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What was Shakespeare's family like?

How many plays did Shakespeare write?

How many sonnets did Shakespeare write?

Why is Shakespeare still important today?

William Shakespeare, Shakespeare also spelled Shakspere, byname Bard of Avon or Swan of Avon, (baptized April 26, 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England-died April 23, 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon), English poet, dramatist, and actor often called the English national poet and considered by many to be the greatest dramatist of all time.

Shakespeare occupies a position unique in world literature. Other poets, such as Homer and Dante, and novelists, such as Leo Tolstoy and Charles Dickens, have transcended national barriers, but no writer's living reputation can compare to that of Shakespeare, whose plays, written in the late 16th and early 17th centuries for a small repertory theatre, are now performed and read more often and in more countries than ever before. The prophecy of his great contemporary, the poet and dramatist Ben Jonson, that Shakespeare "was not of an age, but for all time," has been fulfilled.

It may be audacious even to attempt a definition of his greatness, but it is not so difficult to describe the gifts that enabled him to create imaginative visions of pathos and mirth that, whether read or witnessed in the theatre, fill the mind and linger there. He is a writer of great intellectual rapidity, perceptiveness, and poetic power. Other writers have had these qualities, but with Shakespeare the keenness of mind was applied not to abstruse or remote subjects but to human beings and their complete range of emotions and conflicts. Other writers have applied their keenness of mind in this way, but Shakespeare is astonishingly clever with words and images, so that his mental energy, when applied to intelligible human situations, finds full and memorable expression, convincing and imaginatively stimulating. As if this were not enough, the art form into which his creative energies went was not remote and bookish but involved the vivid stage impersonation of human beings, commanding sympathy and inviting vicarious participation. Thus, Shakespeare's merits can survive translation into other languages and into cultures remote from that of Elizabethan England.

Shakespeare the man

Life

Although the amount of factual knowledge available about Shakespeare is surprisingly large for one of his station in life, many find it a little disappointing, for it is mostly gleaned from documents of an official character. Dates of baptisms, marriages, deaths, and burials; wills, conveyances, legal processes, and payments by the court-these are the dusty details. There are, however, many contemporary allusions to him as a writer, and these add a reasonable amount of flesh and blood to the biographical skeleton.

Animals in Shakespeare Quiz

Early life in Stratford

The parish register of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, shows that he was baptized there on April 26, 1564; his birthday is traditionally celebrated on April 23. His father, John Shakespeare, was a burgess of the borough, who in 1565 was chosen an alderman and in 1568 bailiff (the position corresponding to mayor, before the grant of a further charter to Stratford in 1664). He was engaged in various kinds of trade and appears to have suffered some fluctuations in prosperity. His wife, Mary Arden, of Wilmcote, Warwickshire, came from an ancient family and was the heiress to some land. (Given the somewhat rigid social distinctions of the 16th century, this marriage must have been a step up the social scale for John Shakespeare.)

Stratford enjoyed a grammar school of good quality, and the education there was free, the schoolmaster's salary being paid by the borough. No lists of the pupils who were at the school in the 16th century have survived, but it would be absurd to suppose the bailiff of the town did not send his son there. The boy's education would consist mostly of Latin studies-learning to read, write, and speak the language fairly well and studying some of the Classical historians, moralists, and poets. Shakespeare did not go on to the university, and indeed it is unlikely that the scholarly round of logic, rhetoric, and other studies then followed there would have interested him.

Instead, at age 18 he married. Where and exactly when are not known, but the episcopal registry at Worcester preserves a bond dated November 28, 1582, and executed by two yeomen of Stratford, named Sandells and Richardson, as a security to the bishop for the issue of a license for the marriage of William Shakespeare and " Anne Hathaway of Stratford," upon the consent of her friends and upon once asking of the banns. (Anne died in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare. There is good evidence to associate her with a family of Hathaways who inhabited a beautiful farmhouse, now much visited, 2 miles [3.2 km] from Stratford.) The next date of interest is found in the records of the Stratford church, where a daughter, named Susanna, born to William Shakespeare, was baptized on May 26, 1583. On February 2, 1585, twins were baptized, Hamnet and Judith. (Hamnet, Shakespeare's only son, died 11 years later.)

How Shakespeare spent the next eight years or so, until his name begins to appear in London theatre records, is not known. There are stories-given currency long after his death-of stealing deer and getting into trouble with a local magnate, Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, near Stratford; of earning his living as a schoolmaster in the country; of going to London and gaining entry to the world of theatre by minding the horses of theatregoers. It has also been conjectured that Shakespeare spent some time as a member of a great household and that he was a soldier, perhaps in the Low Countries. In lieu of external evidence, such extrapolations about Shakespeare's life have often been made from the internal "evidence" of his writings. But this method is unsatisfactory: one cannot conclude, for example, from his allusions to the law that Shakespeare was a lawyer, for he was clearly a writer who without difficulty could get whatever knowledge he needed for the composition of his plays.

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William Shakespeare | Plays, Poems, Biography, Quotes, & Facts

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William Shakespeare, the renowned English playwright and poet, crafted timeless works that continue to entertain audiences worldwide with their profound insights into human nature and enduring literary brilliance.

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William Shakespeare’s life and times | Royal Shakespeare Company

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Discover more about the life and times of William Shakespeare, from his birth in 1564 through to his death 52 years later in 1616.

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William Shakespeare: A biography

Since William Shakespeare lived more than 400 years ago, and many records from that time are lost or never existed in the first place, we don't know everything about Shakespeare's life. For example, we know that he was baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, 100 miles northwest of London, on April 26, 1564. But we don't know his exact birthdate, which must have been a few days earlier.

We do know that Shakespeare's life revolved around two locations: Stratford and London. He grew up, had a family, and bought property in Stratford, but he worked in London, the center of English theater. As an actor, a playwright, and a partner in a leading acting company, he became both prosperous and well-known. Even without knowing everything about his life, fans of Shakespeare have imagined and reimagined him according to their own tastes.

Looking for more in-depth information? Need something you can cite? Read an essay about Shakespeare's life from the Folger Shakespeare Editions. Read essay

Early life: Birth and childhood

William Shakespeare was probably born on about April 23, 1564, the date that is traditionally given for his birth. He was John and Mary Shakespeare's oldest surviving child; their first two children, both girls, did not live beyond infancy. Growing up as the big brother of the family, William had three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund, and two younger sisters: Anne, who died at seven, and Joan.

Their father, John Shakespeare, was a leatherworker who specialized in the soft white leather used for gloves and similar items. A prosperous businessman, he married Mary Arden, of the prominent Arden family. John rose through local offices in Stratford, becoming an alderman and eventually, when William was five, the town bailiff-much like a mayor. Not long after that, however, John Shakespeare stepped back from public life; we don't know why.

Shakespeare, as the son of a leading Stratford citizen, almost certainly attended Stratford's grammar school. Like all such schools, its curriculum consisted of an intense emphasis on the Latin classics, including memorization, writing, and acting classic Latin plays. Shakespeare most likely attended until about age 15.

A horn book in the Folger collection, similar to one that Shakespeare might have learned to read from

Marriage (to Anne Hathaway) and children

A few years after he left school, in late 1582, William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. She was already expecting their first-born child, Susanna, which was a fairly common situation at the time. When they married, Anne was 26 and William was 18. Anne grew up just outside Stratford in the village of Shottery. After marrying, she spent the rest of her life in Stratford.

In early 1585, the couple had twins, Judith and Hamnet, completing the family. In the years ahead, Anne and the children lived in Stratford while Shakespeare worked in London, although we don't know when he moved there. Some later observers have suggested that this separation, and the couple's relatively few children, were signs of a strained marriage, but we do not know that, either. Someone pursuing a theater career had no choice but to work in London, and many branches of the Shakespeares had small families.

Shakespeare's only son, Hamnet, died in 1596 at the age of 11. His older daughter Susanna later married a well-to-do Stratford doctor, John Hall. Their daughter Elizabeth, Shakespeare's first grandchild, was born in 1608. In 1616, just months before his death, Shakespeare's daughter Judith married Thomas Quiney, a Stratford vintner. The family subsequently died out, leaving no direct descendants of Shakespeare.

London theater

For several years after the birth of Judith and Hamnet in 1585, nothing is known for certain of Shakespeare's activities: how he earned a living, when he moved from Stratford, or how he got his start in the theater.

Following this gap in the record, the first definite mention of Shakespeare is in 1592 as an established London actor and playwright, mocked by a contemporary as a "Shake-scene." The same writer alludes to one of Shakespeare's earliest history plays, Henry VI, Part 3, which must already have been performed. The next year, in 1593, Shakespeare published a long poem, Venus and Adonis. The first quarto editions of his early plays appeared in 1594.

For more than two decades, Shakespeare had multiple roles in the London theater as an actor, playwright, and, in time, a business partner in a major acting company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men (renamed the King's Men in 1603). Over the years, he became steadily more famous in the London theater world; his name, which was not even listed on the first quartos of his plays, became a regular feature-clearly a selling point-on later title pages.

Final years and death

Shakespeare prospered financially from his partnership in the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King's Men), as well as from his writing and acting. He invested much of his wealth in real-estate purchases in Stratford and bought the second-largest house in town, New Place, in 1597.

Among the last plays that Shakespeare worked on was The Two Noble Kinsmen, which he wrote with a frequent collaborator, John Fletcher, most likely in 1613. He died on April 23, 1616-the traditional date of his birthday, though his precise birthdate is unknown. We also do not know the cause of his death. His brother-in-law had died a week earlier, which could imply infectious disease, but Shakespeare's health may have had a longer decline.

The memorial bust of Shakespeare at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford is considered one of two authentic likenesses, because it was approved by people who knew him. The other such likeness is the engraving by Martin Droeshout in the 1623 First Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays, produced seven years after his death by his friends and colleagues from the King's Men.

Timeline

View a timeline of Shakespeare's life with links to key supporting documents on Shakespeare Documented.
View timeline

The bust of Shakespeare in the Folger Reading Room is a copy of the statue at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford.

Frequently asked questions

Why did Shakespeare leave his wife his "second best bed"?

William Shakespeare wrote in his last will and testament, dated March 25, 1616, "Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed with the furniture" (furniture is used to refer to the curtains and bedcover which formed part of the complete bed).

This was not an unusual bequest, nor was it likely to have been intended as a snub. The best bed was usually regarded as an heirloom piece, to be passed to the heir rather than the spouse. It is also probable that the best bed would have been reserved for guests, meaning the "second best" was the bed that William and Anne shared.

What did Shakespeare's son die of?

We don't really know how Shakespeare's young son Hamnet died. He had a twin sister named Judith, who lived to adulthood and married, but Hamnet died at the age of 11 and a half. Child mortality was high in the 16th century; there were no antibiotics and many childhood diseases might therefore prove fatal, such as scarlet fever, whooping cough, diphtheria, and even measles. He was buried on August 11, 1596.

What is the inscription on Shakespeare's grave?

GOOD FREND FOR JESUS SAKE FORBEARE,
TO DIGG THE DUST ENCLOASED HEARE:
BLESTE BE Ye [the] MAN Yt [that] SPARES THES STONES,
AND CURST BE HE Yt [that] MOVES MY BONES.

Did Shakespeare have a coat of arms?

Yes, William's father, John Shakespeare, was granted a coat of arms in 1596. It was disputed in 1602 by York Herald, Ralph Brooke, saying that the arms were too similar to existing coats of arms, and that the family was unworthy. However, the challenge was unsuccessful, as the Shakespeare coat of arms appears in later heraldic collections and on William Shakespeare's funeral monument in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Does Shakespeare have descendants?

William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway had three children. The eldest, Susanna, was baptized on May 26, 1583, and married John Hall in 1607. They had one child, Elizabeth, in 1608. Elizabeth was married twice, to Thomas Nash in 1626, and to John Bernard in 1649. However, she had no children by either husband.

William and Anne also had twins, Judith and Hamnet, who were baptized on February 2, 1585. Hamnet died at age 11 and a half. Judith married Thomas Quiney in 1616, and the couple had three sons: Shakespeare Quiney, who died in infancy, and Richard and Thomas, who both died in 1639 within a month of each other. Since neither of the boys married, there is no possibility of any legitimate descendants from Shakespeare's line.

It is possible, however, to claim a relationship to Shakespeare through his sister, Joan. She married William Hart some time before 1600, and there are many descendants of this marriage alive today, in both the male and female lines.

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Shakespeare's life | Folger Shakespeare Library

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Learn about Shakespeare's life and family: birth in Stratford-upon-Avon, marriage to Anne Hathaway and their children, work in London theaters, and death.

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About Shakespeare's Sonnets

Introduction to Shakespeare's Sonnets

A sonnet is a 14-line poem that rhymes in a particular pattern. In Shakespeare's sonnets, the rhyme pattern is abab cdcd efef gg, with the final couplet used to summarize the previous 12 lines or present a surprise ending. The rhythmic pattern of the sonnets is the iambic pentameter. An iamb is a metrical foot consisting of one stressed syllable and one unstressed syllable - as in dah-DUM, dah-DUM dah-DUM dah-DUM dah-DUM. Shakespeare uses five of these in each line, which makes it a pentameter. The sonnet is a difficult art form for the poet because of its restrictions on length and meter.

Although the entirety of Shakespeare's sonnets were not formally published until 1609 (and even then, they were published without the author's knowledge), an allusion to their existence appeared eleven years earlier, in Francis Meres' Palladis Tamia (1598), in which Meres commented that Shakespeare's "sugred Sonnets" were circulating privately among the poet's friends. Approximately a year later, William Jaggard's miscellany, The Passionate Pilgrim, appeared, containing twenty poems, five of which are known to be Shakespeare's - two of the Dark Lady sonnets (Sonnets 138 and 144) and three poems included in the play Love's Labour's Lost. Apparently these five poems were printed in Jaggard's miscellany (a collection of writings on various subjects) without Shakespeare's authorization.

Without question, Shakespeare was the most popular playwright of his day, and his dramatic influence is still evident today, but the sonnet form, which was so very popular in Shakespeare's era, quickly lost its appeal. Even before Shakespeare's death in 1616 the sonnet was no longer fashionable, and for two hundred years after his death, there was little interest in either Shakespeare's sonnets, or in the sonnet form itself.

The text of Shakespeare's sonnets generally considered to be definitive is that of the 1609 edition, which was published by Thomas Thorpe, a publisher having less than a professional reputation. Thorpe's edition, titled Shake-speare's Sonnets: Never Before Imprinted, is referred to today as the "Quarto," and is the basis for all modern texts of the sonnets.

The Quarto would have lapsed into obscurity for the remainder of the seventeenth century had it not been for the publication of a second edition of Shakespeare's sonnets, brought out by John Benson in 1640. A pirated edition of the sonnets, Benson's version was not a carefully edited, duplicate copy of the Quarto. Because Benson took several liberties with Shakespeare's text, his volume has been of interest chiefly as the beginning of a long campaign to sanitize Shakespeare. Among other things, Benson rearranged the sonnets into so-called "poems" - groups varying from one to five sonnets in length and to which he added descriptive and unusually inept titles. Still worse, he changed Shakespeare's pronouns: "He's" became "she's" in some sonnets addressed to the young man so as to make the poet speak lovingly to a woman - not to a man.

Benson also interspersed Shakespeare's sonnets with poems written by other people, as well as with other non-sonnet poems written by Shakespeare. This led to much of the subsequent confusion about Shakespeare's order of preference for his sonnets, which appear to tell the story, first, of his adulation of a young man and, later, of his adoration of his "dark lady."

The belief that the first 126 sonnets are addressed to a man and that the rest are addressed to a woman has become the prevailing contemporary view. In addition, a majority of modern critics remain sufficiently satisfied with Thorpe's 1609 ordering of those sonnets addressed to the young man, but most of them have serious reservations about the second group addressed to the woman.

Another controversy surrounding the sonnets is the dedication at the beginning of Thorpe's 1609 edition. Addressed to "Mr. W. H.," the dedication has led to a series of conjectures as to the identity of this person. The two leading candidates are Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton, and William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke.

Because Shakespeare dedicated his long poem "Venus and Adonis" to Southampton, and because the young earl loved poetry and drama and may well have sought out Shakespeare and offered himself as the poet's patron, many critics consider Southampton to be "Mr. W. H."

The other contender for the object of the dedication is William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. Shakespeare dedicated the First Folio of his works, published in 1623, to Pembroke and Pembroke's brother Philip. Pembroke was wealthy, notorious for his sexual exploits but averse to marriage, and a patron of literary men. Critics who believe that Mary Fitton, one of Queen Elizabeth's maids of honor, was the Dark Lady of Sonnets 12-54, are particularly convinced that Pembroke is "Mr. W. H.," for Pembroke had an affair with Fitton, who bore him a child out of wedlock; this extramarital affair is considered to parallel too closely the sexual relationship in the sonnets to be mere coincidence.

In addition to their date of composition, their correct ordering, and the object of the dedication, the other controversial issue surrounding the sonnets is the question of whether or not they are autobiographical. While contemporary criticism remains interested in the question of whether or not the sonnets are autobiographical, the sonnets, taken either wholly or individually, are first and foremost a work of literature, to be read and discussed both for their poetic quality and their narrative tale. Their appeal rests not so much in the fact that they may shed some light on Shakespeare's life, nor even that they were written by him; rather, their greatness lies in the richness and the range of subjects found in them.

Overview of Shakespeare's Sonnets

Although Shakespeare's sonnets can be divided into different sections numerous ways, the most apparent division involves Sonnets 1-126, in which the poet strikes up a relationship with a young man, and Sonnets 127-154, which are concerned with the poet's relationship with a woman, variously referred to as the Dark Lady, or as his mistress.

In the first large division, Sonnets 1-126, the poet addresses an alluring young man with whom he has struck up a relationship. In Sonnets 1-17, he tries to convince the handsome young man to marry and beget children so that the youth's incredible beauty will not die when the youth dies. Starting in Sonnet 18, when the youth appears to reject this argument for procreation, the poet glories in the young man's beauty and takes consolation in the fact that his sonnets will preserve the youth's beauty, much like the youth's children would.

By Sonnet 26, perhaps becoming more attached to the young man than he originally intended, the poet feels isolated and alone when the youth is absent. He cannot sleep. Emotionally exhausted, he becomes frustrated by what he sees as the youth's inadequate response to his affection. The estrangement between the poet and the young man continues at least through Sonnet 58 and is marked by the poet's fluctuating emotions for the youth: One moment he is completely dependent on the youth's affections, the next moment he angrily lashes out because his love for the young man is unrequited.

Despondent over the youth's treatment of him, desperately the poet views with pain and sorrow the ultimate corrosion of time, especially in relation to the young man's beauty. He seeks answers to the question of how time can be defeated and youth and beauty preserved. Philosophizing about time preoccupies the poet, who tells the young man that time and immortality cannot be conquered; however, the youth ignores the poet and seeks other friendships, including one with the poet's mistress (Sonnets 40-42) and another with a rival poet (Sonnets 79-87). Expectedly, the relationship between the youth and this new poet greatly upsets the sonnets' poet, who lashes out at the young man and then retreats into despondency, in part because he feels his poetry is lackluster and cannot compete with the new forms of poetry being written about the youth. Again, the poet fluctuates between confidence in his poetic abilities and resignation about losing the youth's friendship.

Philosophically examining what love for another person entails, the poet urges his friend not to postpone his desertion of the poet - if that is what the youth is ultimately planning. Break off the relationship now, begs the poet, who is prepared to accept whatever fate holds. Ironically, the more the youth rejects the poet, the greater is the poet's affection for and devotion to him. No matter how vicious the young man is to the poet, the poet does not - emotionally can not - sever the relationship. He masochistically accepts the youth's physical and emotional absence.

Finally, after enduring what he feels is much emotional abuse by the youth, the poet stops begging for his friend's affection. But then, almost unbelievably, the poet begins to think that his newfound silence toward the youth is the reason for the youth's treating him as poorly as he does. The poet blames himself for any wrong the young man has done him and apologizes for his own treatment of his friend. This first major division of sonnets ends with the poet pitiably lamenting his own role in the dissolution of his relationship with the youth.

The second, shorter grouping of Sonnets 127-154 involves the poet's sexual relationship with the Dark Lady, a married woman with whom he becomes infatuated. Similar to his friendship with the young man, this relationship fluctuates between feelings of love, hate, jealousy, and contempt. Also similar is the poet's unhealthy dependency on the woman's affections. When, after the poet and the woman begin their affair, she accepts additional lovers, at first the poet is outraged. However, as he did with the youth, the poet ultimately blames himself for the Dark Lady's abandoning him. The sonnets end with the poet admitting that he is a slave to his passion for the woman and can do nothing to curb his lust. Shakespeare turns the traditional idea of a romantic sonnet on its head in this series, however, as his Dark Lady is not an alluring beauty and does not exhibit the perfection that lovers typically ascribe to their beloved.

Quotes are taken from the Pelican Shakespeare edition of The Sonnets, published by Penguin books.

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Introduction to Shakespeare's Sonnets A sonnet is a 14-line poem that rhymes in a particular pattern. In Shakespeare's sonnets, the rhyme pattern is abab cdcd efef gg, with the final couplet used to summarize the previous 12 lines or present a surprise ending. The rhythmic pattern of the sonnets is the iambic pentameter.

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shakespeare's love poems shakespeare dark lady shakespear earl of southampton complete poems by shakespeare

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Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnets and Paraphrase in Modern English

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Shakespeare's sonnets with analysis and paraphrase, and historical information.

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Hannah Crawforth explores how Shakespeare used and radically changed the conventions of love poetry, and how modern poets have reinvented his Sonnets for themselves.

Shakespeare's are some of the most fascinating and influential poems written in English. First published in 1609, in a small quarto edition (roughly the size of a modern paperback), almost nothing is known about the poems' composition. But the Sonnets have been read, recited, reprinted and written about ever since their first appearance. They have inspired many creative works, including music and dance pieces as well as other poems. And they continue to intrigue those of us who watch, read and study Shakespeare's plays, for the insight they might offer into the mind of the man who wrote our most beloved dramatic works. This piece will explore why the Sonnets are so important to the history of English poetry and why they continue to be enjoyed - and imitated - today.

First edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets, 1609

The earliest printed edition of the Sonnets was roughly the size of a modern paperback.

Part of the reason Shakespeare's Sonnets speak to us so directly is that they are written with their own afterlife in mind. These are poems designed to commemorate the poet's beloved for all eternity. In the famous lines of Sonnet 18 Shakespeare suggests that his poem confers immortality: 'So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee' (ll. 11.13-14). Long after his lover's death, Shakespeare's poem will continue to keep his lover alive. The Sonnets look to their own future, imagining the readers who will come to them hundreds of years after Shakespeare's death. We continue to read the poems partly because of this sense of contact with Shakespeare as he reaches out into the future, a sense of presence as well as a reminder of his absence (a theme that will return later in this piece).

But we need to be careful about reading the poems autobiographically, or seeing them as a key to the themes of love, jealousy, anger and lust that pervade Shakespeare's plays. The poetic persona who speaks through the sequence is not Shakespeare himself. While many readers of the poems have traced a love triangle between the 'poet' and two figures often called the ' Young Man' and the ' Dark Lady', the Sonnets themselves resist straightforward narrative. The poems seem to play with the reader in this regard, tempting us with hints of the kind of love story that underpinned other popular poetic sequences of the time, or the plot of a Shakespearean comedy. At the same time, the poems constantly frustrate our attempts to trace the exact moment at which the poet loses - or gains - the affection of his lovers, or to map the precise relationship between the two enigmatic figures that so preoccupy his attentions. It is also significant that one of the lovers is male; Shakespeare's Sonnets do not give us a predictably heterosexual romance but rather a complex and intricate exploration of gender and sexuality that encourages ambiguity rather than resolution. Shakespeare likewise subverts the conventional imagery of early modern erotic verse; 'My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun', begins Sonnet 130.

This toying with the idea of narrative and the conventions of Elizabethan love poetry is one way in which the Sonnets are both highly traditional and also highly experimental. Shakespeare's Sonnets are aware of their own place within poetic history and unafraid to rewrite this history in startlingly modern terms. This aspect of the Sonnets partly derives from the fact that Shakespeare is writing them somewhat after-the-fact. The sonnet form had been imported into English from Petrarch's Italian poems by Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, earlier in the 16th century. The Elizabethan vogue for sonneteering reached its height in the 1590s with volumes by Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton and Samuel Daniel, but was already on the wane by the time Shakespeare's Sonnets were published. There is in his poems a strong component of nostalgia for the form as well as a desire to reinvent it.

While Shakespeare was not the first English poet to use the sonnet form, he did succeed in making it his own, changing its rhyme scheme and developing a distinctive structure that quickly became known as the 'Shakespearean Sonnet'. Shakespeare's predecessors had stuck closely to the Italian sonnet form used by Petrarch, which divides the poems into two sections, an octave (the first eight lines) and a sestet (the final six). The Petrarchan sonnet often has a very strong turn, or 'volta', as the verse shifts from the first section to the second, making it the ideal form for expressing two different ideas or contrasting points of view. Shakespeare altered this structure, interweaving the first twelve lines of the poem and abolishing the two-part division of his poetic precursors. This allows his poems to express much more subtle, varied ideas, with each sonnet articulating a variety of different positions relative to its subject. Shakespearean sonnets also culminate in a resounding final couplet that can sound conclusive, offering a pithily memorable restatement of what has gone before: 'If this be error and upon me proved, / I never writ, nor no man ever loved' (Sonnet 116, ll. 13-14). Alternatively, the effect of the final couplet can appear inadequate, a deliberately ironic response to the rest of the poem: 'Therefore I lie with her, and she with me, / And in our faults by lies we flattered be' (Sonnet 138, ll. 13-14). In this way Shakespeare is able to utilise the final couplet to create quite differing effects.

Shakespeare was evidently a very innovative writer of sonnets, releasing new potential within this very old poetic form by modifying its structure to allow new expressive possibilities. But some poems in the 1609 sequence hint at yet further innovation. Sonnet 99 contains an extra line, for instance, while Sonnet 126 is incomplete at only 12 lines. Shakespeare also likes to experiment with metre and rhyme scheme; Sonnet 145 ('Those lips that love's own hand did make') contains only four beats or stresses in each line (tetrameter), unlike the usual five (pentameter), for instance. And Sonnet 87 ('Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing') is a virtuosic display of skill, pivoting around a single rhyme sound for the first dozen lines. Even Shakespeare did not always write 'Shakespearean' sonnets, then.

Shakespeare's adaptation and modernisation of the sonnet did not stop at reshaping its form. He also radically reimagined its linguistic possibilities, opening up whole new metaphorical landscapes within his poems. At times, the register of his poems seems tantalisingly close to the realities of Shakespeare's own life. His dramatic career is teasingly suggested in Sonnet 23, 'As an unperfect actor on the stage', in which the poet's nervousness about his abilities to capture his lover in verse is figured as a kind of stage fright (l. 1). Similarly, several of the Sonnets depict the poet in the act of writing itself, evoking the challenges and frustrations - as well as the rewards - of literary creativity. Sonnet 59 labours (in a deliberate echo of the struggles of childbirth) to produce an apt image of the elusive lover, asking how to find the words to describe 'this composed wonder of your frame' (l. 10). The beloved even seems to become a sonnet momentarily here, as the 'frame' of the poem struggles to contain this poet's awed wonder.

If such moments of apparent self-consciousness suggest introspection, elsewhere the Sonnets look outwards. Shakespeare's sequence responds to the rapidly changing political and economic climate of his own times, using financial and legal imagery (as in Sonnet 4, which ends with a rather threatening evocation of wills and the executors who will inherit responsibility for his beloved's 'unused beauty' after his death (ll. 13-14)). The religious upheavals that traumatised many throughout early modern Europe are evident too, in Sonnet 73's haunting depiction of the 'Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang' (l. 4). The poems also capture some of the more mundane aspects of life in Shakespeare's England; Sonnet 143 imagines a 'housewife' who puts down her baby to chase after the chickens that have escaped in her garden; the lover is asked to 'play the mother's part' towards the poet: 'kiss me, be kind' (ll. 1, 12). Such shifts in the sequence between issues of national or even international importance and those relating to the domestic sphere give a sense of the sheer variety of Shakespeare's Sonnets as well as of their interest in unsettling the reader's sense of scale. The sonnet is one of the smallest, most compact poetic forms, just 14 lines of tightly rhymed verse, but Shakespeare shows that it is capable of encompassing the most profound range of human experience and emotion.

Paintings of London in the friendship album of Michael van Meer, c. 1614-1615

A woman breastfeeds her baby in this early modern watercolour painting. Shakespeare moves between the domestic sphere and the wider political arena.

It is these particular expressive qualities, this particular combination of tradition and innovation that continues to draw artists to Shakespeare's Sonnets today. Describing her own recent poem '2014/15', written after Sonnet 73 ('That time of year thou mayst in me behold'), Jo Shapcott says that 'My poem bows to the original somewhere in every line and spins round it in grateful celebration'. The idea that Shakespeare's Sonnets hold a gravitational force, around which today's writers orbit, is a powerful image for their continuing influence and centrality within the English poetic tradition. And Shapcott's sense of acknowledging the original poem in a series of 'bows' embodies both the sense of gratitude she describes but also an accompanying freedom; poets are not enslaved by the form, intimidated by the long shadow Shakespeare casts, but rather can be liberated and even exhilarated by the possibilities his verse offers. Imtiaz Dharker strikes a similarly elegant balance between emulation and innovation, indebtedness and resistance, proximity and distance, in her own 'The Trick', written in response to Sonnet 43 ('When most I wink, then do my eyes best see'). Sonnet 43 'is such a perfect sonnet of absence and presence, presence in absence', Dharker says of Shakespeare's verse; 'The poem plays tricks on the mind with light and shade, with words that look and sound the same but make cunning grammatical shifts.'

The Trick
In a wasted time, it's only when I sleep
that all my senses come awake. In the wake
of you, let day not break. Let me keep
the scent, the weight, the bright of you, take
the countless hours and count them all night through
till that time comes when you come to the door
of dreams, carrying oranges that cast a glow
up into your face. Greedy for more
than the gift of seeing you, I lean in to taste
the colour, kiss it off your offered mouth.
For this, for this, I fall asleep in haste,
willing to fall for the trick that tells the truth
that even your shade makes darkest absence bright,
that shadows live wherever there is light.

Dharker's evocative description of Sonnet 43 and poetic recreation of the 'tricks' Shakespeare's Sonnets play at once identifies something entirely distinctive about these poems, and also offers a way forward for poets writing 'in the wake | of' Shakespeare's awe-inspiring command of the sonnet form. The 'cunning ... shifts' Dharker describes are present in Shakespeare's original poems, endlessly reforming the work of his predecessors and endlessly resisting critical interpretation, ever elusive. But they also license ongoing poetic experimentation and innovation in the form today, remaking Shakespeare as he himself remade the sonnet.

[1] Jo Shapcott, On Shakespeare's Sonnets - A Poets' Celebration, ed. by Hannah Crawforth and Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), p. 89.

[2] Imtiaz Dharker, On Shakespeare's Sonnets - A Poets' Celebration, ed. by Hannah Crawforth and Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), p. 78.

Written by Hannah Crawforth

Hannah Crawforth is a Senior Lecturer in Early Modern Literature at King's College, London. She is the author of Etymology and the Invention of English in Early Modern Literature (Cambridge, 2013) and co-author of Shakespeare in London (Arden, 2015). With Elizabeth Scott-Baumann she has edited a collection of essays on Shakespeare's Sonnets and a volume of responses to these poems by contemporary writers.

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An introduction to Shakespeare's Sonnets

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Hannah Crawforth explores how Shakespeare used and radically changed the conventions of love poetry, and how modern poets have reinvented his Sonnets for themselves. Shakespeare's are some of the most fascinating and influential poems written in English. First published in 1609, in a small quarto edition (roughly the size of a modern paperback), almost nothing is known about the poems' composition.

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The story of Mark Antony, Roman military leader and triumvir, who is madly in love with Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. The last of Shakespeare's great political tragedies, chronicling the life of the mighty warrior Caius Marcius Coriolanus. Since its first recorded production, Although there were earlier Elizabethan plays on the subject of Julius Caesar and his turbulent rule, Shakespeare's penetrating study of political life in ancient Rome is the only version to recount the demise of Brutus and the other conspirators. The story of King Lear, an aging monarch who decides to divide his kingdom amongst his three daughters, according to which one recites the best declaration of love. Othello, a valiant Moorish general in the service of Venice, falls prey to the devious schemes of his false friend, Iago. Celebrated for the radiance of its lyric poetry, Written late in Shakespeare's career, A sordid tale of revenge and political turmoil, overflowing with bloodshed and unthinkable brutality. The play was not printed with Shakespeare credited as author during his lifetime, and critics are divided between whether it is the product of another dramatist or simply Shakespeare's first attempt at the genre. One of Shakespeare's most popular plays, featuring the opportunistic miscreant, Sir John Falstaff. This is the third play in the second tetralogy of history plays, along with The first in Shakespeare's trilogy about the War of the Roses between the houses of Lancaster and York.Part two of Shakespeare's chronicle play. Based on Hall's work, the play contains some historical inaccuracies.Part three begins Many believe In the shadow of Shakespeare's second tetralogy of history plays lies the neglected masterpiece, More so than Shakespeare's earlier history plays, The devious machinations of the deformed villain, Richard, duke of Gloucester, made this play an Elizabethan favorite.In 1767, a scholar named Richard Farmer concluded that this play is really the revision of Shakespeare's missing This is Shakespeare's shortest play, which he based on This play, modeled after Boccaccio's Considered a "dark" comedy, The character of Shylock has raised a debate over whether the play should be condemned as anti-Semitic, and this controversy has overshadowed many other aspects of the play. A magical exploration of the mysteries of love, and one of Shakespeare's best-known comedies. The story of two very different sets of lovers, Beatrice and Benedick and Claudio and Hero. The witty banter between Beatrice and Benedick is the highlight of the play. Portions of Hailed as a stunning climax to the career of England's favorite dramatist, Shakespeare loved to use the device of mistaken identity, and nowhere does he use this convention more skillfully than in The tale of two friends who travel to Milan and learn about the chaotic world of courting.

Shakespeare's Plays
Before the publication of the First Folio in 1623, nineteen of the thirty-seven plays in Shakespeare's canon had appeared in quarto format. With the exception of Othello (1622), all of the quartos were published prior to the date of Shakespeare's retirement from the theatre in about 1611. It is unlikely that Shakespeare was involved directly with the printing of any of his plays, although it should be noted that two of his poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece were almost certainly printed under his direct supervision.

Here you will find the complete text of Shakespeare's plays, based primarily on the First Folio, and a variety of helpful resources, including extensive explanatory notes, character analysis, source information, and articles and book excerpts on a wide range of topics unique to each drama.
Tragedies
Antony and Cleopatra (1607-1608)

Earliest known text: First Folio (1623).

Coriolanus (1607-1608)

Earliest known text: First Folio (1623).
Hamlet (1600-1601)

Hamlet has engrossed playgoers, thrilled readers, and challenged actors more so than any other play in the Western canon. No other single work of fiction has produced more commonly used expressions.
Earliest known text: Quarto (1603). Julius Caesar (1599-1600)

Earliest known text: First Folio (1623).
King Lear (1605-1606)

Earliest known text: Quarto (1608). Macbeth (1605-1606)

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's most stimulating and popular dramas. Renaissance records of Shakespeare's plays in performance are scarce, but a detailed account of an original production of Macbeth has survived, thanks to Dr. Simon Forman.
Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). Othello (1604-1605)

Earliest known text: Quarto (1622).
Romeo and Juliet (1594-1595)

Romeo and Juliet was tremendously popular from its first performance. The sweet whispers shared by young Tudor lovers throughout the realm were often referred to as "naught but pure Romeo and Juliet."
Earliest known text: Quarto (1597). Timon of Athens (1607-1608)

Timon of Athens is criticized as an underdeveloped tragedy, likely co-written by George Wilkins or Cyril Tourneur. Read the play and see if you agree.
Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). Titus Andronicus (1593-1594)

Earliest known text: Quarto (1594).

Histories
Henry IV, Part I (1597-1598)

Earliest known text: Quarto (1598). Henry IV, Part II (1597-1598)

Henry V Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, and Henry V.
Earliest known text: Quarto (1600). (1598-1599)

Henry V is the last in the second tetralogy sequence. King Henry is considered Shakespeare's ideal monarch.
Earliest known text: Quarto (1600). Henry VI, Part I (1591-1592)

Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). Henry VI, Part II (1590-1591)

Earliest known text: Quarto (1594). Henry VI, Part III (1590-1591)

Henry VIII in medias res, with the duke of Suffolk dead and the duke of York being named Henry VI's heir.
Earliest known text: Quarto (1595). (1612-1613)

King John Henry VIII to be Shakespeare's last play, but others firmly believe that he had little, if anything, to do with its creation.
Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). (1596-1597)

Richard II King John. Although seldom read or performed today, King John was once one of Shakespeare's most popular histories, praised for its poetic brilliance.
Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). (1595-1596)

Richard II is notable for its well-rounded characters.
Earliest known text: Quarto (1597). Richard III (1592-1593)

Comedies
All's Well That Ends Well
Earliest known text: Quarto (1597). (1602-1603)

As You Like It Love's Labour's Won, which was likely written around 1592. It is considered a problem play, due primarily to the character Helena and her ambiguous nature. Is she a virtuous lady or a crafty temptress?
Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). (1599-1600)

As You Like It is considered by many to be one of Shakespeare's greatest comedies, and the heroine, Rosalind, is praised as one of his most inspiring characters.
Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). The Comedy of Errors (1592-1593)

Menaechmi by Plautus.
Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). Cymbeline (1609-1610)

Decameron, is often classified as a romance. It features the beautiful Imogen, considered by many to be Shakespeare's most admirable female character.
Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). Love's Labour's Lost (1594-1595)

Love's Labour's Lost is a play of witty banter and little plot, written during the early part of Shakespeare's literary career, when his focus was on fancy conceits and the playful nature of love.
Earliest known text: Quarto (1598). Measure for Measure (1604-1605)

Measure for Measure was inspired by Cinthio's Epitia and Whetstone's Promos and Cassandra.
Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). The Merchant of Venice (1596-1597)

Earliest known text: Quarto (1600).
The Merry Wives of Windsor (1600-1601)

The Merry Wives is unique amongst Shakespeare's plays because it is set in Shakespeare's England. It features the Bard's beloved character, Falstaff.
Earliest known text: Quarto (1602). A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595-1596)

Earliest known text: Quarto (1600). Much Ado About Nothing (1598-1599)

Earliest known text: Quarto (1600). Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1608-1609)

The Taming of the Shrew Pericles are ripe with imagery and symbolism but the first three acts and scenes v and vi (the notorious brothel scenes) of Act IV are considered inadequate and likely the work of two other dramatists. The play was not included in the First Folio of 1623. In Shakespeare's sources, Pericles is named Apollonius.
Earliest known text: Quarto (1609). (1593-1594)

The Tempest The Taming of the Shrew revolves around the troubled relationship between Katharina and her suitor, Petruchio, who is determined to mold Katharina into a suitable wife.
Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). (1611-1612)

Troilus and Cressida The Tempest is a play praising the glories of reconciliation and forgiveness. Some believe that Prospero's final speeches signify Shakespeare's personal adieu from the stage.
Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). (1601-1602)

Twelfth Night Troilus and Cressida is difficult to categorize because it lacks elements vital to both comedies and tragedies. But, for now, it is classified as a comedy.
Earliest known text: Quarto (1609). (1599-1600)

Two Gentlemen of Verona Twelfth Night.
Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). (1594-1595)

The Winter's Tale
Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). (1610-1611)

The Winter's Tale is considered a romantic comedy, but tragic elements are woven throughout the play. We have a first-hand account of a production of the play at the Globe in 1611. It is one of Shakespeare's final plays.
Earliest known text: First Folio (1623).

Quote in Context

If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again!
Twelfth Night (1.1), Duke Orsino

Orsino, the Duke of Illyria, is consumed by his passion for the melancholy Countess Olivia. His ostentatious musings on the nature of love begin with what has become one of Shakespeare's most famous lines: "If music be the food of love, play on." It is apparent that Orsino's love is hollow. He is a romantic dreamer, for whom the idea of being in love is most important. When Valentine gives him the terrible news that Olivia plans to seclude herself for seven years to mourn her deceased brother, Orsino seems unfazed, and hopes Olivia may one day be as bewitched by love (the one self king) as he. Fittingly, the scene ends with Orsino off to lay in a bed of flowers, where he can be alone with his love-thoughts. Later in the play it will be up to Viola to teach Orsino the true meaning of love.

____

Bard Bites

AlthoughThe Two Noble Kinsmen likely was written in 1613, the first printing of the play did not occur until 1634, when "the memorable worthies of their time, Mr John Fletcher, and Mr William Shakespeare, Gent." were credited as co-authors on the title page. It is now generally accepted that Fletcher wrote the majority of the play, while Shakespeare wrote most of Act 1 (1.1, 1.2, 1.3) and Act 5, with the exception of Scene 2.
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The average length of a play in Elizabethan England was 3000 lines. With 4,042 lines and 29,551 words, Hamlet is the longest Shakespearean play (based on the first edition of The Riverside Shakespeare (1974)). With 1,787 lines and 14,369 words, The Comedy of Errors is the shortest Shakespearean play (also based on the first edition of The Riverside Shakespeare).
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This relative of Shakespeare developed a treatment for scurvy made from local grasses and plants high in ascorbic acid over one hundred years before James Lind's discovery that the disease could be treated with citrus fruit. Who was he? Find out...
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This famous Romantic poet was so influenced by Shakespeare that he kept a bust of the Bard beside him for inspiration while he wrote. Who was he? Find out...
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So great was the Elizabethan demand for wigs made from human hair that "children with handsome locks were never allowed to walk alone in the London streets for fear they should be temporarily kidnapped and their tresses cut off." Read on...
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Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences reveled in shocking drama. Patrons consistently packed the theatres to see the newest foray into debauchery and murder. Shakespeare appealed to the masses by baking this character's two sons in a meat pie and feeding them to her. Who is she? Find out...
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Shakespeare's late comedies are considered romances: The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, Cymbeline, and Pericles. The Two Noble Kinsman is also sometimes mentioned along side these other plays as a romantic comedy.
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Love's Labour's Lost has the highest percentage of rhyming lines of all of Shakespeare's plays. According to Shakespearean scholar Tucker Brooke, 62.2% of the lines in Love's Labour's Lost rhyme. The closest competitor is A Midsummer Night's Dream, with 43.4% rhyming lines.
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Shakespeare was familiar with seven foreign languages and often quoted them directly in his plays. His vocabulary was the largest of any writer, at over twenty-four thousand words. Read on...

Related Resources

Chronology of Shakespeare's Plays (when written)
Chronology of Shakespeare's Plays (when set)
Shakespeare Characters A to Z

Chronological List of Elizabethan Theatres
How many plays did Shakespeare write?
The Four Periods of Shakespeare's Work

Shakespeare's Metaphors and Similes
Characteristics of Shakespeare's Plays
Top 10 Shakespeare Plays

Seneca's Tragedies and Elizabethan Drama
Shakespeare's Blank Verse
Elements of Comedy

A Shakespeare Glossary
Pronouncing Shakespearean Names
Words Shakespeare Invented
Shakespeare's Impact on Other Writers

What Inspired Shakespeare?
Reasons Behind Shakespeare's Influence
Shakespeare's Language
Bloody will be thy end: Shakespeare Farewells

Hamlet Essays and Study Guide
Macbeth Essays and Study Guide
Othello Essays and Study Guide

Julius Caesar Essays and Study Guide
King Lear Essays and Study Guide
Henry IV, Part 1 Essays and Study Guide

Essays on The Tempest
Essays on A Midsummer Night's Dream
Essays on Twelfth Night
Essays on As You Like It

Shakespearean Quotations
Early Copies of Shakespeare's Plays
The Two Noble Kinsmen: Overview
Shakespeare's Edward III?

Shakespeare's Audience in his Day
Going to a Play in Shakespeare's London
London's First Public Playhouse
Shakespeare's Trap Doors
Shakespeare's Boss

Shakespeare Hits the Big Time
Shakespeare's Villains
Portraits of Shakespeare
Shakespeare's Contemporaries

Shakespeare's Sexuality
Worst Diseases in Shakespeare's London
Daily Life in Shakespeare's London
Shakespeare Q & A

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shakespeare plays explanatory notes william shakespeare plays annotations text macbeth notes

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The complete texts of Shakespeare plays with explanatory notes.

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Timeline of Shakespeare's plays | Royal Shakespeare Company

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A chronological list of all of Shakespeare's plays by decade, with links to more in-depth information about each play.

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SparkNotes: A Midsummer Night's Dream: Plot Overview

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A short summary of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. This free synopsis covers all the crucial plot points of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

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Play Summary

Prince Hamlet is depressed. Having been summoned home to Denmark from school in Germany to attend his father's funeral, he is shocked to find his mother Gertrude already remarried. The Queen has wed Hamlet's Uncle Claudius, the dead king's brother. To Hamlet, the marriage is "foul incest." Worse still, Claudius has had himself crowned King despite the fact that Hamlet was his father's heir to the throne. Hamlet suspects foul play.

When his father's ghost visits the castle, Hamlet's suspicions are confirmed. The Ghost complains that he is unable to rest in peace because he was murdered. Claudius, says the Ghost, poured poison in King Hamlet's ear while the old king napped. Unable to confess and find salvation, King Hamlet is now consigned, for a time, to spend his days in Purgatory and walk the earth by night. He entreats Hamlet to avenge his death, but to spare Gertrude, to let Heaven decide her fate.

Hamlet vows to affect madness - puts "an antic disposition on" - to wear a mask that will enable him to observe the interactions in the castle, but finds himself more confused than ever. In his persistent confusion, he questions the Ghost's trustworthiness. What if the Ghost is not a true spirit, but rather an agent of the devil sent to tempt him? What if killing Claudius results in Hamlet's having to relive his memories for all eternity? Hamlet agonizes over what he perceives as his cowardice because he cannot stop himself from thinking. Words immobilize Hamlet, but the world he lives in prizes action.

In order to test the Ghost's sincerity, Hamlet enlists the help of a troupe of players who perform a play called The Murder of Gonzago to which Hamlet has added scenes that recreate the murder the Ghost described. Hamlet calls the revised play The Mousetrap, and the ploy proves a success. As Hamlet had hoped, Claudius' reaction to the staged murder reveals the King to be conscience-stricken. Claudius leaves the room because he cannot breathe, and his vision is dimmed for want of light. Convinced now that Claudius is a villain, Hamlet resolves to kill him. But, as Hamlet observes, "conscience doth make cowards of us all."

In his continued reluctance to dispatch Claudius, Hamlet actually causes six ancillary deaths. The first death belongs to Polonius, whom Hamlet stabs through a wallhanging as the old man spies on Hamlet and Gertrude in the Queen's private chamber. Claudius punishes Hamlet for Polonius' death by exiling him to England. He has brought Hamlet's school chums Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to Denmark from Germany to spy on his nephew, and now he instructs them to deliver Hamlet into the English king's hands for execution. Hamlet discovers the plot and arranges for the hanging of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern instead. Ophelia, distraught over her father's death and Hamlet's behavior, drowns while singing sad love songs bemoaning the fate of a spurned lover. Her brother, Laertes, falls next.

Laertes, returned to Denmark from France to avenge his father's death, witnesses Ophelia's descent into madness. After her funeral, where he and Hamlet come to blows over which of them loved Ophelia best, Laertes vows to punish Hamlet for her death as well.

Unencumbered by words, Laertes plots with Claudius to kill Hamlet. In the midst of the sword fight, however, Laertes drops his poisoned sword. Hamlet retrieves the sword and cuts Laertes. The lethal poison kills Laertes. Before he dies, Laertes tells Hamlet that because Hamlet has already been cut with the same sword, he too will shortly die. Horatio diverts Hamlet's attention from Laertes for a moment by pointing out that "The Queen falls."

Gertrude, believing that Hamlet's hitting Laertes means her son is winning the fencing match, has drunk a toast to her son from the poisoned cup Claudius had intended for Hamlet. The Queen dies.

As Laertes lies dying, he confesses to Hamlet his part in the plot and explains that Gertrude's death lies on Claudius' head. Finally enraged, Hamlet stabs Claudius with the poisoned sword and then pours the last of the poisoned wine down the King's throat. Before he dies, Hamlet declares that the throne should now pass to Prince Fortinbras of Norway, and he implores his true friend Horatio to accurately explain the events that have led to the bloodbath at Elsinore. With his last breath, he releases himself from the prison of his words: "The rest is silence."

The play ends as Prince Fortinbras, in his first act as King of Denmark, orders a funeral with full military honors for slain Prince Hamlet.

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Get free homework help on William Shakespeare's Hamlet: play summary, scene summary and analysis and original text, quotes, essays, character analysis, and filmography courtesy of CliffsNotes. William Shakespeare's Hamlet follows the young prince Hamlet home to Denmark to attend his father's funeral.

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Plot Summary

An ongoing feud between the Capulets and the Montagues breaks out again on the streets of Verona. Both sides are warned by Prince Escalus that they must not disturb the peace again, on pain of death.

Romeo, love-sick for Rosaline, is comforted by his friend Benvolio. Capulet tells Paris that he may not marry his daughter Juliet until she is older. Romeo and his friends learn of a party being held by the Capulets, and decide to go to it as masquers. At the party, Tybalt sees Romeo, but is prevented from fighting him by Capulet. Romeo meets Juliet, and they instantly fall in love. After leaving the party, Romeo eludes his friends, returns to meet Juliet, and they exchange vows of love. Romeo tells Friar Laurence what has happened and he consents to marry them.

Benvolio tells Mercutio that Tybalt has sent Romeo a challenge. Romeo joins them, and is visited by the Nurse, who is told the marriage plan. She tells Juliet, who then goes to Friar Laurence's cell, and the lovers are married. Tybalt, looking for Romeo, finds Benvolio and Mercutio. Romeo returns, and is challenged by Tybalt, but refuses to fight. Mercutio draws on Tybalt and is fatally wounded. Tybalt then fights with Romeo, and is killed. Romeo flies, and Benvolio reports what has happened to the Prince, who banishes Romeo. The Nurse tells Juliet of Romeo's banishment and promises to bring him to her. The Friar tells a distraught Romeo he is banished, but advises him to visit Juliet secretly, then to leave for Mantua.

Capulet tells Paris he may marry Juliet in three days, and Lady Capulet brings the news to Juliet, who has just bid Romeo a hasty farewell. Juliet refuses to marry Paris, persisting in the face of her father's anger. She goes to the Friar for help, and finds Paris there arranging the marriage. After he leaves, the Friar devises a plan: he will give her a drink that will make her appear dead and thus avoid the marriage, and will write to Romeo to tell him; they can then elope to Mantua.

Juliet tells her father she will now marry Paris, and Capulet brings the wedding forward to the next day. Juliet retires, and drinks the liquid. When her 'body' is discovered, all mourn, and she is taken to the family crypt. In Mantua, Balthasar tells Romeo that Juliet is dead. He vows to lie dead next to her that night, and obtains a poison from an apothecary. Friar John tells Friar Laurence that he was unable to deliver Laurence's letter to Romeo. Realizing the danger, Laurence leaves to tell Juliet what has happened.

Paris goes to Juliet's tomb to mourn her, and encounters Romeo. They fight, and Romeo kills Paris. Romeo then drinks the poison and dies by Juliet. The Friar arrives to see Romeo dead and Juliet waking. She refuses to leave, and kills herself with Romeo's dagger. Officers arrive, and rouse the families and the Prince. The Friar explains what has happened. Montague and Capulet agree to make peace with each other.

Discuss this play in our forums.

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An ongoing feud between the Capulets and the Montagues breaks out again on the streets of Verona. Both sides are warned by Prince Escalus that they must not disturb the peace again, on pain of death. Romeo, love-sick for Rosaline, is comforted by his friend Benvolio.

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2. "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

-Hamlet in Hamlet

3. "From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:

They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;

They are the books, the arts, the academes,

That show, contain, and nourish all the world."

-Berowne in Love's Labor's Lost

4. "The wheel is come full circle: I am here."

-Edmund in King Lear

5. "All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts."

-Jaques in As You Like It

6. "Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall."

-Escalus in Measure for Measure

7. "I burn, I pine, I perish."

-Lucentio in The Taming of the Shrew

9. "This above all: to thine ownself be true.

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man."

-Polonius in Hamlet

10. "Come, let's away to prison;

We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:

When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,

And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,

And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh

At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues

Talk of court news."

-Lear in King Lear

11. "They have been at a great feast of languages, and stol'n the scraps."

-Moth in Love's Labor's Lost

12. "I would give all my fame for a pot of ale, and safety."

-Boy in Henry V

13. "For your brother and my sister no sooner

met, but they looked; no sooner looked, but they

loved; no sooner loved, but they sighed; no sooner

sighed, but they asked one another the reason; no

sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy."

-Rosalind in As You Like It

15. "Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

-Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream

16. "Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,

Men were deceivers ever;

One foot in sea, and one on shore,

To one thing constant never."

-Balthazar in Much Ado About Nothing

17. "I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?"

-Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing

18. "Men at some time are masters of their fates:

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings."

-Cassius in Julius Caesar

19. "Action is eloquence."

-Volumnia in Coriolanus

20. "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing."

-Macbeth in Macbeth

22. "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."

-Malvolio in Twelfth Night

23. "Come what come may, time and the hour runs through the roughest day."

-Macbeth in Macbeth

24. "Have more than thou showest,

Speak less than thou knowest,

Lend less than thou owest,

Ride more than thou goest,

Learn more than thou trowest,

Set less than thou throwest."

-The Fool in King Lear

25. "Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting."

-Dauphin in Henry V

26. "Our doubts are traitors,

And make us lose the good we oft might win,

By fearing to attempt."

-Lucio in Measure for Measure

28. "The miserable have no other medicine, but only hope."

-Claudio in Measure for Measure

29. "Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides:

Who cover faults, at last shame them derides."

-Cordelia in King Lear

30. "Swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,

That monthly changes in her circled orb,

Lest that thy love prove likewise variable."

-Juliet in Romeo and Juliet

31. "The more pity that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly."

-Touchstone in As You Like It

32. "The robb'd that smiles, steals something from the thief."

-Duke of Venice in Othello

33. "But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

-from "Sonnet 8"

34. "Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice."

-Polonius in Hamlet

A historical note: While William Shakespeare's actual date of birth is unclear, we know that he was baptized on April 26, 1564. As baptisms took place a few days after a child's birth, historians believe that Shakespeare was born on April 23rd. Interestingly, April 23 is also the date of his death.

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34 Of The Most Brilliant Shakespeare Quotes

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2. "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." -Hamlet in Hamlet 3. "From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain, and nourish all the world." -Berowne in Love's Labor's Lost 4.

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SEARCH FOR THE TRANSLATION OF SOME OF THESE PHRASES AND TRY TO REPRESENT THEIR MEANING WITH A PICTURE / DRAWING

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SEARCH FOR THE TRANSLATION OF SOME OF THESE PHRASES AND TRY TO REPRESENT THEIR MEANING WITH A PICTURE / DRAWING