Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon

1. THE BARD OF AVON
Prepared by
Dr. T. Lilly Golda
Assistant Professor of English, A.P.C. Mahalaxmi College for Women, Thoothukudi

2. SHAKESPEARE’S LIFE
 Born April 23 or 26 1564- died April 26, 1616
 Stratford-upon-Avon
 3rd of 8 children
 Parents: John and Mary Arden Shakespeare
• Mary—daughter of wealthy landowner
• John—glove maker, local politician

3. SHAKESPEARE’S LIFE
• Married in 1582 to Anne Hathaway, who was pregnant at the time with their first
daughter Susanna
• Had twins in 1585 (Hamnet and Judith)
• His only granddaughter Elizabeth – daughter of Susanna – died childless in 1670.
Shakespeare therefore has no descendants.
• Sometime between 1585-1592, he moved to London and began working in theatre.
• Poet
• Playwright
• Actor

4. SHAKESPEARE’S CAREER
Period- 1591 to 1611
37 plays
Two narrative poems
154 sonnets

5. PLAYS
 Drama was the most popular form of
entertainment
 Began as a reviser of plays & collaborated with
Marlowe and Kyd
 Shakespeare’s dramatic career falls into four
periods

6. EARLY PERIOD
(1590-1596)
 Period of apprenticeship
 Plays are immature and reveal superficiality in theme, treatment and characterization
 The most important plays of this period are:
Love’s Labour’s Lost
The Comedy of Errors
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Richard III
Romeo and Juliet
A Midsummer Night’s Dream

7. MIDDLE PERIOD
(1596-1608)
 Period of mature, joyous comedies and mature histories
 Works of this period are entirely original & independent creations
 The most important works of this period are:
Much Ado About Nothing
As You Like It
Twelfth Night
Merry Wives of Windsor
The Taming of the Shrew
The Merchant of Venice
Richard II
Henry IV
Henry V

8. THIRD PERIOD
(1601-1608)
 Period of Dark comedies and the four great tragedies and the great Roman plays
 In this period all Shakespeare’s powers- his dramatic power, his intellectual power and
his power of expression are at their highest
 His attention is now occupied with the darker side of human life & human nature
 The style is governed by the overflow of thought and passion
 The plays of this period are:
 All is Well that Ends Well
 Measure for Measure
 Troilus & Cressida
 Julius Caesar
 Antony & Cleopata
 Coriolanus
 Hamlet
 Macbeth
 King Lear
 Othello

9. LAST PERIOD
(1608-1612
 Period of great Dramatic Romances
 He was at the top of his profession and was no longer forced to follow accepted
convention
 The darkness and burden of tragic suffering had acquired perfect serenity and calm of
mind
 The plays of this period are:
Pericles
Cymbeline
The Winter’s Tale
The Tempest

10. OTHER WORKS
 Shakespeare’s non- dramatic poetry consist of two narrative poems:
1. Venus and Adonis
2. Lucrece
 Sequence of 154 sonnets the first 126 addressed to a man, the
remainder addressed or referring to a “Dark Lady”

11. SHAKESPEARE’S COAT OF ARMS

12. SHAKESPEARE’S EPITAPH
Good friend for Jesus’ sake forbear,
To dig the dust enclosed here:
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.

13. INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT SHAKESPEARE
 ‘William Shakespeare’ is an anagram of ‘I am a weakish speller’
 Shakespeare has been credited by the Oxford English Dictionary with introducing almost 3,000
words to the English language.
 Shakespeare’s last play – The Two Noble Kinsmen – is reckoned to have been written in 1613
when he was 49 years old.
 The Comedy of Errors is Shakespeare’s shortest play at just 1,770 lines long.
 Shakespeare’s shortest play, The Comedy of Errors is only a third of the length of his
longest, Hamlet, which takes four hours to perform.

14. INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT SHAKESPEARE
 In the King James Bible the 46th word of Psalm 46 is ‘shake’ and the 46th word from the end of
the same Psalm is ‘spear’. Some think this was a hidden birthday message to the Bard, as the
King James Bible was published in 1611 – the year of Shakespeare’s 46th birthday.
 Shakespeare never actually published any of his plays. They are known today only because two of
his fellow actors – John Hemminges and Henry Condell – recorded and published 36 of them
posthumously under the name ‘The First Folio’, which is the source of all Shakespeare books
published.
 The American President Abraham Lincoln was a great lover of Shakespeare’s plays and frequently
recited from them to his friends. His assassin, John Wilkes Booth was a famous Shakespearean
actor.

15. INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT SHAKESPEARE
 Although Shakespeare is almost universally considered as one of the finest writers in the English
language, his contemporaries were not always as impressed. The first recorded reference to
Shakespeare, written by theatre critic Robert Greene in 1592, was as an “upstart crow, beautified
with our feathers”.
 Rumour has it that poet John Keats was so influenced by Shakespeare that he kept a bust of the
Bard beside him while he wrote, hoping that Shakespeare would spark his creativity.
 An outbreak of the plague in Europe resulted in all London theatres being closed between 1592
and 1594. As there was no demand for plays during this time, Shakespeare began to write poetry,
completing his first batch of sonnets in 1593

16. SHAKESPEARE’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE

19. POPULAR SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTES
 1. ‘To be, or not to be: that is the question’ (Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1)
 2. ‘All the world ‘s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and
their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.’ (As You Like it Act 2, Scene 7)
 3. ‘Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?’ (Romeo and Juliet Act 2, Scene 2)
 4. ‘Now is the winter of our discontent’ (Richard III Act 1, Scene 1)
 5. ‘Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?’ (Macbeth Act 2, Scene 1)

20. POPULAR SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTES
 6. ‘Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.’
(Twelfth Night Act 2, Scene 5)
 7. ‘Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.’ (Julius
Caesar Act 2, Scene 2)
 8. ‘Full fathom five thy father lies, of his bones are coral made. Those are pearls that were his
eyes. Nothing of him that doth fade, but doth suffer a sea-change into something rich and
strange.’ (The Tempest Act 1, Scene 2)
 9. ‘A man can die but once.’ (Henry IV, Part 2 Act 3, Part 2)
 10. ‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!’ (King Lear Act 1, Scene 4)

21. POPULAR SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTES
 11. ‘Frailty, thy name is woman.’ (Hamlet Act 1, Scene 2)
 12. ‘If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we
not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?’ (The Merchant of Venice Act 3, Scene 1)
 13. ‘I am one who loved not wisely but too well.’ (Othello Act 5, Scene 2)
 14. ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks’ (Hamlet Act 3, Scene 2)
 15. ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.’ (The
Tempest Act 4, Scene 1)
 16. ‘Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and
then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’
(Macbeth Act 5, Scene 5)

22. POPULAR SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTES
 16. ‘Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and
then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’
(Macbeth Act 5, Scene 5)
 17. ‘Beware the Ides of March.’ (Julius Caesar Act 1, Scene 2)
 18. ‘Get thee to a nunnery.’ (Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1)
 19. ‘If music be the food of love play on.’ (Twelfth Night Act 1, Scene 1)
 20. ‘What’s in a name? A rose by any name would smell as sweet.’ (Romeo and Juliet Act 2, Scene
2)

23. POPULAR SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTES
 21. ‘The better part of valor is discretion’ (Henry IV, Part 1 Act 5, Scene 4)
 22. ‘To thine own self be true.’ (Hamlet Act 1, Scene 3)
 23. ‘All that glisters is not gold.’ (The Merchant of Venice Act 2, Scene 7)
 24. ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears: I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.’
(Julius Caesar Act 3, Scene 2)
 25. ‘Nothing will come of nothing.’ (King Lear Act 1, Scene 1)

24. POPULAR SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTES
 26. ‘The course of true love never did run smooth.’ (A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act 1, Scene 1)
 27. ‘Lord, what fools these mortals be!’ (A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act 1, Scene 1)
 28. ‘Cry “havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war’ (Julius Caesar Act 3, Scene 1)
 29. ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’ (Hamlet Act 2, Scene 2)
 30. ‘A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!’ (Richard III Act 5, Scene 4)

25. POPULAR SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTES
 31. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’
(Hamlet Act 1, Scene 5)
 32. ‘Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.’
(A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act 1, Scene 1)
 33. ‘The fault, dear Brutus, lies not within the stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.’ (Julius
Caesar Act 1, Scene 2)
 34. ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ (Sonnet 18)
 35. ‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.’ (Sonnet 116)

26. POPULAR SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTES
 36. ‘The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interrèd with their bones.’ (Julius
Caesar Act 3, Scene 2)
 37. ‘But, for my own part, it was Greek to me.’ (Julius Caesar Act 1, Scene 2)
 38. ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing
dulls the edge of husbandry.’ (Hamlet Act 1, Scene 3)
 39. ‘We know what we are, but know not what we may be.’ (Hamlet Act 4, Scene 5)
 40. ‘Off with his head!’ (Richard III Act 3, Scene 4)

27. POPULAR SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTES
 36. ‘The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interrèd with their bones.’ (Julius
Caesar Act 3, Scene 2)
 37. ‘But, for my own part, it was Greek to me.’ (Julius Caesar Act 1, Scene 2)
 38. ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing
dulls the edge of husbandry.’ (Hamlet Act 1, Scene 3)
 39. ‘We know what we are, but know not what we may be.’ (Hamlet Act 4, Scene 5)
 40. ‘Off with his head!’ (Richard III Act 3, Scene 4)

28. POPULAR SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTES
 41. ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.’ (Henry IV, Part 2 Act 3, Scene 1)
 42. ‘Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.’ (The Tempest Act 2, Scene 2)
 43. ‘This is very midsummer madness.’ (Twelfth Night Act 3, Scene 4)
 44. ‘Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.’ (Much Ado about Nothing Act 3,
Scene 1)
 45. ‘I cannot tell what the dickens his name is.’ (The Merry Wives of Windsor Act 3, Scene
2)

29. POPULAR SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTES
 46. ‘We have seen better days.’ (Timon of Athens Act 4, Scene 2)
 47. ‘I am a man more sinned against than sinning.’ (King Lear Act 3, Scene 2)
 48. ‘Brevity is the soul of wit.’ (Hamlet Act 2, Scene 2)
 49. ‘This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle… This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this
England.’ (Richard II Act 2, Scene 1)
 50. ‘What light through yonder window breaks.’ Romeo and Juliet Act 2, Scene 2)

30. RESOURCES
 https://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/shakespeare-facts/
 https://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/quotes/famous-shakespeare-quotes/