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Who Was William Shakespeare?

William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor of the Renaissance era. He was an important member of the King's Men company of theatrical players from roughly 1594 onward.

Known throughout the world, Shakespeare's writings capture the range of human emotion and conflict and have been celebrated for more than 400 years. And yet, the personal life of William Shakespeare is somewhat a mystery.

There are two primary sources that provide historians with an outline of his life. One is his work - the plays, poems and sonnets - and the other is official documentation such as church and court records. However, these provide only brief sketches of specific events in his life and yield little insight into the man himself.

When Was Shakespeare Born?

No birth records exist, but an old church record indicates that a William Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564. From this, it is believed he was born on or near April 23, 1564, and this is the date scholars acknowledge as Shakespeare's birthday.

Located about 100 miles northwest of London, during Shakespeare's time Stratford-upon-Avon was a bustling market town along the River Avon and bisected by a country road.

Family

Shakespeare was the third child of John Shakespeare, a leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a local landed heiress. Shakespeare had two older sisters, Joan and Judith, and three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard and Edmund.

Before Shakespeare's birth, his father became a successful merchant and held official positions as alderman and bailiff, an office resembling a mayor. However, records indicate John's fortunes declined sometime in the late 1570s.

Childhood and Education

Scant records exist of Shakespeare's childhood and virtually none regarding his education. Scholars have surmised that he most likely attended the King's New School, in Stratford, which taught reading, writing and the classics.

Being a public official's child, Shakespeare would have undoubtedly qualified for free tuition. But this uncertainty regarding his education has led some to raise questions about the authorship of his work (and even about whether or not Shakespeare really existed).

Wife and Children

Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582, in Worcester, in Canterbury Province. Hathaway was from Shottery, a small village a mile west of Stratford. Shakespeare was 18 and Anne was 26, and, as it turns out, pregnant.

Their first child, a daughter they named Susanna, was born on May 26, 1583. Two years later, on February 2, 1585, twins Hamnet and Judith were born. Hamnet later died of unknown causes at age 11.

Shakespeare's Lost Years

There are seven years of Shakespeare's life where no records exist after the birth of his twins in 1585. Scholars call this period the "lost years," and there is wide speculation on what he was doing during this period.

One theory is that he might have gone into hiding for poaching game from the local landlord, Sir Thomas Lucy. Another possibility is that he might have been working as an assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire.

It's generally believed he arrived in London in the mid- to late 1580s and may have found work as a horse attendant at some of London's finer theaters, a scenario updated centuries later by the countless aspiring actors and playwrights in Hollywood and Broadway.

The King's Men

By the early 1590s, documents show Shakespeare was a managing partner in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, an acting company in London with which he was connected for most of his career.

Considered the most important troupe of its time, the company changed its name to the King's Men following the crowning of King James I in 1603. From all accounts, the King's Men company was very popular. Records show that Shakespeare had works published and sold as popular literature.

Although the theater culture in 16th century England was not highly admired by people of high rank, some of the nobility were good patrons of the performing arts and friends of the actors.

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Actor and Playwright

By 1592, there is evidence Shakespeare earned a living as an actor and a playwright in London and possibly had several plays produced.

The September 20, 1592 edition of the Stationers' Register (a guild publication) includes an article by London playwright Robert Greene that takes a few jabs at Shakespeare: "...There is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country," Greene wrote of Shakespeare.

Scholars differ on the interpretation of this criticism, but most agree that it was Greene's way of saying Shakespeare was reaching above his rank, trying to match better known and educated playwrights like Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe or Greene himself.

Early in his career, Shakespeare was able to attract the attention of Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his first and second published poems: "Venus and Adonis" (1593) and "The Rape of Lucrece" (1594).

By 1597, Shakespeare had already written and published 15 of his 37 plays. Civil records show that at this time he purchased the second-largest house in Stratford, called New House, for his family.

It was a four-day ride by horse from Stratford to London, so it's believed that Shakespeare spent most of his time in the city writing and acting and came home once a year during the 40-day Lenten period, when the theaters were closed.

Globe Theater

By 1599, Shakespeare and his business partners built their own theater on the south bank of the Thames River, which they called the Globe Theater.

In 1605, Shakespeare purchased leases of real estate near Stratford for 440 pounds, which doubled in value and earned him 60 pounds a year. This made him an entrepreneur as well as an artist, and scholars believe these investments gave him the time to write his plays uninterrupted.

Shakespeare's Writing Style

Shakespeare's early plays were written in the conventional style of the day, with elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases that didn't always align naturally with the story's plot or characters.

However, Shakespeare was very innovative, adapting the traditional style to his own purposes and creating a freer flow of words.

With only small degrees of variation, Shakespeare primarily used a metrical pattern consisting of lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse, to compose his plays. At the same time, there are passages in all the plays that deviate from this and use forms of poetry or simple prose.

William Shakespeare's Plays

While it's difficult to determine the exact chronology of Shakespeare's plays, over the course of two decades, from about 1590 to 1613, he wrote a total of 37 plays revolving around several main themes: histories, tragedies, comedies and tragicomedies.

Early Works: Histories and Comedies

With the exception of the tragic love story Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's first plays were mostly histories. Henry VI (Parts I, II and III), Richard II and Henry V dramatize the destructive results of weak or corrupt rulers and have been interpreted by drama historians as Shakespeare's way of justifying the origins of the Tudor Dynasty.

Julius Caesar portrays upheaval in Roman politics that may have resonated with viewers at a time when England's aging monarch, Queen Elizabeth I, had no legitimate heir, thus creating the potential for future power struggles.

Shakespeare also wrote several comedies during his early period: the whimsical A Midsummer Night's Dream, the romantic Merchant of Venice, the wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing and the charming As You Like It and Twelfth Night.

Other plays written before 1600 include Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, Love's Labour's Lost, King John, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry V.

Works after 1600: Tragedies and Tragicomedies

It was in Shakespeare's later period, after 1600, that he wrote the tragedies Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. In these, Shakespeare's characters present vivid impressions of human temperament that are timeless and universal.

Possibly the best known of these plays is Hamlet, which explores betrayal, retribution, incest and moral failure. These moral failures often drive the twists and turns of Shakespeare's plots, destroying the hero and those he loves.

In Shakespeare's final period, he wrote several tragicomedies. Among these are Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest. Though graver in tone than the comedies, they are not the dark tragedies of King Lear or Macbeth because they end with reconciliation and forgiveness.

Other plays written during this period include All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Timon of Athens, Coriolanus, Pericles and Henry VIII.

When Did Shakespeare Die?

Tradition holds that Shakespeare died on his 52nd birthday, April 23, 1616, but some scholars believe this is a myth. Church records show he was interred at Trinity Church on April 25, 1616.

The exact cause of Shakespeare's death is unknown, though many believe he died following a brief illness.

In his will, he left the bulk of his possessions to his eldest daughter, Susanna. Though entitled to a third of his estate, little seems to have gone to his wife, Anne, whom he bequeathed his "second-best bed." This has drawn speculation that she had fallen out of favor, or that the couple was not close.

However, there is very little evidence the two had a difficult marriage. Other scholars note that the term "second-best bed" often refers to the bed belonging to the household's master and mistress - the marital bed - and the "first-best bed" was reserved for guests.

Did Shakespeare Write His Own Plays?

About 150 years after his death, questions arose about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Scholars and literary critics began to float names like Christopher Marlowe, Edward de Vere and Francis Bacon - men of more known backgrounds, literary accreditation, or inspiration - as the true authors of the plays.

Much of this stemmed from the sketchy details of Shakespeare's life and the dearth of contemporary primary sources. Official records from the Holy Trinity Church and the Stratford government record the existence of a Shakespeare, but none of these attest to him being an actor or playwright.

Skeptics also questioned how anyone of such modest education could write with the intellectual perceptiveness and poetic power that is displayed in Shakespeare's works. Over the centuries, several groups have emerged that question the authorship of Shakespeare's plays.

The most serious and intense skepticism began in the 19th century when adoration for Shakespeare was at its highest. The detractors believed that the only hard evidence surrounding Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon described a man from modest beginnings who married young and became successful in real estate.

Members of the Shakespeare Oxford Society (founded in 1957) put forth arguments that English aristocrat and poet Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the poems and plays of "William Shakespeare."

The Oxfordians cite de Vere's extensive knowledge of aristocratic society, his education, and the structural similarities between his poetry and that found in the works attributed to Shakespeare. They contend that Shakespeare had neither the education nor the literary training to write such eloquent prose and create such rich characters.

However, the vast majority of Shakespearean scholars contend that Shakespeare wrote all his own plays. They point out that other playwrights of the time also had sketchy histories and came from modest backgrounds.

They contend that Stratford's New Grammar School curriculum of Latin and the classics could have provided a good foundation for literary writers. Supporters of Shakespeare's authorship argue that the lack of evidence about Shakespeare's life doesn't mean his life didn't exist. They point to evidence that displays his name on the title pages of published poems and plays.

Examples exist of authors and critics of the time acknowledging Shakespeare as the author of plays such as The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors and King John.

Royal records from 1601 show that Shakespeare was recognized as a member of the King's Men theater company and a Groom of the Chamber by the court of King James I, where the company performed seven of Shakespeare's plays.

There is also strong circumstantial evidence of personal relationships by contemporaries who interacted with Shakespeare as an actor and a playwright.

Literary Legacy

What seems to be true is that Shakespeare was a respected man of the dramatic arts who wrote plays and acted in some in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. But his reputation as a dramatic genius wasn't recognized until the 19th century.

Beginning with the Romantic period of the early 1800s and continuing through the Victorian period, acclaim and reverence for Shakespeare and his work reached its height. In the 20th century, new movements in scholarship and performance have rediscovered and adopted his works.

Today, his plays are highly popular and constantly studied and reinterpreted in performances with diverse cultural and political contexts. The genius of Shakespeare's characters and plots are that they present real human beings in a wide range of emotions and conflicts that transcend their origins in Elizabethan England.

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William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor of the Renaissance era. He was an important member of the King's Men company of theatrical players from roughly 1594 onward. Known throughout the world, Shakespeare's writings capture the range of human emotion and conflict and have been celebrated for more than 400 years.

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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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Clothing wasn't just merely an insignificant thing in the days of Elizabethan England. In fact, it is quite significant that there is even an Elizabethan law related to it. These laws stated the colours as well as the type of clothing an individual was allowed to own and wear.

These laws were called 'Statutes of Apparel" and was enforced by the Queen herself in Greenwich on June 1574. The intent was to maintain the social structure as well as to keep a firm restrain on the people's expenditure towards clothing.

Basically, Elizabethan Clothing was a part of the social order. It is also indicative of a particular person's status not only reflecting how wealthy or poor they are but also of their social reputation. For example, back then it is absurd for a peasant to copy more well off individuals through "luxurious" clothing which was only worn by upper classes.

Royalty Clothing in the Elizabethan Era

The materials used for the clothes worn by the royals were very expensive and mostly imported. the women wore gowns which had many parts and layers. They also had shoulder pads. Starch was used to stiffen the fabrics. A farthingale to make the skirts and gowns look extended was also very common.

Men mostly wore a loose-fitting shirt, buttoned-down and cuffed. For pants, they wore short breeches that were puffy. women's clothes were designed to make them look slimmer and men's clothing was loose and baggy.

Social Class and Clothing

The Elizabethan era clothing materials varied according to social status. The upper class of Elizabethan England wore elegant and luxurious clothing that was made of expensive velvet, exotic silk and satin. Only the members of the Royal Family were allowed to own robes which were trimmed with ermine. Less noble folk wore clothing trimmed with either fox or otter.

Elizabethan Era Peasant's Clothing

Quite the contrast to the luxurious clothing of the affluent was the clothing worn by peasants and the lower classes. They wore clothing made of simple materials such as English cotton, wool and leather. Woollen clothing was in fact quite popular among the working as well as domestic classes since it was rather cheap and the wool trade saw an increase during the period.

Middle-Class Clothing

People of middle-class status in the Elizabethan era mostly wore clothes made of cotton, linen and broadcloth. They wore a short top called chemise which would protect the lower clothes from sweat. These chemises were like vests on which the bodice was worn. Petticoats were used to keep the body warm.

Middle-class people also used cloaks and overcoats. They wore hats in public and women often used perfumes because the streets were extremely filthy. The poor people wore doublets and jerkins. The men wore doublets over their shirts and the sleeves were detachable from the doublets.

Colours used in Elizabethan England

The dyes that were used to colour the lavish clothing of the noble of Elizabethan England cost quite a bit. In one of Elizabeth I's surviving portraits, she was shown wearing a crimson robe. The deep crimson colouring was obtained from an insect which was only found in the Mediterranean.

The brightest colours demanded a higher price tag and were only available to the upper class. The brightness of the colour and its richness are the determining factors as to how expensive it would be. The working class or peasants wore clothes dyed in yellow, orange, green, pale blue, pink and russet.

Accessories For Men and Women

Elizabethan clothing accessories for women usually consisted of gowns, underclothing, corsets, hats, ruffs, collars and shoes. The men wore doublets, underclothing, breeches, ruffs, collars, hats and shoes.

Women often wore fancy jewellery but for both men and women ruffs were an indispensable item that adds to their elegant look. The Queen herself wore many elaborate collars. The ruffs were worn around the neck or wrists and became significantly larger later on.

Rich Elizabethan women's clothing

Rich Elizabethan women also wore thick petticoats and on top of this came the corset and skirts. Their skirts were held up with hoops and are often padded at the hips. Then on top of all the was an outer bodice and a skirt or a fine dress and to finish it off, the women wore a coat or a dressing gown which went all the way down to the floor.

What Influenced Elizabethan Era clothing?

Queen Elizabeth herself was the greatest influencer of fashion during her time. Elaborate and ostentatious in her clothing choices, Queen Elizabeth even kept a detailed account of the expenditure for her clothing. Her clothing accounts listed exactly how much materials were bought, from whom and what purpose it was used for.

Elizabeth's fascination for foreign styles of clothing had a huge influence on the fashion of that era. French, Spanish, Italian, and even German fashion seeped into the clothing trends in England. Gowns and accessories worn by the Queen were imitated by women from all social classes and hence, similar clothes with cheaper materials were made.

Elizabeth's influence, however, was not only limited to women's wardrobe but also reached men's fashion. the courtiers competed with each other to show up in the most expensive, sparkly outfit possible. They started using rich fabrics and wore clothes that would broaden their shoulders. Bright colours and elaborate embroidery was made to display wealth and class.

An astute politician, Queen Elizabeth even knew how to use fashion for political ends. When negotiations for her marriage were being made with the Anjous, she sent a portrait of herself to Catherine de' Medici where she is dressed in the most elaborate and flashy French clothes. It was met with commending response and the negotiations were successful.

Talk about grandiose and not to mention heavy. But one must remember, that just like their art and architecture, clothing in the Elizabethan Era was also an indicator of a person's wealth and status.

More info on- Elizabethan era Clothing Law for Women, Clothing Styles of different Classes, Hairstyles

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Elizabethan Era Clothing, Costume: Men, Women, Kids

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Clothing wasn't just merely an insignificant thing in the days of Elizabethan England. In fact, it is quite significant that there is even an Elizabethan law related to it. These laws stated the colours as well as the type of clothing an individual was allowed to own and wear.

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Elizabethan theatre and the name of William Shakespeare are inextricably bound together, yet there were others writing plays at the same time as the Bard of Avon. One of the most successful was Christopher Marlowe, who many contemporaries considered Shakespeare's superior. Marlowe's career, however, was cut short at a comparatively young age when he died in a tavern fight in Deptford, the victim of a knife in the eye.

Theatre had an unsavoury reputation. London authorities refused to allow plays within the city, so theatres opened across the Thames in Southwark, outside the authority of the city administration.

The first proper theatre as we know it was The Theatre, built at Shoreditch in 1576. Before this time plays were performed in the courtyard of inns, or sometimes, in the houses of noblemen. A nobleman had to be careful about which play he allowed to be performed within his home, however. Anything that was controversial or political was likely to get him in trouble with the Crown!

After The Theatre, further open-air playhouses opened in the London area, including the Rose (1587), and the Hope (1613). The most famous playhouse was the Globe (1599) built by the company in which Shakespeare had a stake.

The Globe was only in use until 1613 when a cannon fired during a performance of Henry VIII caught the roof on fire and the building burned to the ground. The site of the theatre was rediscovered in the 20th century and a reconstruction built near the spot.

These theatres could hold several thousand people, most standing in the open pit before the stage, though rich nobles could watch the play from a chair set on the side of the stage itself.

Theatre performances were held in the afternoon, because, of course, there was no artificial lighting. Women attended plays, though often the prosperous woman would wear a mask to disguise her identity. Further, no women performed in the plays. Female roles were generally performed by young boys.

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Elizabethan theatre and the name of William Shakespeare are inextricably bound together, yet there were others writing plays at the same time as the Bard of Avon. One of the most successful was Christopher Marlowe, who many contemporaries considered Shakespeare's superior.

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Architecture of Elizabethan Houses - Glass Windows
In the Elizabethan houses of the Upper and Middle classes panes of glass were added, replacing horn or wooden shutters, and the interior of homes became lighter and airier. To make a pane of glass was a painstaking process. A blob of glass was blown into a cylinder shaped bubble. The cylinder was placed on a cooling table and cut in half. A small piece of glass was produced. The small pieces of glass for the windows were joined together with lead. The leaded window panes were constructed in a in a criss-cross , or 'lattice', pattern. The design was a casement windows. Casement windows were attached to a hinge which opened outwards.

Architecture of Elizabethan Houses - Thatched Roofs
Middle or Lower Class Elizabethan houses had thatched roofs. The materials used to make a thatched roof was either straw or reeds. Bundles of straw or reed were piled on to the frame of the roof. The bundles had a circumference of between 24 to 27 inches and could range from 3 to 7 feet long. The roof was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the dogs, cats and other small animals, such as mice, lived in the thatched roof. When it rained the thatched roof became slippery and sometimes the animals would fall off, hence the old English saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

Architecture of Elizabethan Houses - Overhanging windows and galleries
In the Elizabethan houses of the Lower classes an important feature, specially in towns and cities, were the overhanging windows in the upper storeys of the houses. The building of such overhangs enabled additional floor and living space which was not subject to ground rent. This led to the houses in cities, such as London, where land was expensive to be built in close proximity to each other forming streets where the overhang windows almost met. This resulted in extremely dark streets where little sunlight was allowed through.

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Architecture of Elizabethan Houses - Glass Windows In the Elizabethan houses of the Upper and Middle classes panes of glass were added, replacing horn or wooden shutters, and the interior of homes became lighter and airier. To make a pane of glass was a painstaking process.

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globe theatre globe theater rebuilt globe theatre london globe theater

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Globe Theatre: Information on the outside and inside of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

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An in-depth look at Shakespeare's theater, the Globe, including a description of what the inside would have looked like.

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When we speak of the meter of a poem, we are referring to its overall rhythm, or, more specifically, the syllables and words used to create that rhythm. One of the most interesting in literature is iambic pentameter, which Shakespeare nearly always used when writing in verse. Most of his plays were also written in iambic pentameter, except for lower-class characters, who speak in prose.

Iamb What Iamb

In order to understand iambic pentameter, we must first understand what an iamb is. Simply, put an iamb (or iambus) is a unit of stressed and unstressed syllables that are used in a line of poetry. Sometimes called an iambic foot, this unit can be a single word of two syllables or two words of one syllable each. For instance, the word "airplane" is one unit, with "air" as the stressed syllable and "plane" as the unstressed. Likewise, the phrase "the dog" is one unit, with "the" as the unstressed syllable and "dog" as the stressed.

Putting the Feet Together

Iambic pentameter refers to the number of total syllables in a line of poetry-in this case, 10, composed of five pairs of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables. So the rhythm ends up sounding like this:

Most of Shakespeare's famous lines fit into this rhythm. For example:

Rhythmic Variations

In his plays, Shakespeare didn't always stick to ten syllables. He often played around with iambic meter to give color and feeling to his character's speeches. This is the key to understanding Shakespeare's language. For instance, he sometimes added an extra unstressed beat at the end of a line to emphasize a character's mood. This variation is called a feminine ending, and this famous question is the perfect example:

Shakespeare also reverses the order of the stresses in some iambi to help emphasize certain words or ideas. If you look closely at the fourth iambus in the quote from "Hamlet" above, you can see how he has placed an emphasis on the word "that" by inverting the stresses.

Occasionally, Shakespeare will completely break the rules and place two stressed syllables in the same iambus, as the following quotation demonstrates:

In this example, the fourth iambus emphasizes that it is "our discontent," and the first iambus emphasizes that we are feeling this "now."

Why Is Iambic Pentameter Important?

Shakespeare will always feature prominently in any discussion of iambic pentameter because he used the form with great dexterity, especially in his sonnets, but he did not invent it. Rather, it is a standard literary convention that has been used by many writers before and after Shakespeare.

Historians are not sure how the speeches were read aloud-whether delivered naturally or with an emphasis on the stressed words. This is unimportant. What really matters is that the study of iambic pentameter gives us a glimpse into the inner workings of Shakespeare's writing process, and marks him as a master of rhythm to evoke specific emotions, from dramatic to humorous.

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How Shakespeare Uses Meter to Create Rhythm and Emotion

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When we speak of the meter of a poem, we are referring to its overall rhythm, or, more specifically, the syllables and words used to create that rhythm. One of the most interesting in literature is iambic pentameter, which Shakespeare nearly always used when writing in verse.

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While interesting to explore in his plays, the idea of Shakespeare as a poet isn't new. He wrote many poems. Most famously, he penned 154 sonnets that are often as studied and celebrated as his plays. His sonnets feature a specific format that uses iambic pentameter to reflect great meaning and emotion in a short burst of verse.

If it's the words themselves that grab you, take a plunge down the rabbit hole of Open Source Shakespeare: a beautiful marriage of the bard and technology that allows you to search every poem and play Shakespeare ever wrote for individual words and phrases. Just how many times does the world "blood" show up in Macbeth?

You've seen some of the similarities between Shakespeare's meter and music. This has led many people to draw connections between the bard and a popular modern form of poetry: hip-hop. The Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company explores that connection through events, workshops and many other media. You can watch a fantastic TED Talk by Akala from TedxAldeburgh that explores some of the links between Shakespeare and Hip-Hop. And if you're wondering how the bard stacks up with modern MC's (beyond their affinity for " swagger"), then check out this NPR feature about the number of unique words used by modern wordsmiths.

If all of this wordplay makes you want to get up on your feet and speak the words, you should research the English Speaking Union's National Shakespeare Competition - an annual recitation competition featuring some of Shakespeare's greatest speeches. If your school doesn't participate, then start a movement to make it happen!

Want even more Shakespeare? You can find more on his affinity for insults and views on dating in other great TED-Ed lessons! And if you want more TED, then seek out Steven Pinker on what we learn from the words we use and Stephen Burt on Why People Need Poetry.

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Why Shakespeare loved iambic pentameter - David T. Freeman and Gregory Taylor

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Shakespeare sometimes gets a bad rap in high schools for his complex plots and antiquated language. But a quick peek into the rhythm of his words reveals a poet deeply rooted in the way people spoke in his time - and still speak today. Why do Shakespeare's words have such staying power?