SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM

What follows is the unsigned biography of William Shakespeare that first appeared in the "greatly improved and enlarged" Second Edition of Encyclopdia Britannica (1777-84). By far surpassing the three-volume First Edition, the Second was bound into 10 sturdy volumes that were enriched by a number of additional materials. Among these was "an account of the lives of the most eminent persons in every nation, from the earliest ages down to the present times." The biography of Shakespeare is printed on pages 8116-8118 in volume 10. The version that follows is presented in modern typography for ease in reading but retains the original spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and italics. Shakespeare baptized April 26, 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, Eng. died April 23, 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon Shakespeare also spelled Shakspere, byname Bard of Avon, or Swan of Avon English poet, dramatist, and actor, often called the English national poet and considered by many to be the greatest dramatist of all time. Shakespeare occupies a position unique in world literature. Other poets, such as Homer and Dante, and novelists, such as Leo Tolstoy and Charles Dickens, have transcended national barriers; but no writer's living reputation can compare with that of Shakespeare, whose plays, written in the late 16th and early 17th centuries for a small repertory theatre, are now performed and read more often and in more countries than ever before. The prophecy of his great contemporary, the poet and dramatist Ben Jonson, that Shakespeare was not of an age, but for all time, has been fulfilled. It may be audacious even to attempt a definition of his greatness, but it is not so difficult to describe the gifts that enabled him to create imaginative visions of pathos and mirth that, whether read or witnessed in the theatre, fill the mind and linger there. He is a writer of great intellectual rapidity, perceptiveness, and poetic power. Other writers have had these qualities, but with Shakespeare the keenness of mind was applied not to abstruse or remote subjects but to human beings and their complete range of emotions and conflicts. Other writers have applied their keenness of mind in this way, but Shakespeare is astonishingly clever with words and images, so that his mental energy, when applied to intelligible human situations, finds full and memorable expression, convincing and imaginatively stimulating. As if this were not enough, the art form into which his creative energies went was not remote and bookish but involved the vivid stage impersonation of human beings, commanding sympathy and inviting vicarious participation. Thus Shakespeare's merits can survive translation into other languages and into cultures remote from that of Elizabethan England. Shakespeare also spelled Shakspere, byname Bard Of Avon, or Swan Of Avon (baptized April 26, 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, Eng.d. April 23, 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon), English poet, dramatist, and actor, often called the English national poet and considered by many to be the greatest dramatist of all time. His plays, written for a small repertory theatre in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, are today performed more often and in more countries than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare's early life was spent in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he almost certainly attended the local grammar school. At 18 he married a local girl, Anne Hathaway, with whom he had a daughter, Susanna, and twins, Hamnet and Judith. By 1584 he had emerged as a rising playwright in London. He continued to live there, enjoying fame and prosperity as a member of London's leading theatre company, the Lord Chamberlain's Company (afterward known as the King's Men). About 1610 he retired to his birthplace and lived as a country gentleman. His will was made in March 1616, a month before his death. He was buried in the parish church at Stratford. It is not known with certainty the exact order in which Shakespeare's plays were written or first produced. His earliest plays date from the 1590s and include such comedies as The Taming of the Shrew (1593/94) and Love's Labour's Lost (1594/95); history plays based on the lives of the English kings, including 1 Henry VI (1589/92) and Richard III (1592/93); and the early tragedy Romeo and Juliet (1594/95). These early works are influenced by prevailing contemporary dramatic conventions and artifices but are also marked by vivid characterizations and an unprecedentedly rich and inventive use of the English language. The early plays contain ingenious puns and elaborate wordplay that lend an air of realism and immediacy to Shakespeare's somewhat artificial but carefully structured plots. Shakespeare's plays written before the turn of the century comprise mostly comedies, including The Merchant of Venice (1596/97) and Much Ado About Nothing (1598/99), and histories such as 1 Henry IV (1598/99) and Julius Caesar (1599/1600), which was the first of several plays based on the lives of figures from ancient Rome. The comedies take the mishaps of romantic courtship as their characteristic theme. The foibles of circumstance and of the would-be lovers' own characters provide the mainspring for the dramatic action. The history plays centre on struggles between individuals for supreme power in the state and interweave the presentation of real historical events with Shakespeare's own increasingly subtle and complex dramatic characters. In the early years of the 17th century Shakespeare produced his great tragedies, which mark both the summit of his art and one of the high points in the history of Western literature. The four principal tragedies are Hamlet (1600/01), Othello (1604/05), King Lear (1605/06), and Macbeth (1605/06). These plays examine with great psychological subtlety how personality flaws in the main characters lead almost inevitably to the tragic destruction of themselves and almost everyone around them. However, such faults as overintellectual detachment and indecision (Hamlet), unwarranted jealousy (Othello), childish willfulness and impulsiveness (King Lear), and vaulting, unscrupulous ambition (Macbeth) serve also as vehicles for profound explorations of human character, morality, and spirit. These tragedies are further strengthened by complex, perfectly structured plots and are enriched by a quality of language that is at once deeply poetical and emotionally expressive while conveying mature philosophical ideas. Shakespeare's last plays combine elements of romance, comedy, and tragedy. The Winter's Tale (1610/11) and The Tempest (1611/12) are clearly experimental in their lighthearted and fanciful but basically tragic form. The plays differ from Shakespeare's earlier works in their resolution of the dramatic conflict through penitence and forgiveness, and in their emphasis on hope through mutual reconciliation. The first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays, known as the First Folio, was printed in 1623 and contained all but one of his extant plays. Shakespeare's sonnets were published in 1609. The dates of their composition are not known. The 154 sonnets refer cryptically to the author's relations with various personsparticularly a handsome young man, a dark woman, and a rival poetwhose identities, if they were real, remain the object of speculation. The sonnets are characterized by the expression of strong feeling within an exquisitely controlled artistic form. Shakespeare also wrote two heroic narrative poems, Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594). Additional reading Modern editions Collections of Shakespeare's works include Horace Howard Furness (ed.), A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare, 27 vol. (18711955), with extensive textual apparatus and notes; Arthur T. Quiller-Couch and John Dover Wilson (eds.), The Works of Shakespeare, 39 vol. (192166), although the early publications of the comedies and some histories are now considered eccentric; Una Ellis-Fermor (ed.), The Arden Edition of the Works of Shakespeare, new ed. (1951 ); Charles Jasper Sisson (ed.), Complete Works (1954); Alfred Harbage (ed.), The Pelican Shakespeare, rev. ed. (1969, reprinted 1981); Irving Ribner and George Lyman Kittredge (eds.), The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (1971); Sylvan Barnet (ed.), The Complete Signet Classic Shakespeare (1972); G. Blakemore Evans (ed.), The Riverside Shakespeare (1974); Peter Alexander (ed.), The Complete Works, new ed. (1983); Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor (eds.), William Shakespeare, the Complete Works (1986), the first Oxford University Press edition since 1891, with a companion volume, Stanley Wells et al., William Shakespeare, a Textual Companion (1987); and David Bevington (ed.), The Complete Works of Shakespeare, 4th ed. (1992). Bibliographies Walter Ebisch and Levin L. Schcking, A Shakespeare Bibliography (1931, reprinted 1968), and a supplement for the years 193035 (1937, reissued 1968), are comprehensive. They are updated by Gordon Ross Smith, A Classified Shakespeare Bibliography, 19361958 (1963). James G. McManaway, A Selective Bibliography of Shakespeare: Editions, Textual Studies, Commentary (1975), covers more than 4,500 items published between 1930 and 1970, mainly in English. Larry S. Champion, The Essential Shakespeare: An Annotated Bibliography of Major Modern Studies, 2nd ed. (1993), includes works in English published from 1900 through 1984. Stanley Wells (ed.), Shakespeare, new ed. (1990), provides bibliographies on topics ranging from the poet to the text to the performances. The Shakespeare Quarterly publishes an annual classified bibliography. The Shakespeare Survey (quarterly) publishes annual accounts of Contributions to Shakespearian Study, as well as retrospective articles on work done on particular aspects. A selection of important scholarly essays published during the previous year is collected in Shakespearean Criticism (annual). Textual studies John Bartlett, A New and Complete Concordance or Verbal Index to Words, Phrases & Passages in the Dramatic Works of Shakespeare (1894, reprinted 1937); and C.T. Onions, A Shakespeare Glossary, enlarged and rev. by Robert D. Eagleson (1986), are both still most useful reference works. The following works represent modern thinking and practice on textual criticism as applied to Shakespeare: Fredson Bowers, Bibliography and Textual Criticism (1964), and On Editing Shakespeare (1966); W.W. Greg, The Editorial Problem in Shakespeare, 3rd ed. (1954, reissued 1967), and The Shakespeare First Folio (1955, reprinted 1969); Charlton Hinman, The Printing and Proof-Reading of the First Folio of Shakespeare, 2 vol. (1963); E.A.J. Honigmann, The Stability of Shakespeare's Text (1965); Ronald Brunlees McKerrow, An Introduction to Bibliography for Literary Students (1927, reissued 1967); Alfred W. Pollard, Shakespeare Folios and Quartos: A Study in the Bibliography of Shakespeare's Plays, 15941685 (1909, reprinted 1970); Alice Walker, Textual Problems of the First Folio (1953, reprinted 1976); and F.P. Wilson, Shakespeare and the New Bibliography, new ed., rev. and edited by Helen Gardner (1970). Facsimile editions of quartos and folios, which are necessary for any close work on textual problems, are available in Shakespeare Quarto Facsimiles (irregular); and Charlton Hinman, The First Folio of Shakespeare (1968). Biographies and background studies A lively account of the various efforts that have been made to write a biography of Shakespeare from the available materials, with the help of imaginative interpretation, is S. Schoenbaum, Shakespeare's Lives, new ed. (1991). Also of interest are Schoenbaum's collections of documents, paintings, and other records: William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life (1975), Shakespeare, the Globe, and the World (1979), and William Shakespeare: Records and Images (1981). The first detailed life of Shakespeare was written by Nicholas Rowe, Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709, reprinted 1967). Edmond Malone, The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare , 21 vol. (1821), includes an account of his life with much new material. The best of the 19th-century biographies are J.O. Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, 7th ed., 2 vol. (1887, reissued 2 vol. in 1, 1966); and Sidney Lee, A Life of William Shakespeare, 14th ed. (1931, reprinted 1968), first published in 1898. A standard work is E.K. Chambers, William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems, 2 vol. (1930, reprinted 1988), also available in an abridged version by Charles Williams, A Short Life of Shakespeare, with the Sources (1933, reissued 1965). Additional biographical works are Edgar I. Fripp, Shakespeare, Man and Artist, 2 vol. (1938, reissued 1964); Peter Alexander, Shakespeare's Life and Art (1939, reprinted 1979); Hazelton Spencer, The Art and Life of William Shakespeare (1940, reissued 1970); M.M. Reese, Shakespeare: His World and His Work, rev. ed. (1980); Gerald Eades Bentley, Shakespeare: A Biographical Handbook (1961, reprinted 1986); Peter Quennell, Shakespeare (1963); E.A.J. Honigmann, Shakespeare, the Lost Years (1985), discussing his early development; Russell Fraser, Young Shakespeare (1988), continued in Shakespeare, the Later Years (1992); A.L. Rowse, Shakespeare the Man, rev. ed. (1988); Richard Dutton, William Shakespeare: A Literary Life (1989); and Dennis Kay, Shakespeare: His Life, Work, and Era (1992), providing a chronological study of Shakespeare's writings.Studies of special aspects of his life and environment include John Leslie Hotson, Shakespeare Versus Shallow (1931, reprinted 1970); T.W. Baldwin, William Shakspere's Petty School (1943), and William Shakspere's Small Latine and Lesse Greeke, 2 vol. (1944); Mark Eccles, Shakespeare in Warwickshire (1961); M.C. Bradbrook, Shakespeare: The Poet in His World (1978), with emphasis on the plays; and Emrys Jones, The Origins of Shakespeare (1977), a study of mid-Tudor influences on Shakespeare.A valuable collection of background material is contained in Sidney Lee and C.T. Onions (eds.), Shakespeare's England: An Account of the Life & Manners of His Age, 2 vol. (1916, reissued 1970). Also helpful are E.M.W. Tillyard, The Elizabethan World Picture (1943, reissued 1973); Allardyce Nicoll (ed.), Shakespeare in His Own Age (1964, reissued 1976); Levi Fox (ed.), The Shakespeare Handbook (1987), including essays on topics ranging from the Elizabethan world and Shakespeare's life to the theatre and music; and Jo McMurtry, Understanding Shakespeare's England: A Companion for the American Reader (1989).Standard works on the theatre of Shakespeare's professional life are E.K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, 4 vol. (1923, reprinted 1974); and Glynne Wickham, Early English Stages, 13001660, vol. 2, 15761660, 2 parts (196372). Other studies are Alfred Harbage, Shakespeare's Audience (1941, reissued 1969); Gerald Eades Bentley, Profession of Dramatist in Shakespeare's Time, 15901642 (1971, reissued 1986); Andrew Gurr, Playgoing in Shakespeare's London (1987), which describes the playhouses of Shakespeare's time and the people who went to them; A.M. Nagler, Shakespeare's Stage, enlarged ed. (1981); and Bernard Beckerman, Shakespeare at the Globe, 15991609 (1962).Special aspects of the environment that throw light on the mentality of the dramatist are Richmond Noble, Shakespeare's Biblical Knowledge and Use of the Book of Common Prayer (1935, reprinted 1977); Roland Mushat Frye, Shakespeare and Christian Doctrine (1963); Cynthia Marshall, Last Things and Last Plays: Shakespearean Eschatology (1991), reviewing the changing apocalyptic concerns of post-Elizabethan England in relation to Shakespeare's characters; James L. Calderwood, Shakespeare & the Denial of Death (1987), discussing how Shakespeare's characters try to escape mortality; Paul A. Jorgensen, Shakespeare's Military World (1956, reissued 1973); George W. Keeton, Shakespeare's Legal and Political Background (1967); Alexander Leggatt, Shakespeare's Political Drama: The History Plays and the Roman Plays (1988), analyzing Shakespeare's political focus; Katharine Mary Briggs, The Anatomy of Puck (1959, reprinted 1977), and Pale Hecate's Team (1962, reprinted 1977), on belief in fairies and witchcraft; and Ann Jennalie Cook, Making a Match: Courtship in Shakespeare and His Society (1991).A survey of the theories that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was the author of the plays published under his name has been written by H.N. Gibson, The Shakespeare Claimants: A Critical Survey of the Four Principal Theories Concerning the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays (1962, reissued 1971). The same theme is treated by R.C. Churchill, Shakespeare and His Betters: A History and a Criticism of the Attempts Which Have Been Made to Prove That Shakespeare's Works Were Written by Others (1958); and Frank W. Wadsworth, The Poacher from Stratford: A Partial Account of the Controversy Over the Authorship of Shakespeare's Plays (1958). The following are some of the principal exponents of the alternate authors: on Bacon, Edwin Durning-Lawrence, Bacon Is Shake-speare (1910, reissued 1971); Arthur Bradford Cornwall, Francis the First, Unacknowledged King of Great Britain and Ireland (1936); and J.M. Robertson, The Baconian Heresy (1913, reissued 1971); on Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, J. Thomas Looney, Shakespeare Identified, 3rd ed. (1975); Percy Allen, The Case for Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, as Shakespeare (1930); H. Amphlett, Who Was Shakespeare? (1955, reissued 1970); and Gilbert Slater, Seven Shakespeares (1931, reprinted 1978), which proposes Oxford and a group of his collaborators; on William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby, Abel Lefranc, Under the Mask of William Shakespeare (1988; originally published in French, 2 vol., 191819), and la dcouverte de Shakespeare, 2 vol. (194550); and on Marlowe, Calvin Hoffman, The Murder of the Man Who Was Shakespeare (also published as The Man Who Was Shakespeare, 1955). The possibility of cryptic messages in the plays was conclusively investigated in William F. Friedman and Elizabeth S. Friedman, The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined (1957). Critical studies Current critical opinion may be found in two collections: John F. Andrews (ed.), William Shakespeare: His World, His Work, His Influence, 3 vol. (1985), 60 interpretive essays; and Stanley Wells (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare Studies (1986), essays on contemporary Shakespearean knowledge.Opinion about Shakespeare up to 1700 is collected in John Munro (ed.), The Shakspere Allusion-Book, rev. by E.K. Chambers, 2 vol. (1932, reprinted 1970); and in Gerald Eades Bentley, Shakespeare & Jonson: Their Reputations in the Seventeenth Century Compared (1945, reissued 1965). Eighteenth-century criticism is surveyed in David Nichol Smith, Shakespeare in the Eighteenth Century (1928, reprinted 1978), Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare, 2nd ed. (1963), a collection, and Shakespeare Criticism: A Selection (1916, reissued 1939), an anthology that includes work up to about 1825. Brian Vickers, Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, 6 vol. (197481), is an anthology covering the years 1623 to 1801. Jonathan Bate, Shakespearean Constitutions: Politics, Theatre, Criticism, 17301830 (1989), relates how Shakespeare was understood in 18th- and early 19th-century England. Dr. Johnson's criticism has been conveniently excerpted in Samuel Johnson, Johnson on Shakespeare, ed. by Walter Raleigh (1908, reissued 1965), and Samuel Johnson on Shakespeare, ed. by W.k. Wimsatt, Jr. (1960). Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Shakespearean Criticism, ed. by Thomas Middleton Raysor, 2nd ed., 2 vol. (1960), is the standard edition, and another useful compilation is Coleridge on Shakespeare, ed. and compiled by Terence Hawkes (1969)these can be supplemented by Coleridge on Shakespeare: The Text of the Lectures of 181112, ed. by R.A. Foakes (1971).General surveys of the development of criticism are given by Louis Marder, His Exits and His Entrances (1963); Alfred Harbage, Conceptions of Shakespeare (1966); Arthur M. Eastman, A Short History of Shakespearean Criticism (1968, reprinted 1985); and Raymond Powell, Shakespeare and the Critics' Debate (1980). The situation outside Britain may be studied in Oswald Lewinter (ed.), Shakespeare in Europe (1963). Patrick Murray, The Shakespearian Scene: Some Twentieth-Century Perspectives (1969), gives a shrewd survey of modern criticism. Norman Rabkin, Shakespeare and the Problem of Meaning (1981), discusses the inevitably differing interpretations of the plays. Maurice Charney (ed.), Bad Shakespeare: Revaluations of the Shakespeare Canon (1988), questions traditional assumptions concerning Shakespeare's life and work. E.A.J. Honigmann, Myriad-Minded Shakespeare: Essays, Chiefly on the Tragedies and Problem Comedies (1989), offers essays for the general reader on many critical theories. Philip Edwards, Shakespeare: A Writer's Progress (1986), studies the interrelationship of all Shakespeare's writings. Harley Granville-Barker, Prefaces to Shakespeare, rev. ed., 2 vol. (1972), sets the plays firmly in their theatrical environment. Robert Hapgood, Shakespeare the Theatre-Poet (1988), explores the idea of interpreting Shakespeare's plays through their performance. Enquiries into the artistic conventions of Shakespeare's time are the basis of the criticism of Leven L. Schcking, Character Problems in Shakespeare's Plays (1922, reissued 1959; originally published in German, 1919); Elmer Edgar Stoll, Art and Artifice in Shakespeare (1933, reissued 1968); Oscar James Campbell, Shakespeare's Satire (1943, reissued 1971); and William Witherle Lawrence, Shakespeare's Problem Comedies, 2nd ed. (1969).G. Wilson Knight, The Wheel of Fire, 4th rev. and enlarged ed. (1949, reissued 1983), The Imperial Theme, 3rd ed. (1953, reprinted 1972), The Shakespearian Tempest, 3rd ed. (1953, reissued 1971), and later books; and L.C. Knights, How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth? (1933, reprinted 1973), show how Shakespeare achieved poetical and symbolic effects. George T. Wright, Shakespeare's Metrical Art (1988), studies the metrical methods Shakespeare used. Keir Elam, Shakespeare's Universe of Discourse: Language-Games in the Comedies (1984), focuses on Love's Labour's Lost. The study of Shakespeare's imagery is well represented by the pioneer work of Caroline F.E. Spurgeon, Shakespeare's Imagery and What It Tells Us (1935, reissued 1984); Wolfgang Clemen, The Development of Shakespeare's Imagery, 2nd ed. (1977; originally published in German, 1936); and Robert B. Heilman, This Great Stage: Image and Structure in King Lear (1948, reprinted 1976), and Magic in the Web: Action and Language in Othello (1956, reprinted 1977). S. Viswanathan, The Shakespeare Play As Poem: A Critical Tradition in Perspective (1980), concentrates on the work of the critics Knight, Knights, and Spurgeon cited above.An understanding of the intellectual and social background of the plays was advanced by Willard Farnham, The Medieval Heritage of Elizabethan Tragedy (1936, reissued 1970), and Shakespeare's Tragic Frontier (1950, reprinted 1973); Hardin Craig, The Enchanted Glass: The Elizabethan Mind in Literature (1935, reissued 1975); C.L. Barber, Shakespeare's Festive Comedy (1959, reissued 1972); Theodore Spencer, Shakespeare and the Nature of Man, 2nd ed. (1949, reissued 1974); Lily B. Campbell, Shakespeare's Histories: Mirrors of Elizabethan Policy (1947, reissued 1978); Sukanta Chaudhuri, Infirm Glory: Shakespeare and the Renaissance Image of Man (1981); and Robert Kimbrough, Shakespeare and the Art of Human Kindness: The Essay Toward Androgyny (1990), exploring the Elizabethan idea that both male and female qualities are within each person's mind.Some of the notable explorations of the artistry of the plays are Madeleine Doran, Endeavors of Art (1954, reissued 1972); Bertrand Evans, Shakespeare's Comedies (1960); and Anne Righter, Shakespeare and the Idea of the Play (1964). Jan Kott, Shakespeare, Our Contemporary, 2nd ed. rev. (1967, reprinted 1988; originally published in Polish, 1962), has been influential on theatrical productions. John Russell Brown Terence John Bew Spencer The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica Major Works: Plays (probable dates of performance given): 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI (158991); 1 Henry VI (159192); Richard III, The Comedy of Errors (159293); Titus Andronicus, The Taming of the Shrew (159394); The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love's Labour's Lost, Romeo and Juliet (159495); Richard II, A Midsummer Night's Dream (159596); King John, The Merchant of Venice (159697); 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV (159798); Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V (159899); Julius Caesar, As You Like It (15991600); Hamlet, The Merry Wives of Windsor (160001); Twelfth Night, Troilus and Cressida (160102); All's Well That Ends Well (160203); Measure for Measure, Othello (160405); King Lear, Macbeth (160506); Antony and Cleopatra (160607); Coriolanus, Timon of Athens (160708); Pericles (160809); Cymbeline (160910); The Winter's Tale (161011); The Tempest (161112); Henry VIII (161213). Poems (dates of publication given): Venus and Adonis (1593); The Rape of Lucrece (1594); The Phoenix and the Turtle (1601); Sonnets with A Lovers complaint (1609). The poet and dramatist The intellectual background Shakespeare lived at a time when ideas and social structures established in the Middle Ages still informed men's thought and behaviour. Queen Elizabeth I was God's deputy on earth, and lords and commons had their due places in society under her, with responsibilities up through her to God and down to those of more humble rank. The order of things, however, did not go unquestioned. Atheism was still considered a challenge to the beliefs and way of life of a majority of Elizabethans, but the Christian faith was no longer singleRome's authority had been challenged by Martin Luther, John Calvin, a multitude of small religious sects, and, indeed, the English church itself. Royal prerogative was challenged in Parliament; the economic and social orders were disturbed by the rise of capitalism, by the redistribution of monastic lands under Henry VIII, by the expansion of education, and by the influx of new wealth from discovery of new lands. An interplay of new and old ideas was typical of the time: official homilies exhorted the people to obedience, the Italian political theorist Niccol Machiavelli was expounding a new practical code of politics that caused Englishmen to fear the Italian Machiavillain and yet prompted them to ask what men do, rather than what they should do. In Hamlet, disquisitionson man, belief, a rotten state, and times out of jointclearly reflect a growing disquiet and skepticism. The translation of Montaigne's Essays in 1603 gave further currency, range, and finesse to such thought, and Shakespeare was one of many who read them, making direct and significant quotations in The Tempest. In philosophical inquiry the question how? became the impulse for advance, rather than the traditional why? of Aristotle. Shakespeare's plays written between 1603 and 1606 unmistakably reflect a new, Jacobean distrust. James I, who, like Elizabeth, claimed divine authority, was far less able than she to maintain the authority of the throne. The so-called Gunpowder Plot (1605) showed a determined challenge by a small minority in the state; James's struggles with the House of Commons in successive Parliaments, in addition to indicating the strength of the new men, also revealed the inadequacies of the administration. Poetic conventions and dramatic traditions The Latin comedies of Plautus and Terence were familiar in Elizabethan schools and universities, and English translations or adaptations of them were occasionally performed by students. Seneca's rhetorical and sensational tragedies, too, had been translated and often imitated, both in structure and rhetoric. But there was also a strong native dramatic tradition deriving from the medieval miracle plays, which had continued to be performed in various towns until forbidden during Elizabeth's reign. This native drama had been able to assimilate French popular farce, clerically inspired morality plays on abstract themes, and interludes or short entertainments that made use of the turns of individual clowns and actors. Although Shakespeare's immediate predecessors were known as university wits, their plays were seldom structured in the manner of those they had studied at Oxford or Cambridge; instead, they used and developed the more popular narrative forms. Their subplots, for example, amplified the main action and theme with a freedom and awareness of hierarchical correspondences that are medieval rather than classical. Understanding Shakespeare Sympathetic exploration of the texts On opening the works of Shakespeare, a reader can be held by a few lines of verse or a sentence or one complex, glittering, or telling word. Indeed, Shakespeare's supreme mastery of words and images, of sound, rhythm, metre, and texture, as well as the point, neatness, and lyricism of his lines, has enslaved countless people. The next step in understanding, for most readers, is an appreciation of individual characters. Many of the early books on Shakespeare were about his characters, and controversy about them still continues. Appreciation of the argument of the plays usually comes on insensibly, for Shakespeare is not a didactic playwright. But most persistent readers gain an increasing sense of a unity of inspiration, of an alert moral judgment and idealistic vision, both in the individual plays and in the works as a whole. When the plays are seen in performance, they are further revealed in a new, three-dimensional, flesh and blood reality, which can grow in the minds of individual playgoers and readers as they become more experienced in response to the plays' many suggestions. But, while various skills and learned guidance are needed for a developed understanding of Shakespeare, the directness of his appeal remainsthe editors of the First Folio commended the plays to everyone how odd soever your brains be, or your wisdoms. Perhaps most essentially, the plays will continually yield their secrets only to imaginative exploration. Causes of difficulty Questions of authorship The idea that Shakespeare's plays and poems were not actually written by William Shakespeare of Stratford has been the subject of many books and is widely regarded as at least an interesting possibility. The source of all doubts about the authorship of the plays lies in the disparity between the greatness of Shakespeare's literary achievement and his comparatively humble origin, the supposed inadequacy of his education, and the obscurity of his life. In Shakespeare's writings, people have claimed to discover a familiarity with languages and literature, with such subjects as law, history, politics, and geography, and with the manners and speech of courts, which they regard as inconceivable in a common player, the son of a provincial tradesman. This range of knowledge, it is said, is to be expected at that period only in a man of extensive education, one who was familiar with such royal and noble personages as figure largely in Shakespeare's plays. And the dearth of contemporary records has been regarded as incompatible with Shakespeare's eminence and as therefore suggestive of mystery. That none of his manuscripts has survived has been taken as evidence that they were destroyed to conceal the identity of their author.