The greatest of the English dramatist

„Soul of the age!The applause!Delight! The wonder of our stage!” Ben Jonson

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is generally regarded as the greatest poet and dramatist of English literature. He wrote 37 plays which continue to be read widely and produced frequently throughout the world.

Few of his plots were original, and yet every word he wrote seemed fresh. He had worked as an actor; he knew about the theatre and its audiences. He was, above all things, a great entertainer. His genius was for producing dramatic effects.

Shakespeare was a master at creating a certain atmosphere of a play,its general mood or feeling. It could be melancholy or cheeful, lively or frightening, tragic or mystical. The power and beauty of his language and the choice of words and details, helped to build the prevailing mood in each play. (The Comedy of Errors; Love’s Labour’s Lost; Henry the Sixth Part I; Henry the Sixth Part II; Henry the Sixth Part III; Richard III; Titus Andronicus; The Taming of the Shrew; The Two Gentlemen of Verona)

Shakespeare’s genius lay in his power of understanding human nature which is the same today, tomorrow, and forever. He was able to reveal life in its full richness and movement. He studied the looks, the words, the actions of the men and women he met, and his plays reflected them as in a mirror. He had an intuition for gathering every ‘unconsidered trifle’, and every weighty matter, that could profit his art. All human life, with its passions and delights, conflicts and pleasures, victories and defeats, was in his plays. He showed the world of men in its complexity and variety. (Romeo and Juliet; Richard II; A Midsummer Night’s Dreams; King John; The Merchant of Venice; Henry IV Part I; Henry IV Part II; Much Ado About Noting; Henry V)

His plays have the same powerful impact on audience today as they did when they were first staged. They possess some special merit for every generation. In the last century he was valued above all for his characters. In wartime, it was Shakespeare the patriot that fired the minds of struggling Englishmen: „This England never did, nor never shall, die at the proud foot of a conqueror.”(Jilius Caeser; As You Like It; Twelfth Night; Hamlet; The Merry Wives of Winsor; Troilus and Cressida; All’s Well That Ends Well; Othello; Measure for Measure)

There is no writer who has touched the depth and height of character as Shakespeare did. There is a great joy in moving through a Shakespeare play, living through the emotions of the characters while reading a play or watching it. One experiences in one’s own being the troubles, tragedies, absurdities of the creatures created by the Great Imaginer. (King Lear; Macbeth; Antony and Cleopatra; Timon of Athens; Coriolanus; Pericles; Cymbeline; The Winter’s Tale; The Tempest; Henry VIII)

Ex.3 a) Read these quotations from Shakespeare and comment on them:

„We know what we are, but we know not, what we may be.” Hamlet

„ When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.” Hamlet

„ Men of few words are the best men.” King Henry V

„ What’s done can’t be undone.” Macbeth

„It’s a wise father that knows his own child.” The Merchant of Venice

„I wish you all the joy that you can wish.” The Merchant of Venice

„ What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Romeo and Juliet

„ Better a witty fool than a follish wit.” Twelfth Night

b) How do these quotations apply to life? Are they relevant to today? Are there simular

sayings in your own language?

Ex.4 How much did you learn?

1. What did the fist English playhouse look like? How many people could see

the performance at a time? How were performances arranged?

3. In what does the genius of W. Shakespeare lie? What special merits for every generation does Shakespeare possess?

4. Shakespeare was a great Imaginer and a great Entertainer. How is it revealed in his plays?

5. Some quotations from Shakespeare have become universally known. Which of them do you like?

6. „Hamlet” and „Romeo and Juliet” are undoubtedly the most popular plays of W. Sakespeare. What makes them really immortal?

UNIT V

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