“O gentlemen, the time of life is short!

To spend that shortness basely were too long,

If life did ride upon a dial’s point,

Still ending at the arrival of an hour.”

Henry IV, Act 5, Scene 2

William Shakespeare: life and works

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford upon Avon in 1564 and died in 1616. His father was elected mayor of Stratford and Shakespeare continued his studies there until grammar school. After getting married, he left his hometown searching for fortune in London, where he arrived around the end of the ’80s. At the start of his career Shakespeare worked as an actor and then began writing permanently in the Lords Chamberlain’s Men, a company which later changed its name to King’s Men. In these companies Shakespeare wrote roughly two plays a year and managed to amass a fortune that allowed the opening of the Globe and the Blackfriars.

None of Shakespeare’s dramas that have come down to us exists in a manuscript because elizabethan playwrights wrote for the immediate circumstances of the performance and not for publication. His 36 plays were then written in folios often in fourth editions, low-cost librettos, products for commercial reasons, sometimes unreliable (republished in various times if they had success for the company and not for the author). The first and almost complete publication of the Shakespearean texts happened several years after his death, when two actors of the his company, Heminges and Condell, decided to bring together his works in the “First Folio”, published in 1623. Since there are many doubts about the chronology of Shakespeare’s works.

We can divide his works by genre:

• Early plays
• Historical dramas (chronicle or history plays)
• Romantic comedies
• Tragedies
• Romances (tragicomedies, or late plays)

William Shakespeare: Early Plays

Among the Early Plays are mentioned:

• Love’s Labour Lost
• The two gentlemen of Verona: tells the story of the two friends Proteus and Valentine in love with Silvia, and with Julia chasing Proteus disguised as a boy.
• Titus Andronicus (1594): revenge tragedy set in Rome in the 4th century century, following the Senechian fashion. Here Shakespeare stages a chain of bloody events with the aim of creating spectacular effects.

William Shakespeare: Historical Dramas

Among the Historical Dramas (chronicle or history plays), in which English history and the construction of a national identity are celebrated, we remember:

• Henry IV (two parts): reflection on the legitimacy of the crown. Protagonist of the two plays is Prince Hal, future Henry V, the first myth-king of the English nation. Henry IV is facing a Scottish rebellion, however, it is flanked by the story of Hal and his people wild friends.
• Henry V: concludes the cycle dedicated to the training of the prince. Finished the disputes and internal rebellions, England united with the charismatic figure of Henry, yes he is about to consecrate his national triumph in a foreign land with the famous one battle of Agincourt (1415) from which England miraculously emerged victorious against France.
• Henry VI (three parts): the characters stand out on the scene of the war of the Two Rose, between the house of York and Lancaster. In contrast to the weakness and the trend peaceful of Henry VI, is the figure of his wife Margherita, protagonist of the more merciless scenes.
• King John
• Richard II: meditation on the legitimacy of the monarchy
• Richard III: representation of the brutality of power because he makes his way towards the Crown tracing only roads of death, a portrait that does not correspond to the historical reality. The cycle ends with the death of Richard III and the accession to the throne of Henry VII, the first Tudor ruler.

William Shakespeare: Romantic Comedies

Among the Romantic Comedies (prob. 1596-1602), whose absolute protagonists are women whose stories take place in Sicily, Venice, Verona, Vienna and Padua, are remembered:

• As you like it: tells the love story between Rosalind, the young woman nephew of Duke Frederick, and Orlando, the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Bois enemy of the duke. The two boys, one without the knowledge of the other, to escape the persecution of the insidious politics of the court, they take refuge in the forest of Arden.
• Twelfth night
• Midsummer night’s dream: Set in an imaginary Athens, the celebration of the wedding of Duke Theseus and Hippolyta comes interrupted by the amorous turbulence of four Athenian nobles. The four young people did they move to an enchanted forest where Oberon and Titania, king of shadows and reign fairy queen.
• The merchant of Venice

From this period (1596-1602) are also the tragedy “Romeo and Juliet’” and the Roman drama “Julius Caesar” .

The critics of the 19th century divides the romantic comedies into two sections (1601-1604):

• the dark comedies (bitter comedies, or problem plays)
• dialectical dramas because they are full of questions and questions unresolved issues (“Troilus and Cressida” and “Measure for Measure”)

William Shakespeare: Tragedies

Among the great Tragedies (1603-1607) we remember:

• “Hamlet”: in which the theme of regicide addressed from the point of view of the heir al throne. In order to complete the task of avenging his father, Hamlet pretends to be mad and repudiates his beloved Ophelia and, following the involuntary murder of Polonius, father of Ophelia, and being exile, Hamlet manages to thwart the attempt of Claudius. He returns to Denmark, where he learns that Ophelia, mad, drowned, while Ophelia’s brother Laerte, plotting with Claudius, challenges Hamlet in a “rigged” duel with the point of his sword dyed with poison. The duel ends up being a trap for the entire court: Claudius, Gertrude, Laertes and Hamlet die.
• “Othello”: tells the story of a Moor from Venice driven mad by jealousy below the influence of Iago, kills his wife Desdemona
• “Macbeth”: tells the story of a medieval Scottish king who kills the mild and virtuous King Duncan in order to take his place.

We can also mention:

• “King Lear”: begins with King Lear deciding to abdicate and relinquish the kingdom at three o’clock daughters. But the virtuous Cordelia, his favorite daughter, does not meet her father’s expectations to express in words the love she feels for him in exchange for a third of the kingdom. Enraged, Lear banishes her from English soil. As soon as he received the inheritance from his father two daughters Goneril and Regan work to banish the king from their homes and kill him. Lear’s final reunion with Cordelia who rushed to defend her father from the fury destruction of the sisters comes too late. After the killing of Cordelia, Lear dies on his daughter’s body after finally recognizing it. To originate the present evil is filial ingratitude. Lear is an incredulous king, who understands only the silence of Cordelia represents her great love towards him.
• “Antony and Cleopatra”: in 40 BC, Antony, Octavian and Lepidus form a triumvirate after the death of Caesar.

From this period are also the “Timon of Athens” (1606) and “Coriolanus”.

Shakespeare Romances

In the Romances (tragicomedies or late plays, 1608-1611) there is:

1. a fantastic setting
2. a troubled relationship between fathers and sons resolved thanks to magic
3. a happy outcome
4. in them female figures dominate

Among these are:

• “Pericles”
• “Cymbeline”
• “The winter’s tale”
• “The tempest”

And he also wrote two love poems:

• “Venus and Adonis” (1593)
• “The rape of Lucrece” (1594)
• “Sonnets” (1609)