“Two books are essential to the library of any English – speaking Household; one of these is the Bible, and the another is the works of William Shakespeare” (Cliffs, Othello Complete Study Edition)
Shakespeare’s Biography
The status of legend that William Shakespeare has gotten, has allowed him to be known in almost every cranny of the world. The bard, the majestic poet, playwright and even actor who enchanted people with his marvelous, witty stories and made lovers sigh with his poems and phrases of love, is more updated than ever thanks to his magic, colorful, gracious, thorough, appealing and conspicuous prose. Shakespeare, a man who lived intensely during his life, won the acceptance of every assiduous reader because he gave his heart in every single piece of writing he created (1).
Although no much is known about his personal history, and there are many gaps concerning Shakespeare, the man, the essential information about who he was is at hand. Thus, we can say that William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, in Stratford, England. His baptism happened on Wednesday, April 26, in Holy Trinity Church. William was the third of eight children of John and Mary Shakespeare. His father, a prominent man in Stratford, was a town officer and a local businessman, who dabbled in tanning, leatherwork and whittawering. John Shakespeare also dealt in grain, and sometimes was described as a glover by trade. On the other hand, his mother was the youngest daughter in her family. She inherited much of her father’s landowning and farming estate when he died. She married John Shakespeare in 1557.
Although the literary quality of William Shakespeare’s works suggests a solid education and his writings are studied universally at colleges, universities and high schools, he did never attend one university himself! The courtly writer married Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582. William was 18 at that time, and Anne was 26 and pregnant. Barely seven months later, they had his first daughter, Susanna. The couple later had twins, Hammet and Judith, born on February 2, 1585. Hammet, William’s only son, died in 1596, just eleven years old.
In our opinion, the main difference between Shakespeare and the other writers of his epoch is that he was the most successful, as it can be seen in An Encapsulated Biography, “Shakespeare’s success is apparent when studied against other playwrights of this age.” His success and talent awoke other playwrights’ envy. Some of this can be seen in one of Shakespeare’s biographies that quote the words of Robert Greene, one of the contemporary playwrights of William Shakespeare. Greene said in 1592
“... an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his tiger’s heart wrapped in a player’s hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his own conceit the only shake-scene in a country...”
No playwright had had such acceptance ever before Shakespeare. His fame and recognition allowed him to live comfortably. As Shakespeare was not an university man, as most of the writers were, he received some criticism from his enemies: “...the university wits were taking out their jealousy in snobbery and pointing out that Shakespeare used less purely literary symbolism than they did.”
William Shakespeare wrote around 37 plays classified into comedies, historic drama and tragedies; also, he created two poems and 154 sonnets, and most important, he left mankind the legacy of the transparency and fullness of his writings. Among his greatest plays are: Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, King Lear, and the acclaimed Othello, the motive of our research; there is an opinion in Comment on Othello that says, “along with Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, Othello is one of Shakespeare’s four great tragedies and thus a pillar of what most critics take to be the apex of Shakespeare’s dramatic art.” In his plays, he alternated the colloquial language with poetry. His characters were verisimilar but within a fantastic frame of action. In relation to the theme of his plays, there is a presence of love, hatred, tragedy, fun, and all what mean feelings and human emotions. William Shakespeare was considered a relevant playwright because he knew how to impulse the English Theater; he proposed himself to revitalize the dramatic art, and as you can see, he succeeded in it. He broke old paradigms by creating a play for each kind of public. In 1610 he retired to New Place and his career as a dramatist practically ended. The Tempest, his last complete play, was written around the year 1611. William Shakespeare wrote his will in 1611, leaving his properties to his daughter Susanna, and to his wife Anne; he bequeathed his ‘second best bed’. He died on April 23, 1616, the same day of his birthday. Shakespeare was buried at Holy Trinity (the same church of his baptism) in Stratford on April 25.
William Shakespeare was the greatest genius writer ever born immortalized by his deeds
William Shakespeare’s legacy is a body of works that will never again be equaled in western civilization. His words have endured for 400 years, and still reach across the centuries as powerfully as ever. Even in death, he leaves a final piece as verse as his epitaph:
Good friend for Jesus’ sake forbears
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Bless be the man that spares these stones,
And cursed be he that moves my bones.”