Shakespeare's plays

Author: [English] Shakespeare / Zhu Shenghao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-12-01
Features: Shakespeare, English poet and playwright. Born on April 23, 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. His father, John Shakespeare, was involved in wool, leather manufacturing, and grain business. In 1565, he became the town's magistrate, and three years later, he was elected mayor. Shakespeare attended the local grammar school in his youth and married Anne Hathaway, a farmer's daughter from a neighboring village, in 1582. From 1585 to 1592, Shakespeare's life remains unclear, and it is said that he worked as a village teacher, soldier, and servant in a noble's household. He fled to London after poaching the deer of Sir T. Lucy, a local squire, and initially worked as a horse groom outside the theater before gradually becoming a theater laborer, actor, and began his career as a playwright. In 1592, theater manager P. Henslow first mentioned Shakespeare's play "Henry VI, Part 1." That same year, playwright R. Greene alluded to Shakespeare's surname in his work "A Groats-Worth of Wit" and quoted lines from "Henry VI, Part 2," calling Shakespeare a "vulgar crow," indicating that he had already gained considerable fame. In 1594, he joined the Lord Chamberlain's Company alongside renowned actors W. Kempe and J. Burbage, and he had connections with the Earl of Southampton and the Earl of Essex. His company performed at the Globe Theatre and the Swan Theatre, as well as in court. During summer or when epidemics broke out, they traveled to the provinces. In 1596, Shakespeare applied for the title of "Gentleman" and a coat of arms under another name, and in 1597, he purchased property in Stratford. By 1599, he became a shareholder of the Globe Theatre, owning one-tenth of the shares. In 1610, Shakespeare sold his shares and retired to his hometown. He died on April 23, 1616, in his hometown and was buried in the Holy Trinity Church. Shakespeare wrote 37 plays over the span of 22 or 23 years, but only 16 were published in quarto editions during his lifetime. This was because playwrights sold their scripts to theater companies, which then monopolized them and did not publish them. The pirated editions were often based on actors' recitations or shorthand notes taken during performances, resulting in omissions and errors. Seven years after Shakespeare's death in 1623, actors who had worked with him in the King's Men Company (the predecessor of the Lord Chamberlain's Company) collected 36 of his plays (20 of which were published for the first time) and published a quarto edition of Shakespeare's plays, which later came to be known as the First Folio. The plays in this collection were arranged not by chronological order but by comedy, history, and tragedy. Since the late 18th century, scholars have studied the dating, classification, and of Shakespeare's plays, but there is no consensus. Generally, Shakespeare's dramatic works can be divided into three periods:
First Period (1590–1600): Primarily focused on historical plays and comedies, including 9 historical plays, 10 comedies, and 2 tragedies. Among the 9 historical plays, only "King John" deals with 13th-century English history, while the other 8 form two connected tetralogies: "Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3" and "Richard III"; "Richard II," "Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2," and "Henry V." These historical plays summarize the turmoil in English history over more than a century and portray a series of positive and negative monarchs, reflecting Shakespeare's opposition to feudal division, support for centralization, condemnation of tyrannical rule, and calls for reforms by enlightened monarchs to establish harmonious social relationships based on humanism. The 10 comedies—"The Comedy of Errors," "The Taming of the Shrew," "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," "Love's Labour's Lost," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Merchant of Venice," "As You Like It," "Much Ado About Nothing," and "Twelfth Night"—mostly revolve around themes of love, friendship, and marriage. The protagonists are often young men and women with humanist wisdom and virtue, who fight for freedom and happiness, celebrating progressive and beautiful new trends while gently exposing and satirizing the decay and ugliness of old things, such as the hypocrisy of asceticism, the pretense of Puritans, and the greed of moneylenders. The overall tone of Shakespeare's plays during this period is optimistic and bright, filled with confidence in resolving social conflicts through humanist ideals. Even tragedies like "Romeo and Juliet" written in this period are imbued with a comedic atmosphere. Although the protagonists die for love, their ideal of love triumphs over death, reconciling the old feud. However, later mature comedies like "The Merchant of Venice" also carry melancholic tones and tragic elements, reflecting the class oppression and racial discrimination in Christian society while advocating for kindness, friendship, and sincere love. This shows that the author had gradually become aware of the irreconcilable conflict between ideal and reality.
Second Period (1601–1607): Primarily focused on tragedies, including 3 Roman plays, 5 tragedies, and 3 "dark comedies" or "problem plays." The Roman plays—"Julius Caesar," "Antony and Cleopatra," and "Coriolanus"—are based on Plutarch's "Lives." The four great tragedies—"Hamlet," "Othello," "King Lear," and "Macbeth"—and the tragedy "Timon of Athens" mark the author's deeper reflections on the times and life, focusing on tragic heroes of the new era. These characters awaken from medieval confinement and obscurity, ambitious to develop or perfect themselves under the dawn of modernity, but unable to overcome the limitations of their time and themselves. They ultimately face inevitable failure and sacrifice in their struggles against both external and internal adversaries. Hamlet, seeking revenge for his father, realizes that "the whole age is out of joint" and decides to take up the responsibility of "restoring order," but his grand ambitions are ultimately futile. Othello, honest and virtuous, trusting people yet hating evil, is manipulated by villains to kill his wife and take his own life, only to suffer a tragic fate for his pursuit of perfection. King Lear, blinded by the honors and confidence brought by power, loses his senses and fantasizes that relinquishing his throne and becoming a commoner could make him just as or even greater than a king, enduring great suffering in the process. Macbeth, originally a heroic figure with virtuous and noble qualities, is driven by the temptation of the throne and his ambition to become a "bloody man to bloody men," filled with remorse. These tragedies profoundly reveal the social evils and bourgeois selfishness emerging during the early stages of capital accumulation, highlighting the irreconcilable conflict between humanist ideals and the harsh reality, with profound significance. Due to the increased depth of thought and realism in this period's works, plays like "Troilus and Cressida," "All's Well That Ends Well," and "The Taming of the Shrew" also exhibit a darker tone, shrouded in betrayal, deceit, and moral corruption, earning them the names "problem plays" or "dark comedies."
Third Period (1608–1613): The main works are four tragicomedies or romances—"Pericles, Prince of Tyre," "Cymbeline," "The Winter's Tale," and "The Tempest." These plays often deal with themes of separation, reunion, false accusation, and vindication. While still upholding humanist ideals and exposing the dark reality, the resolution of conflicts in these works primarily relies on magic, fantasy, coincidence, and chance events, culminating in messages of forgiveness, tolerance, compromise, and reconciliation. Shakespeare also co-wrote historical plays like "Henry VIII" and a romance "The Two Noble Kinsmen" with Fletcher, the latter of which has been included in some modern Shakespearean collections.
Most of Shakespeare's plays were adapted from existing plays, novels, chronicles, or folk tales, but he infused his own ideas into them, giving old themes fresh, rich, and profound content. In terms of artistic expression, he inherited and developed the three traditions of ancient Greek and Roman, medieval English, and Renaissance European drama, making creative innovations in both content and form. His plays were not bound by the three unities, nor did they strictly adhere to the distinctions between tragedy and comedy, striving to reflect the true nature of life and delve into the depths of human psychology. As a result, he was able to create numerous complex and vivid characters, depicting a broad and colorful social landscape, renowned for their grandeur, depth, poetic beauty, and philosophical insight.
Shakespeare's plays were written for the English stage and audience of his time, making them popular and accessible to all. Their blend of tragedy and comedy, appeal to both the refined and the masses, and freedom from spatial and temporal constraints, which actively engaged the audience's imagination to compensate for the simplicity of the stage, were criticized by classicalists like Voltaire in the 18th century, who often altered the plays arbitrarily during performances. The true value of Shakespeare's works was not fully recognized until the early 19th century, when critics like Coleridge and Hazlitt explained their significance. However, even then, performances of Shakespeare's plays were often forced into a five-act structure. In the late 19th century, W. Poel and H. Granville-Baker strongly opposed the grand tradition of Shakespearean performances at the time and advocated for staging them in the style of Elizabethan theaters, without scenery, to restore their original characteristics.