Shakespeare's Plays William Shakespeare and His Plays Term Paper

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SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

William Shakespeare and his plays are the main topic of discussion in this paper. William Shakespeare is one of the greatest names whose literary contributions and writings are considered as assets for the literary world. Shakespeare's plays and writings are of considerable importance for the readers all around the world because his writings and power of expression are unmatchable. William Shakespeare and his plays have in fact formed the foundation of the English literature and therefore, William Shakespeare is still read by the students of English literature. The paper will be divided into five chapters, the analysis and observation of these chapters will help the reader to understand the paper's main topic of discussion. The chapters, which will be discussed in the paper, are:

Statement of the hypothesis;

Review of prior works on the subject and related subjects;

Identification of the methodology;

Analysis of the problem (s) or significant issue(s) involved.

Summary of findings and conclusions.

These chapters will describe the topic related to Shakespeare and his plays. The entire discussion will be based on the description of the plays and the description of the scenes as well as speeches, which are illustrated in the plays of Shakespeare. The purpose of the paper will be to analyze the writings of Shakespeare and to identify the related themes of his plays such as love, power and jealousy. The historical evidences and researches will be presented in each chapter so as to give the readers the real meaning of these themes, which are used by Shakespeare. The initial chapters of the research paper will introduce the writings of Shakespeare and the era of Shakespeare.

CHAPTER ONE: STATEMENT OF HYPOTHESIS:

The paper discusses the theme analysis of the William Shakespeare and his plays. (Love, jealousy & power) are the three main themes, which will be analyzed in the paper. The researches will be made in order to know and understand Shakespeare's ideas on these three themes. Researches and analysis have shown that most of the Shakespeare's plays are based on love, jealousy and power and therefore these themes will be taken into consideration in the paper. The most important plays in this regard are:

Romeo and Juliet

Othello

Much ado about nothing

Midsummer night's dream

These three plays will be analyzed in the paper so as to present the views and arguments on the themes such as love, jealousy and power. Initially, this chapter will present a brief introduction of the play writer so that the analysis of his plays can be further carried on.

Little is known about William Shakespeare, the most celebrated author in Western civilization. He was born in 1564, the son of a tradesman, and spent his childhood -- as he would his retirement -- in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. From his work we know he had considerable knowledge of Roman comedy, Greek mythology and ancient history, though records show he did not attend university after grammar school. When he was 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children. Sometime during his 20s, he moved to London and established himself as a talented actor and playwright in the local theater scene. When the theaters were closed in 1592 due to the outbreak of the plague, he wrote poetry. In 1594, he came back to the theater as a lead member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a troupe patronized by royalty and loved by audiences throughout London. In 1599, he became part owner of the new Globe Theater. By the time of his death at the age of 52, Shakespeare was without question the most popular playwright in London. William Shakespeare had a vocabulary of some 30,000 words, many of which made their first appearance with his writings. He created more than 2,000 new words and phrases: schoolboy, shooting star, puppy-dog, football, bandit, partner, downstairs, upstairs, leapfrog, alligator, mimic, accommodation, dislocate, obscene, reliance and submerged, to name a few." http://www.nea.gov/national/shakespeare/Bio.html

William Shakespeare was one of the most renowned and famous authors of the English literature, although much information have been collected on the writings of the author yet it seems that we know very little about him as a writer. The related information about Shakespeare and his plays signifies the fact that he was a man of great knowledge and he possessed wide skills of writing and creative imagination. He was very diversified and versatile in his thoughts and ideas. Therefore, he has written plays on a variety of subjects, which are, still appreciated and praised by the readers all around the world.

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The historical readings and evidences also proves that William Shakespeare's has two major spans of his life time which are known as "lost years" because during these two major spans William Shakespeare was completely out of sight and during these two periods he did not produced many plays. The period known as "lost years" ranges from 1578-82 and 1585-92.During these two major spans in his lifetime he was busy in developing his dramatic skills and was collecting the themes for the development of his plays. Therefore, these two major spans of his lifetime are the periods, which helped William Shakespeare to produce writings of great caliber.

Shakespeare probably began his education at the age of six or seven at the Stratford grammar school, which is still standing only a short distance from his house on Henley Street and is in the care of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Although we have no record of Shakespeare attending the school, due to the official position held by John Shakespeare it seems likely that he would have decided to educate young William at the school, which was under the care of Stratford's governing body. The Stratford grammar school had been built some two hundred years before Shakespeare was born and in that time the lessons taught there were, of course, dictated primarily by the beliefs of the reigning monarch. In 1553, due to a charter by King Edward VI, the school became known as the King's New School of Stratford-upon-Avon As a brief introductory detail it should be mentioned that, during the sixteenth century, there were many families with the name Shakespeare in and around Stratford. "Shakespeare" appears countless times in town minutes and court records, spelled in a variety of ways, from Shagspere to Chacsper. Unfortunately, there are very few records that reveal William Shakespeare's relationship to or with the many other Stratford Shakespeares" http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/

The information regarding the life of William Shakespeare signifies that although William belonged to a middle class family and no one in his family ever had interest and the urge to write. But William Shakespeare was the first person who managed his career as a play writer and after few years he gained a considerable degree and a respectable position in the literary world because of his writings, William Shakespeare possessed the art of creative writing and he knew more than 30,000 words. His skill of writing, knowledge of vocabulary and his quality of creative writing helped him to develop himself as a writer. His versatility is proved by the fact that in a period of seven years of struggle William managed to emerge as an actor, a poet and a playwright. The historical evidences and researches show that William Shakespeare initially produced plays just for the sake of experimentation later on after several years of hard work, he was able to write plays in his own style and the quality of plays also improved as compared to his early plays.

Shakespeare also possessed the ability of transforming his thoughts and imagination into words and he was the first writer who developed dramatic techniques for conveying a sense of his character's psychological identities; this characteristic of William Shakespeare's writing has made him different and yet stylish amongst the other writers of his period. The collection of William's writings includes 38 plays, 154 sonnets and two epic narrative poems. The students of English literature are bound to read and understand these works so that they can know about the relative themes that Shakespeare has introduced in his literary works. It has been noted that Shakespeare's plays have delighted the readers from all around the world for more than 400 years and these plays are still appreciated by millions of the readers because of the quality and content of his writings. The audiences for all around the world are amused by the comedy plays, which William has produced. The presentation of the ideas in the plays describes that William possessed great talent of describing the tragic evidences in his plays; his comedy was also very different from the presentation of other writers of his era.

CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF THE PRIOR WORKS ON THE SUBJECT:

The English dramatist and poet William Shakespeare was the author of the most widely admired and influential body of literature by any individual in the history of Western civilization. His work comprises 36 plays, 154 sonnets, and 2 narrative poems. Knowledge of Shakespeare is derived from two….....

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