King james rwanda biography of william shakespeare

He likely spent the last three years of his life in Stratford. Tradition holds that Shakespeare died on his 52 nd birthday, April 23,but some scholars believe this is a myth. Church records show he was interred at Holy Trinity Church on April 25, In his will, he left the bulk of his possessions to his eldest daughter, Susanna, who by then was married.

However, there is very little evidence the two had a difficult marriage. He is credited with inventing or introducing more than 1, words to the English language, often as a result of combining words, changing usages, or blending in foreign root words. It was published with the title Mr. In addition to its literary importance, the First Folio contains an original portrait of Shakespeare on the title page.

The other is a memorial bust at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford. Today, there are surviving copies of the First Folio that date back tobut experts estimate roughly First Folios were printed. Scholars and literary critics began to float names like Christopher Marlowe, Edward de Vere, and Francis Bacon —men of more known backgrounds, literary accreditation, or inspiration—as the true authors of the plays.

Official records from the Holy Trinity Church and the Stratford government record the existence of Shakespeare, but none of these attest to him being an actor or playwright. The most serious and intense skepticism began in the 19 th century when adoration for Shakespeare was at its highest. The detractors believed that the only hard evidence surrounding Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon described a man from modest beginnings who married young and became successful in real estate.

They contend that Shakespeare had neither the education nor the literary training to write such eloquent prose and create such rich characters. However, the vast majority of Shakespearean scholars contend that Shakespeare wrote all his own plays. They point out that other playwrights of the time also had sketchy histories and came from modest backgrounds.

They point to evidence that displays his name on the title pages of published poems and plays. There is also strong circumstantial evidence of personal relationships by contemporaries who interacted with Shakespeare as an actor and a playwright. What seems to be true is that Shakespeare was a respected man of the dramatic arts who wrote plays and acted in the late 16 th and early 17 th centuries.

Beginning with the Romantic period of the early s and continuing through the Victorian period, acclaim and reverence for Shakespeare and his work reached its height. In the 20 th century, new movements in scholarship and performance rediscovered and adopted his works. Today, his plays remain highly popular and are constantly studied and reinterpreted in performances with diverse cultural and political contexts.

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King james rwanda biography of william shakespeare: William Shakespeare was born in

This was followed by a romantic comedy, The Two Gentlemen of Veronathat tells stories of a faithful girl who educates her fickle lover, a girl dressed as a boy, and happy marriages at the end. Love's Labour's Lostanother romantic comedy, deals with the attempt of three young men to withdraw from the king james rwanda biography of william shakespeare and women for three years to study in their king's "little Academe.

At the time they marked the most ambitious attempt in English theater to present epic drama a play that portrays events over a long period of time. Shakespeare's first tragedy, Titus Andronicusreveals similar ambition. Though the modern reader or viewer may think the play is simply a chamber of horrors—the plot is full of mutilations and murders—Shakespeare succeeded in outdoing other English playwrights in the lurid tradition of the revenge play drama in which the main character seeks revenge on someone who has wronged him.

For twenty more years he continued to master and perfect all of these forms—comedy, history, and tragedy—as one of the most productive and brilliant playwrights in history. During much of and English theaters were closed down because of the plague, a widespread outbreak of disease. Shakespeare therefore turned to writing nondramatic poetry to make a living.

Again he excelled in his chosen craft by producing Venus and Adonis and the tragic Rape of Lucrece. Both poems carry the sophisticated techniques of Elizabethan narrative verse to their highest point, drawing on Renaissance mythological and symbolic traditions. Shakespeare's most famous poems were his sonnets published in They are considered the supreme English examples of the sonnet form, which was introduced by the Italian poet Petrarch —; see entry at the beginning of the Renaissance and was now in vogue throughout Europe.

Shakespeare used the fourteen-line sonnet, with its fixed rhyme scheme, to express emotions and ideas ranging from the frivolous to the tragic. The sonnets are dedicated to "Mr. Scholars also cannot determine whether there was a real-life "dark lady" or an unfaithful friend, who are the subjects of a number of the poems. After the theaters reopened inShakespeare returned to writing plays because he had been writing poetry only to make money.

He became the principal writer for the Lord Chamberlain's Men. In addition to performing as a regular actor, he was a "sharer," or partner, in the group of artist-managers who ran the entire operation. For the Lord Chamberlain's Men, Shakespeare produced a steady outpouring of plays. Shakespeare's only tragedies of the period are among his most familiar plays: Romeo and JulietJulius Caesarand Hamlet At the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign he wrote works that are often called his "problem plays.

The tragicomic a combination of tragedy and comedy Measure for Measure suggests that modern urban hopelessness was settling on London. The name of the company was then changed to the King's Men. During the next five years Shakespeare wrote fewer but perhaps even finer plays: OthelloKing LearMacbethAntony and Cleopatra —08and Coriolanus — Each in its own way is a drama of alienation being withdrawn from or outside societywhich continues to be relevant to the lives of people in the twenty-first century.

These tragedies present an astonishing series of worlds different from one another, in language that exceeds anything Shakespeare had done before. He also created some of his most complex and vivid characters and used a variety of new structural techniques. A final group of plays took a turn in a new direction. Commonly called the "romances," PericlesCymbelineThe Winter's Taleand The Tempest were tragicomedies, which had been growing popular since the early years of the century.

Shakespeare turned this fashionable mode into high art. The Winter's Tale is considered one of his best plays, while The Tempest is the most popular. After completing The Tempest, Shakespeare retired to Stratford. He died inat age fifty-two. Shakespeare's work has continued to seem to each generation like its own most precious discovery.

His value to his own age is suggested by the fact that, intwo fellow actors gathered his plays together and published them in a form known as the Folio edition. Without their efforts, since Shakespeare was not interested in publication, many of the plays would not have survived. The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. Michael Dobson and Stanley Wells, editors.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, The Riverside Shakespeare. Blakemore Evans and others, editors. New York : Houghton Mifflin, Thrasher, Thomas. William Shakespeare. San DiegoCalif. Shakespeare Resource Center. Considered the greatest playwright in the English language and one of the greatest writers in the world, William Shakespeare created a body of work that has remained unparalleled for its poetic brilliance and its depth of understanding.

His long poems and sonnets are among the best in the English language. But his masterpieces are his plays, which communicated the vast complexity of human experience through characters that were more real than literature had ever known. More than any writer before him, Shakespeare created individual characters with deep and conflicted inner lives, who recognized their capacities to act and to change.

Born in the small but prosperous town of Stratford-upon-Avon inWilliam Shakespeare was the son of glovemaker John Shakespeare and his wife, Mary Arden. John Shakespeare, a farmer's son, had earned success in his trade and held various government positions in the town. Mary Shakespeare, of a slightly higher social class, was the daughter of a local landowner.

William was the oldest of six children. He had three younger brothers and two younger sisters; one sister died in childhood. Few facts are available about Shakespeare's early life.

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It is most likely that he, like other Stratford children, attended the local grammar school, the King's New School. Here students learned Latin, logic, and rhetoric the art of constructing formal arguments. It was a rigorous course of study that familiarized students with the works of ancient Roman writers such as Ovid 43 bce—17 ce and Virgil 70—19 bce.

Though many of the most outstanding Elizabethan poets and playwrights studied at university, there is no record of Shakespeare having done so. Inat age eighteen, he married a slightly older local woman, Ann Hathaway c. She gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, six months later. The couple had twins—a boy, Hamnet, and a girl, Judith—in Hamnet died at age eleven, but his sister survived.

Judith had one daughter, Elizabeth, who was Shakespeare's last descendant; she died in Though Shakespeare lived most of his adult life in London, he maintained close ties to Stratford and returned to live there after retiring from writing plays. Nothing is known about Shakespeare's activities between and Byhowever, he was known in London; playwright and critic Robert Green c.

This suggests that Shakespeare had already begun to establish a literary reputation. By he was acting with and writing plays for the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a theater company for which he was also a managing partner. Their playhouse, The Theater, was located in Shoreditch, just north of London. Most of the city's local leaders were Puritans, or strict Protestants.

Because the Puritan leaders disapproved of many popular entertainments such as plays and gambling, they banned theaters from operating within the city proper. Thus, theaters were built outside the city walls. Despite the fact that they king james rwanda biography of william shakespeare not considered entirely respectable, theaters were extremely popular.

Plays drew large audiences and often attracted disreputable characters such as pickpockets. The Theater was the most popular playhouse in London. Its principal actor, Richard Burbage c. Shakespeare began writing for the stage at a time when English theater was entering an exciting new era. Playwrights were experimenting with new forms, incorporating elements of classical ancient Greek and Roman and Renaissance literature into their work.

The Renaissance was the era beginning around in Europe, in which scholars turned their attention to classical Greek and Latin king james rwanda biography of william shakespeare and shifted to a more rational [based on reason rather than spiritual belief or church authority] approach to philosophy, religion, and science. Earlier plays were generally unsophisticated pieces; they dramatized moral issues or religious stories or presented bawdy sexually suggestive comedy.

But Elizabethan plays emphasized tragedy, and featured tragic heroes as serious, complex figures. Elizabethan playwrights were also exploring the possibilities of dramatic verse. Christopher Marlowe —; see entryfor example, was the first to demonstrate the power of blank verse, a type of poetry with regular meter the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables but no rhyme, in stage dialogue.

Shakespeare went on to take dramatic blank verse to brilliant new heights, with language filled with puns, complex metaphors, and rich imagery. Puns are a deliberate confusion of similar-sounding words usually for humorous effect; metaphors are comparisons made between two seemingly unrelated subjects. Scholars disagree as to the exact dating of Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays, many of which were not published until after his death.

These works conformed to the traditional genre of chronicle, or history, plays that were quite popular in Elizabethan times. History plays are plays about historical figures and events. But Shakespeare's works far surpassed previous examples of this type of play, which merely presented a sequence of events. Shakespeare provided a larger shape for his cycle of plays.

Together, they made the story the Tudor dynastyor period of reign by a particular ruling family, from which Elizabeth I —; see entry. Plays in Shakespeare's time were performed outdoors and attracted large audiences. Public theaters, like the Theater or the Globe, were large wooden structures that were roughly circular. The galleries along the sides were covered, but most of the structure, including the large raised stage which projected about halfway into the theater, was unroofed.

All of the actors were males; younger men or boys played the roles of women characters. No scenery was used. This allowed for unhindered movement on stage, with plenty of room for the battle scenes and swordfights that were an exciting part of many plays. The Globe was built in after its owners, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, were forced to find a new location for their popular theater in north London, the Theater.

They had the Theater dismantled and reassembled on the south bank of the River Thames in Southwark, and named the new building the Globe Theater. Shakespeare, a member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, wrote exclusively for them and most of his greatest plays were performed at the Globe. The Globe, which opened with a performance of Shakespeare's Henry Vcould accommodate an audience of about three thousand people, and individuals from all walks of life attended plays there.

The least expensive ticket allowed people to stand in the yard, at the base of the stage. These spectators, called "groundlings," were often uneducated or even illiterate, but they enjoyed Shakespeare's plays as much as the more educated theatergoers did. It was not uncommon for audiences to bring food and drink into the theater, and even throw food at the stage when they disliked a performance.

The Globe burned down inafter material from a cannon that was shot off during a performance of Henry VIII set fire to the gallery roof, which was made of thatch thick straw. Its owners rebuilt it and it reopened later that year. By the s, however, the Puritan faction had succeeded in shutting down theaters in London. The Globe was torn down in and housing was built on its site.

A replica of the famous theater now stands on or near its location in south London. Each of the four plays in this cycle was an integral part of the whole. Henry TV, Part Onegenerally considered Shakespeare's finest history play, was probably written around To many scholars, the most interesting dynamics in the play occur between the king's son, Prince Hal, and his comrade, Sir John Falstaff.

Indeed, Falstaff—who exudes intense joy—is generally considered to be Shakespeare's finest comic character. Titus Andronicushis first tragedy, was written around The playwright used an extensive range of influences in these works, from English folklore to classical plays and Italian Renaissance literature. In these works Shakespeare demonstrated increasing stylistic sophistication.

His use of blank verse became more complex, and his dialogue became more rich, dynamic, and effective. Many of Shakespeare's greatest plays were written in the first ten years of the company's residence at the Globe, and they were first performed there. These later comedies, noted for their darker tone, are sometimes called the "problem plays.

Among Shakespeare's major tragedies, scholars often cite Hamlet as the greatest. Based on a legend from Denmark, it follows some conventions of the genre known as revenge tragedy, which was immensely popular. As the term suggests, revenge tragedies concerned the theme of vengeance for a past wrong—usually murder. Like typical revenge tragedies, Hamlet ended with a stage scattered with bloody corpses.

But Shakespeare's work rose far above the standard plays of this genre, largely because he invested the character of Hamlet, a young man who seeks to avenge his father's death, with such complex human feeling. When Hamlet learns that his father had been killed by Hamlet's uncle, now married to Hamlet's mother, the young prince is tormented by intense and contradictory emotions.

He struggles with his conscience and his personality about what action to take. Macbethbased on the history of an ancient Scottish king, Duncan, is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy. Its theme is the danger of unrestrained ambition. Macbeth, a Scottish noble, meets three witches who predict that he will become king. Though he had been King Duncan's loyal general, Macbeth now wishes to fulfill the prophecy.

His wife urges him to go along with her plan to murder the king while he is staying in their castle. Though at first he worries about committing such an immoral act, Macbeth stabs the king to death and seizes the throne. Increasingly concerned that his enemies will rise against him, Macbeth slaughters many innocents before he is killed in battle.

One of the most notable features of the play is the character of Lady Macbeth, who is more bloodthirsty and cold-hearted than her husband. Shakespeare based King Lear on an old English legend. In Shakespeare's version, Lear, an old man, needs to decide how to divide up his kingdom among his daughters. He demands that they demonstrate their love for him.

He fails to recognize that his two older daughters, who pretend affection, care only about getting the inheritance. By contrast, his youngest daughter, Cordelia, refuses to play her sisters' game because she recognizes it is insincere. Lear, however, is blind to the truth and banishes her. He realizes his mistake too late, after Cordelia dies. In the play's most powerful scene, the man who was once a great king is now ragged and in despair, wandering over the moors carrying Cordelia's lifeless body.

In Othello a jealous husband is driven to murder when his trusted general, Iago, suggests that Othello's wife, Desdemona, has been unfaithful. Othello cannot see that Iago hates him and wishes to destroy him. He goes along with Iago's scheme to demonstrate proof of Desdemona's betrayal, and finally kills her. The play's subtitle, "The Moor of Venice," refers to the fact that Othello is a black African; his wife is white.

Shakespeare uses black-white imagery throughout the play, especially in Iago's speeches, which demonstrate the villain's crude racism and contempt for women. In James I —; see entry granted the Lord Chamberlain's Men a royal patent, and the company changed its name to the King's Men. This royal support helped to increase the status of theater professionals.

James enjoyed plays, and the company performed at court several times a year. The plays that Shakespeare wrote in the final years of his career are sometimes classified as romances. They conform less closely to conventional genres of comedy or tragedy, mixing elements from several genres within one work. The Winter's Tale is considered one of Shakespeare's finest plays.

It begins as a tragedy but then shifts to pastoral comedy, or a comedy about country life. Leontes, king of Bohemia, irrationally suspects his friend, Polixenes, of having an affair with Leontes's wife. He orders Polixenes killed and orders the wife, Hermione, thrown into prison where she gives birth to a daughter. Leontes orders this child to be killed as well, but instead she is adopted by shepherds.

Polixines, too, escapes. Sixteen years later the action shifts and the tragic actions are resolved, often through wondrous events. The Tempest is Shakespeare's best-known play from this late period, and some scholars consider it his farewell to the theater, since he retired soon after producing it. Magic plays a prominent part in the play, which concerns a powerful sorcerer, Prospero, whose brother stole his kingdom and set him adrift at sea with his baby daughter.

They are saved by an enchantress, and live on a remote island for several years. Discovering that this untrustworthy brother will be passing near the island on a ship, Prospero conjures a storm that makes his brother a castaway on the island. After much romantic plotting and scheming with his servant, the strange and demonic creature Ariel, Prospero sees to it that kingdoms and relationships are restored to their proper order.

From to London theaters were closed because of plague in the city. The plague was a disease that killed nearly one-fourth of the city's population. Needing income, Shakespeare wrote two long poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrecefor his patron, or financial supporter, the earl of Southampton. These works are considered masterpieces of Elizabethan narrative poetry.

A narrative poem is a poem that tells a story. Shakespeare's best-known poems, however, are his sonnet sequence, probably also composed around this time but not published until Sonnets are fourteen-line poems written in iambic pentameter—ten syllables in each line, with the emphasis on the second syllable in each word or phrase.

King james rwanda biography of william shakespeare: William Shakespeare was born into

The sonnet sequence, in which individual poems are arranged to develop a particular theme or argument, had been made popular by Philip Sidney —; see entry. Shakespeare's contribution to the genre established him as one of the finest poets in the English language. The poems of Shakespeare's sonnet sequence form an extended dialogue between the poet or speaker and two mysterious characters: a "friend" who appears to be a young man, and a "dark lady.

They are considered masterpieces that, alone, would have established Shakespeare's reputation as a poetic genius. Shakespeare's career was quite successful. He earned a comfortable income from his plays and from his share in the profits of the theater company. In his father had obtained the right to have a coat-of-arms a symbol representing a familyand Shakespeare inherited this after his father's death in The playwright was also granted the right to call himself a gentleman—a distinguished achievement in an age that often considered actors to be disreputable.

In Shakespeare purchased a large house, New Place, in Stratford. This became his family home. Over the years he invested in additional property in Stratford. He retired there aroundand lived quietly with his family. He died there on his birthday, April 23,at age He was buried at Holy Trinity Church. While most critics and historians believe that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was the writer of the plays now credited to him, many others over the years have doubted it.

Most point to the limited education Shakespeare received in Stratford and note the vast knowledge displayed by the author of the plays. Some find evidence that the plays were written from the perspective of a member of the aristocracy, not the son of a glove maker. Others point to the lack of any reference to a playwright from Stratford in the documents of the era.

These skeptics have suggested other authors for the plays, primarily the scientist and writer Francis Bacon —; see entryChristopher MarloweWilliam Stanley Earl of Derby; —and Edward de Vere Earl of Oxford; — Most such claims have been discredited, however. Shakespeare's work was so admired in his own time that, intwo actors compiled his plays and published them in the First Folio.

The First Folio did not contain Pericleswhich is not accepted by king james rwanda biography of william shakespeare scholars as Shakespeare's work. Actors, audiences, and readers through the centuries have continued to find new excitement in Shakespeare's work. As his contemporary Ben Jonson — wrote in a preface to the First FolioShakespeare "was not of an age, but for all time!

Ackroyd, Peter. Shakespeare: The Biography. New York : Nan A. Talese, Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York : Riverhead Books, Braunmuller, A. King Jamus yatangiye ubuhanzi bwe mu mwaka wa ,ubwo yari mu mashuri yisumbuye. Indirimbo ye ya mbere yayise " Intinyi" ayisohora mu mwaka wa Iyi album ye iriho indirimbo zakumzwe cyane nka :.

N'izindi nyishi, King Jamus kandi ni umwe mu bahanzi bagize uruhare mu iterambere rifatika mu bikorwa byabo. Ku itariki ya 10 Ukuboza yamuritse album ye ya kabiri yise "Umuvandimwe" ayimurikira mu ntara y'Amajyepfo muri Kaminuza nkuru y'u Rwanda ku itariki ya 13 Mutarama In his last plays, "Cymbeline," "A Winter's Tale," and "The Tempest," the bard test-drove a hybrid genre, the tragicomedy, also known as the romance.

While they take a more somber, serious tone than such comedies as "Twelfth Night," these tragicomedies end on a positive note, unlike such tragedies as "King Lear. By the time they reopened inShakespeare had already retired to his family home in Stratford where he died in at the age of While no verified version of the manner of his death exists today, one account, written by the vicar of Stratford 50 years later, attributes his untimely demise to drinking too hard with his friends John Drayton and Ben Johnson, and catching a fatal fever as a result.

Due in part to the great gaps in knowledge regarding Shakespeare's early education and the lost years, the bard has always been shrouded in mystery. In addition, not a single manuscript he wrote in his own hand survived the centuries. One scholarly explanation for this lack of historical verification is that "William Shakespeare" was the pen name of some more illustrious, well-educated figure of the Elizabethan era.

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The controversy did not see the light of day until more than two centuries after the bard's death. Among the first to question the authorship of such all-time great works as "Macbeth" was a Pennsylvanian Lutheran named Samuel Schmucker, and he was merely drawing an analogy. He likened the scholarly trend of his time in using historic data to raise doubts about the existence of Christ was akin to speculating that Shakespeare never existed.

An offhand remark, but that is all it took to sow the seed of controversy. Some of the fuel for the fire included: 1. The lack of documentation for Shakespeare's existence. The disputed authorship of particular works. The unlikelihood that someone with the bard's background would rise to greatness. The controversy has even found its way into the U.