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William Shakespeare - Playwright | Mini Bio | BIO

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64 Common Phrases William Shakespeare Invented

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Characteristics of Tragedy & Comedy -- A Debatable List

The following list by John Morreall represents a conglomeration of varying theory on the nature of tragedy and comedy. Personally, I find (depending on the play) some of the characteristics more convincing and others less so. Try testing a play we're reading in class against these ideas. Do they successfully explain what's going on in the work?

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Characteristics of Tragedy & Comedy -- A Debatable List The following list by John Morreall represents a conglomeration of varying theory on the nature of tragedy and comedy. Personally, I find (depending on the play) some of the characteristics more convincing and others less so.

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The main difference between Shakespearean Comedy and Tragedy is that Shakespearean comedies end in marriages or reunion, but Shakespearean tragedies usually end in the death of the tragic hero.

Shakespeare's plays have been basically categorized into three main categories as comedies, histories, and tragedies. However, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the genre or of some plays, as they show elements of several categories. Literature scholars have identified several common characteristics for comedies as well as tragedies so that they can be identified correctly.

Key Areas Covered

1. What is Shakespearean Comedy
- Definition, Common Elements, List of Comedies
2. What is Shakespearean Tragedy
- Definition, Common Elements, List of Tragedies
3. What is the Difference Between Shakespearean Comedy and Tragedy
- Comparison of Key Differences

Key Terms
Shakespeare, Shakespearean Comedy, Shakespearean Tragedy
What is Shakespearean Comedy

Shakespearean comedies can be defined as plays of Shakespearean plays that end with a union or marriage. In act, Shakespearean comedies are not 'comedies' in the modern sense of the world. Plots and characters of the play are rarely comic or laugh-out-loud funny. In addition, not everything that happens in them is happy or light-hearted.

Shakespearean Plays Generally Classified as Comedies

As You Like It

A Midsummer Night's Dream

All's Well That Ends Well

The Taming of the Shrew

The Merry Wives of Windsor

Much Ado About Nothing

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

The Comedy of Errors

Cymbeline

Love's Labour's Lost

Measure for Measure

The Merchant of Venice

Pericles, Prince of Tyre

Troilus and Cressida

Twelfth Night

The Two Noble Kinsmen

The Winter's Tale

Main Characteristics of Shakespearean Comedies

Literature scholars have identified several common characteristics in Shakespearean comedies. These include:

Love and Marriage - The themes of love and marriage and separation and reconciliation are prominent in Shakespeare's comedies. Almost all these comedies end marriage, or at least a betrothal.

Mistaken Identity and Misconception - Characters disguise themselves or impersonate others, or they are mistaken for someone else, creating a comic effect.

Complex Plots - When compared to Shakespearean tragedies and histories, comedies have more twists and turns, making the plot complex and unpredictable.

Furthermore, the language in Shakespeare's comedies uses clever word plays, metaphors and insults. Another notable feature in these comedies is their setting. Most of these comedies have idyllic settings such as the mysterious island of Illyria (Twelfth Night) or the Forest of Arden (As You Like It).

What is Shakespearean Tragedy

Shakespeare is perhaps more famous for his tragedies. Tragedies like Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth and Othello are well-known all over the world. Moreover, scholars have identified several common characteristics in Shakespearean tragedies. All these plays have a protagonist with a tragic flaw, which leads to his downfall. Also, this protagonist is often a nobleman, with great power and wealth. The tragic hero faces both internal and external struggles in the play. Although the tone of the plays is quite serious, you'll find some passages or characters that act as comic relief.

You'll find one or more of the following elements in Shakespearean tragedies:

Elements in a Shakespearean Tragedies

A tragic hero

A dichotomy of good and evil

Issues of fate or fortune

Greed

Foul revenge

Supernatural elements

Shakespearean Plays Generally Classified as Tragedies

Titus Andronicus

Romeo and Juliet

Julius Caesar

Hamlet

Troilus and Cressida

Othello

King Lear

Macbeth

Antony and Cleopatra

Coriolanus

Difference Between Shakespearean Comedy and Tragedy

Definition

Shakespearean comedies are plays of Shakespeare that end in marriages or reunions, but Shakespearean tragedies are plays of Shakespeare that usually end in the death of the tragic hero.

Ending

Comedies generally have a happy ending, but tragedies have a sad ending.

Focus

Shakespearean comedies tend to focus more on situations than characters, while Shakespearean tragedies tend to focus more characters.

Characters

Shakespearean comedies can involve common-born or middle-class main characters, while tragedies mainly involve characters from the nobility.

Elements

The theme of love and marriage, complex plot, mistaken identities or misconceptions, clever wordplay are some elements of Shakespearean tragedies, while tragic heroes, a dichotomy of good and evil, hamartia, issues of fate or fortune, foul revenge, supernatural elements, and catharsis are some elements in Shakespearean tragedies.

Conclusion

The main difference between Shakespearean Comedy and Tragedy is that Shakespearean comedies end in marriages or reunion whereas Shakespearean tragedies usually end in the death of the tragic hero. The theme of love and marriage, complex plot, mistaken identities or misconceptions, clever wordplay are some elements of Shakespearean tragedies, while tragic heroes, a dichotomy of good and evil, hamartia, issues of fate or fortune, foul revenge, supernatural elements, and catharsis are some elements in Shakespearean tragedies.

Reference:

1. Jamieson, Lee. "4 Ways to Identify a Shakespeare Comedy." ThoughtCo, ThoughtCo, 10 Aug. 2019, Available here.
2. Edley, Luke, et al. "Elements of Shakespearean Comedy." Thanet Writers, 5 Nov. 2019, Available here.
3. Jamieson, Lee. "What Makes Shakespeare's Tragedies Tragic?" ThoughtCo, ThoughtCo, 24 Dec. 2018, Available here.

Image Courtesy:

1. "ShrewKatePetrucio" By Smatprt - Own work (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Commons Wikimedia
2. "Otelo e Desdémona - Antonio Muñoz Degraín" By Antonio Muñoz Degrain - (Public Domain) via Commons Wikimedia

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What is the Difference Between Shakespearean Comedy and Tragedy - Pediaa.Com

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The main difference between Shakespearean Comedy and Tragedy is that Shakespearean comedies end in marriages or reunion, but Shakespearean tragedies usually end in the death of the tragic hero. Shakespeare's plays have been basically categorized into three main categories as comedies, histories, and tragedies.

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William Shakespeare was a renowned English poet, playwright, and actor born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. His birthday is most commonly celebrated on 23 April (see When was Shakespeare born), which is also believed to be the date he died in 1616.

Shakespeare was a prolific writer during the Elizabethan and Jacobean ages of British theatre (sometimes called the English Renaissance or the Early Modern Period). Shakespeare's plays are perhaps his most enduring legacy, but they are not all he wrote. Shakespeare's poems also remain popular to this day.

Shakespeare's Family Life

Records survive relating to William Shakespeare's family that offer an understanding of the context of Shakespeare's early life and the lives of his family members. John Shakespeare married Mary Arden, and together they had eight children. John and Mary lost two daughters as infants, so William became their eldest child. John Shakespeare worked as a glove-maker, but he also became an important figure in the town of Stratford by fulfilling civic positions. His elevated status meant that he was even more likely to have sent his children, including William, to the local grammar school.

William Shakespeare would have lived with his family in their house on Henley Street until he turned eighteen. When he was eighteen, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, who was twenty-six. It was a rushed marriage because Anne was already pregnant at the time of the ceremony. Together they had three children. Their first daughter, Susanna, was born six months after the wedding and was later followed by twins Hamnet and Judith. Hamnet died when he was just 11 years old.

Shakespeare in London

Shakespeare's career jump-started in London, but when did he go there? We know Shakespeare's twins were baptised in 1585, and that by 1592 his reputation was established in London, but the intervening years are considered a mystery. Scholars generally refer to these years as ' The Lost Years '.

During his time in London, Shakespeare's first printed works were published. They were two long poems, 'Venus and Adonis' (1593) and 'The Rape of Lucrece' (1594). He also became a founding member of The Lord Chamberlain's Men, a company of actors. Shakespeare was the company's regular dramatist, producing on average two plays a year, for almost twenty years.

He remained with the company for the rest of his career, during which time it evolved into The King's Men under the patronage of King James I (from 1603). During his time in the company Shakespeare wrote many of his most famous tragedies, such as King Lear and Macbeth, as well as great romances, like The Winter's Tale and The Tempest.

Shakespeare's Works

Altogether Shakespeare's works include 38 plays, 2 narrative poems, 154 sonnets, and a variety of other poems. No original manuscripts of Shakespeare's plays are known to exist today. It is actually thanks to a group of actors from Shakespeare's company that we have about half of the plays at all. They collected them for publication after Shakespeare died, preserving the plays. These writings were brought together in what is known as the First Folio ('Folio' refers to the size of the paper used). It contained 36 of his plays, but none of his poetry.

Shakespeare's legacy is as rich and diverse as his work; his plays have spawned countless adaptations across multiple genres and cultures. His plays have had an enduring presence on stage and film. His writings have been compiled in various iterations of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, which include all of his plays, sonnets, and other poems. William Shakespeare continues to be one of the most important literary figures of the English language.

New Place; a home in Stratford-upon-Avon

Shakespeare's success in the London theatres made him considerably wealthy, and by 1597 he was able to purchase New Place,the largest house in the borough of Stratford-upon-Avon. Although his professional career was spent in London, he maintained close links with his native town.

Recent archaeological evidence discovered on the site of Shakespeare's New Place shows that Shakespeare was only ever an intermittent lodger in London. This suggests he divided his time between Stratford and London (a two or three-day commute). In his later years, he may have spent more time in Stratford-upon-Avon than scholars previously thought.

Watch our video for more about Shakespeare as a literary commuter:

On his father's death in 1601, William Shakespeare inherited the old family home in Henley Street part of which was then leased to tenants. Further property investments in Stratford followed, including the purchase of 107 acres of land in 1602.

Shakespeare died in Stratford-upon-Avon on 23 April 1616 at the age of 52. He is buried in the sanctuary of the parish church, Holy Trinity.

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William Shakespeare was a renowned English poet, playwright, and actor born in 1564. Read about his life and works.

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Historians studying the Elizabethan Era, the period associated with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) that is often considered to be a golden age in English history, have focused mainly on the lives of the era's wealthy nobles. (Nobles were the elite men and women who held social titles.) The nobles held great power and frequently lived colorful and extravagant lives, but they made up only about 3 percent of the population. Although the vast majority of the Elizabethan population was quite poor, few firsthand historical records of their daily lives have survived. Members of the lower classes in England were mainly uneducated, so they did not usually keep journals or written records describing their own lives. They could not afford to have their portraits painted nor to preserve their humble homes for future generations. Historians agree, though, that daily life for the majority of Elizabethans had little to do with courtly life, and much to do with working hard to earn a meager living.

From a feudal to commercial economy

The working classes of England had always had a difficult life. Under the feudal system of the Middle Ages (the period in European history lasting from c. 500 to c. 1500), powerful lords owned and governed local districts, which were usually made up of peasant families and ranged from fifty to a few hundred people. (Peasants were farmers who worked in the fields owned by wealthy lords.) About 95 percent of the population of England lived in these rural districts. The peasant farmers performed almost all of the labor. They farmed the land: about one-third of the land solely for the lord; a portion to support the local church; and the rest for their own use. Their daily lives were regulated by the seasons, and they tended to work from sunup to sundown, rarely traveling beyond their own village. The sick and elderly relied on the kindness of the lord for survival. Peasant life was usually fairly stable, but there was almost no chance of escaping the grinding toil from one generation to the next.

England's farming economy was forever changed by the outbreak of a terrible plague, or infectious disease, that arrived on the European continent in 1348, killing more than one-fourth of the population in a few years. Continued outbreaks of the plague are estimated to have killed from one-third to one-half of Europe's population by 1400. So many people died that many villages were left without lords, fields were left without farmers, and children were left without parents. With so many laborers dead, lords no longer had an easy supply of labor to farm their lands. By the early sixteenth century laborers found they could demand more money and better working conditions. For the first time it became possible for some enterprising peasants to take over the lands made vacant by the plague and become landowners themselves.

WORDS TO KNOW

feudal system:

The political and economic system of the Middle Ages, in which powerful lords owned and governed local districts and the people of their districts served their lords under bonds of loyalty.

literacy:

Ability to read and write.

mortality rate:

The frequency of deaths in proportion to a specific population.

nobles:

Elite men and women who held social titles.

parish:

The community served by one local church.

peasant:

A class of farmers who worked in the fields owned by wealthy lords. Part of the crop was paid to the lord as rent.

poorhouse:

A building maintained by parish funding to house the local needy.

Reformation:

A sixteenth-century religious movement that aimed to reform the Roman Catholic Church and resulted in the establishment of Protestant churches.

saint:

A deceased person who, due to his or her exceptionally good behavior during life, receives the official blessing of the church and is believed to be capable of interceding with God to protect people on earth.

sumptuary laws:

Statutes regulating how extravagantly people of the various social classes could dress.

tilting:

A military exercise performed for the queen, in which young nobles on horseback armed with lances (long spears) charged at one another in an attempt to throw their opponent from his horse. Also known as jousting.

vagrant:

A person who wanders from town to town without a home or steady employment.

Another economic change took place in the early sixteenth century. England had developed a huge and highly profitable cloth-making industry. At first the industry relied on imported material to make cloth, but by the sixteenth century English landowners discovered that there was more profit to be made raising sheep for wool than in planting crops. Many peasants lost their livelihoods when the lands they had farmed were fenced off for sheep. They moved to the cities, which were prospering because of the new cloth industry and the other growing trades. However, the new industries provided few jobs for unskilled laborers. The peasants who were lucky enough to find work in the cities earned extremely low wages that barely fed them, and many of them were unable to find employment at all.

The rise of cities and towns

When Elizabeth I (1533-1603) became queen there were about 2.8 million people in England. The population rose significantly during her reign, to about 4.1 million. Many people lived in the countryside, but in the sixteenth century the town population grew at a greater rate. Prior to Elizabethan times, only about 5 percent of the population lived in cities and towns, but during her reign, about 15 percent of the rapidly growing population had become urban. As businesses and industries developed, a new middle class consisting of successful merchants and craftsman arose. These businesspeople thrived in the cities and often served in the urban government. During Elizabeth's reign, as never before, it was possible for city merchants to become extremely wealthy and rise in social status.

England's capital and largest city, London, underwent remarkable changes, growing to about two hundred thousand people during Elizabeth's reign. (The next largest English city, by comparison, was only about fifteen thousand people.) London's population was divided. It included a small but powerful population of wealthy nobles, a prospering middle class, and a large and impoverished lower class living in miserable conditions. In the filthy, crowded neighborhoods of the poor, raw sewage (waste matter) ran through the streets. Disease and crime were widespread. Laborers who came to London from the country frequently failed to find jobs. Homeless, they wandered in search of a way to feed themselves. Many turned to small crime, such as begging, picking pockets, and prostitution, simply to avoid starvation. There was little help for the sick, elderly, and orphans. The life expectancy, or average life span, of an Elizabethan was only 42 years, but it was much lower among the urban poor. English people of all classes feared the arrival of gangs of beggars and drifters in their towns and villages, bringing crime and immoral behavior into an otherwise hardworking and orderly society.

Elizabethan poor laws

Parliament, the English legislative body, passed several poor laws during Elizabeth's reign. The poor laws assigned the responsibility for maintaining the poor to the local church districts, or parishes (England was divided into fifteen thousand parishes). Local officials assessed how much money was needed to support their district's poor and then collected these funds from property owners. Elizabethan poor laws distinguished between the "deserving poor," such as the sick, elderly, and orphans, and the "undeserving poor"-those who were capable of working but chose not to. The undeserving poor were to be punished, while the deserving poor would receive some kind of local support in the form of food, money, clothing, or a stay at the local orphanage or poorhouse, a building maintained by parish funding to house the needy.

To enforce the poor laws, each community needed to be able to keep track of its own poor. Thus, the new laws required that every English citizen have a place that was legally designated as their home. It was nearly impossible for anyone without proof of a permanent job or lots of money to establish a new place of residence. There was little tolerance for vagrants, people who wander from town to town without a home or steady employment. Vagrants were taken into custody, punished with a public whipping, and then returned to their home village.

Elizabethan education

An extensive educational system developed in England during Elizabeth's reign, and the rate of literacy, or the ability of individuals to read and write, rose considerably. Only about one-fifth of the population could sign their own names at the beginning of the era, but by Elizabeth's death about one-third of the population was literate.

Education was by no means available to everyone, nor were all schools equal in quality. The children of nobility continued to receive their education in their homes from some of England's top scholars, who were hired at considerable expense as tutors. For the sons of the growing middle classes, though, there was an increasing opportunity for education in the country's public schools. (Girls were usually educated at home in the arts of homemaking.) Public schools were not free. The term "public" referred to the fact that the student went out into the world for his education rather than being schooled at home. Poor children usually began working at very young ages and had neither the time to receive an education nor the money to pay for it.

Education was more widespread in the cities, where the middle classes were larger. Even some working-class parents in the cities were successful enough to be able to spare their sons from working full-time, and a growing number of working-class boys went to school for at least a couple of years-long enough to learn the basics of reading and writing in the English language.

Petty and grammar schools

Boys-and a few girls-from the ages of about five to seven attended petty schools. A petty school was run by an educated local woman, usually the wife of a town noble, in her own home. The children in petty school were taught to read and write English. They also received instruction about being good Christians, as well as other lessons in proper behavior, including such practical matters as table manners. The schools were rigorous, beginning at 6:00 or 7:00 am and continuing until sundown. Beatings were commonly used to motivate the children to learn. Petty schools prepared their students for grammar schools.

Learning the ABCs

Elizabethan petty school students were usually given hornbooks to help them learn their letters. These simple textbooks consisted of a piece of paper containing text that was covered with a thin, transparent (see-through) sheet made from an animal's horn to protect the paper from wear and tear. The horn-covered page was then mounted on a square piece of wood with a handle. On the page was the alphabet written out in lower case and capital letters, the Lord's Prayer, and a few simple words. With this hornbook the children learned to read and write in English.

The English alphabet in Elizabeth's time did not look quite the same as it does today. It was made up of only twenty-four letters, unlike the modern twenty-six-letter alphabet. The "i" and "j" were the same letter, with the "j" being used as the capital letter at the beginning of the word and the "i" being used as a lower case letter in the middle of the word. Similarly, the "u" and "v" were the same letter, with the "v" used as the capital. Today there is no letter for the "th" sound, but in Elizabethan times this was represented by a letter that looks like our "y." Thus the word "ye" was pronounced "the."

Children attended grammar schools from the ages of seven to fourteen. In these schools children were taught to read and write in Latin. Literacy in Latin prepared them to continue their educations at the university level, where all schoolwork was done in the Latin language. In grammar schools the works of the notable classical Latin playwrights and historians were used only for the purpose of teaching Latin grammar. Subjects like science and music were not taught, and only a small amount of arithmetic was presented.

At the age of fourteen upper- and middle-class boys who could afford to continue their education entered a university. During Elizabeth's time, universities educated more middle-class boys than ever before, and even some sons of very humble craftsmen were able to attend the universities on scholarships. Students at the universities studied in several areas: liberal arts, which included grammar, logic (the science that deals with the principles of reasoning), music, astronomy (the scientific study of the stars, planets, and other celestial bodies), and arithmetic; the arts, consisting of philosophy, rhetoric (the study of expressing one's self elegantly in writing and in the spoken word), and poetry; natural history (the study of nature); religion; medicine; and law.

Clothing

The Elizabethan Era is known for the elaborate outfits that men and women wore to court and elite social functions. Extremely detailed portraits of the wealthy have given us a clear idea of how they dressed. The wealthy wore furs and jewels, and the cloth of their garments featured extravagant embroidery. But theirs was not the typical fashion of the times. The poor and even the middle classes dressed more simply. However, few detailed portraits or records of the clothing of the poor remain.

In Elizabethan England one's clothing provided an observer with instant knowledge of one's social status. With a growing middle class, the rich and powerful clung to their age-old distinction of wearing clothes that made it immediately clear that they outranked others. Sumptuary laws, or statutes regulating how extravagantly people of the various social classes could dress, had been in effect for many years in England. Soon after taking the throne Elizabeth passed her own sumptuary acts, preserving the old standards and setting out in great detail what the different social ranks were allowed to wear.

By Elizabeth's acts, only royalty could wear the color purple and only the highest nobility could wear the color red. Ermine, a type of fur, was to be worn only by the royal family, gold could be worn only by nobles of the rank of earl or higher, and fur trims of any type were limited to people whose incomes were extremely high. The amount of detail in the sumptuary acts was remarkable, as can be seen in this excerpt from the act regarding women's clothing, as quoted on the Elizabethan Era Web site:

None shall wear Any cloth of gold, tissue, nor fur of sables: except duchesses, marquises, and countesses in their gowns, kirtles [underskirts], partlets [garments, usually made of lace, that filled the opening in the front of a dress and had a collar attached], and sleeves; cloth of gold, silver, tinseled satin, silk, or cloth mixed or embroidered with gold or silver or pearl, saving silk mixed with gold or silver in linings of cowls [a draped neckline], partlets, and sleeves: except all degrees above viscountesses, and viscountesses, baronesses, and other personages of like degrees in their kirtles and sleeves.

Elizabeth claimed the purpose of the sumptuary laws was to prohibit her subjects from wasting huge amounts of money on clothes. But the laws were also intended to preserve the existing order of social classes. As the incomes of the middle class increased, they were able to afford to live and dress like aristocrats. Thus it became increasingly important to regulate the garments of the various classes in order to maintain the established social order. The queen, as the highest-ranking person in the nation, was dressed the most elaborately, and she took this outward display of her position seriously. Although the punishment for wearing clothing prohibited by the sumptuary laws was a fine or worse, the laws were generally not enforced anywhere but in the royal court. However, purple and red dyes, velvet, gold cloth, and other forbidden garb were highly expensive, and poverty excluded the poor majority from wearing them. The poor, by necessity, dressed for their work: men wore boots, pants, a vest, shirt, and hat, while women wore an under skirt with an outer skirt over it, a bodice (the upper part of a woman's dress), shirt, and hat.

Young boys and girls alike were dressed in skirts until the age of about six. After that age children were dressed in smaller versions of adult clothing.

Food and drink

Wealthy English households usually ate large quantities of meat, such as beef, mutton (sheep), pork, venison (deer meat), and rabbit. Elizabethans tended to cook their meats with fruits, preferring the sweet taste. At social gatherings many varieties of meats and other foods were served. Because there were no refrigerators, meat was usually preserved in salt to last throughout the winter; the taste of old or spoiled meat was covered up with spices imported from Asia.

Meat was a rare luxury for the poorer classes. Their meals typically featured bread, eggs, and dairy products. Vegetables were also fairly rare in their diet.

Elizabethans rarely drank water because it was impure and could lead to sickness. Instead, people of all ages and classes drank wine, flat beer, or weak ale, even with their morning meal. Both classes ate bread, but not the same type. The wealthy usually ate a refined white wheat bread called manchet, while the poor were more likely to eat black or brown breads made from rye or barley.

Family

The nuclear family consisting only of a father, a mother, and their children made up the most common households in England, although very wealthy households sometimes included members of the extended family, such as aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents, and almost always included a large staff of live-in servants.

Among farm laborers and craftspeople, families were viewed as working units. Each member of the family had a task. On a farm, a young boy might be in charge of shooing birds away from the crops, an older boy might herd sheep, and the wife was in charge of maintaining the home, feeding the family, and helping her husband with raising and harvesting the crops. Girls usually were trained by their mothers to help take care of the household. Similarly, families in the cloth industry often worked in their homes and divided up the labor of spinning and weaving the cloth. For working people, it was a time-honored tradition that the son would take on the same career as his father.

There were few single people in Elizabethan England-all were expected to marry. In fact, women who did not marry were regarded with suspicion; some were even called witches. Married women were almost always homemakers, though poor women often had to work for pay as well. Almost all Elizabethans considered women to be inferior to men. Except in special circumstances, women could not inherit the family property. They were expected to obey their male relatives and had few rights. It was equally expected that men would marry. Those who remained single had no legal claim as head of their household, and thus were not eligible for public office or to inherit from their families. Marriages were often arranged by parents. Most marriages were not made for romantic love, but for social or financial purposes. Divorce and separation were rare and required an act of Parliament. Only the very wealthy could even consider this option.

Almost all Elizabethan couples desired to have children. With a high mortality rate, or the frequency of deaths in proportion to a specific population, couples often had many children, knowing some would not survive. Generally, children were raised to be respectful and to serve their parents. They were viewed as the property of their fathers, and beatings and other severe punishments were a normal means of discipline in Elizabethan households. Parents' approaches to child rearing were very different from one another, however. Just as is the case today, some Elizabethan parents were prone to spoiling their children while others could be very strict.

Holidays and celebrations

England had a long and much beloved holiday tradition. For most Elizabethan workers, the workweek was long and hard; times for socializing and being entertained were eagerly anticipated. Many of the traditional English holidays were actually holy days, days honoring the lives of the saints (deceased people who, due to their exceptionally good behavior during life, receive the official blessing of the Catholic Church and are believed to be capable of interceding with God to protect people on earth) or events in the life of Jesus Christ. Holidays were celebrated within the parish, often with feasting and games as well as prayers.

The Reformation (the sixteenth-century religious movement that aimed to reform the Roman Catholic Church and resulted in the establishment of Protestant churches) brought about a change in the holidays celebrated in England and in the ways they were celebrated. The Anglican Church, the official Protestant church of England, and especially the Puritans (a group of Protestants who follow strict religious standards), wanted to eliminate the Catholic holidays, and they were far more rigid in their ideas of acceptable celebration behavior than the Catholic Church had been. In 1552 Elizabeth abolished most saints' days and issued an official Anglican list of the annual holy days.

Twelve Days of Christmas

One of the most popular holidays of the year was Christmas, which began on Christmas eve, December 24, and continued through January 6, the Twelfth Day (or Night). Christmas was preceded by a four-week period called Advent in which Elizabethans prayed and fasted, or refrained from eating certain foods at certain times. Advent ended with a Christmas Eve fast. On Christmas morning all attended a church service, and afterward the long fast was at last broken with a great feast. Celebrants went wassailing, going from house to house singing Christmas carols and enjoying a drink or treat at each stop. Music and other festivities continued for the next four days-all days off work. January 1, another work holiday, was the day of gift-giving. It was also celebrated with feasts and wassailing and other forms of merriment. The next and last Christmas holiday was the Twelfth Day or Night, also called Epiphany, which celebrated the arrival of the Three Magi, or wise men, at the manger of the infant Christ. The feast and revelries on the Twelfth Day were the most extravagant of the year.

Shrovetide

After Christmas, Shrovetide was the next major celebration. Shrovetide was the period consisting of the Sunday through the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, or the forty-day period of fasting before Easter. Shrovetide celebrations included great feasts and many amusements; Shrovetide is the origin of the Mardi Gras celebrations that still take place today in many parts of the world.

The coming of summer was celebrated on May 1, also called May Day. Although it was officially a holiday in honor of two saints, Philip and Jacob, by custom it was mainly celebrated as a secular holiday. On the night before May Day, the youth of the village or town went out into the woods to gather mayflowers. The flowers were used to decorate houses, but most villages also used them to decorate a pole that the young men and women danced around the next day. The maypole dance is said to have involved kissing, and the Puritans worried that the holiday encouraged immoral behavior among the English youth. Although Elizabeth did not ban the traditional May Day celebrations, many local church leaders did. Still, it remained a popular holiday for many years to come.

Accession Day

Beginning on November 17, 1570, and continuing on that day annually, the English celebrated Queen Elizabeth's accession to the throne of England. Accession Day (also called Queen's Day) was one of the few entirely secular holidays of the year. The highlight of the day was the tilting tournaments performed in London for the queen, in which young nobles on horseback armed with lances, or long spears, charged at one another in an attempt to throw their opponent from his horse. Accession Day celebrated the queen's annual return to her London palaces for winter, and London became the site of great parades, music, dramatic presentations, and religious services dedicated to thanksgiving. Throughout England the day was celebrated with bonfires and the ringing of church bells. Though wealthy nobles had private celebrations, the Queen's Day was joyously celebrated among many working-class people. Throughout her reign Elizabeth had cultivated her image as the loving, and yet supremely regal, mother to her people-the Virgin Queen whose life was dedicated solely to caring for and protecting the English population. Though she had enemies among her subjects, Elizabeth was generally beloved and the holiday in her honor was a heartfelt celebration of the queen. The holiday was celebrated for nearly two hundred years after her death.

For More Information

BOOKS

Palliser, D. M. The Age of Elizabeth: England Under the Later Tudors, 1547-1603. 2d ed. London and New York: Longman, 1992.

Picard, Liza. Elizabeth's London: Everyday Life in Elizabethan London. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2003.

Wagner, John A. Historical Dictionary of the Elizabethan World: Britain, Ireland, Europe, and America. New York: Checkmark Books, 2002.

Wrightson, Keith. English Society: 1580-1680. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1982.

WEB SITES

Elizabethan Era. http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/elizabethan-clothing-laws-women.htm (accessed on July 11, 2006).

Monson, Shelly. Elizabethan Holiday Customs, http://guildofstgeorge.com/holiday.htm (accessed on July 11, 2006).

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11 Source for information on Daily Life in the Elizabethan Era: Elizabethan World Reference Library dictionary.

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The Elizabethan Era history is depicted in The Lost Colony drama. The term, “Elizabethan Era” refers to the English history of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign (1558–1603).

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Inventors get a lot of love. Thomas Edison is held up as a tinkering genius. Steve Jobs is considered a saint in Silicon Valley. Hedy Lamar, meanwhile, may have been a Hollywood star but a new book makes clear her real legacy is in inventing the foundations of encryption. But while all these people invented things, it's possible to invent something even more fundamental. Take Shakespeare: he invented words. And he invented more words-words that continue to shape the English language-than anyone else. By a long shot.

But what does it mean to "invent" words? How many words did Shakespeare invent? What kind of words? And which words are those exactly? Rather than just listing all the words Shakespeare invented, this post digs deeper into the how and the why (or "wherefore") of Shakespeare's literary creations.

How Many Words Did Shakespeare Invent?

1700! My, what a perfectly round number! Such a large and perfectly round number is misleading at best, and is more likely just wrong-there is in fact a bunch of debate about the accuracy of this number.

So who's to blame for the uncertainty around the number of words Shakespeare invented? For starters, we can blame the Oxford English Dictionary. This famous dictionary (often called the OED for short) is famous, in part, because it provides incredibly thorough definitions of words, but also because it identifies the first time each word actually appeared in written English. Shakespeare appears as the first documented user of more words than any other writer, making it convenient to assume that he was the creator of all of those words.

In reality, though, many of these words were probably part of everyday discourse in Elizabethan England. So it's highly likely that Shakespeare didn't invent all of these words; he just produced the first preserved record of some of them. Ryan Buda, a writer at Letterpile, explains it like this:

But most likely, the word was in use for some time before it is seen in the writings of Shakespeare. The fact that the word first appears there does not necessarily mean that he made it up himself, but rather, he could have borrowed it from his peers or from conversations he had with others.

However, while Shakespeare might have been just the first person to write down some words, he definitely did create many words himself, plenty of which we still use to this day. The list a ways down below contains the 420 words that almost certainly originated from Shakespeare himself.

But all this leads to another question. What does it even mean to "invent" a word?

How Did Shakespeare Invent Words?

Some writers invent words in the same way Thomas Edison invented light bulbs: they cobble together bits of sound and create entirely new words without any meaning or relation to existing words. Lewis Carroll does in the first stanza of his "Jabberwocky" poem:

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Carroll totally made up words like "brillig," "slithy," "toves," and "mimsy"; the first stanza alone contains 11 of these made-up words, which are known as nonce words. Words like these aren't just meaningless, they're also disposable, intended to be used just once.

Shakespeare did not create nonce words. He took an entirely different approach. When he invented words, he did it by working with existing words and altering them in new ways. More specifically, he would create new words by:

Conjoining two words

Changing verbs into adjectives

Changing nouns into verbs

Adding prefixes to words

Adding suffixes to words

The most exhaustive take on Shakespeare's invented words comes from a nice little 874-page book entitled The Shakespeare Key by Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke.Here's how they explain Shakespeare's literary innovations:

Shakespeare, with the right and might of a true poet, and with his peculiar royal privilege as king of all poets, has minted several words that deserve to become current in our language. He coined them for his own special use to express his own special meanings in his own special passages; but they are so expressive and so well framed to be exponents of certain particulars in meanings common to us all, that they deserve to become generally adopted and used.

We can call what Shakespeare did to create new words "minting," "coining" or "inventing." Whatever term we use to describe it, Shakespeare was doing things with words that no one had ever thought to do before, and that's what matters.

Shakespeare Didn't Invent Nonsense Words

Though today readers often need the help of modern English translations to fully grasp the nuance and meaning of Shakespeare's language, Shakespeare's contemporary audience would have had a much easier go of it. Why? Two main reasons.

First, Shakespeare was part of a movement in English literature that introduced more prose into plays. (Earlier plays were written primarily in rhyming verse.) Shakespeare's prose was similar to the style and cadence of everyday conversation in Elizabethan England, making it natural for members of his audience to understand.

In addition, the words he created were comprehensible intuitively because, once again, they were often built on the foundations of already existing words, and were not just unintelligible combinations of sound. Take "congreeted" for example. The prefix "con" means with, and "greet" means to receive or acknowledge someone.

It therefore wasn't a huge stretch for people to understand this line:

That, face to face and royal eye to eye.
You have congreeted.

( Henry V, Act 5, Scene 2)

Shakespeare also made nouns into verbs. He was the first person to use friend as a verb, predating Mark Zuckerberg by about 395 years.

And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do, to express his love and friending to you

( Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5)

Other times, despite his proclivity for making compound words, Shakespeare reached into his vast Latin vocabulary for loanwords.

His heart fracted and corroborate.

( Henry V, Act 2, Scene 1)

Here the Latin word fractus means "broken." Take away the - us and add in the English suffix - ed, anda new English word is born.

New Words Are Nothing New

Shakespeare certainly wasn't the first person to make up words. It's actually entirely commonplace for new words to enter a language. We're adding new words and terms to our "official" dictionaries every year. In the past few years, the Merriam-Webster dictionary has added several new words and phrases, like these:

So inventing words wasn't something unique to Shakespeare or Elizabethan England. It's still going on all the time.

But Shakespeare Invented a Lot of New Words

So why did Shakespeare have to make up hundreds of new words? For starters, English was smaller in Shakespeare's time. The language contained many fewer words, and not enough for a literary genius like Shakespeare. How many words? No one can be sure. One estimates, one from Encyclopedia Americana, puts the number at 50,000-60,000, likely not including medical and scientific terms.

During Shakespeare's time, the number of words in the language began to grow. Edmund Weiner, deputy chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, explains it this way:

The vocabulary of English expanded greatly during the early modern period. Writers were well aware of this and argued about it. Some were in favour of loanwords to express new concepts, especially from Latin. Others advocated the use of existing English words, or new compounds of them, for this purpose. Others advocated the revival of obsolete words and the adoption of regional dialect.

In Shakespeare's collected writings, he used a total of 31,534 different words. Whatever the size of the English lexicon at the time, Shakespeare was in command of a substantial portion of it. Jason Kottke estimates that Shakespeare knew around 66,534 words, which suggests Shakespeare was pushing the boundaries of English vocab as he knew it. He had to make up some new words.

The Complete List of Words Shakespeare Invented

Compiling a definitive list of every word that Shakespeare ever invented is impossible. But creating a list of the words that Shakespeare almost certainly invented can be done. We generated list of words below by starting with the words that Shakespeare was the first to use in written language, and then applying research that has identified which words were probably in everyday use during Shakespeare's time. The result are 420 bona fide words minted, coined, and invented by Shakespeare, from "academe" to "zany":

Words That Shakespeare Invented - Resource List

Words, words, words.

( Hamlet Act 2, Scene 2)

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The 420 Words That Shakespeare Invented - The LitCharts Blog

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Inventors get a lot of love. Thomas Edison is held up as a tinkering genius. Steve Jobs is considered a saint in Silicon Valley. Hedy Lamar, meanwhile, may have been a Hollywood star but a new book makes clear her real legacy is in inventing the foundations of encryption.

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-Tragic plots tend to stress order and process the end follows from the beginning.
-Comic plots tend to be more random they seem to be improvised, leaving a number of loose ends.
-Comic heroes and plots tend to see the unexpected and surprising as an opportunity rather than a norm violation.
In tragedy, things should have one meaning and have clear-cut application to problems.

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-The Elizabethan age is considered to be a time of English renaissance that inspired national pride through classical ideals, international expansion, and naval triumph.
-often considered to be a golden age in English history, have focused mainly on the lives of the era's wealthy nobles
-The nobles held great power and frequently lived colorful and extravagant lives, but they made up only about 3 percent of the population
-Although the vast majority of the Elizabethan population was quite poor
-Members of the lower classes in England were mainly uneducated, so they did not usually keep journals or written records describing their own lives

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- he invented about 1700 words
- Although to us some of these words may sound like nonsense, during the Elizabethan Period the words were made to accommadate every day conversation
-he invented words by conjoining two words, changing verbs into adjectives, changing nouns into verbs, adding prefixes to words, adding suffixes to words
- Some of the most popular phrases invented by Shakespeare include:  Being stuck in a pickle, To wear your heart on your sleeve, A wild goose chase, and many others

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- Born April 23rd 1564 to John and Mary Shakespeare
- William married Anne Hathaway at 18 and had 3 children, Susanna, Hamnet, and Judith although Hamnet died at just 11
- Started acting and writing poetry some time in between 1585 to 1592, originally sparked his sense for writing poetry after the plague hit because he couldn't preform so he would write poems
- Shakespeare ended his career with a total of 38 plays, 2 narrative poems, 154 sonnets, a variety of other poems