"Some are born Great, others achieve Greatness"
Period Of Shakespeare's Works
In 1590 to 1595, as early Works, Shakespeare's first plays were mostly histories, Richard 2 and the three parts of Henry 6, written during a vogue for historical drama. Comedy plays were love's labour lost (longest scene, longest speech and longest single word), The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Tragedy plays were Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet ( tragic love Story ).
The Comedy of Errors was also based on classical models and is probably the most complicated of all Shakespeare’s plays, involving two sets of identical twins with multiple identity confusions.
Romeo and Juliet, the famous romantic tragedy of sexually charged adolescence, love, and death. Romeo and Juliet fall in love at a party. They are sure they will not be allowed to marry. Nevertheless, helped by Friar Laurence, they marry in secret instead. Unfortunately, before their wedding night Romeo kills Juliet's cousin in a duel, and in the morning he is forced to leave her. If he ever returns to the city, he will be put to death. Juliet's parents told her she must marry Paris. Her parents do not know she is already married. She refuses in the beginning, but later agrees because she plans to fake her death and escape to be with Romeo forever, again with the help of Friar Laurence. Frair Laurence designs the plan. He gives Juliet a sleeping potion. She appears to be dead and was put in a tomb. However, Romeo does not know about the plan, visits her grave, thinks she is dead, and kills himself. When Juliet finally wakes up, she discovers that Romeo is dead and then kills herself. so they kill themselves because they cannot cope with being separated from one another. Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy.
In 1596 to 1599, Shakespeare also wrote several comedies during his early period, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, the Much Ado About Nothing And history plays wrote Like Richard 2, king John, Henry 4.
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a witty mixture of romance, fairy magic, and comic lowlife scenes. The Much Ado About Nothing is a comedic play about misunderstandings, love and deception.
Shakespeare's next comedy, the equally romantic Merchant of Venice, A young Venetian, Bassanio, needs a loan of three thousand ducats so that he can woo Portia, a wealthy Venetian heiress. contains a portrayal of the vengeful Jewish moneylender Shylock, which reflects Elizabethan views but may appear derogatory to modern audiences.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1600 to 1608. he wrote the tragedies Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, Julius Caesar, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. In these, Shakespeare's characters present vivid impressions of human temperament that are timeless and universal.
He also wrote As You Like It and Twelfth Night or what you will, measure for measure. Possibly the best known of these plays is Hamlet, which explores betrayal, retribution, incest and moral failure. Julius Caesar, based on Sir Thomas North's 1579 translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives, which introduced a new kind of drama.
Hamlet, The ghost of the King of Denmark tells his son Hamlet to avenge his murder by killing the new king, Hamlet's uncle. Hamlet feigns madness, contemplates life and death, and seeks revenge. His uncle, fearing for his life, also devises plots to kill Hamlet. The play ends with a duel, during which the King, Queen, Hamlet's opponent and Hamlet himself are all killed.
In 1609 to 1613, In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies, a New kind of drama genre and collaborated with other playwrights. Shakespeare's tragicomedy major plays were Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest, as well as the collaboration, Pericles, Prince of Tyre. And history play was henry 8. His Lost plays were cardenio and loves labour's won, The London Prodigal, The Puritan.
The Winter's Tale, The jealous King Leontes falsely accuse his wife Hermione of infidelity with his best friend, and she dies. Leontes exiles his newborn daughter Perdita, who is raised by shepherds for sixteen years and falls in love with the son of Leontes' friend.
The Tempest, Prospero uses magic to conjure a storm and torment the survivors of a shipwreck, including the King of Naples and Prospero's treacherous brother, Antonio. Prospero's slave, Caliban, plots to rid himself of his master, but is thwarted by Prospero's spirit-servant Ariel.
It is generally asserted that, if shakespeare had written no plays, his poems alone would have given him a commanding place in the Elizabethan age.
Shakespeare wrote two long narrative poems Venus and Adonis in 1593, became immensely popular in London and The Rape of Lucrece in 1594. Contain much poetic fancy. These poems were dedicated to his patron the Earl of Southampton. The first collection of his plays, now called the folio in 1623, was made by two actors, heming and condell.
Shakespeare’s dramas are usually divided into three classes, called tragedies, comedies, and historical plays. Shakespeare probably worked with Marlowe in the two last parts of Henry 6 and in Richard 3.
Shakespeare’s Writing Style
Shakespeare's early plays were written in the conventional style of the day, with elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases that didn't always align naturally with the story's plot or characters. Blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter, blank verse is employed in Macbeth. Like to die, to sleep, To sleep, to perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub. Shakespeare used 70%blank verse, 25% prose and 5% rhymed verse in his plays.
Shakespeare wrote a total of 37 plays ( He wrote 10 history plays) , 2 long poems and Wrote 154 sonnets, mostly sonnets about a young man, 28 sonnets dedicated to a dark lady. Sonnets consists of 14 lines, broken into 3 quatrains and one last couplet. Rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Sonnet 18 is shakespeare's most famous sonnet. In this sonnet, Shakespeare says that people die and are forgotten. But he will put her lover's beauty in verse form and her beauty will never fade. He is comparing her to a summer day but his lover is much more beautiful.
However, Shakespeare was very innovative, adapting the traditional style to his own purposes and creating a freer flow of words. Shakespeare was very innovative in vocabulary, He created new Word, helmet alone has 600 new words. Changing nouns into verbs, verbs into adjectives. And adding affixes like prefixes and suffixes.
His Tragedies
Shakespeare's tragedies are totally according to the theory of tragedy by aristotle. Shakespearean tragedies contain a tragic hero, who , duo to some unlucky fate, is doomed to fell and moreover the plays contain major themes of blood and revenge and a continuous struggle between good and evil. Supernatural elements are always present like ghosts, magic. There is always a bloody and sad end. One humorous characters are sometimes present to mock and create Irony like fool in king Lear. There is also some kind of inner conflict inside the hero. Tragedies end with blood, revenge and deaths. Shakespeare tragedies are much different from his comedies.
His Comedies
Comedies end with happy endings, marriages, and reunions. His comedies are relatively different from the comedies of Nowadays. His comedies involves Irony, satire, mistaken identities, romance and wordplay. Characters of lovers are separated and in the end they get married happily. There is a struggle in the character to find their love.
Actor
Shakespeare performed in his own plays. He performed In hamlet as ghost, In Macbeth as King duncan, In Henry iv as king Henry, In As you like it as adam.
Conclusion
Today, his plays are highly popular and constantly studied and reinterpreted in performances with diverse cultural and political contexts. The genius of Shakespeare's characters and plots are that they present real human beings in a wide range of emotions and conflicts that transcend their origins in Elizabethan England. his reputation as a dramatic genius wasn't recognized until the 19th century. At the time of Shakespeare's death 21 plays existed in manuscripts in the various theaters.
Comments
Post a Comment