William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 (baptised) – 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, the authorship of some of which is uncertain. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at age 49, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613.His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16th century. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights.

Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two friends and fellow actors of Shakespeare, published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. It was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as "not of an age, but for all time."

Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the 19th century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry". In the 20th century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton PRS MP (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727) was an English physicist and mathematician who is widely regarded as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"), first published in 1687, laid the foundations for most of classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics and shares credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the invention of the infinitesimal calculus.

Newton's Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that dominated scientists' view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. It also demonstrated that the motion of objects on the Earth and that of celestial bodies could be described by the same principles. By deriving Kepler's laws of planetary motion from his mathematical description of gravity, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the cosmos.

Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours of the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound. In addition to his work on the calculus, as a mathematician Newton contributed to the study of power series, generalised the binomial theorem to non-integer exponents, and developed Newton's method for approximating the roots of a function.

Newton was a fellow of Trinity College and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. He was a devout but unorthodox Christian and, unusually for a member of the Cambridge faculty, he refused to take holy orders in the Church of England, perhaps because he privately rejected the doctrine of trinitarianism. In addition to his work on the mathematical sciences, Newton also dedicated much of his time to the study of alchemy and biblical chronology, but most of his work in those areas remained unpublished until long after his death. In his later life, Newton became president of the Royal Society. He also served the British government as Warden and Master of the Royal Mint.

Conclusion

Great Britain made a great contribution to the science, literature, music and arts of the world. It gave mankind a lot of outstanding scientists, writers and poets, musicians and painters.

Thomas More, who lived in the 15th century was an outstanding humanist, scientist and statesman. His work “Utopia” brought him worldwide acknowledgement. Many prominent people were influenced by his ideas of a free democratic state described in “Utopia”.

William Shakespeare is one of the most famous writers in the world. His plays “Romeo and Juliet”, “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”, “King Lear”, “Macbeth” were translated into almost every language and staged in every theatre. He described the characters and feelings, which can be called international and living forever.

Daniel Defoe, Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll are only a few names well-known all over the world.

William Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, John Constable contributed to the world’s painting treasures.

Great Britain has also given the world many outstanding scientists. Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin was born in Scotland. He spent his working hours almost entirely in hospitals and laboratories. His discovery of penicillin did more to help suffering people than anything else for centuries. When he died in 1955 his old friend said: “… by his work he relieved more suffering than any other living man”.

Ernest Rutherford, a famous English physicist worked in the field of radioactivity. His brilliant researches established the existence and nature of radioactive transformations. He was one of the founders of the atomic theory of physics and creators of the first atomic model.

M. Faraday made his major discovery in the field of electricity — the electromagnetic induction. He also made several important observations on the conductivity of different materials. Enjoying world-wide popularity, Faraday remained a modest man, who rejected high titles.

All of them considered hard labour and love for mankind to be the main reason of their success.

Literature:

1. http://engmaster.ru/topic/3775

2. http://www.en365.ru/famous_people_uk.htm

3. http://www.england.net/top-england/top-10-famous-english-people.html

4. http://slovo.ws/topic/britain/13.html

5. http://ru.wikipedia.org/

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