.”
“We burn daylight.”
“what cannot be saved when fate takes, patience her injury a mockery makes”
“Men in rage strike those that wish them best.”
“And to be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born ina merry hour.No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then therewas a star danced, and under that was I born.”
“Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!”
“God's will! my liege, would you and I alone, Without more help, could fight this royal battle!”
“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
“Go to your bosom; Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know. ”
“Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow worldLike a Colossus; and we petty menWalk under his huge legs, and peep aboutTo find ourselves dishonourable graves.”
“On the bat’s back I do flyAfter summer merrily.”
“But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them,-- Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun.”
“Is it not strange that sheep's guts could hail souls out of men's bodies?”
“From this day to the ending of the world,But we in it shall be remembered-We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;For he to-day that sheds his blood with meShall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,This day shall gentle his condition;And gentlemen in England now-a-bedShall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaksThat fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.”
“There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow.”
“O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mockThe meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss,Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger:But O, what damnèd minutes tells he o'erWho dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!”
“Sweets to the sweet, farewell! I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife; I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, And not have strewed thy grave.”
“If there were reason for these miseries, then into limits could I bind my woes. If the winds rages, doth not the sea wax mad, threat'ning the welkin with its big-swoll'n face? And wilt though have a reason for this coil? I am the sea. Hark how her sighs doth blow. She is the weeping welkin, I the earth.”
“In such businessAction is eloquence, and the eyes of th’ ignorantMore learned than the ears.”
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
“If there is a good will, there is great way.”
“A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; abase, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited,hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; alily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson,glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue;one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be abawd, in way of good service, and art nothing butthe composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar,and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom Iwill beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniestthe least syllable of thy addition.”
“What's past is prologue.”
“World, world, O world! But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee/ Life would not yield to age.”
“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”