WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)

Elizabethan Drama Mrs. Nadia

Biographical Background

Birth: Stratford-on –Avon in 23rd April, 1564 Father Education Marriage: (in 1585) to Anne Hathaway Children

Milestones

1592: London, the launch of a career.

1593

London theatres were closed.

Patronage by the Earl of Southampton.

The dedication of two narrative poems:

Venus & Adonis , The Rape of Lucrece (1594)

The Lord Chamberlain’s Men

Shakespeare became a shareholder & the principal playwright .

He became rich enough to buy a house in Stratford.

1599

The Globe Theatre

Success & Fame

The King’s Men

Shakespeare PlaysDevelopment of his Art

Read or performed?Comedies:

The Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labor’s Lost

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Historical Plays

Henry VI Richard III

Early Tragedies

1st: Titus Andronicus (1593 or 1594)

Romeo and Juliet (1594 & 1596)

The Merchant of Venice (1597)

Julius Caesar (1599)

Romantic Comedies

Much Ado About Nothing

As You Like it

Twelfth Night

Great Tragedies

Hamlet (1600-1601)

Othello 1603-1604

King Lear

Macbeth (1605-1606)

Later Plays

Henry VIIIThe Romances:

Freely imaginative settings & themes

Comedies or tragedies? The Winter Tales The Tempest

52nd Birthday

April 23rd 1616

First Folio