... Stratford after he as caught poaching in the deer park of Sir Thomas Lucy, a local justice of the peace. Shakespeare and Anne Hathaay had a daughter in 1583 and tinsa boy and a girlin 1585. The boy did not survive.Shakespeare apparently arrived in London about 1588 and by 1592 had attained success as an actor and a playright. Shortly thereafter he secured the patronage of Henry riothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton. The publication of Shakespeares to fashionably erotic narrative poems Venus and Adonis 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece 1594 and of his Sonnets published 1609, but circulated previously in manuscript form established his reputation as a gifted and popular poet of the Renaissance 14th century to 17th century. The Sonnets describe the devotion of a character, often identified as the poet himself, to a young man hose beauty and virtue he praises and to a mysterious and faithless dark lady ith hom the poet is infatuated. The ensuing triangular situation, resulting from the attraction of the poets friend to the dark lady, is treated ith passionate intensity and psychological insight. Shakespeares modern reputation, hoever, is based primarily on the 38 plays that he apparently rote, modified, or collaborated on. Although generally popular in his time, these plays ere frequently little esteemed by his educated contemporaries, ho considered English plays of their on day to be only vulgar entertainment.Shakespeares professional life in London as marked by a number of financially advantageous arrangements that permitted him to share in the profits of his acting company, the Chamberlains Men, later called the Kings Men, and its to theaters, the Globe Theatre and the Blackfriars. His plays ere given special presentation at the courts of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I more frequently than those of any other contemporary dramatist. It is knon that he risked losing royal favor only once, in 1599, hen his company performed the play of the deposing and killing of King Richard II at the request of a group of conspirators against Elizabeth. In the subsequent inquiry, Shakespeares company as absolved of complicity in the conspiracy.IIIorks Although the precise date of many of Shakespeares plays is in doubt, his dramatic career is generally divided into four periods 1 the period up to 1594, 2 the years from 1594 to 1600, 3 the years from 1600 to 1608, and 4 the period after 1608. Because of the difficulty of dating Shakespeares plays and the lack of conclusive facts about his ritings, these dates are approximate and can be used only as a convenient frameork in hich to discuss his development. In all periods, the plots of his plays ere frequently dran from chronicles, histories, or earlier fiction, as ere the plays of other contemporary dramatists.AFirst Period Shakespeares first period as one of experimentation. His early plays, unlike his more mature ork, are characterized to a degree by formal and rather obvious construction and by stylized verse.Chronicle history plays ere a popular genre of the time, and four plays dramatizing the English civil strife of the 15th century are possibly Shakespeares earliest dramatic orks see England The Lancastrian and Yorkist Kings. These plays, Henry VI, Parts I, II, and III 1590-1592 and Richard III 1592-1593, deal ith evil resulting from eak leadership and from national disunity fostered for selfish ends. The four-play cycle closes ith the death of Richard III and the ascent to the throne of Henry VII, the founder of the Tudor dynasty, to hich Elizabeth belonged. In style and structure, these plays are related partly to medieval drama and partly to the orks of earlier Elizabethan dramatists, especially Christopher Marloe. Either indirectly through such dramatists or directly, the influence of the classical Roman dramatist Seneca is also reflected in the organization of these four plays, especially in the bloodiness of many of their scenes and in their highly colored, bombastic language. The influence of Seneca, exerted by ay of the earlier English dramatist Thomas Kyd, is particularly obvious in Titus Andronicus 1594, a tragedy of righteous revenge for heinous and bloody acts, hich are staged in sensational detail.BSecond PeriodShakespeares second period includes his most important plays concerned ith English history, his so-called joyous comedies, and to of his major tragedies. In this period, his style and approach became highly individualized. The second-period historical plays include Richard II 1595, Henry IV, Parts I and II 1597, and Henry V 1598. They encompass the years immediately before those portrayed in the Henry VI plays. Richard II is a study of a eak, sensitive, self-dramatizing but sympathetic monarch ho loses his kingdom to his forceful successor, Henry IV. In the to parts of Henry IV, Henry recognizes his on guilt. His fears for his on son, later Henry V, prove unfounded, as the young prince displays a responsible attitude toard the duties of kingship. In an alternation of masterful comic and serious scenes, the fat knight Falstaff and the rebel Hotspur reveal contrasting excesses beteen hich the prince finds his proper position. The mingling of the tragic and the comic to suggest a broad range of humanity subsequently became one of Shakespeares favorite devices.CThird Period Shakespeares third period includes his greatest tragedies and his so-called dark or bitter comedies. The tragedies of this period are considered the most profound of his orks. In them he used his poetic idiom as an extremely supple dramatic instrument, capable of recording human thought and the many dimensions of given dramatic situations. Hamlet 1601, perhaps his most famous play, exceeds by far most other tragedies of revenge in picturing the mingled sordidness and glory of the human condition. Hamlet feels that he is living in a orld of horror. Confirmed in this feeling by the murder of his father and the sensuality of his mother, he exhibits tendencies toard both crippling indecision and precipitous action. Interpretation of his motivation and ambivalence continues to be a subject of considerable controversy.DFourth PeriodThe fourth period of Shakespeares ork includes his principal romantic tragicomedies. Toard the end of his career, Shakespeare created several plays that, through the intervention of magic, art, compassion, or grace, often suggest redemptive hope for the human condition. These plays are ritten ith a grave quality differing considerably from Shakespeares earlier comedies, but they end happily ith reunions or final reconciliations. The tragicomedies depend for part of their appeal upon the lure of a distant time or place, and all seem more obviously symbolic than most of Shakespeares earlier orks. To many critics, the tragicomedies signify a final ripeness in Shakespeares on outlook, but other authorities believe that the change reflects only a change in fashion in the drama of the period.The romantic tragi...
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