sonnet sequence, composed in the 1590s – probably during a summer when the open-air theatres were shut, as they often were, during outbreaks of plague.
The sonnets offer rare insights into Shakespeare the man. Many are addressed as love poems to a young man, others to a possibly married woman (‘the Dark Lady’). It's possible Shakespeare may have been bisexual, as – it is sometimes argued – he was both Catholic and Protestant in religion. That is something else we shall never be entirely sure about.
Shakespeare's drama moves through identifiable phases, although exact dates of composition and performance of individual plays are uncertain; as are the texts of his plays – none was printedunder his supervision in his lifetime. Earliest in his artistic career are the history plays, concerned primarily with the so-called ‘Wars of the Roses’, the previous century's conflict for the English throne that was finally won by Elizabeth's Tudor forebears.
Shakespeare, in making brilliant drama (still in his twenties), falsifies history outrageously. His magnificent Macchiavellian Richard III, for example, is nothing like the actual historical monarch. ‘Good drama, bad history’ is the motto of the Shakespeare package. He was always aware, too, of pleasing the monarch: a Scottish king comes to the throne, on Elizabeth's death, in 1603? Soon after, Shakespeare produces a fine play about Scottish kings, Macbeth , pandering, at the same time, to James I's known fascination with witchery.
Shakespeare's mid-career comedies are, all of them, set outside England. Italy and the imaginary Illyria are typical locations. They are, among much else, noteworthy for the space they give powerful women (Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing comes to mind). On the other hand there are things, even in the sprightly early comedies, which the modern audience finds hard to swallow. Along with feisty Beatrice there is Kate, in The Taming of the Shrew , who is humiliated and brutalised into wifely subservience (forced, publicly, once ‘tamed’, to be willing to place her hand beneath her husband's foot). Quite literally, trampled on.
It's hard, too, to be entirely comfortable with the ‘happy ending’ of The Merchant of Venice in which the Jew, Shylock, finds his daughter abducted (by a gentile lover) and his wealth forfeited, and is forced to convert – in the face of losing everything – to Christianity. It takes some very fine poetry indeed to make us happy with those resolutions as good ones.
Shakespeare was fascinated by the Roman Republic – a state without kings or queens. That particular issue (touching on his unceasing interest in monarchy) is chewed over – without easy solution – in Julius Caesar . Caesar seems likely to become ruler: to protect the republic, is Brutus (‘the noblest Roman of them all’) morally right to assassinate him? Coriolanus sets up a similar problem: would the warrior-hero be right to invade Rome in order tosave Rome? Is rebellion right or wrong? Shakespeare never quite decided (it's right in Richard II , for example, but wrong in Henry IV ). In Antony and Cleopatra Marc Antony gives up a world empire for love: is ‘the world well lost’, or is he a lovesick fool?
So wonderful are Shakespeare's middle- and late-period plays – such as Much Ado About Nothing and Measure for Measure , in which he seems to be redefining drama as well as writing it – that sceptics have wondered how a man who left school in his early teens (not a famous school, at that) could possibly have written them. Other candidates have been suggested, drawing on the little we know about Shakespeare's life. None of the ‘alternative Shakespeares’ is, however, plausible. The balance of proof remains in favour of the glove-maker's son from Stratford. The genres Shakespeare cultivated in his maturity – comedies, tragedies, problem plays, Roman plays and romances – show a gradual progression in language and plot
The sonnets offer rare insights into Shakespeare the man. Many are addressed as love poems to a young man, others to a possibly married woman (‘the Dark Lady’). It's possible Shakespeare may have been bisexual, as – it is sometimes argued – he was both Catholic and Protestant in religion. That is something else we shall never be entirely sure about.
Shakespeare's drama moves through identifiable phases, although exact dates of composition and performance of individual plays are uncertain; as are the texts of his plays – none was printedunder his supervision in his lifetime. Earliest in his artistic career are the history plays, concerned primarily with the so-called ‘Wars of the Roses’, the previous century's conflict for the English throne that was finally won by Elizabeth's Tudor forebears.
Shakespeare, in making brilliant drama (still in his twenties), falsifies history outrageously. His magnificent Macchiavellian Richard III, for example, is nothing like the actual historical monarch. ‘Good drama, bad history’ is the motto of the Shakespeare package. He was always aware, too, of pleasing the monarch: a Scottish king comes to the throne, on Elizabeth's death, in 1603? Soon after, Shakespeare produces a fine play about Scottish kings, Macbeth , pandering, at the same time, to James I's known fascination with witchery.
Shakespeare's mid-career comedies are, all of them, set outside England. Italy and the imaginary Illyria are typical locations. They are, among much else, noteworthy for the space they give powerful women (Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing comes to mind). On the other hand there are things, even in the sprightly early comedies, which the modern audience finds hard to swallow. Along with feisty Beatrice there is Kate, in The Taming of the Shrew , who is humiliated and brutalised into wifely subservience (forced, publicly, once ‘tamed’, to be willing to place her hand beneath her husband's foot). Quite literally, trampled on.
It's hard, too, to be entirely comfortable with the ‘happy ending’ of The Merchant of Venice in which the Jew, Shylock, finds his daughter abducted (by a gentile lover) and his wealth forfeited, and is forced to convert – in the face of losing everything – to Christianity. It takes some very fine poetry indeed to make us happy with those resolutions as good ones.
Shakespeare was fascinated by the Roman Republic – a state without kings or queens. That particular issue (touching on his unceasing interest in monarchy) is chewed over – without easy solution – in Julius Caesar . Caesar seems likely to become ruler: to protect the republic, is Brutus (‘the noblest Roman of them all’) morally right to assassinate him? Coriolanus sets up a similar problem: would the warrior-hero be right to invade Rome in order tosave Rome? Is rebellion right or wrong? Shakespeare never quite decided (it's right in Richard II , for example, but wrong in Henry IV ). In Antony and Cleopatra Marc Antony gives up a world empire for love: is ‘the world well lost’, or is he a lovesick fool?
So wonderful are Shakespeare's middle- and late-period plays – such as Much Ado About Nothing and Measure for Measure , in which he seems to be redefining drama as well as writing it – that sceptics have wondered how a man who left school in his early teens (not a famous school, at that) could possibly have written them. Other candidates have been suggested, drawing on the little we know about Shakespeare's life. None of the ‘alternative Shakespeares’ is, however, plausible. The balance of proof remains in favour of the glove-maker's son from Stratford. The genres Shakespeare cultivated in his maturity – comedies, tragedies, problem plays, Roman plays and romances – show a gradual progression in language and plot
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