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The Chandos portrait, commonly assumed to depict William Shakespeare but authenticity unknown, "the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul" (John Dryden, 1668), "our myriad-minded Shakespeare" (S. T. Coleridge, 1817).
In his own time, William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was rated as merely one among many talented playwrights and poets, but since the late 17th century has been considered the supreme playwright and poet of the English language.
No other playwright's work has been performed even remotely as often on the world stage as Shakespeare's. The plays have often been drastically adapted in performance. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the era of the great acting stars, to be a star on the British stage was synonymous with being a great Shakespearean actor. Then the emphasis was placed on the soliloquies as declamatory turns at the expense of pace and action, and Shakespeare's plays seemed in peril of disappearing beneath the added music, scenery, and special effects produced by thunder, lightning, and wave machines.
Editors and critics of the plays, disdaining the showiness and melodrama of Shakespearean stage representation, began to focus on Shakespeare as a dramatic poet, to be studied on the printed page rather than in the theatre. The rift between Shakespeare on the stage and Shakespeare on the page was at its widest in the early 19th century, at a time when both forms of Shakespeare were hitting peaks of fame and popularity: theatrical Shakespeare was successful spectacle and melodrama for the masses, while book or closet drama Shakespeare was being elevated by the reverential commentary of the Romantics into unique poetic genius, prophet, and bard. Before the Romantics, Shakespeare was simply the most admired of all dramatic poets, especially for his insight into human nature and his realism, but Romantic critics such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge refactored him into an object of almost religious adoration, George Bernard Shaw coining the term "bardolatry" to describe it. To the later 19th century, Shakespeare became in addition an emblem of national pride, the crown jewel of English culture, and a "rallying-sign", as Thomas Carlyle wrote in 1841, for the whole British empire.
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In his own time, WilliamShakespeare (1564–1616) was rated as merely one among many talented playwrights and poets, but since the late 17th century has...
WilliamShakespeare was an actor, playwright, poet, and theatre entrepreneur in London during the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean eras. He was baptised...
WilliamShakespeare (c. 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the...
John Shakespeare (c. 1531 – 7 September 1601) was an English businessman and politician who was the father ofWilliamShakespeare. Active in Stratford-upon-Avon...
The Shakespeare authorship question is the argument that someone other than WilliamShakespeareof Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works attributed to him...
contemporary physical description ofWilliamShakespeare is known to exist. The two portraits of him that are the most famous (both of which may be posthumous)...
WilliamShakespeare has been commemorated in a number of different statues and memorials around the world, notably his funerary monument in Stratford-upon-Avon...
views ofWilliamShakespeare are the subject of an ongoing scholarly debate dating back more than 150 years. The general assumption about William Shakespeare's...
fictional love affair involving playwright WilliamShakespeare (Fiennes) and Viola de Lesseps (Paltrow) while Shakespeare was writing Romeo and Juliet. Several...
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, usually shortened to Hamlet (/ˈhæmlɪt/), is a tragedy written by WilliamShakespeare sometime between 1599 and...
The Chandos portrait is the most famous of the portraits that are believed to depict WilliamShakespeare (1564–1616). Painted between 1600 and 1610, it...
Andronicus is a tragedy by WilliamShakespeare, believed to have been written between 1588 and 1593. It is thought to be Shakespeare's first tragedy and is...
simply Cassio (/ˈkæsioʊ/), is a fictional character in WilliamShakespeare's Othello. The source of the character is the 1565 tale "Un Capitano Moro" by...
Oxfordian theory ofShakespeare authorship contends that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote the plays and poems ofWilliamShakespeare. While historians...
popular element. The works ofWilliamShakespeare enjoyed a renewed popularity in 18th-century Britain. Several new editions of his works were published...
excessive admiration ofWilliamShakespeare. Shakespeare has been known as "the Bard" since the eighteenth century. One who idolizes Shakespeare is known as a...
Shylock (/ʃaɪˈlɒk/) is a fictional character in WilliamShakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice (c. 1600). A Venetian Jewish moneylender, Shylock is...
set of facsimiles and transcriptions of the papers called Miscellaneous Papers and Legal Instruments under the Hand and Seal ofWilliamShakespeare (the...
Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by William Painter in 1567. Shakespeare borrowed heavily...
article is a collection of quotations and other comments on English playwright WilliamShakespeare and his works. Shakespeare enjoyed recognition in his...
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