William Shakespeare: One Man’s Literature
With the epithet
“Dear Son of Memory” Milton praised
Shakespeare and
“Brother of Muses.” Ben Jonson wrote in a familiar tribute
“Thou art alive still, while thy booke doth live/And we have wits to read, and praise to give”. Ben Jonson’s line about Shakespeare “
having small Latin, and less Greek” refers not to his education but to his lack of indebt ness to the classical writers and dramatists.
Reminds the reader that William Shakespeare was not only a man of his own time but a man for all ages, Shakespeare died nearly 393 years ago but he is more famous writer than ever who wrote all his plays in a world where there was no airplane, television, computer or camera. It was Elizabethan Age (Golden age of English
literature) when this distinguished personality was probably born on 23 April 1564 at Stratford-upon-Avon that was a quite little market town with less than 2000 inhabitants. Today his house is a museum. His father was a small shopkeeper called John Shakespeare, and there were three sisters and two brothers to the Play Wright. We know little of Shakespeare’s boyhood except that he attended the grammar school at Stratford. His education was cut short when he was thirteen years of age, owing to his father being arrested for debt. The farm was mortgaged and some of the mother’s property had to be sold. At any rate, the more highly educated Ben Jonson taunted Shakespeare with having little Latin and no knowledge of Greek. It seems probable that there was no further education in any institution, and that Shakespeare had to work hard to help the family to make both ends meet. In the nineteenth year Shakespeare married Ann Hathaway, eight years older than himself. There is vague rumor of unhappy relation between them, but little evidence to support it, though it is significant that there is a passage in Twelfth Night where Shakespeare gives advice that a woman should always marry one older than herself.
After his twentieth or twenty-first year, Shakespeare left for London. The favourite story is that he had been involved in deer-poaching escapades and left hurriedly in consequence. In London he soon took up the profession of an actor, and he published his first work Venus and Adonis in 1593. He was connected with the theatrical company form 1587 to 1611 and in this period he produced his marvelous plays, thirty seven in numbers (17 comedies, 10 tragedies and 10 histories) and 154 Sonnets (based on Love and Time). Will was writing busily from 1588 to 1612 as in the case of all creative artists, he showed steady improvement and growth in writing power. It can be testified by evaluating his style, metre and language. His poetic diction in plays is lucid, luminous and full of gaiety and gesture. His writings can be classified into four periods: in his early plays, Shakespeare used rhyme fairly frequently. The plays,
Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labour Lost, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, were written in his early stage of writing. Second Period lasted from 1595 to 1601. In this period the greatest of Shakespearean comedies were written like
Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing etc. The third period continued till 1608 and seems to show a marked change in the prevailing spirit and atmosphere of the greatest dramatist. He turned himself from light hearted comedies to tragedy, dealing with the grave and serious aspects of life. These are
Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth (world famous four tragedies) here in this period Shakespeare’s work has actual change in his own mind that shows his gloom and sadness in this period. The last, fourth period is known as the Romantic Stage of Shakespeare that lasted till 1612 and it includes
The Tempest, Cymbeline and The Winter’s Tale etc. Shakespeare, in this period, did not believe in the severe punishment of life but in he reward and compensation of life.
It was Shakespeare who had a vast knowledge of vocabulary than an average man. He used nearly 25,000 words in his poems and plays that were quite enough for a genius. An average book might use 6,000 different words and an author would reuse these words in his own other works. It is true that William Shakespeare coined more than 2000 words in English that are being used even in modern era. It is an amazing fact that the birthday and Shakespeare’s death anniversary fall on the same date. A monument was erected in Stratford states that he died on 23rd of April 1616, in his fifty-third year.
Shakespeare lived in a world that was getting bigger every day. The Elizabethan age had been a time of great exploration. It was Renaissance Period when William Shakespeare forged his masterpieces in English Literature and this period, indubitably, is also known as Shakespearean Age. A literati can never be acquainted with the concept of literature until or unless (s)he goes through Shakespeare’s writings that is
‘one man’s literature’.
Amitabh Nanchahal
.