And proud thy Anna well may be
For queens themselves might envy me
Who scarce in palaces can find
My Willie’s form with Willie’s mind.
The first child born to them was their daughter Susanna (1583). Two years later Ann bore him twins, a boy and a girl – Hamneth and Judith. (Unfortunately, Hamneth died at the age of 11.) It was then that the Shakespeares faced hard times. The rich landlord Sir Thomas Lucy, started a conflict with the Shakespeares over the land they had. The trouble was that William was an actor, though an amateur and Sir Thomas Lucy was a Puritan. As a result, the Shakespeares lost their land and became poor. William worked as an assistant teacher in the Grammar School, but the pay was low and he had to look for another job. Shortly after the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left for London.
· Starting a career in London
Little is known about the next years of his life. There is evidence that he worked as a secretary to a nobleman, bought and sold houses, was a buccaneer, an actor and a playwright. Once a year he would return to Stratford and then leave for London again. His plays King Henry VI and King Richard III were performed in London. It was there that Shakespeare met the actor Richard Burbage, whose father had built the Theatre and whom he had met in Stratford before. Burbage became his friend and the leading actor of the company. Shakespeare was quite a good actor himself, but it often happens even now that the playwright takes the shortest part for himself, leaving the principle ones to others. Thus, in Shakespeare’s company, the first Othello and the first Romeo was Richard Burbage. As for Shakespeare, we only know that he played the part of the Ghost of Hamlet’s father.
Shakespeare soon won the reputation of a play-patcher, then he began to write plays of his own, based on familiar stories. If, at the time, you had asked a Londoner where to find master Shakespeare, he would have shrugged his shoulders. But if you had asked him about Hamlet, he would have explained that that was a Danish prince who had gone mad and had been sent to England. The Londoner would have shown you The Globe where the play was often performed.
‘Lord Chamberlain’s Men’, the company Shakespeare belonged to, had to pay almost all the money they earned to the owners of playhouses. That is why it was decided to build a playhouse especially for the company and let the actors get a fair share of the profit. The Globe opened in the autumn of 1599 with Julius Caesar – one of the first plays staged. Most of Shakespeare's greatest plays were written for the Globe, including Hamlet, Othello and King Lear.
· Tragedies
At that time, Shakespeare was already quite famous. Towards the end of the 16th century, the London stage shook with his plays – comedies and, especially, tragedies. They were performed at the royal court, in noblemen’s houses, in universities. Once, Hamlet was performed on board a ship. Shakespeare was known on the Continent, even as far as Bohemia (the present-day Czech Republic). Who did he write for? – Mostly, for the audience that would come to The Globe. Shakespeare could please both the groundlings and the lords. If we look back at his most tragic plays, Hamlet and King Lear, let alone comedies – The Twelfth Night, for instance, – we will see that one of the characters is a fool, or a jester. The most moving scenes are mixed with ‘indecent jesters’. Once, at the request of a Lady of Honour, Shakespeare dropped out the graveyard scene from Hamlet. The audience roared wild, threatening to bury the actors, the lady and the author, if the grave-diggers were not restored.
One of the most exciting and moving tragedies is Romeo and Juliet. It has long become a symbol of love and devotion. The name Romeo has become nearly synonymous with “lover.” Romeo, in Romeo and Juliet, does indeed experience a love of such purity and passion that he kills himself when he believes that the object of his love, Juliet, has died. Romeo’s deep capacity for love is merely a part of his larger capacity for intense feeling of all kinds. Love compels him to sneak into the garden of his enemy’s daughter, risking death simply to catch a glimpse of her. Anger compels him to kill his wife’s cousin to avenge the death of his friend. Despair compels him to commit suicide upon hearing of Juliet’s death. Such extreme behavior dominates Romeo’s character throughout the play and contributes to the ultimate tragedy that befalls the lovers.
As for Juliet, she is presented as a young girl, barely 14 years of age, who is suddenly awakened to love. After Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished, Juliet does not follow him blindly. She makes a logical and heartfelt decision that her loyalty and love for Romeo must be her guiding priorities. Essentially, Juliet cuts herself loose from her parents and her social position in Verona—in order to try to reunite with Romeo. When she finds Romeo dead, she does not kill herself out of weakness, but rather out of an intensity of love. Juliet’s development from a naïve, wide-eyed girl into a loyal and capable woman is one of Shakespeare’s early triumphs of characterization. It also marks one of his most confident and treatments of a female character.
Shakespeare’s tragedies, and sometimes comedies, might have been the result of deep personal experience. It is known that, apart from his very young days, he was not a very happy man. We can only trace the history of his mind by his works. The ideals of the Renaissance, the world-wide problems are always focused in his characters. As compared with the classical Greek tragedy which presents model heroes acting according to the law and duty, Shakespeare’s characters are made of flesh and blood. They are full of passions and the problem of choice between virtue and evil. How can evil be overcome is virtue is too passive? This problem is raised in Sonnet 66.
Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
As, to behold Desert a beggar born,
And needy Nothing trimm’d in jollity,
And purest Faith unfaithfully forsworn,
And gilded Honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden Virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right Perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And Strength by limping Sway disabled,
And Art made tongue-tied by Authority,
And Folly doctor-like controlling Skill,
And simple Truth miscall’d Simplicity,
And captive Good attending captain ill:
Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.
At the same time, the effort to avenge the wrong, only creates new crimes – that is shown in Julius Caesar. Shakespeare stresses that murder is not a way out. And in search of an answer there comes Hamlet. In the tragedy man’s existence itself is questioned. The famous line from Hamlet’s soliloquy ‘to be or not to be’ has long become a saying.
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them.
In the same soliloquy, Hamlet says: ‘Thus conscience does make cowards of us all’. In another tragedy, Macbeth is also tortured by the pangs of conscience. Thus, it is conscience that appears to be the driving force of the Shakespearean tragedy. ‘A sea of troubles’ which Hamlet speaks about brings into collision different people. By the end of each tragedy, the stage is full of corpses – again, unlike in the Greek tragedy. But Shakespeare shows that the noble heroes do not kill for the sake of revenge only, they kill for the sake of justice and then they perish, too.
· Sonnets
Shakespeare raised the same problems in his sonnets which he began to write in the 1590s. All 154 sonnets were published in 1609. Many of them were written to a friend whose name remained unknown. Another personage of the sonnets is ‘The Dark Lady’. It was believed that the Dark Lady was Mary Fitton, for a time – one of the ornaments of the Queen’s court. Now it is thought that the Dark Lady was Emilia Bassano, the daughter of a royal. It was to her that Shakespeare wrote:
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is far more red than her lips red,
If snow be white, well, then her breasts are dun,
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
(Sonnet 130)
Another well-known sonnet that ranks among the best is Sonnet 90 (‘Then hate me if thou wilt…’). The atmosphere of misery and the musical effect of the Sonnet are achieved through a frequent use of long vowels (which number 22) and diphthongs (which number 34). The sonnet was masterfully translated into Russian by Samuel Marshak.
· Old age and death
Shakespeare never considered himself a man of genius. He had his ups and downs, had to be a pawnbroker, he even had to quarrel with his fellow actors. The prospect of dying poor frightened him that is why in 1597 he bought two houses in Stratford and was proud that he would die an esquire. He enjoyed fame and was flattered when he was received by King James I. (The king discussed with him his plays, especially “Macbeth” in connection with the role of monarchy.) At the end of his life, Shakespeare suffered a terrible blow: in 1613 The Globe burnt down. Shakespeare returned to Stratford, where he lived three more years. The remaining years of his life were anything but happy. He suffered from asthma. One of his daughters was still unmarried and had grown bitter. Anne Hathaway, or Mrs. Shakespeare, had turned into an old grumbler. But in her own way, she was attached to him. Shakespeare died in 1616, presumably on his birthday. He was buried in the yard of the same church where he had been baptized and married. The painted bust on his grave shows him as he was in the last year of his life – a typical town burger, bald and wrinkled. But everybody, in their mind’s eye, sees their own Shakespeare.
Reading Shakespeare in the original is no easy matter. Although the language of his time already belongs to New English period, it is known as the Early New English. When reading Shakespeare, we must remember, that pronouns in the 2nd person singular and plural had different forms: thou, thee, thine, thy – for the singular, and you, your, yours – for the plural. Verbs in the Present forms took the ending -(e)st in the 2nd person singular: thou speakest, thou hast. Auxiliary verbs ended in –t in the 2nd person singular: thou art, thou shalt, thou wilt. There were 2 inflexions for the 3rd person singular, -s and -(e)th: he speaks and he speaketh; he has and he hath. The use of auxiliary verbs in questions was not absolutely necessary: Spake you with him? What say you?
In Shakespeare's day, English grammar and spelling were less standardised than they are now, and his use of language helped to shape modern English. Samuel Johnson quoted him more often than any other author in his Dictionary of the English Language, the first serious work of its type. Shakespeare enriched the English language to such a great extent that today it has the biggest vocabulary of all the European languages. Lines from his works have become idioms: ‘all’s well that ends well’, ‘a sea of troubles’, ‘all that glistens is not gold’, ‘to be or not to be?’ and many others.
The language in Shakespeare’s plays depends on the kind of play. In his early comedies, the verse is light and the lines are often rhymed. The jesters use the language of the common people spoken in the street and in taverns. But the language of the noblemen in the first plays is rather heavy. In the plays of the second period, Shakespeare often uses blank verse. The language is full of metaphors. He freely uses conversion (transition of words from one part of speech into another): sister – to sister, father – to father, etc. and forms new words in accordance with the existing rules: to smile – smilet, that is ‘a faint smile’.
Shakespeare’s contribution to literature, and culture in general, is enormous. Charles Dickens drew 25 of his titles from Shakespeare’s works. There are about 20,000 pieces of music linked to Shakespeare’s works. Shakespeare has also inspired many painters, including the Romantics and the Pre-Raphaelites. The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud drew on Shakespearean psychology, in particular that of Hamlet, for his theories of human nature.
Shakespeare created a new epoch in world literature. His work greatly influenced later poetry and prose. In particular, he expanded the dramatic potential of characterisation, plot, language, and genre. Until Romeo and Juliet, romance had not been viewed as a worthy topic for tragedy. Soliloquies had been used mainly to convey information about characters or events; but Shakespeare used them to explore characters’ minds.
Shakespeare was the greatest dramatist of the Renaissance. The time called for a giant to give an upsurge to English literature, and there came Shakespeare. Literary critics now say that the role of literature in Europe was so high only twice – in the 16th century England and in the 19th century Russia.
| DO YOU KNOW THAT | |
| · The Globe Theatre (named ‘Shakespeare’s Globe’) was reconstructed in London in 1997 approximately 230 metres from the site of the original theatre. · The last of Shakespeare’s grandchildren, Lady Elizabeth Hall Bernard, died childless in 1670. | ? |
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The 17th century was a period of constant change in English history. The political crises which were caused by the civil wars, the king’s execution, Restoration and the Glorious Revolution affected the lives of every single person and were reflected in all spheres of the creative arts.
· Foreign policy and trade
Elizabeth’s death in 1603 resulted in the Union of the Crowns as James VI of Scotland became James I of England. He was the first Stuart king of England, the son of the rebellious Mary, Queen of Scots.
Like all the Tudors, Elizabeth had appreciated the importance of trade, and of securing the support of the merchant class. James I, who came from Scotland with its underdeveloped industry and negligible foreign trade, quickly threw them into opposition by his cautious and frankly pro-Spanish policy. After all the years of England’s struggle for domination over Spain, James had no desire to see the Spanish monarchy humiliated to the greater glory of English trade.
In 1604 the war with Spain was ended with a peace treaty that was openly criticized in England, because it did not specifically secure the right of trade with Spanish colonies. Soon peace with Spain passed into a policy of actual alliance, which infuriated the merchants and the Protestants. The navy was neglected. Traders complained of the attacks of pirates even in the English Channel. By that time, the Dutch had already driven Portugal from the East Indies, called ‘the Spice Islands’, and soon Holland began to replace Spain as England’s chief rival at sea.
The importance of spices can only be understood if we remember that during the greater part of the winter months, the population of England had to live on salted meat. Turnips and hay were little used, so the shortage of fodder made it necessary every autumn to kill off cattle and sheep and salt their meat. Although salt was expensive, and imported to England from abroad, the salting was usually so liberally done, that a good amount of spices was necessary to make the meat edible.
· The Gunpowder Plot
A change in James I’s foreign policy led to a complete reversal of the situation at home. Under Elizabeth and up to the time of the Gunpowder Plot the Catholics had been in active opposition to the Crown. In 1605 a group of the king’s opponents wanted to blow up Parliament during the king’s speech from the throne. The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, or the Powder Treason, as it was known at the time, was a failed attempt by a group of provincial English Catholics to kill King James I, his family, and most of the Protestant aristocracy by blowing up the Houses of Parliament during the State Opening on 5 November 1605. The plot was intended to begin a rebellion during which James' nine-year-old daughter (Princess Elizabeth) could be installed as a Catholic head of state.
Guy Fawkes assisted in filling the room with gunpowder which was concealed beneath a wood store under the House of Lords building in a cellar. The 36 barrels contained 1800 pounds of gunpowder. If they had been successfully ignited, the explosion could have destroyed many of the buildings in the Old Palace of Westminster complex, including the Abbey, and would have blown out windows in the surrounding area of about a 1 kilometre radius.
Fawkes was left in charge of executing the plot, while the other conspirators left London to await news. Once the parliament had been destroyed, the other conspirators planned to start a revolt in the Midlands.
During the preparation, several of the conspirators were concerned about fellow Catholics who would be present on the appointed day, and inevitably killed. One of the conspirators betrayed the plot by writing an anonymous letter of warning to his brother-in-law Lord Monteagle. The letter read: “I advise you to find some excuse not to attend this parliament, for they shall receive a terrible blow, and yet shall not see who hurts them”.
The tip-off led to a search of the vaults beneath the House of Lords, during the night of November 4. At midnight on November 5 a party of armed men discovered Fawkes not far from about twenty barrels of gunpowder, posing as “Mr. John Johnson”. Fawkes was arrested. Far from denying his intentions during the arrest, Fawkes stated that it had been his purpose to destroy the King and the Parliament. He was taken to the Tower of London and there interrogated under torture. All the Conspirators were executed.
Today the English still mark Guy Fawkes’ Night with bonfires and crackers and the following rhyme:
Remember, remember the Fifth of November –
Gunpowder Treason and plot.
For I see no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
With the development of friendly relations with Spain and, later, after the marriage of Charles I to the French Henrietta Maria, Catholics enjoyed a period of court favour. Both James I and his son Charles I were the descendants of the rebellious Mary Queen of Scots. No wonder they were supported by Scotland and by English Catholics.
· The Pilgrim Fathers
At the same time, the Puritans, who had developed their religious views in the relative freedom of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, were outlawed by James I. In 1620 a large group of Puritans had to escape first to Holland, and then to America. They sailed on board the Mayflower which carried them from Plymouth to their new life in North America. The Pilgrim Fathers, as they later came to be known, hardly survived the first winter. It was the aid of the American Indians that saved them from death: the Indians taught the Pilgrims to grow maize which later became the main grain crop for hundreds of years. In 1621 the Pilgrims harvested a good crop and celebrated the first anniversary of their stay in North America by giving thanks to the Lord – that was the first Thanksgiving Day celebration.
The Puritans, as well as the Protestants, were drawn from the classes which had been the main supporters of the Tudors. They opposed the regime of James I which, they believed, was working to restore Catholicism. In this way, opposition to the Crown became identified with patriotism, and support of the monarchy – with those who were connected with England’s foreign enemies. By their foreign policy, the Stuarts lost what had been the main source of the Crown’s strength – its alliance with historically the most progressive class in the country.
In the 17th century, England was still largely an agricultural country: only the East and the South were industrially developed. Yet, the bourgeoisie was powerful enough to put up a struggle against the monarchy, because it had the support of farmers and the new nobility – the gentry. The enclosure of common lands ever since the 15th century made the English village a cradle of capitalism. Rich farmers were connected with the wool market, and their interests were the same as those of the bourgeoisie. Likewise, the English bourgeoisie was not separated from the nobility. Only the eldest son of a nobleman inherited his father’s title and land, and could sit in the House of Lords. All the younger sons were commoners: they could go into the professions and go to university for the purpose, they could serve in the army, they could become sailors or traders. Their interests were the same as those of the bourgeoisie. On the other hand, ever since the 14th century, the money derived from trade had become an easy way to Parliament. Successful townsfolk bought county-seats and rose to the ranks of nobility. They were called the new nobility, or the gentry.
During the last years of Elizabeth’s reign, Parliament became very powerful. All through James’ reign, the Commons quarreled with the King who assumed monopolies and raised taxes without the consent of Parliament. The struggle began anew when in 1625 Charles I took his father’s place on the throne.
King Charles I revived some feudal laws, which provoked a strong feeling of opposition. He also set Parliament against the royal family by marrying the sister of the French king, who was a Catholic. The English had not forgotten the Spanish marriage of Bloody Mary and the Catholic reaction that followed. Charles was eager to support the French king in his wars, and asked Parliament for money, explaining that England was in danger. Before granting him the money, the Commons wanted to know who the enemy was. Charles got out of the predicament by dismissing Parliament. Then he decided to send a fleet of ships to plunder Spanish treasure-ships. Loans, raised by the king himself, were followed by patriotic arguments. But the expedition was mismanaged and failed. England owed her defeat mainly to George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham. Out of sheer incapacity, Buckingham soon involved the country in a war with France. After a final defeat at La Rochelle, Charles made peace with Spain and France as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, the struggle with Parliament went on. When Charles summoned the second Parliament to ask for money, the Commons drew up a long list of grievances, and tried to check the King’s prerogatives. In a few months, the second Parliament was also dissolved. Charles I dissolved Parliament several times. Finally, the Commons put forward a list of demands: no taxation without the consent of Parliament, no billeting of soldiers on citizens, no imprisonment without trial, responsibility of ministers, appointed by the king, to Parliament. Charles had to sign ‘The Petition of Rights’ but he was no nearer to getting money from Parliament than before. The next day, the King, angry at the opposition, sent a message to the Speaker to dissolve Parliament. This act produced a storm in the House of Commons. Two of the boldest members stood one on either side of the Speaker’s chair, holding the Speaker down by force and preventing him from reading the King’s message. Parliament refused to be dissolved. The infuriated King came down to Westminster himself. By the time he arrived, the resolutions had been passed and the members agreed to go home. Charles arrested the leaders of the Opposition and decided never to call another Parliament.
For eleven years following 1628, the King ruled without Parliament. He chose as his advisers Archbishop Land and the Earl of Strafford. They represented Charles in his relations with Scotland and Ireland. The harshness of their rule gave rise to a number of rebellions. In Parliament, the Puritans formed two parties: the Presbyterians and the Independents. The leader of the Independents was Oliver Cromwell, the man who later changed the course of events in English history.
In 1639, Scotland started a war against England. The need to have an army made the King call Parliament in 1640. The Commons criticized the King for mismanaging the country. Charles got angry and dissolved Parliament. In history, this Parliament is known as the “ShortParliament”. But the Scotch marched on into the North of England, and Strafford, who had been recalled to England, advised Charles to summon Parliament again, so as to get money to raise an army. This parliament is known as the “Long Parliament” because it lasted for 19 years. Parliament passed an Act saying that the King’s ministers should be responsible to Parliament, and that Parliament could be dismissed only by its own consent. The Commons brought Strafford and Land to trial for their cruelties. Both were found guilty and executed. But the King still believed that he could turn the current of events in his favour by force. The following episode from the film Oliver Cromwell gives us an idea of what the situation was like.
Charles I believed that he could turn the current of events in his favour by force. He took no notice of the masses of artisans and workmen who crowded round his palace. Even the armed clashes between the Cavaliers and the ‘Roundheads’ in the streets of London did not make him feel that he was loosing the battle for power. When the commander of the City arsenal disobeyed the King and refused to give up his post, Charles left London. He went to the North of England, where he had the support of the old feudal nobility. But the industrially developed parts of England – the East and the South, were on the side of Parliament.
In the summer of 1642, the King raised his standard at Nottingham. That marked the beginning of the Civil War between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians, or the Roundheads. At the beginning, the war was favourable to the King. The Roundheads were brave enough but inexperienced in fighting, while the Cavaliers were all trained warriors. The Royalist leader was the King’s nephew, Prince Rupert who had come from Germany to help his uncle. The most famous Parliamentarian general was Oliver Cromwell, whowas a landowner from Huntingdonshire and a Member of Parliament. Cromwell soon began the military leader of the army. Until the Revolution broke out, nobody had known, even himself, that he had a talent for military leadership. Cromwell trained a body of soldiers, “a regiment on horse”, about whom he wrote: “I would rather have a plain captain that knows what he fights for that that which you call a gentleman and is nothing else; a few honest men are better than numbers”.
Cromwell’s army of a “New Model” was well-disciplined. His soldiers were called “Ironsides” because they were never beaten. Cromwell won two great battles against the Royalists – at Marston Moor, in 1644, and at Naseby, in 1645. These two battles made Parliament supreme in the North and in the Midlands. Finally, the King’s army was destroyed. Charles wanted to join the Scotsmen, and begged them to help him win back his kingdom. But they were bribed by Cromwell and handed Charles over to Parliament.
The High Court was assembled together to try the King and to put an end to the war. The trial was held in Westminster Hall, and lasted several days. The King was found guilty and sentenced to death. The sentence read: “… the court, being satisfied in conscience that he, Charles Stuart, is guilty of the crimes of which he has been accused, doth adjudge him as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy to the good people of the nation, to be put to death by severing his head from his body.” Three days later, on January 30, 1649, Charles I was beheaded. England was proclaimed a Commonwealth (a Republic) and Oliver Cromwell got the title of the Lord Protector.
