W Shakespeare

Elizabethan Theatre
W. Shakespeare and his contemporaries
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Contents
Articles
Theatre Characteristics 1
English Renaissance theatre 1
William Shakespeare 8
Romeo and Juliet 30
Prologue 53
Christopher Marlowe 56
Benjamin Jonson 67
Ben Jonson 67
References
Article Sources and Contributors 79
Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors 83
Article Licenses
License 84
1
Theatre Characteristics
English Renaissance theatre

English Renaissance theatre, also known as early modern
English theatre, refers to the theatre of England, largely based in
London, which occurred between the Reformation and the
closure of the theatres in 1642. It includes the drama of William
Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and many other famous
playwrights.
English Renaissance Theatre is sometimes called "Elizabethan

theatre." The term "Elizabethan theatre", however, properly
covers only the plays written and performed publicly in England
during the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558–1603). As such,
"Elizabethan theatre" is distinguished from Jacobean theatre
(associated with the reign of King James I, 1603–1625), and
Caroline theatre (associated with King Charles I, 1625 until the
closure of the theatres in 1642). "English Renaissance theatre" or
"early modern theatre" refers to all three sub-classifications taken
together. Most famous plays were written and performed during A 1596 sketch of a rehearsal in progress on the thrust
stage of The Swan, a typical circular Elizabethan
the Elizabethan era.
open-roof playhouse.
Background
Renaissance theatre derived from medieval theatre traditions, such as the mystery plays that formed a part of
religious festivals in England and other parts of Europe during the Middle Ages. The mystery plays were complex
retellings of legends based on biblical themes, originally performed in Cathedrals, but later becoming more linked to
the secular celebrations that grew up around religious festivals. Other sources include the morality plays and the
"University drama" that attempted to recreate Greek tragedy. The Italian tradition of commedia dell'arte as well as
the elaborate masques frequently presented at court also contributed to the shaping of public theatre.
Companies of players attached to households of leading noblemen and performing seasonally in various locations
existed before the reign of Elizabeth I. These became the foundation for the professional players that performed on
the Elizabethan stage. The tours of these players gradually replaced the performances of the mystery and morality
plays by local players, and a 1572 law eliminated the remaining companies lacking formal patronage by labeling
them vagabonds. The performance of masques at court by courtiers and other amateurs came to be replaced by the
professional companies with noble patrons, who grew in number and quality during Elizabeth's reign.
The City of London authorities were generally hostile to public performances, but its hostility was overmatched by
the Queen's taste for plays and the Privy Council's support. Theatres sprang up in suburbs, especially in the liberty of
Southwark, accessible across the Thames to city dwellers, but beyond the authority's control. The companies
maintained the pretence that their public performances were mere rehearsals for the frequent performances before the
Queen, but while the latter did grant prestige, the former were the real source of the income professional players
required.
Along with the economics of the profession, the character of the drama changed toward the end of the period. Under
Elizabeth, the drama was a unified expression as far as social class was concerned: the Court watched the same plays
the commoners saw in the public playhouses. With the development of the private theatres, drama became more
oriented toward the tastes and values of an upper-class audience. By the later part of the reign of Charles I, few new
plays were being written for the public theatres, which sustained themselves on the accumulated works of the
previous decades.[1]
Theatres
The establishment of large and profitable public theatres was an essential enabling factor in the success of English
Renaissance drama. Once they were in operation, drama could become a fixed and permanent rather than a transitory
phenomenon. Their construction was prompted when the Mayor and Corporation of London first banned plays in
1572 as a measure against the plague, and then formally expelled all players from the city in 1575.[2] This prompted
the construction of permanent playhouses outside the jurisdiction of London, in the liberties of Halliwell/Holywell in
Shoreditch and later the Clink, and at Newington Butts near the established entertainment district of St. George's
Fields in rural Surrey.[2] The Theatre was constructed in Shoreditch in 1576 by James Burbage with his
brother-in-law John Brayne (the owner of the unsuccessful Red Lion playhouse of 1567)[3] and the Newington Butts
playhouse was set up, probably by Jerome Savage, some time between 1575[4] and 1577.[5] The Theatre was rapidly
followed by the nearby Curtain Theatre (1577), the Rose (1587), the Swan (1595), the Globe (1599), the Fortune
(1600), and the Red Bull (1604).[6]
Archaeological excavations on the foundations of the Rose and the Globe in the late twentieth century showed that
all the London theatres had individual differences; yet their common function necessitated a similar general plan.[7]
The public theatres were three stories high, and built around an open space at the centre. Usually polygonal in plan to
give an overall rounded effect (though the Red Bull and the first Fortune were square), the three levels of
inward-facing galleries overlooked the open center, into which jutted the stage—essentially a platform surrounded
on three sides by the audience, only the rear being restricted for the entrances and exits of the actors and seating for
the musicians. The upper level behind the stage could be used as a balcony, as in Romeo and Juliet or Antony and
Cleopatra, or as a position from which an actor could harangue a crowd, as in Julius Caesar.
Usually built of timber, lath and plaster and with thatched roofs, the early theatres were vulnerable to fire, and were
replaced (when necessary) with stronger structures. When the Globe burned down in June 1613, it was rebuilt with a
tile roof; when the Fortune burned down in December 1621, it was rebuilt in brick (and apparently was no longer
square).
A different model was developed with the Blackfriars Theatre, which came into regular use on a longterm basis in
1599.[8] The Blackfriars was small in comparison to the earlier theatres and roofed rather than open to the sky; it
resembled a modern theatre in ways that its predecessors did not. Other small enclosed theatres followed, notably the
Whitefriars (1608) and the Cockpit (1617). With the building of the Salisbury Court Theatre in 1629 near the site of
the defunct Whitefriars, the London audience had six theatres to choose from: three surviving large open-air "public"
theatres, the Globe, the Fortune, and the Red Bull, and three smaller enclosed "private" theatres, the Blackfriars, the
Cockpit, and the Salisbury Court.[9] Audiences of the 1630s benefited from a half-century of vigorous dramaturgical
development; the plays of Marlowe and Shakespeare and their contemporaries were still being performed on a
regular basis (mostly at the public theatres), while the newest works of the newest playwrights were abundant as well
(mainly at the private theatres).
Around 1580, when both the Theatre and the Curtain were full on summer days, the total theatre capacity of London
was about 5000 spectators. With the building of new theatre facilities and the formation of new companies, the
capital's total theatre capacity exceeded 10,000 after 1610.[10] In 1580, the poorest citizens could purchase
admittance to the Curtain or the Theatre for a penny; in 1640, their counterparts could gain admittance to the Globe,
the Cockpit, or the Red Bull—for exactly the same price. (Ticket prices at the private theatres were five or six times
higher.)
Performances
The acting companies functioned on a repertory system; unlike modern productions that can run for months or years
on end, the troupes of this era rarely acted the same play two days in a row. Thomas Middleton's A Game at Chess
ran for nine straight performances in August 1624 before it was closed by the authorities—but this was due to the
political content of the play and was a unique, unprecedented, and unrepeatable phenomenon. Consider the 1592
season of Lord Strange's Men at the Rose Theatre as far more representative: between Feb. 19 and June 23 the
company played six days a week, minus Good Friday and two other days. They performed 23 different plays, some
only once, and their most popular play of the season, The First Part of Hieronimo, (based on Kyd's The Spanish
Tragedy), 15 times. They never played the same play two days in a row, and rarely the same play twice in a week.[11]
The workload on the actors, especially the leading performers like Edward Alleyn, must have been tremendous.
One distinctive feature of the companies was that they included only males. Until the reign of Charles II, female
parts were played by adolescent boy players in women's costume.
Costumes
Costumes were often bright in color and visually entrancing. Costumes were expensive, however, so usually players
wore contemporary clothing regardless of the time period of the play. Occasionally, a lead character would wear a
conventionalized version of more historically accurate garb, but secondary characters would nonetheless remain in
contemporary clothing.
Playwrights
The growing population of London, the growing wealth of its people, and their fondness for spectacle produced a
dramatic literature of remarkable variety, quality, and extent. Although most of the plays written for the Elizabethan
stage have been lost, over 600 remain.
The men (no women were professional dramatists in this era) who wrote these plays were primarily self-made men
from modest backgrounds.[12] Some of them were educated at either Oxford or Cambridge, but many were not.
Although William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson were actors, the majority do not seem to have been performers, and
no major author who came on to the scene after 1600 is known to have supplemented his income by acting.
Not all of the playwrights fit modern images of poets or intellectuals. Christopher Marlowe was killed in an apparent
tavern brawl, while Ben Jonson killed an actor in a duel. Several probably were soldiers.
Playwrights were normally paid in increments during the writing process, and if their play was accepted, they would
also receive the proceeds from one day's performance. However, they had no ownership of the plays they wrote.
Once a play was sold to a company, the company owned it, and the playwright had no control over casting,
performance, revision or publication.
The profession of dramatist was challenging and far from lucrative.[13] Entries in Philip Henslowe's Diary show that
in the years around 1600 Henslowe paid as little as £6 or £7 per play. This was probably at the low end of the range,
though even the best writers could not demand too much more. A playwright, working alone, could generally
produce two plays a year at most; in the 1630s Richard Brome signed a contract with the Salisbury Court Theatre to
supply three plays a year, but found himself unable to meet the workload. Shakespeare produced fewer than 40 solo
plays in a career that spanned more than two decades; he was financially successful because he was an actor and,
most importantly, a shareholder in the company for which he acted and in the theatres they used. Ben Jonson
achieved success as a purveyor of Court masques, and was talented at playing the patronage game that was an
important part of the social and economic life of the era. Those who were playwrights pure and simple fared far less
well; the biographies of early figures like George Peele and Robert Greene, and later ones like Brome and Philip
Massinger, are marked by financial uncertainty, struggle, and poverty.

Playwrights dealt with the natural limitation on their productivity by combining into teams of two, three, four, and
even five to generate play texts; the majority of plays written in this era were collaborations, and the solo artists who
generally eschewed collaborative efforts, like Jonson and Shakespeare, were the exceptions to the rule. Dividing the
work, of course, meant dividing the income; but the arrangement seems to have functioned well enough to have
made it worthwhile. (The truism that says, diversify your investments, may have worked for the Elizabethan play
market as for the modern stock market.) Of the 70-plus known works in the canon of Thomas Dekker, roughly 50 are
collaborations; in a single year, 1598, Dekker worked on 16 collaborations for impresario Philip Henslowe, and
earned £30, or a little under 12 shillings per week—roughly twice as much as the average artisan's income of 1s. per
day.[14] At the end of his career, Thomas Heywood would famously claim to have had "an entire hand, or at least a
main finger" in the authorship of some 220 plays. A solo artist usually needed months to write a play (though Jonson
is said to have done Volpone in five weeks); Henslowe's Diary indicates that a team of four or five writers could
produce a play in as little as two weeks. Admittedly, though, the Diary also shows that teams of Henslowe's house
dramatists—Anthony Munday, Robert Wilson, Richard Hathwaye, Henry Chettle, and the others, even including a
young John Webster—could start a project, and accept advances on it, yet fail to produce anything stageworthy.
(Modern understanding of collaboration in this era is biased by the fact that the failures have generally disappeared
with barely a trace; for one exception to this rule, see: Sir Thomas More.)[15] . Shakespeare also often wrote in what
is called verse, 90% of his written lines were in 10 syllables. Bump,bump,bump,bump
bump,bump,bump,bump,bump,bump;...(eg)each day still better others happiness. {from Shakespeares Richard The
Second}.
Genres
Genres of the period included the history play, which depicted English or European history. Shakespeare's plays
about the lives of kings, such as Richard III and Henry V, belong to this category, as do Christopher Marlowe's
Edward II and George Peele's Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First. History plays dealt with more recent
events, like A Larum for London which dramatizes the sack of Antwerp in 1576.
Tragedy was a popular genre. Marlowe's tragedies were exceptionally popular, such as Dr. Faustus and The Jew of
Malta. The audiences particularly liked revenge dramas, such as Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy. The four
tragedies considered to be Shakespeare's greatest (Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth) were composed during
this period, as well as many others (see Shakespearean tragedy).
Comedies were common, too. A sub-genre developed in this period was the city comedy, which deals satirically with
life in London after the fashion of Roman New Comedy. Examples are Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday
and Thomas Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside.
Though marginalised, the older genres like pastoral (The Faithful Shepherdess, 1608), and even the morality play
(Four Plays in One, ca. 1608-13) could exert influences. After about 1610, the new hybrid sub-genre of the
tragicomedy enjoyed an efflorescence, as did the masque throughout the reigns of the first two Stuart kings, James I
and Charles I.
Printed texts
Only a minority of the plays of English Renaissance theatre were ever printed; of Heywood's 220 plays noted above,
only about 20 were published in book form.[16] A little over 600 plays were published in the period as a whole, most
commonly in individual quarto editions. (Larger collected editions, like those of Shakespeare's, Ben Jonson's, and
Beaumont and Fletcher's plays, were a late and limited development.) Through much of the modern era, it was
thought that play texts were popular items among Renaissance readers that provided healthy profits for the stationers
who printed and sold them. By the turn of the 21st century, the climate of scholarly opinion shifted somewhat on this
belief: some contemporary researchers argue that publishing plays was a risky and marginal business[17] — though
this conclusion has been disputed by others.[18] Some of the most successful publishers of the English Renaissance,
like William Ponsonby or Edward Blount, rarely published plays.
A small number of plays from the era survived not in printed texts but in manuscript form.[19]
Termination (September 2, 1642)

The rising Puritan movement was hostile toward theatre, as they felt that "entertainment" was sinful. Politically,
playwrights and actors were clients of the monarchy and aristocracy, and most supported the Royalist cause. The
Puritan faction, long powerful in London, gained control of the city early in the English Civil War, and on
September 2, 1642 ordered the closure of the London theatres. The theatres remained closed for most of the next
eighteen years, re-opening after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. The re-opened theatres performed many of
the plays of the previous era, though often in adapted forms; new genres of Restoration comedy and spectacle soon
evolved, giving English theatre of the later seventeenth century its distinctive character.
List of playwrights
• William Alabaster • John Ford • Thomas Nabbes
• William Alley • Abraham Fraunce • Thomas Nashe
• Robert Armin • Ulpian Fulwell • Thomas Norton
• Thomas Ashton • Thomas Garter • George Peele
• William Barksted • George Gascoigne • John Phillips
• Barnabe Barnes • Henry Glapthorne • John Pickering
• Lording Barry • Thomas Goffe • Henry Porter
• Francis Beaumont • Arthur Golding • Thomas Preston
• Sir William Berkeley • Robert Greene • William Rankins
• Samuel Brandon • Richard Hathwaye • Samuel Rowley
• Josefine Skauerud O. • William Haughton • William Rowley
• Richard Brome • Thomas Heywood • Joseph Rutter
• Lodowick Carlell • Thomas Hughes • Thomas Sackville
• William Cartwright • Ben Jonson • William Sampson
• William Cavendish • Henry Killigrew • William Shakespeare
• Robert Chamberlain • Thomas Killigrew • Edward Sharpham
• George Chapman • Thomas Kyd • Henry Shirley
• Henry Chettle • Thomas Legge • James Shirley
• John Clavell • Thomas Lodge • Mary Sidney
• Robert Daborne • Thomas Lupton • Philip Sidney
• Samuel Daniel • John Lyly • Wentworth Smith
• William Davenant • Gervase Markham • Sir John Suckling
• Robert Davenport • Christopher Marlowe • Robert Tailor
• John Day • Shackerley Marmion • Thomas Tomkis
• Thomas Dekker • John Marston • Cyril Tourneur
• Edward de Vere • Philip Massinger • John Webster
• Michael Drayton • Thomas May • George Wilkins
• Richard Edwardes • Thomas Middleton • Arthur Wilson
• Nathan Field • Anthony Munday • Robert Wilson
• John Fletcher • Steven Luxford
List of players
• William Allen • William Ecclestone • Thomas Pope
• Edward Alleyn • Nathan Field • Timothy Read
• Robert Armin • Lawrence Fletcher • William Robbins
• Richard Baxter • Alexander Gough • Richard Robinson
• Christopher Beeston • Thomas Greene • William Rowley
• Robert Benfield • Richard Gunnell • William Shakespeare
• Theophilus Bird • Charles Hart • John Shank
• Michael Bowyer • Stephen Hammerton • Richard Sharpe
• Robert Browne (Elizabethan actor) • John Heminges • William Sly
• Robert Browne (Jacobean actor) • Thomas Heywood • John Sumner
• George Bryan • John Honyman • Eliard Swanston
• Richard Burbage • Will Kempe • Richard Tarlton
• Andrew Cane • John Lowin • Joseph Taylor
• Hugh Clark • William Ostler • John Thompson
• Henry Condell • Andrew Pennycuicke • Nicholas Tooley
• Alexander Cooke • Richard Perkins • Anthony Turner
• Richard Cowley • Augustine Phillips • John Underwood
• Robert Dawes • Thomas Pollard • Ellis Worth
Playhouses Playing companies Significant others

• Newington Butts Theatre • The Admiral's Men • Susan Baskervile, investor and litigant
• The Theatre • The Children of Paul's • William Beeston, manager
• The Curtain • The Children of the Chapel (Queen's Revels) • George Buc, Master of the Revels 1609 - 1622
• The Rose • The King's Men • Cuthbert Burbage, entrepreneur
• The Swan • King's Revels Children • James Burbage, entrepreneur
• The Globe • King's Revels Men • Ralph Crane, scribe
• Blackfriars Theatre • Lady Elizabeth's Men • Philip Henslowe, entrepreneur
• The Fortune • Leicester's Men • Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels 1623 - 1673
• The Hope • The Lord Chamberlain's Men • Edward Knight, prompter
• Red Bull Theatre • Oxford's Boys • Francis Langley, entrepreneur
• Red Lion (theatre) • Oxford's Men • John Rhodes, manager
• Cockpit Theatre • Pembroke's Men • Edmund Tilney, Master of the Revels 1579 - 1609
• Salisbury Court Theatre • Prince Charles's Men
• Whitefriars Theatre • Queen Anne's Men
• Inn-yard theatres • Queen Elizabeth's Men
• Queen Henrietta's Men
• Lord Strange's Men (later Derby's Men)
• Sussex's Men
• Warwick's Men
• Worcester's Men
Collaborative play writing

Collaborative play writing in the style of English Renaissance theatre is available at
Wikiversity [20]
Notes
[1] Gurr, Shakespearean Stage, pp. 12-18.
[2] Fairman Ordish, Thomas (1899), Early London Theatres: In the Fields (http:/ / www. archive. org/ details/ earlylondonthea02ordigoog),
London: Elliot Stock, p. 30,
[3] Bowsher, Julian; Miller, Pat (2010). The Rose and the Globe—Playhouses of Shakespeare's Bankside, Southwark. Museum of London. p. 19.
ISBN 978-1-901992-85-4.
[4] Gladstone Wickham, Glynne William; Berry, Herbert; Ingram, William (2000), English professional theatre, 1530-1660 (http:/ / books.
google. co. uk/ books?id=y82YJ1P5gksC& pg=PA320), Cambridge University Press, p. 320, ISBN 9780521230124,
[5] Ingram, William (1992), The business of playing: the beginnings of the adult professional theater in Elizabethan London (http:/ / books.
google. co. uk/ books?id=-0PqSqgTWVEC& pg=PA170), Cornell University Press, p. 170, ISBN 9780801426711,
[6] A complete roster of what the Elizabethans called "public" theatres would include the converted Boar's Head Inn (1598), and the Hope
Theatre (1613), neither of them major venues for drama in the era.
[7] Gurr, pp. 123-31 and 142-6.
[8] The Blackfriars site was used as a theatre in the 1576-84 period; but it became a regular venue for drama only later.
[9] Other "private" theatres of the era included the theatre near St Paul's Cathedral used by the Children of Paul's (1575) and the
occasionally-used Cockpit-in-Court (1629).
[10] Ann Jennalie Cook, The Privileged Playgoers of Shakespeare's London, 1576-1642, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press,
1981; pp. 176-7.
[11] Halliday, Shakespeare Companion, p. 374; Chambers, Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 3, p. 396, reflects earlier interpretations of the identity of the
Hieronimo play.
[12] A few aristocratic women engaged in closet drama or dramatic translations. Chambers, Vol. 3, lists Elizabeth, Lady Cary; Mary Herbert,
Countess of Pembroke; Jane, Lady Lumley; and Elizabeth Tudor.
[13] Halliday, pp. 374-5.
[14] Gurr, Shakespearean Stage, p. 72.
[15] Halliday, pp. 108-9, 374-5, 456-7.
[16] Halliday, p. 375.
[17] Peter W. M. Blayney, "The Publication of Playbooks", in: A New History of Early English Drama, John D. Cox and David Scott Kastan,
eds.; New York, Columbia University Press, 1997; pp. 383-422.
[18] Alan B Farmer and Zachary Lesser, "The Popularity of Playbooks Revisited", Shakespeare Quarterly 56:1 (Spring 2005), pp. 1-32.
[19] For examples, see: Sir Thomas More, John of Bordeaux, Believe as You List, and Sir John van Olden Barnavelt.
[20] http:/ / en. wikiversity. org/ wiki/ Collaborative_play_writing
References
• Chambers, E. K. The Elizabethan Stage. 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923.
• Gurr, Andrew. The Shakespearean Stage 1574–1642. Third edition, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
1992.
• Halliday, F. E. A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964. Baltimore, Penguin, 1964.
External links
• Early Modern Drama database (http://homepage.mac.com/tomdalekeever/earlymodern.html)
• Shakespeare and the Globe (http://search.eb.com/shakespeare/index2.html) from Encyclopædia Britannica; a
more comprehensive resource on the theatre of this period than its name suggests.
• A Lecture on Elizabethan Theatre by Thomas Larque (http://shakespearean.org.uk/elizthea1.htm)
• A site discussing the influence of Ancient Rome on English Renaissance Theatre (http://www.pricejb.pwp.
blueyonder.co.uk/Rome/Rome1.html)
• Richard Southern archive at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection (http://www.bris.ac.uk/
theatrecollection/richardsouthern.html), University of Bristol
8
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
The Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity unconfirmed. National Portrait Gallery, London.
Born Baptised 26 April 1564 (birth date unknown)Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England
Died 23 April 1616 (aged 52)Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England
Occupation Playwright, poet, actor
Literary movement English Renaissance theatre
Spouse(s) Anne Hathaway (m. 1582–1616)
Children Susanna Hall

Hamnet Shakespeare
Judith Quiney
Relative(s) John Shakespeare (father)

Mary Shakespeare (mother)
Signature
William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564; died 23 April 1616)[1] was an English poet and playwright, widely
regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.[2] He is often called
England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon".[3] [4] His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of
about 38 plays,[5] 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated
into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.[6]
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom
he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career
in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known
as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records
of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical
appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.[7]
Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613.[8] [9] His early plays were mainly comedies
and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16th century. He then wrote
mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest
works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated
with other playwrights.
Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, two of his
former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but
two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's.
Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights
until the 19th century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians worshipped
Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry".[10] In the 20th century, his work was
repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly
popular today and are constantly studied, performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts
throughout the world.
Life
Early life
William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, a successful glover and alderman originally from
Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer.[11] He was born in
Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26 April 1564. His actual birthdate remains unknown, but is traditionally
observed on 23 April, St George's Day.[12] This date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholar's mistake,
has proved appealing to biographers, since Shakespeare died 23 April 1616.[13] He was the third child of eight and
the eldest surviving son.[14]
Although no attendance records for the period survive, most biographers agree that Shakespeare was probably
educated at the King's New School in Stratford,[15] a free school chartered in 1553,[16] about a quarter-mile from his
home. Grammar schools varied in quality during the Elizabethan era, but the curriculum was dictated by law
throughout England,[17] and the school would have provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and the
classics.
At the age of 18, Shakespeare married the 26-year-old Anne Hathaway.
The consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage
licence 27 November 1582. The next day two of Hathaway's
neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded
the marriage.[18] The ceremony may have been arranged in some haste,
since the Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read
once instead of the usual three times,[19] and six months after the
John Shakespeare's house, believed to be
Shakespeare's birthplace, in Stratford-upon-Avon. marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, baptised 26 May
1583.[20] Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two
years later and were baptised 2 February 1585.[21] Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried
11 August 1596.[22]
After the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre
scene in 1592, and scholars refer to the years between 1585 and 1592 as Shakespeare's "lost years".[23] Biographers
attempting to account for this period have reported many apocryphal stories. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare’s first
biographer, recounted a Stratford legend that Shakespeare fled the town for London to escape prosecution for deer
poaching in the estate of local squire Thomas Lucy. Shakespeare is also supposed to taken his revenge on Lucy by
writing a scurrilous ballad about him.[24] Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare starting his theatrical career
minding the horses of theatre patrons in London.[25] John Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had been a country
schoolmaster.[26] Some 20th-century scholars have suggested that Shakespeare may have been employed as a
schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who named a certain "William
Shakeshafte" in his will.[27] No evidence substantiates such stories other than hearsay collected after his death, and
Shakeshafte was a common name in the Lancashire area.[28]
London and theatrical career
"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..."
[29]
As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7, 139–42.
It is not known exactly when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of performances
show that several of his plays were on the London stage by 1592.[30] He was well enough known in London by then
to be attacked in print by the playwright Robert Greene in his Groats-Worth of Wit:
...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.[31]
Scholars differ on the exact meaning of these words,[32] but most agree that Greene is accusing Shakespeare of
reaching above his rank in trying to match university-educated writers, such as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe
and Greene himself.[33] The italicised phrase parodying the line "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide" from
Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3, along with the pun "Shake-scene", identifies Shakespeare as Greene's target. Here
Johannes Factotum—"Jack of all trades"— means a second-rate tinkerer with the work of others, rather than the
more common "universal genius".[32] [34]
Greene's attack is the earliest surviving mention of Shakespeare’s career in the theatre. Biographers suggest that his
career may have begun any time from the mid-1580s to just before Greene's remarks.[35] From 1594, Shakespeare's
plays were performed only by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a company owned by a group of players, including
Shakespeare, that soon became the leading playing company in London.[36] After the death of Queen Elizabeth in
1603, the company was awarded a royal patent by the new king, James I, and changed its name to the King's
Men.[37]
In 1599, a partnership of company members built their own theatre on the south bank of the River Thames, which
they called the Globe. In 1608, the partnership also took over the Blackfriars indoor theatre. Records of
Shakespeare's property purchases and investments indicate that the company made him a wealthy man.[38] In 1597,
he bought the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place, and in 1605, he invested in a share of the parish tithes in
Stratford.[39]
Some of Shakespeare's plays were published in quarto editions from 1594. By 1598, his name had become a selling
point and began to appear on the title pages.[40] Shakespeare continued to act in his own and other plays after his
success as a playwright. The 1616 edition of Ben Jonson's Works names him on the cast lists for Every Man in His
Humour (1598) and Sejanus His Fall (1603).[41] The absence of his name from the 1605 cast list for Jonson’s
Volpone is taken by some scholars as a sign that his acting career was nearing its end.[42] The First Folio of 1623,
however, lists Shakespeare as one of "the Principal Actors in all these Plays", some of which were first staged after
Volpone, although we cannot know for certain which roles he played.[43] In 1610, John Davies of Hereford wrote
that "good Will" played "kingly" roles.[44] In 1709, Rowe passed down a tradition that Shakespeare played the ghost
of Hamlet's father.[45] Later traditions maintain that he also played Adam in As You Like It and the Chorus in Henry
V,[46] though scholars doubt the sources of the information.[47]
Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford during his career. In 1596, the year before he bought
New Place as his family home in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, north of
the River Thames.[48] He moved across the river to Southwark by 1599, the year his company constructed the Globe
Theatre there.[49] By 1604, he had moved north of the river again, to an area north of St Paul's Cathedral with many
fine houses. There he rented rooms from a French Huguenot called Christopher Mountjoy, a maker of ladies' wigs
and other headgear.[50]
Later years and death

Rowe was the first biographer to pass down the tradition that Shakespeare retired to Stratford some years before his
death;[51] but retirement from all work was uncommon at that time,[52] and Shakespeare continued to visit
London.[51] In 1612 he was called as a witness in a court case concerning the marriage settlement of Mountjoy's
daughter, Mary.[53] In March 1613 he bought a gatehouse in the former Blackfriars priory;[54] and from November
1614 he was in London for several weeks with his son-in-law, John Hall.[55]
After 1606–1607, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, and none are attributed to him
after 1613.[56] His last three plays were collaborations, probably with John
Fletcher,[57] who succeeded him as the house playwright for the King’s Men.[58]
Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616[59] and was survived by his wife and two
daughters. Susanna had married a physician, John Hall, in 1607,[60] and Judith
had married Thomas Quiney, a vintner, two months before Shakespeare’s
death.[61]
In his will, Shakespeare left the bulk of his large estate to his elder daughter
Susanna.[62] The terms instructed that she pass it down intact to "the first son of
her body".[63] The Quineys had three children, all of whom died without
marrying.[64] The Halls had one child, Elizabeth, who married twice but died
without children in 1670, ending Shakespeare’s direct line.[65] Shakespeare's will
scarcely mentions his wife, Anne, who was probably entitled to one third of his
estate automatically.[66] He did make a point, however, of leaving her "my
second best bed", a bequest that has led to much speculation.[67] Some scholars
see the bequest as an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that the second-best
bed would have been the matrimonial bed and therefore rich in significance.[68]
Shakespeare's funerary monument in
Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church two days after
Stratford-upon-Avon.
his death.[69] The epitaph carved into the stone slab covering his grave includes a
curse against moving his bones, which was carefully avoided during restoration
of the church in 2008:[70]
Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare,

To digg the dvst encloased heare.
Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones,
And cvrst be he yt moves my bones.[71]
Modern spelling:
"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear,"
"To dig the dust enclosed here."
"Blessed be the man that spares these stones," Shakespeare's grave.
[70]
"And cursed be he who moves my bones."
Sometime before 1623, a funerary monument was erected in his memory on the north wall, with a half-effigy of him
in the act of writing. Its plaque compares him to Nestor, Socrates, and Virgil.[72] In 1623, in conjunction with the
publication of the First Folio, the Droeshout engraving was published.[73]
Shakespeare has been commemorated in many statues and memorials around the world, including funeral
monuments in Southwark Cathedral and Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.
Plays
Most playwrights of the period typically collaborated with others at some point, and critics agree that Shakespeare
did the same, mostly early and late in his career.[74] Some attributions, such as Titus Andronicus and the early history
plays, remain controversial, while The Two Noble Kinsmen and the lost Cardenio have well-attested contemporary
documentation. Textual evidence also supports the view that several of the plays were revised by other writers after
their original composition.
The first recorded works of Shakespeare are Richard III and the three parts of Henry VI, written in the early 1590s
during a vogue for historical drama. Shakespeare's plays are difficult to date, however,[75] and studies of the texts
suggest that Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew and The Two Gentlemen of Verona
may also belong to Shakespeare’s earliest period.[76] His first histories, which draw heavily on the 1587 edition of
Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland,[77] dramatise the destructive results of weak or
corrupt rule and have been interpreted as a justification for the origins of the Tudor dynasty.[78] The early plays were
influenced by the works of other Elizabethan dramatists, especially Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe, by the
traditions of medieval drama, and by the plays of Seneca.[79] The Comedy of Errors was also based on classical
models, but no source for The Taming of the Shrew has been found, though it is related to a separate play of the same
name and may have derived from a folk story.[80] Like The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which two friends appear
to approve of rape,[81] the Shrew's story of the taming of a woman's independent spirit by a man sometimes troubles
modern critics and directors.[82]
Shakespeare's early classical and Italianate comedies, containing tight

double plots and precise comic sequences, give way in the mid-1590s
to the romantic atmosphere of his greatest comedies.[83] A Midsummer
Night's Dream is a witty mixture of romance, fairy magic, and comic
lowlife scenes.[84] Shakespeare's next comedy, the equally romantic
Merchant of Venice, contains a portrayal of the vengeful Jewish
moneylender Shylock, which reflects Elizabethan views but may
appear derogatory to modern audiences.[85] The wit and wordplay of
Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing. Much Ado About Nothing,[86] the charming rural setting of As You Like
By William Blake, c. 1786. Tate Britain. It, and the lively merrymaking of Twelfth Night complete
Shakespeare's sequence of great comedies.[87] After the lyrical Richard
II, written almost entirely in verse, Shakespeare introduced prose comedy into the histories of the late 1590s, Henry
IV, parts 1 and 2, and Henry V. His characters become more complex and tender as he switches deftly between
comic and serious scenes, prose and poetry, and achieves the narrative variety of his mature work.[88] This period
begins and ends with two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, the famous romantic tragedy of sexually charged adolescence,
love, and death;[89] and Julius Caesar—based on Sir Thomas North's 1579 translation of Plutarch's Parallel
Lives—which introduced a new kind of drama.[90] According to Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro, in Julius
Caesar "the various strands of politics, character, inwardness, contemporary events, even Shakespeare's own
reflections on the act of writing, began to infuse each other".[91]
In the early 17th century, Shakespeare wrote the so-called "problem

plays" Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, and All's Well That
Ends Well and a number of his best known tragedies.[92] Many critics
believe that Shakespeare's greatest tragedies represent the peak of his
art. The titular hero of one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies,
Hamlet, has probably been discussed more than any other
Shakespearean character, especially for his famous soliloquy "To be or
not to be; that is the question".[93] Unlike the introverted Hamlet,
whose fatal flaw is hesitation, the heroes of the tragedies that followed,
Othello and King Lear, are undone by hasty errors of judgement.[94] Hamlet, Horatio, Marcellus, and the Ghost of
Hamlet's Father. Henry Fuseli, 1780–5.
The plots of Shakespeare's tragedies often hinge on such fatal errors or
Kunsthaus Zürich.
flaws, which overturn order and destroy the hero and those he loves.[95]
In Othello, the villain Iago stokes Othello's sexual jealousy to the point
where he murders the innocent wife who loves him.[96] In King Lear, the old king commits the tragic error of giving
up his powers, initiating the events which lead to the murder of his daughter and the torture and blinding of the Earl
of Gloucester. According to the critic Frank Kermode, "the play offers neither its good characters nor its audience
any relief from its cruelty".[97] In Macbeth, the shortest and most compressed of Shakespeare's tragedies,[98]
uncontrollable ambition incites Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, to murder the rightful king and usurp the
throne, until their own guilt destroys them in turn.[99] In this play, Shakespeare adds a supernatural element to the
tragic structure. His last major tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus, contain some of Shakespeare's
finest poetry and were considered his most successful tragedies by the poet and critic T. S. Eliot.[100]
In his final period, Shakespeare turned to romance or tragicomedy and completed three more major plays:
Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, as well as the collaboration, Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Less bleak
than the tragedies, these four plays are graver in tone than the comedies of the 1590s, but they end with
reconciliation and the forgiveness of potentially tragic errors.[101] Some commentators have seen this change in
mood as evidence of a more serene view of life on Shakespeare's part, but it may merely reflect the theatrical fashion
of the day.[102] Shakespeare collaborated on two further surviving plays, Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen,
probably with John Fletcher.[103]
Performances
It is not clear for which companies Shakespeare wrote his early plays. The title page of the 1594 edition of Titus
Andronicus reveals that the play had been acted by three different troupes.[104] After the plagues of 1592–3,
Shakespeare's plays were performed by his own company at The Theatre and the Curtain in Shoreditch, north of the
Thames.[105] Londoners flocked there to see the first part of Henry IV, Leonard Digges recording, "Let but Falstaff
come, Hal, Poins, the rest...and you scarce shall have a room".[106] When the company found themselves in dispute
with their landlord, they pulled The Theatre down and used the timbers to construct the Globe Theatre, the first
playhouse built by actors for actors, on the south bank of the Thames at Southwark.[107] The Globe opened in
autumn 1599, with Julius Caesar one of the first plays staged. Most of Shakespeare's greatest post-1599 plays were
written for the Globe, including Hamlet, Othello and King Lear.[108]
After the Lord Chamberlain's Men were renamed the King's Men in
1603, they entered a special relationship with the new King James.
Although the performance records are patchy, the King's Men
performed seven of Shakespeare's plays at court between 1 November
1604 and 31 October 1605, including two performances of The
Merchant of Venice.[109] After 1608, they performed at the indoor
Blackfriars Theatre during the winter and the Globe during the
summer.[110] The indoor setting, combined with the Jacobean fashion
for lavishly staged masques, allowed Shakespeare to introduce more
The reconstructed Globe Theatre, London.
elaborate stage devices. In Cymbeline, for example, Jupiter descends
"in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle: he throws a
thunderbolt. The ghosts fall on their knees."[111]
The actors in Shakespeare's company included the famous Richard Burbage, William Kempe, Henry Condell and
John Heminges. Burbage played the leading role in the first performances of many of Shakespeare's plays, including
Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear.[112] The popular comic actor Will Kempe played the servant Peter in
Romeo and Juliet and Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing, among other characters.[113] He was replaced around
the turn of the 16th century by Robert Armin, who played roles such as Touchstone in As You Like It and the fool in
King Lear.[114] In 1613, Sir Henry Wotton recorded that Henry VIII "was set forth with many extraordinary
circumstances of pomp and ceremony".[115] On 29 June, however, a cannon set fire to the thatch of the Globe and
burned the theatre to the ground, an event which pinpoints the date of a Shakespeare play with rare precision.[115]
Textual sources
In 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two of Shakespeare's friends from the King's Men, published the First
Folio, a collected edition of Shakespeare's plays. It contained 36 texts, including 18 printed for the first time.[116]
Many of the plays had already appeared in quarto versions—flimsy books made from sheets of paper folded twice to
make four leaves.[117] No evidence suggests that Shakespeare approved these editions, which the First Folio
describes as "stol'n and surreptitious copies".[118] Alfred Pollard termed some of them "bad quartos" because of their
adapted, paraphrased or garbled texts, which may in places have been reconstructed from memory.[119] Where
several versions of a play survive, each differs from the other. The differences may stem from copying or printing
errors, from notes by actors or audience members, or from Shakespeare's own papers.[120] In some cases, for
example Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida and Othello, Shakespeare could have revised the texts between the quarto and
folio editions. In the case of King Lear, however, while most modern additions do conflate them, the 1623 folio
version is so different from the 1608 quarto, that the Oxford Shakespeare prints them both, arguing that they cannot
be conflated without confusion.[121]
Poems
In 1593 and 1594, when the theatres were closed because of plague, Shakespeare published two narrative poems on
erotic themes, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. He dedicated them to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of
Southampton. In Venus and Adonis, an innocent Adonis rejects the sexual advances of Venus; while in The Rape of
Lucrece, the virtuous wife Lucrece is raped by the lustful Tarquin.[122] Influenced by Ovid's Metamorphoses,[123] the
poems show the guilt and moral confusion that result from uncontrolled lust.[124] Both proved popular and were
often reprinted during Shakespeare's lifetime. A third narrative poem, A Lover's Complaint, in which a young woman
laments her seduction by a persuasive suitor, was printed in the first edition of the Sonnets in 1609. Most scholars
now accept that Shakespeare wrote A Lover's Complaint. Critics consider that its fine qualities are marred by leaden
effects.[125] The Phoenix and the Turtle, printed in Robert Chester's 1601 Love's Martyr, mourns the deaths of the
legendary phoenix and his lover, the faithful turtle dove. In 1599, two early drafts of sonnets 138 and 144 appeared
in The Passionate Pilgrim, published under Shakespeare's name but without his permission.[126]
Sonnets
Published in 1609, the Sonnets were the last of Shakespeare's non-dramatic
works to be printed. Scholars are not certain when each of the 154 sonnets was
composed, but evidence suggests that Shakespeare wrote sonnets throughout his
career for a private readership.[127] Even before the two unauthorised sonnets
appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim in 1599, Francis Meres had referred in 1598
to Shakespeare's "sugred Sonnets among his private friends".[128] Few analysts
believe that the published collection follows Shakespeare's intended
sequence.[129] He seems to have planned two contrasting series: one about
uncontrollable lust for a married woman of dark complexion (the "dark lady"),
and one about conflicted love for a fair young man (the "fair youth"). It remains
unclear if these figures represent real individuals, or if the authorial "I" who
addresses them represents Shakespeare himself, though Wordsworth believed
Title page from 1609 edition of that with the sonnets "Shakespeare unlocked his heart".[130] The 1609 edition
Shake-Speares Sonnets. was dedicated to a "Mr. W.H.", credited as "the only begetter" of the poems.
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate..."
[131]
Lines from Shakespeare's Sonnet 18.
It is not known whether this was written by Shakespeare himself or by the publisher, Thomas Thorpe, whose initials
appear at the foot of the dedication page; nor is it known who Mr. W.H. was, despite numerous theories, or whether
Shakespeare even authorised the publication.[132] Critics praise the Sonnets as a profound meditation on the nature of
love, sexual passion, procreation, death, and time.[133]
Style
Shakespeare's first plays were written in the conventional style of the day. He wrote them in a stylised language that
does not always spring naturally from the needs of the characters or the drama.[134] The poetry depends on extended,
sometimes elaborate metaphors and conceits, and the language is often rhetorical—written for actors to declaim
rather than speak. The grand speeches in Titus Andronicus, in the view of some critics, often hold up the action, for
example; and the verse in The Two Gentlemen of Verona has been described as stilted.[135]
Soon, however, Shakespeare began to adapt the traditional styles to his own purposes. The opening soliloquy of
Richard III has its roots in the self-declaration of Vice in medieval drama. At the same time, Richard’s vivid
self-awareness looks forward to the soliloquies of Shakespeare's mature plays.[136] No single play marks a change
from the traditional to the freer style. Shakespeare combined the two throughout his career, with Romeo and Juliet
perhaps the best example of the mixing of the styles.[137] By the time of Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, and A
Midsummer Night's Dream in the mid-1590s, Shakespeare had begun to write a more natural poetry. He increasingly
tuned his metaphors and images to the needs of the drama itself.
Shakespeare's standard poetic form was blank verse, composed in
iambic pentameter. In practice, this meant that his verse was usually
unrhymed and consisted of ten syllables to a line, spoken with a stress
on every second syllable. The blank verse of his early plays is quite
different from that of his later ones. It is often beautiful, but its
sentences tend to start, pause, and finish at the end of lines, with the
risk of monotony.[138] Once Shakespeare mastered traditional blank
verse, he began to interrupt and vary its flow. This technique releases
the new power and flexibility of the poetry in plays such as Julius
Pity by William Blake, 1795, Tate Britain, is an
Caesar and Hamlet. Shakespeare uses it, for example, to convey the illustration of two similes in Macbeth: "And pity,
turmoil in Hamlet's mind:[139] like a naked new-born babe, / Striding the blast,
or heaven's cherubim, hors'd / Upon the sightless
Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting couriers of the air".
That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay

Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly—
And prais'd be rashness for it—let us know
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well...
Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2, 4–8[139]
After Hamlet, Shakespeare varied his poetic style further, particularly in the more emotional passages of the late
tragedies. The literary critic A. C. Bradley described this style as "more concentrated, rapid, varied, and, in
construction, less regular, not seldom twisted or elliptical".[140] In the last phase of his career, Shakespeare adopted
many techniques to achieve these effects. These included run-on lines, irregular pauses and stops, and extreme
variations in sentence structure and length.[141] In Macbeth, for example, the language darts from one unrelated
metaphor or simile to another: "was the hope drunk/ Wherein you dressed yourself?" (1.7.35–38); "...pity, like a
naked new-born babe/ Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd/ Upon the sightless couriers of the air..."
(1.7.21–25). The listener is challenged to complete the sense.[141] The late romances, with their shifts in time and
surprising turns of plot, inspired a last poetic style in which long and short sentences are set against one another,
clauses are piled up, subject and object are reversed, and words are omitted, creating an effect of spontaneity.[142]
Shakespeare combined poetic genius with a practical sense of the theatre.[143] Like all playwrights of the time, he
dramatised stories from sources such as Plutarch and Holinshed.[144] He reshaped each plot to create several centres
of interest and to show as many sides of a narrative to the audience as possible. This strength of design ensures that a
Shakespeare play can survive translation, cutting and wide interpretation without loss to its core drama.[145] As
Shakespeare’s mastery grew, he gave his characters clearer and more varied motivations and distinctive patterns of
speech. He preserved aspects of his earlier style in the later plays, however. In Shakespeare's late romances, he
deliberately returned to a more artificial style, which emphasised the illusion of theatre.[146]
Influence
Shakespeare's work has made a lasting impression on later theatre and
literature. In particular, he expanded the dramatic potential of
characterisation, plot, language, and genre.[147] Until Romeo and Juliet,
for example, romance had not been viewed as a worthy topic for
tragedy.[148] Soliloquies had been used mainly to convey information
about characters or events; but Shakespeare used them to explore
characters' minds.[149] His work heavily influenced later poetry. The
Romantic poets attempted to revive Shakespearean verse drama,
though with little success. Critic George Steiner described all English
verse dramas from Coleridge to Tennyson as "feeble variations on
Shakespearean themes."[150]
Shakespeare influenced novelists such as Thomas Hardy, William

Faulkner, and Charles Dickens. The American novelist Herman
Melville's soliloquies owe much to Shakespeare; his Captain Ahab in
Macbeth Consulting the Vision of the Armed
Head. By Henry Fuseli, 1793–94. Folger Moby-Dick is a classic tragic hero, inspired by King Lear.[151] Scholars
Shakespeare Library, Washington. have identified 20,000 pieces of music linked to Shakespeare's works.
These include two operas by Giuseppe Verdi, Otello and Falstaff,
whose critical standing compares with that of the source plays.[152] Shakespeare has also inspired many painters,
including the Romantics and the Pre-Raphaelites. The Swiss Romantic artist Henry Fuseli, a friend of William
Blake, even translated Macbeth into German.[153] The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud drew on Shakespearean
psychology, in particular that of Hamlet, for his theories of human nature.
In Shakespeare's day, English grammar, spelling and pronunciation were less standardised than they are now,[154]
and his use of language helped shape modern English.[155] Samuel Johnson quoted him more often than any other
author in his A Dictionary of the English Language, the first serious work of its type.[156] Expressions such as "with
bated breath" (Merchant of Venice) and "a foregone conclusion" (Othello) have found their way into everyday
English speech.[157]
Critical reputation
"He was not of an age, but for all time."
[158]
Ben Jonson
Shakespeare was not revered in his lifetime, but he received his share of praise.[159] In 1598, the cleric and author
Francis Meres singled him out from a group of English writers as "the most excellent" in both comedy and
tragedy.[160] And the authors of the Parnassus plays at St John's College, Cambridge, numbered him with Chaucer,
Gower and Spenser.[161] In the First Folio, Ben Jonson called Shakespeare the "Soul of the age, the applause, delight,
the wonder of our stage", though he had remarked elsewhere that "Shakespeare wanted art".
Between the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the end of

the 17th century, classical ideas were in vogue. As a result, critics
of the time mostly rated Shakespeare below John Fletcher and Ben
Jonson.[162] Thomas Rymer, for example, condemned Shakespeare
for mixing the comic with the tragic. Nevertheless, poet and critic
John Dryden rated Shakespeare highly, saying of Jonson, "I
admire him, but I love Shakespeare".[163] For several decades,
Rymer's view held sway; but during the 18th century, critics began
to respond to Shakespeare on his own terms and acclaim what they
termed his natural genius. A series of scholarly editions of his
work, notably those of Samuel Johnson in 1765 and Edmond
Malone in 1790, added to his growing reputation.[164] By 1800, he
was firmly enshrined as the national poet.[165] In the 18th and 19th
centuries, his reputation also spread abroad. Among those who
championed him were the writers Voltaire, Goethe, Stendhal and
Victor Hugo.[166]
During the Romantic era, Shakespeare was praised by the poet and
literary philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge; and the critic
August Wilhelm Schlegel translated his plays in the spirit of
German Romanticism.[167] In the 19th century, critical admiration
for Shakespeare's genius often bordered on adulation.[168] "That
King Shakespeare," the essayist Thomas Carlyle wrote in 1840, A recently garlanded statue of William Shakespeare in
"does not he shine, in crowned sovereignty, over us all, as the Lincoln Park, Chicago, typical of many created in the
19th and early 20th century.
noblest, gentlest, yet strongest of rallying signs;
indestructible".[169] The Victorians produced his plays as lavish
spectacles on a grand scale.[170] The playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw mocked the cult of Shakespeare
worship as "bardolatry". He claimed that the new naturalism of Ibsen's plays had made Shakespeare obsolete.[171]
The modernist revolution in the arts during the early 20th century, far from discarding Shakespeare, eagerly enlisted
his work in the service of the avant-garde. The Expressionists in Germany and the Futurists in Moscow mounted
productions of his plays. Marxist playwright and director Bertolt Brecht devised an epic theatre under the influence
of Shakespeare. The poet and critic T. S. Eliot argued against Shaw that Shakespeare's "primitiveness" in fact made
him truly modern.[172] Eliot, along with G. Wilson Knight and the school of New Criticism, led a movement towards
a closer reading of Shakespeare's imagery. In the 1950s, a wave of new critical approaches replaced modernism and
paved the way for "post-modern" studies of Shakespeare.[173] By the eighties, Shakespeare studies were open to
movements such as structuralism, feminism, New Historicism, African American studies, and queer studies.[174] [175]
Speculation about Shakespeare
Authorship
Around 150 years after Shakespeare's death, doubts began to be expressed about the authorship of the works
attributed to him.[176] Proposed alternative candidates include Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, and Edward de
Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.[177] Several "group theories" have also been proposed.[178] Only a small minority of
academics believe there is reason to question the traditional attribution,[179] but interest in the subject, particularly
the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship, continues into the 21st century.[180]
Religion
Some scholars claim that members of Shakespeare's family were Catholics, at a time when Catholic practice was
against the law.[181] Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, certainly came from a pious Catholic family. The strongest
evidence might be a Catholic statement of faith signed by John Shakespeare, found in 1757 in the rafters of his
former house in Henley Street. The document is now lost, however, and scholars differ as to its authenticity.[182] In
1591 the authorities reported that John Shakespeare had missed church "for fear of process for debt", a common
Catholic excuse.[183] In 1606 the name of William's daughter Susanna appears on a list of those who failed to attend
Easter communion in Stratford.[183] Scholars find evidence both for and against Shakespeare's Catholicism in his
plays, but the truth may be impossible to prove either way.[184]
Sexuality
Few details of Shakespeare's sexuality are known. At 18, he married the 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, who was
pregnant. Susanna, the first of their three children, was born six months later on 26 May 1583. However, over the
centuries readers have pointed to Shakespeare's sonnets as evidence of his love for a young man. Others read the
same passages as the expression of intense friendship rather than sexual love.[185] At the same time, the 26 so-called
"Dark Lady" sonnets, addressed to a married woman, are taken as evidence of heterosexual liaisons.[186]
Portraiture
There is no written description of Shakespeare's physical appearance and no evidence that he ever commissioned a
portrait, so the Droeshout engraving, which Ben Jonson approved of as a good likeness,[187] and his Stratford
monument provide the best evidence of his appearance. From the 18th century, the desire for authentic Shakespeare
portraits fuelled claims that various surviving pictures depicted Shakespeare. That demand also led to the production
of several fake portraits, as well as misattributions, repaintings and relabelling of portraits of other people.[188] [189]
List of works
Classification of the plays

Shakespeare's works include the 36 plays printed in the First Folio of
1623, listed below according to their folio classification as comedies,
histories and tragedies.[190] Two plays not included in the First Folio,
The Two Noble Kinsmen and Pericles, Prince of Tyre, are now
accepted as part of the canon, with scholars agreed that Shakespeare
made a major contribution to their composition.[191] No Shakespearean
poems were included in the First Folio.
In the late 19th century, Edward Dowden classified four of the late
comedies as romances, and though many scholars prefer to call them
tragicomedies, his term is often used.[192] These plays and the The Plays of William Shakespeare. By Sir John
Gilbert, 1849.
associated Two Noble Kinsmen are marked with an asterisk (*) below.
In 1896, Frederick S. Boas coined the term "problem plays" to describe
four plays: All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida and Hamlet.[193] "Dramas as
singular in theme and temper cannot be strictly called comedies or tragedies", he wrote. "We may therefore borrow a
convenient phrase from the theatre of today and class them together as Shakespeare's problem plays."[194] The term,
much debated and sometimes applied to other plays, remains in use, though Hamlet is definitively classed as a
tragedy.[195] The other problem plays are marked below with a double dagger (‡).
Plays thought to be only partly written by Shakespeare are marked with a dagger (†) below. Other works
occasionally attributed to him are listed as apocrypha.
Works
Comedies Histories Tragedies

• All's Well That Ends Well‡ • King John • Romeo and Juliet
• As You Like It • Richard II • Coriolanus
• The Comedy of Errors • Henry IV, Part 1 • Titus Andronicus†
• Love's Labour's Lost • Henry IV, Part 2 • Timon of Athens†
• Measure for Measure‡ • Henry V • Julius Caesar
• The Merchant of Venice • Henry VI, Part 1† • Macbeth†
• The Merry Wives of Windsor • Henry VI, Part 2 • Hamlet
• A Midsummer Night's Dream • Henry VI, Part 3 • Troilus and Cressida‡
• Much Ado About Nothing • Richard III • King Lear
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre*† • Henry VIII† • Othello
• The Taming of the Shrew • Antony and Cleopatra
• The Tempest* • Cymbeline*
• Twelfth Night
• The Two Gentlemen of Verona
• The Two Noble Kinsmen*†
• The Winter's Tale*
Lost plays Apocrypha

Poems
• Love's Labour's Won • Arden of Faversham
• Shakespeare's sonnets
• Cardenio† • The Birth of Merlin
• Venus and Adonis
• Edward III
• The Rape of Lucrece
[196] • Locrine
• The Passionate Pilgrim
• The London Prodigal
• The Phoenix and the Turtle
• The Puritan
• A Lover's Complaint
• The Second Maiden's Tragedy
• Sir John Oldcastle
• Thomas Lord Cromwell
• A Yorkshire Tragedy
• Sir Thomas More
Notes
[1] Dates follow the Julian calendar, used in England throughout Shakespeare's lifespan, but with the start of year adjusted to 1 January (see Old
Style and New Style dates). Under the Gregorian calendar, adopted in Catholic countries in 1582, Shakespeare died on 3 May (Schoenbaum
1987, xv).
[2] Greenblatt 2005, 11; Bevington 2002, 1–3; Wells 1997, 399.
[3] Dobson 1992, 185–186
[4] The "national cult" of Shakespeare, and the "bard" identification, dates from September 1769, when the actor David Garrick organised a
week-long carnival at Stratford to mark the town council awarding him the freedom of the town. In addition to presenting the town with a
statue of Shakespeare, Garrick composed a doggerel verse, lampooned in the London newspapers, naming the banks of the Avon as the
birthplace of the "matchless Bard" (McIntyre 1999, 412–432).
[5] The exact figures are unknown. See Shakespeare's collaborations and Shakespeare Apocrypha for further details.
[6] Craig 2003, 3.
[7] Shapiro 2005, xvii–xviii; Schoenbaum 1991, 41, 66, 397–98, 402, 409; Taylor 1990, 145, 210–23, 261–5
[8] Chambers 1930, Vol. 1: 270–71; Taylor 1987, 109–134.
[9] Individual play dates and precise writing span are unknown. See Chronology of Shakespeare's plays for further details.
[10] Bertolini 1993, 119.
[11] Schoenbaum 1987, 14–22.
[12] Schoenbaum 1987, 24–6.
[13] Schoenbaum 1987, 24, 296; Honan 1998, 15–16.
[14] Schoenbaum 1987, 23–24.

[15] Schoenbaum 1987, 62–63; Ackroyd 2006, 53; Wells et al. 2005, xv–xvi
[16] Baldwin 1944, 464.
[17] Baldwin 1944, 164–84; Cressy 1975, 28, 29.
[18] Schoenbaum 1987, 77–78.
[19] Wood 2003, 84; Schoenbaum 1987, 78–79.
[20] Schoenbaum 1987, 93.
[22] Schoenbaum 1987, 224.
[24] Schoenbaum 1987, 97–108; Rowe 1709.
[25] Schoenbaum 1987, 144–45.
[26] Schoenbaum 1987, 110–11.
[27] Honigmann 1999, 1; Wells et al. 2005, xvii
[28] Honigmann 1999, 95–117; Wood 2003, 97–109.
[29] Wells et al. 2005, 666
[30] Chambers 1930, Vol. 1: 287, 292
[31] Greenblatt 2005, 213.
[32] Greenblatt 2005, 213; Schoenbaum 1987, 153.
[33] Ackroyd 2006, 176.
[34] Schoenbaum 1987, 151–52
[35] Wells 2006, 28; Schoenbaum 1987, 144–46; Chambers 1930, Vol. 1: 59.
[36] Schoenbaum 1987, 184.
[37] Chambers 1923, 208–209.
[38] Chambers 1930, Vol. 2: 67–71.
[39] Bentley 1961, 36.
[40] Schoenbaum 1987, 188; Kastan 1999, 37; Knutson 2001, 17
[41] Adams 1923, 275
[42] Wells 2006, 28.
[43] Schoenbaum 1987, 200.
[44] Schoenbaum 1987, 200–201.
[45] Rowe 1709.
[46] Ackroyd 2006, 357; Wells et al. 2005, xxii
[47] Schoenbaum 1987, 202–3.
[48] Honan 1998, 121.
[49] Shapiro 2005, 122.
[50] Honan 1998, 325; Greenblatt 2005, 405.
[51] Ackroyd 2006, 476.
[52] Honan 1998, 382–83.
[53] Honan 1998, 326; Ackroyd 2006, 462–464.
[54] Schoenbaum 1987, 272–274.
[55] Honan 1998, 387.
[56] Schoenbaum 1987, 279.
[57] Honan 1998, 375–78.
[58] Schoenbaum 1987, 276.
[59] Schoenbaum 1987, 25, 296.
[60] Schoenbaum 1987, 287.
[61] Schoenbaum 1987, 292, 294.
[62] Schoenbaum 1987, 304.
[63] Honan 1998, 395–96.
[64] Chambers 1930, Vol. 2: 8, 11, 104; Schoenbaum 1987, 296.
[65] Chambers 1930, Vol. 2: 7, 9, 13; Schoenbaum 1987, 289, 318–19.
[66] Charles Knight, 1842, in his notes on Twelfth Night, quoted in Schoenbaum 1991, 275.
[67] Ackroyd 2006, 483; Frye 2005, 16; Greenblatt 2005, 145–6.
[68] Schoenbaum 1987, 301–3.
[69] Schoenbaum 1987, 306–07; Wells et al. 2005, xviii
[70] "Bard's 'cursed' tomb is revamped" (http:/ / news. bbc. co. uk/ 2/ hi/ uk_news/ england/ coventry_warwickshire/ 7422986. stm), BBC News,
28 May 2008. Retrieved 23 April 2010.
[71] Schoenbaum 1987, 306.
[72] Schoenbaum 1987, 308–10.

[73] National Portrait Gallery, Searching for Shakespeare, NPG publications, 2006
[74] Thomson, Peter, "Conventions of Playwriting". in Wells & Orlin 2003, 49.
[75] Frye 2005, 9; Honan 1998, 166.
[76] Schoenbaum 1987, 159–61; Frye 2005, 9.
[77] Dutton & Howard 2003, 147.
[78] Ribner 2005, 154–155.
[79] Frye 2005, 105; Ribner 2005, 67; Cheney 2004, 100.
[80] Honan 1998, 136; Schoenbaum 1987, 166.
[81] Frye 2005, 91; Honan 1998, 116–117; Werner 2001, 96–100.
[82] Friedman 2006, 159.
[83] Ackroyd 2006, 235.
[84] Wood 2003, 161–162.
[85] Wood 2003, 205–206; Honan 1998, 258.
[86] Ackroyd 2006, 359.
[87] Ackroyd 2006, 362–383.
[88] Shapiro 2005, 150; Gibbons 1993, 1; Ackroyd 2006, 356.
[89] Wood 2003, 161; Honan 1998, 206.
[90] Ackroyd 2006, 353, 358; Shapiro 2005, 151–153.
[91] Shapiro 2005, 151.
[92] Bradley 1991, 85; Muir 2005, 12–16.
[93] Bradley 1991, 94.
[94] Bradley 1991, 86.
[95] Bradley 1991, 40, 48.
[96] Bradley 1991, 42, 169, 195; Greenblatt 2005, 304.
[97] Bradley 1991, 226; Ackroyd 2006, 423; Kermode 2004, 141–2.
[98] McDonald 2006, 43–46.
[99] Bradley 1991, 306.
[100] Ackroyd 2006, 444; McDonald 2006, 69–70; Eliot 1934, 59.
[101] Dowden 1881, 57.
[102] Dowden 1881, 60; Frye 2005, 123; McDonald 2006, 15.
[103] Wells et al. 2005, 1247, 1279
[104] Wells et al. 2005, xx
[105] Wells et al. 2005, xxi
[106] Shapiro 2005, 16.
[107] Foakes 1990, 6; Shapiro 2005, 125–31.
[108] Foakes 1990, 6; Nagler 1958, 7; Shapiro 2005, 131–2.
[109] Wells et al. 2005, xxii
[110] Foakes 1990, 33.
[111] Ackroyd 2006, 454; Holland 2000, xli.
[112] Ringler 1997, 127.
[113] Schoenbaum 1987, 210; Chambers 1930, Vol. 1: 341.
[114] Shapiro 2005, 247–9.
[115] Wells et al. 2005, 1247
[116] Wells et al. 2005, xxxvii
[117] Wells et al. 2005, xxxiv
[118] Pollard 1909, xi.
[119] Wells et al. 2005, xxxiv; Pollard 1909, xi; Maguire 1996, 28.
[120] Bowers 1955, 8–10; Wells et al. 2005, xxxiv–xxxv
[121] Wells et al. 2005, 909, 1153
[122] Rowe 2006, 21.
[123] Frye 2005, 288.
[124] Rowe 2006, 3, 21.
[125] Rowe 2006, 1; Jackson 2004, 267–294; Honan 1998, 289.
[126] Rowe 2006, 1; Honan 1998, 289; Schoenbaum 1987, 327.
[127] Wood 2003, 178; Schoenbaum 1987, 180.
[128] Honan 1998, 180.
[129] Schoenbaum 1987, 268.
[130] Honan 1998, 180; Schoenbaum 1987, 180.
[131] Shakespeare 1914.

[132] Schoenbaum 1987, 268–269.
[133] Wood 2003, 177.
[134] Clemen 2005a, 150.
[135] Frye 2005, 105, 177; Clemen 2005b, 29.
[136] Brooke, Nicholas, "Language and Speaker in Macbeth", 69; and Bradbrook, M.C., "Shakespeare's Recollection of Marlowe", 195: both in
Edwards, Ewbank & Hunter 2004.
[137] Clemen 2005b, 63.
[138] Frye 2005, 185.
[139] Wright 2004, 868.
[140] Bradley 1991, 91.
[141] McDonald 2006, 42–6.
[142] McDonald 2006, 36, 39, 75.
[143] Gibbons 1993, 4.
[144] Gibbons 1993, 1–4.
[145] Gibbons 1993, 1–7, 15.
[146] McDonald 2006, 13; Meagher 2003, 358.
[147] Chambers 1944, 35.
[148] Levenson 2000, 49–50.
[149] Clemen 1987, 179.
[150] Steiner 1996, 145.
[151] Bryant 1998, 82.
[152] Gross, John, "Shakespeare's Influence" in Wells & Orlin 2003, 641–2..
[153] Paraisz 2006, 130.
[154] Cercignani 1981.
[155] Crystal 2001, 55–65, 74.
[156] Wain 1975, 194.
[157] Johnson 2002, 12; Crystal 2001, 63.
[158] Jonson 1996, 10.
[159] Dominik 1988, 9; Grady 2001b, 267.
[160] Grady 2001b, 265; Greer 1986, 9.
[161] Grady 2001b, 266.
[162] Grady 2001b, 269.
[163] Dryden 1889, 71.
[164] Grady 2001b, 270–27; Levin 1986, 217.
[165] Dobson 1992 Cited by Grady 2001b, 270.
[166] Grady cites Voltaire's Philosophical Letters (1733); Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (1795); Stendhal's two-part pamphlet
Racine et Shakespeare (1823–5); and Victor Hugo's prefaces to Cromwell (1827) and William Shakespeare (1864). Grady 2001b, 272–274.
[167] Levin 1986, 223.
[168] Sawyer 2003, 113.
[169] Carlyle 1907, 161.
[170] Schoch 2002, 58–59.
[171] Grady 2001b, 276.
[172] Grady 2001a, 22–6.
[173] Grady 2001a, 24.
[174] Grady 2001a, 29.
[175] Drakakis 1985, 16–17, 23–25
[176] McMichael & Glenn 1962.
[177] Gibson 2005, 48, 72, 124.
[178] McMichael & Glenn 1962, p. 56.
[179] Did He or Didn’t He? That Is the Question (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2007/ 04/ 22/ education/ edlife/ 22shakespeare-survey. html?_r=1),
New York Times, 22 April 2007
[180] Kathman, David, "The Question of Authorship" in Wells & Orlin 2003, 620, 625–626; Love 2002, 194–209; Schoenbaum 1991, 430–40.
[181] Pritchard 1979, 3.
[182] Wood 2003, 75–8; Ackroyd 2006, 22–3.
[183] Wood 2003, 78; Ackroyd 2006, 416; Schoenbaum 1987, 41–2, 286.
[184] Wilson 2004, 34; Shapiro 2005, 167.
[185] Casey; Pequigney 1985; Evans 1996, 132.
[186] Fort 1927, 406–414.
[187] Tarnya Cooper, Searching for Shakespeare, National Portrait Gallery, Yale University Press, 2006, pp. 48; 57.
[188] Pressly, William L. "The Ashbourne Portrait of Shakespeare: Through the Looking Glass." Shakespeare Quarterly. 1993: pp. 54–72.
[189] David Piper" O Sweet Mr. Shakespeare I'll Have His Picture: The Changing Image of Shakespeare's Person, 1600–1800, National Portrait
Gallery, Pergamon Press, 1980.
[190] Boyce 1996, 91, 193, 513..
[191] Kathman, David, "The Question of Authorship" in Wells & Orlin 2003, 629; Boyce 1996, 91.
[192] Edwards 1958, 1–10; Snyder & Curren-Aquino 2007.
[193] Schanzer 1963, 1–10.
[194] Boas 1896, 345.
[195] Schanzer 1963, 1; Bloom 1999, 325–380; Berry 2005, 37.
[196] The Passionate Pilgrim, published under Shakespeare's name in 1599 without his permission, includes early versions of two of his sonnets,
three extracts from Love's Labour's Lost, several poems known to be by other poets, and eleven poems of unknown authorship for which the
attribution to Shakespeare has not been disproved (Wells et al. 2005, 805)
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• Muir, Kenneth (2005), Shakespeare's Tragic Sequence, London: Routledge, ISBN 0415353254.
• Nagler, A. M. (1958), Shakespeare's Stage, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, ISBN 0300026897.
• Nolen, Stephanie (2002), Shakespeare's Face, Canada: Vintage Canada, ISBN 9780676974843.
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• Pollard, Alfred W. (1909), Shakespeare Quartos and Folios: A Study in the Bibliography of Shakespeare's Plays,
1594–1685, London: Methuen, OCLC 46308204.
• Porter, Roy; Teich, Mikuláš (1988), Romanticism in National Context, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
ISBN 0521339138.
• Potter, Lois (1997), "Introduction", in Shakespeare, William; Potter, Lois (ed.), The Two Noble Kinsmen, London:
Arden Shakespeare, Thomson, ISBN 1904271189.
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• Ribner, Irving (2005), The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare, London: Routledge,
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• Ringler, William, Jr. (1997), "Shakespeare and His Actors: Some Remarks on King Lear", in Ogden, James;
Scouten, In Lear from Study to Stage: Essays in Criticism, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press,
ISBN 083863690X.
• Rowe, John (2006), "Introduction", in Shakespeare, William; Rowe, John (ed.), The Poems: Venus and Adonis,
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Shakespeare (2nd revised ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521855519.
• Rowe, Nicholas (1709), Gray, Terry A., ed., Some Acount of the Life &c. of Mr. William Shakespear (http://
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• Royle, Nicholas (2000), "To Be Announced", in Morra, Joanne; Robson, Mark; Smith, Marquard, The Limits of
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• Sawyer, Robert (2003), Victorian Appropriations of Shakespeare, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University
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• Schanzer, Ernest (1963), The Problem Plays of Shakespeare, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
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• Steiner, George (1996), The Death of Tragedy, New Haven: Yale University Press, ISBN 0300069162.
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• Taylor, Gary (1990), Reinventing Shakespeare: A Cultural History from the Restoration to the Present, London:
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• Taylor, Gary (1987), William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
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• Vickers, Brian (2002), Shakespeare, Co-Author: A Historical Study of Five Collaborative Plays, Oxford: Oxford
• Wain, John (1975), Samuel Johnson, New York: Viking, ISBN 0670616710.
• Wells, Stanley; Taylor, Gary; Jowett, John et al., eds. (2005), The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works (2nd
ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0199267170.
• Wells, Stanley (1997), Shakespeare: A Life in Drama, New York: W. W. Norton, ISBN 0393315622.
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• Werner, Sarah (2001), Shakespeare and Feminist Performance, London: Routledge, ISBN 0415227291.
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Manchester University Press, ISBN 0719070244.
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External links
• Open Source Shakespeare (http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/) complete works, with search engine and
concordance
• Open Shakespeare (http://www.openshakespeare.org/) complete works, search engine, stats and more all as
open content/open source
• Internet Shakespeare Editions (http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/)
• First Four Folios (http://digital.lib.muohio.edu/shakespeare/) at Miami University Library, digital collection
• Shakespeare's Will (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/dol/images/examples/pdfs/shakespeare.pdf) from
The National Archives
• Free scores by William Shakespeare in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Works by or about William Shakespeare (http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n78-95332) in libraries (WorldCat
catalog)
• Shakespeare Research Guide (http://uiuc.libguides.com/shakespeare/) LibGuide resources from the University
of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign Library
• William Shakespeare (http://www.dmoz.org/Arts/Literature/World_Literature/British/Shakespeare/) at the
Open Directory Project
Romeo and Juliet 30
Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright
William Shakespeare about two young "star-cross'd lovers"[1] whose
deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among
Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage
lovers.
Romeo and Juliet belongs to a tradition of tragic romances stretching
back to antiquity. Its plot is based on an Italian tale, translated into
verse as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke
in 1562 and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by William Painter in
1582. Shakespeare borrowed heavily from both but, to expand the plot,
developed supporting characters, particularly Mercutio and Paris.
Believed written between 1591 and 1595, the play was first published
in a quarto version in 1597. This text was of poor quality, and later
editions corrected it, bringing it more in line with Shakespeare's
original.
Shakespeare's use of dramatic structure, especially effects such as

An 1870 oil painting by Ford Madox Brown
switching between comedy and tragedy to heighten tension, his depicting Romeo and Juliet's famous balcony
expansion of minor characters, and his use of sub-plots to embellish scene
the story, has been praised as an early sign of his dramatic skill. The
play ascribes different poetic forms to different characters, sometimes
changing the form as the character develops. Romeo, for example,
grows more adept at the sonnet over the course of the play.
Romeo and Juliet has been adapted numerous times for stage, film,
musical and opera. During the Restoration, it was revived and heavily
revised by William Davenant. David Garrick's 18th-century version
also modified several scenes, removing material then considered
indecent, and Georg Benda's operatic adaptation omitted much of the
action and added a happy ending. Performances in the 19th century,
including Charlotte Cushman's, restored the original text, and focused
on greater realism. John Gielgud's 1935 version kept very close to
Shakespeare's text, and used Elizabethan costumes and staging to
enhance the drama. In the 20th century the play has been adapted in
versions as diverse as MGM's comparatively faithful 1936 film, the
1950s stage musical West Side Story, and 1996's MTV-inspired Romeo
+ Juliet.
Title page of the first edition

Romeo and Juliet 31
Characters
Ruling house of Verona House of Montague
• Prince Escalus is the ruling Prince of Verona • Montague is the patriarch of the house of Montague.
• Count Paris is a kinsman of Escalus who wishes to marry Juliet. • Lady Montague is the matriarch of the house of Montague.
• Mercutio is another kinsman of Escalus, and a friend of Romeo. • Romeo is the son of Montague and Lady Montague and the play's male
House of Capulet protagonist.
• Benvolio is Romeo's cousin and best friend.
• Capulet is the patriarch of the house of Capulet.
• Abram and Balthasar are servants of the Montague household.
• Lady Capulet is the matriarch of the house of Capulet.
• Juliet is the daughter of the Capulets, and is the play's female Others
protagonist. • Friar Laurence is a Franciscan friar, and is Romeo's confidant.
• Tybalt is a cousin of Juliet, and the nephew of Lady Capulet. • A Chorus reads a prologue to each of the first two acts.
• The Nurse is Juliet's personal attendant and confidante. • Friar John is sent to deliver Friar Laurence's letter to Romeo.
• Peter, Sampson and Gregory are servants of the Capulet • An Apothecary who reluctantly sells Romeo poison.
household.
Synopsis
The play, set in Verona, begins with a street brawl between Montague
and Capulet supporters who are sworn enemies. The Prince of Verona
intervenes and declares that further breach of the peace will be
punishable by death. Later, Count Paris talks to Capulet about
marrying his daughter, but Capulet is wary of the request because
Juliet is only thirteen. Capulet asks Paris to wait another two years and
invites him to attend a planned Capulet ball. Lady Capulet and Juliet's
nurse try to persuade Juliet to accept Paris's courtship.
Meanwhile, Benvolio talks with his cousin Romeo, Lord Montague's

son, about Romeo's recent depression. Benvolio discovers that it stems
from unrequited infatuation for a girl named Rosaline, one of Capulet's
nieces. Persuaded by Benvolio and Mercutio, Romeo attends the ball at
the Capulet house in hopes of meeting Rosaline. However, Romeo
instead meets and falls in love with Juliet. After the ball, in what is
now called the "balcony scene", Romeo sneaks into the Capulet
courtyard and overhears Juliet on her balcony vowing her love to him
L’ultimo bacio dato a Giulietta da Romeo by
in spite of her family's hatred of the Montagues. Romeo makes himself
Francesco Hayez. Oil on canvas, 1823.
known to her and they agree to be married. With the help of Friar
Laurence, who hopes to reconcile the two families through their
children's union, they are secretly married the next day.
Juliet's cousin Tybalt, incensed that Romeo had sneaked into the Capulet ball, challenges him to a duel. Romeo, now
considering Tybalt his kinsman, refuses to fight. Mercutio is offended by Tybalt's insolence, as well as Romeo's "vile
submission,"[2] and accepts the duel on Romeo's behalf. Mercutio is fatally wounded when Romeo attempts to break
up the fight. Grief-stricken and wracked with guilt, Romeo confronts and slays Tybalt.
Montague argues that Romeo has justly executed Tybalt for the murder of Mercutio. The Prince, now having lost a
kinsman in the warring families' feud, exiles Romeo from Verona and declares that if Romeo returns, "that hour is
his last."[3] Romeo secretly spends the night in Juliet's chamber, where they consummate their marriage. Capulet,
misinterpreting Juliet's grief, agrees to marry her to Count Paris and threatens to disown her when she refuses to
become Paris's "joyful bride."[4] When she then pleads for the marriage to be delayed, her mother rejects her.
Romeo and Juliet 32
Juliet visits Friar Laurence for help, and he offers her a drug that will put her into a death-like coma for "two and
forty hours."[5] The Friar promises to send a messenger to inform Romeo of the plan, so that he can rejoin her when
she awakens. On the night before the wedding, she takes the drug and, when discovered apparently dead, she is laid
in the family crypt.
The messenger, however, does not reach Romeo and, instead, he learns of Juliet's apparent death from his servant
Balthasar. Heartbroken, Romeo buys poison from an apothecary and goes to the Capulet crypt. He encounters Paris
who has come to mourn Juliet privately. Believing Romeo to be a vandal, Paris confronts him and, in the ensuing
battle, Romeo kills Paris. Still believing Juliet to be dead, he drinks the poison. Juliet then awakens and, finding
Romeo dead, stabs herself with his dagger. The feuding families and the Prince meet at the tomb to find all three
dead. Friar Laurence recounts the story of the two "star-cross'd lovers". The families are reconciled by their
children's deaths and agree to end their violent feud. The play ends with the Prince's elegy for the lovers: "For never
was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."[6]
Sources
Romeo and Juliet borrows from a tradition of tragic love stories dating
back to antiquity. One of these is Pyramus and Thisbe, from Ovid's
Metamorphoses, which contains parallels to Shakespeare's story: the
lovers' parents despise each other, and Pyramus falsely believes his
lover Thisbe is dead.[7] The Ephesiaca of Xenophon of Ephesus,
written in the 3rd century, also contains several similarities to the play,
including the separation of the lovers, and a potion that induces a
deathlike sleep.[8]
One of the earliest references to the names Montague and Capulet is

from Dante's Divine Comedy, who mentions the Montecchi
(Montagues) and the Cappelletti (Capulets) in canto six of
Purgatorio:[9]
Come and see, you who are negligent,
Montagues and Capulets, Monaldi and Filippeschi:
One lot already grieving, the other in fear.
—Dante, Divine Comedy: Purgatorio, canto VI, ll. Title page of Arthur Brooke's poem, Romeus and
106-8.[10] Juliet.
However, the reference is part of a polemic against the moral decay of

Florence, Lombardy and the Italian Peninsula as a whole; Dante, through his characters, chastizes Albert of
Hapsburg for neglecting his responsibilities as temporal ruler of Christendom in the continent ("you who are
negligent"), and successive Popes for their encroachment from purely spiritual affairs, thus leading to a climate of
incessant bickering and warfare between rival political parties in Lombardy. Historicity records the name of the
family Montagues as being lent to such a political party in Verona, but that of the Capulets as from a Cremonese
family, both of whom play out their conflict in Lombardy as a whole, rather than within the confines of Verona.[11]
Allied to rival political factions, the parties are grieving ("One lot already grieving") because their endless warfare
has led to the destruction of both parties,[11] rather than a grief from the loss of their ill-fated offspring as the play
sets forth, which appears to be a solely poetic creation within this context.
The earliest known version of the Romeo and Juliet tale akin to Shakespeare's play is the story of Mariotto and
Gianozza by Masuccio Salernitano, in the 33rd novel of his Il Novellino published in 1476.[12] Salernitano sets the
story in Siena and insists its events took place in his own lifetime. His version of the story includes the secret
Romeo and Juliet 33
marriage, the colluding friar, the fray where a prominent citizen is killed, Mariotto's exile, Gianozza's forced
marriage, the potion plot, and the crucial message that goes astray. In this version, Mariotto is caught and beheaded
and Gianozza dies of grief.[13]
Luigi da Porto adapted the story as Giulietta e Romeo and included it in his Historia novellamente ritrovata di due
Nobili Amanti published in 1530.[14] Da Porto drew on Pyramus and Thisbe and Boccacio's Decameron. He gave it
much of its modern form, including the names of the lovers, the rival families of Montecchi and Capuleti, and the
location in Verona.[12] He also introduces characters corresponding to Shakespeare's Mercutio, Tybalt, and Paris. Da
Porto presents his tale as historically true and claims it took place in the days of Bartolomeo II della Scala (a century
earlier than Salernitano). In da Porto's version Romeo takes poison and Giulietta stabs herself with his dagger.[15]
In 1554, Matteo Bandello published the second volume of his Novelle, which included his version of Giuletta e
Romeo.[14] Bandello emphasises Romeo's initial depression and the feud between the families, and introduces the
Nurse and Benvolio. Bandello's story was translated into French by Pierre Boaistuau in 1559 in the first volume of
his Histories Tragiques. Boaistuau adds much moralising and sentiment, and the characters indulge in rhetorical
outbursts.[16]
In his 1562 narrative poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, Arthur Brooke translated Boaistuau
faithfully, but adjusted it to reflect parts of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde.[17] There was a trend among writers and
playwrights to publish works based on Italian novelles—Italian tales were very popular among theatre-goers—and
Shakespeare may well have been familiar with William Painter's 1567 collection of Italian tales titled Palace of
Pleasure.[18] This collection included a version in prose of the Romeo and Juliet story named "The goodly History of
the true and constant love of Rhomeo and Julietta". Shakespeare took advantage of this popularity: The Merchant of
Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, and Romeo and Juliet are all
from Italian novelle. Romeo and Juliet is a dramatisation of Brooke's translation, and Shakespeare follows the poem
closely, but adds extra detail to both major and minor characters (in particular the Nurse and Mercutio).[19]
Christopher Marlowe's Hero and Leander and Dido, Queen of Carthage, both similar stories written in
Shakespeare's day, are thought to be less of a direct influence, although they may have helped create an atmosphere
in which tragic love stories could thrive.[17]
Romeo and Juliet 34
Date and text

It is unknown when exactly Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet.
Juliet's nurse refers to an earthquake she says occurred 11 years
ago.[20] This may refer to the Dover Straits earthquake of 1580, which
would date that particular line to 1591. Other earthquakes—both in
England and in Verona—have been proposed in support of different
dates.[21] But the play's stylistic similarities with A Midsummer Night's
Dream and other plays conventionally dated around 1594–95, place its
composition sometime between 1591 and 1595.[22] One conjecture is
that Shakespeare may have begun a draft in 1591, which he completed
in 1595.[23]
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was published in two quarto editions

prior to the publication of the First Folio of 1623. These are referred to
as Q1 and Q2. The first printed edition, Q1, appeared in early 1597,
printed by John Danter. Because its text contains numerous differences
from the later editions, it is labelled a 'bad quarto'; the 20th-century
editor T. J. B. Spencer described it as "a detestable text, probably a
Title page of the Second Quarto of Romeo and reconstruction of the play from the imperfect memories of one or two
Juliet published in 1599
of the actors", suggesting that it had been pirated for publication.[24]
An alternative explanation for Q1's shortcomings is that the play (like
many others of the time) may have been heavily edited before performance by the playing company.[25] In any event,
its appearance in early 1597 makes 1596 the latest possible date for the play's composition.[21]
The superior Q2 called the play The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet. It was printed in
1599 by Thomas Creede and published by Cuthbert Burby. Q2 is about 800 lines longer than Q1.[25] Its title page
describes it as "Newly corrected, augmented and amended". Scholars believe that Q2 was based on Shakespeare's
pre-performance draft (called his foul papers), since there are textual oddities such as variable tags for characters and
"false starts" for speeches that were presumably struck through by the author but erroneously preserved by the
typesetter. It is a much more complete and reliable text, and was reprinted in 1609 (Q3), 1622 (Q4) and 1637
(Q5).[24] In effect, all later Quartos and Folios of Romeo and Juliet are based on Q2, as are all modern editions since
editors believe that any deviations from Q2 in the later editions (whether good or bad) are likely to arise from editors
or compositors, not from Shakespeare.[25]
The First Folio text of 1623 was based primarily on Q3, with clarifications and corrections possibly coming from a
theatrical promptbook or Q1.[24] [26] Other Folio editions of the play were printed in 1632 (F2), 1664 (F3), and 1685
(F4).[27] Modern versions—that take into account several of the Folios and Quartos—first appeared with Nicholas
Rowe's 1709 edition, followed by Alexander Pope's 1723 version. Pope began a tradition of editing the play to add
information such as stage directions missing in Q2 by locating them in Q1. This tradition continued late into the
Romantic period. Fully annotated editions first appeared in the Victorian period and continue to be produced today,
printing the text of the play with footnotes describing the sources and culture behind the play.[28]
Themes and motifs

Scholars have found it extremely difficult to assign one specific, over-arching theme to the play. Proposals for a
main theme include a discovery by the characters that human beings are neither wholly good nor wholly evil, but
instead are more or less alike,[29] awaking out of a dream and into reality, the danger of hasty action, or the power of
tragic fate. None of these has widespread support. However, even if an overall theme cannot be found it is clear that
the play is full of several small, thematic elements that intertwine in complex ways. Several of those most often
Romeo and Juliet 35
debated by scholars are discussed below.[30]
Love
"Romeo
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Juliet
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do
touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss."
[31]
—Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene V
Romeo and Juliet is sometimes considered to have no unifying theme, save that of young love.[29] Romeo and Juliet
have become emblematic of young lovers and doomed love. Since it is such an obvious subject of the play, several
scholars have explored the language and historical context behind the romance of the play.[32]
On their first meeting, Romeo and Juliet use a form of communication recommended by many etiquette authors in
Shakespeare's day: metaphor. By using metaphors of saints and sins, Romeo was able to test Juliet's feelings for him
in a non-threatening way. This method was recommended by Baldassare Castiglione (whose works had been
translated into English by this time). He pointed out that if a man used a metaphor as an invitation, the woman could
pretend she did not understand him, and he could retreat without losing honour. Juliet, however, participates in the
metaphor and expands on it. The religious metaphors of "shrine", "pilgrim" and "saint" were fashionable in the
poetry of the time and more likely to be understood as romantic rather than blasphemous, as the concept of sainthood
was associated with the Catholicism of an earlier age.[33] Later in the play, Shakespeare removes the more daring
allusions to Christ's resurrection in the tomb he found in his source work: Brooke's Romeus and Juliet.[34]
In the later balcony scene, Shakespeare has Romeo overhear Juliet's soliloquy, but in Brooke's version of the story
her declaration is done alone. By bringing Romeo into the scene to eavesdrop, Shakespeare breaks from the normal
sequence of courtship. Usually a woman was required to be modest and shy to make sure that her suitor was sincere,
but breaking this rule serves to speed along the plot. The lovers are able to skip a lengthy part of wooing, and move
on to plain talk about their relationship—developing into an agreement to be married after knowing each other for
only one night.[32] In the final suicide scene, there is a contradiction in the message—in the Catholic religion,
suicides were often thought to be condemned to hell, whereas people who die to be with their loves under the
"Religion of Love" are joined with their loves in paradise. Romeo and Juliet's love seems to be expressing the
"Religion of Love" view rather than the Catholic view. Another point is that although their love is passionate, it is
only consummated in marriage, which prevents them from losing the audience's sympathy.[35]
The play arguably equates love and sex with death. Throughout the story, both Romeo and Juliet, along with the
other characters, fantasise about it as a dark being, often equating it with a lover. Capulet, for example, when he first
discovers Juliet's (faked) death, describes it as having deflowered his daughter.[36] Juliet later erotically compares
Romeo and death. Right before her suicide she grabs Romeo's dagger, saying "O happy dagger! This is thy sheath.
There rust, and let me die."[37] [38]
Romeo and Juliet 36
Fate and chance
"O, I am fortune's fool!"
[39]
—Romeo, Act III Scene I
Scholars are divided on the role of fate in the play. No consensus exists on whether the characters are truly fated to
die together or whether the events take place by a series of unlucky chances. Arguments in favour of fate often refer
to the description of the lovers as "star-cross'd".[1] This phrase seems to hint that the stars have predetermined the
lovers' future.[40] John W. Draper points out the parallels between the Elizabethan belief in the four humours and the
main characters of the play (for example, Tybalt as a choleric). Interpreting the text in the light of humours reduces
the amount of plot attributed to chance by modern audiences.[41] Still, other scholars see the play as a series of
unlucky chances—many to such a degree that they do not see it as a tragedy at all, but an emotional melodrama.[41]
Ruth Nevo believes the high degree to which chance is stressed in the narrative makes Romeo and Juliet a "lesser
tragedy" of happenstance, not of character. For example, Romeo's challenging Tybalt is not impulsive; it is, after
Mercutio's death, the expected action to take. In this scene, Nevo reads Romeo as being aware of the dangers of
flouting social norms, identity and commitments. He makes the choice to kill, not because of a tragic flaw, but
because of circumstance.[42]
Duality (light and dark)
"O brawling love, O loving hate,

O any thing of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick
health,
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!"
[43]
—Romeo, Act I Scene I
Scholars have long noted Shakespeare's widespread use of light and dark imagery throughout the play. Caroline
Spurgeon considers the theme of light as "symbolic of the natural beauty of young love" and later critics have
expanded on this interpretation.[42] [44] For example, both Romeo and Juliet see the other as light in a surrounding
darkness. Romeo describes Juliet as being like the sun,[45] brighter than a torch,[46] a jewel sparkling in the night,[47]
and a bright angel among dark clouds.[48] Even when she lies apparently dead in the tomb, he says her "beauty
makes This vault a feasting presence full of light."[49] Juliet describes Romeo as "day in night" and "Whiter than
snow upon a raven's back."[50] [51] This contrast of light and dark can be expanded as symbols—contrasting love and
hate, youth and age in a metaphoric way.[42] Sometimes these intertwining metaphors create dramatic irony. For
example, Romeo and Juliet's love is a light in the midst of the darkness of the hate around them, but all of their
activity together is done in night and darkness, while all of the feuding is done in broad daylight. This paradox of
imagery adds atmosphere to the moral dilemma facing the two lovers: loyalty to family or loyalty to love. At the end
of the story, when the morning is gloomy and the sun hiding its face for sorrow, light and dark have returned to their
proper places, the outward darkness reflecting the true, inner darkness of the family feud out of sorrow for the lovers.
All characters now recognise their folly in light of recent events, and things return to the natural order, thanks to the
love of Romeo and Juliet.[44] The "light" theme in the play is also heavily connected to the theme of time, since light
was a convenient way for Shakespeare to express the passage of time through descriptions of the sun, moon, and
stars.[52]
Romeo and Juliet 37
Time
"These times of woe afford no time to woo."
[53]
—Paris, Act III Scene IV
Time plays an important role in the language and plot of the play. Both Romeo and Juliet struggle to maintain an
imaginary world void of time in the face of the harsh realities that surround them. For instance, when Romeo swears
his love to Juliet by the moon, she protests "O swear not by the moon, th'inconstant moon, / That monthly changes in
her circled orb, / Lest that thy love prove likewise variable."[54] From the very beginning, the lovers are designated
as "star-cross'd"[1] referring to an astrologic belief associated with time. Stars were thought to control the fates of
humanity, and as time passed, stars would move along their course in the sky, also charting the course of human
lives below. Romeo speaks of a foreboding he feels in the stars' movements early in the play, and when he learns of
Juliet's death, he defies the stars' course for him.[41] [55]
Another central theme is haste: Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet spans a period of four to six days, in contrast to
Brooke's poem's spanning nine months.[52] Scholars such as G. Thomas Tanselle believe that time was "especially
important to Shakespeare" in this play, as he used references to "short-time" for the young lovers as opposed to
references to "long-time" for the "older generation" to highlight "a headlong rush towards doom".[52] Romeo and
Juliet fight time to make their love last forever. In the end, the only way they seem to defeat time is through a death
that makes them immortal through art.[56]
Time is also connected to the theme of light and dark. In Shakespeare's day, plays were often performed at noon in
broad daylight. This forced the playwright to use words to create the illusion of day and night in his plays.
Shakespeare uses references to the night and day, the stars, the moon, and the sun to create this illusion. He also has
characters frequently refer to days of the week and specific hours to help the audience understand that time has
passed in the story. All in all, no fewer than 103 references to time are found in the play, adding to the illusion of its
passage.[57]
Criticism and interpretation
Critical history
The earliest known critic of the play was diarist Samuel Pepys, who wrote in 1662: "it is a play of itself the worst
that I ever heard in my life."[58] Poet John Dryden wrote 10 years later in praise of the play and its comic character
Mercutio: "Shakespear show'd the best of his skill in his Mercutio, and he said himself, that he was forc'd to kill him
in the third Act, to prevent being killed by him."[58] Criticism of the play in the 18th century was less sparse, but no
less divided. Publisher Nicholas Rowe was the first critic to ponder the theme of the play, which he saw as the just
punishment of the two feuding families. In mid-century, writer Charles Gildon and philosopher Lord Kames argued
that the play was a failure in that it did not follow the classical rules of drama: the tragedy must occur because of
some character flaw, not an accident of fate. Writer and critic Samuel Johnson, however, considered it one of
Shakespeare's "most pleasing" plays.[59]
In the later part of the 18th and through the 19th century, criticism centred on debates over the moral message of the
play. Actor and playwright David Garrick's 1748 adaptation excluded Rosaline: Romeo abandoning her for Juliet
was seen as fickle and reckless. Critics such as Charles Dibdin argued that Rosaline had been purposely included in
the play to show how reckless the hero was, and that this was the reason for his tragic end. Others argued that Friar
Laurence might be Shakespeare's spokesman in his warnings against undue haste. With the advent of the 20th
century, these moral arguments were disputed by critics such as Richard Green Moulton: he argued that accident,
and not some character flaw, led to the lovers' deaths.[60]
Romeo and Juliet 38
Dramatic structure
In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare employs several dramatic techniques that have garnered praise from critics; most
notably the abrupt shifts from comedy to tragedy (an example is the punning exchange between Benvolio and
Mercutio just before Tybalt arrives). Before Mercutio's death in Act three, the play is largely a comedy.[61] After his
accidental demise, the play suddenly becomes serious and takes on a tragic tone. When Romeo is banished, rather
than executed, and Friar Laurence offers Juliet a plan to reunite her with Romeo, the audience can still hope that all
will end well. They are in a "breathless state of suspense" by the opening of the last scene in the tomb: If Romeo is
delayed long enough for the Friar to arrive, he and Juliet may yet be saved.[62] These shifts from hope to despair,
reprieve, and new hope, serve to emphasise the tragedy when the final hope fails and both the lovers die at the
end.[63]
Shakespeare also uses sub-plots to offer a clearer view of the actions of the main characters. For example, when the
play begins, Romeo is in love with Rosaline, who has refused all of his advances. Romeo's infatuation with her
stands in obvious contrast to his later love for Juliet. This provides a comparison through which the audience can see
the seriousness of Romeo and Juliet's love and marriage. Paris' love for Juliet also sets up a contrast between Juliet's
feelings for him and her feelings for Romeo. The formal language she uses around Paris, as well as the way she talks
about him to her Nurse, show that her feelings clearly lie with Romeo. Beyond this, the sub-plot of the
Montague–Capulet feud overarches the whole play, providing an atmosphere of hate that is the main contributor to
the play's tragic end.[63]
Language
Shakespeare uses a variety of poetic forms throughout the play. He begins with a 14-line prologue in the form of a
Shakespearean sonnet, spoken by a Chorus. Most of Romeo and Juliet is, however, written in blank verse, and much
of it in strict iambic pentameter, with less rhythmic variation than in most of Shakespeare's later plays.[64] In
choosing forms, Shakespeare matches the poetry to the character who uses it. Friar Laurence, for example, uses
sermon and sententiae forms, and the Nurse uses a unique blank verse form that closely matches colloquial
speech.[64] Each of these forms is also moulded and matched to the emotion of the scene the character occupies. For
example, when Romeo talks about Rosaline earlier in the play, he attempts to use the Petrarchan sonnet form.
Petrarchan sonnets were often used by men to exaggerate the beauty of women who were impossible for them to
attain, as in Romeo's situation with Rosaline. This sonnet form is used by Lady Capulet to describe Count Paris to
Juliet as a handsome man.[65] When Romeo and Juliet meet, the poetic form changes from the Petrarchan (which was
becoming archaic in Shakespeare's day) to a then more contemporary sonnet form, using "pilgrims" and "saints" as
metaphors.[66] Finally, when the two meet on the balcony, Romeo attempts to use the sonnet form to pledge his love,
but Juliet breaks it by saying "Dost thou love me?"[67] By doing this, she searches for true expression, rather than a
poetic exaggeration of their love.[68] Juliet uses monosyllabic words with Romeo, but uses formal language with
Paris.[69] Other forms in the play include an epithalamium by Juliet, a rhapsody in Mercutio's Queen Mab speech,
and an elegy by Paris.[70] Shakespeare saves his prose style most often for the common people in the play, though at
times he uses it for other characters, such as Mercutio.[71] Humour, also, is important: scholar Molly Mahood
identifies at least 175 puns and wordplays in the text.[72] Many of these jokes are sexual in nature, especially those
involving Mercutio and the Nurse.[73]
Psychoanalytic criticism
Early psychoanalytic critics saw the problem of Romeo and Juliet in terms of Romeo's impulsiveness, deriving from
"ill-controlled, partially disguised aggression", which leads both to Mercutio's death and to the double suicide.[74]
Romeo and Juliet is not considered to be exceedingly psychologically complex, and sympathetic psychoanalytic
readings of the play make the tragic male experience equivalent with sicknesses.[75] Norman Holland, writing in
1966, considers Romeo's dream[76] as a realistic "wish fulfilling fantasy both in terms of Romeo's adult world and his
Romeo and Juliet 39
hypothetical childhood at stages oral, phallic and oedipal" – while acknowledging that a dramatic character is not a
human being with mental processes separate from those of the author.[77] Critics such as Julia Kristeva focus on the
hatred between the families, arguing that this hatred is the cause of Romeo and Juliet's passion for each other. That
hatred manifests itself directly in the lovers' language: Juliet, for example, speaks of "my only love sprung from my
only hate"[78] and often expresses her passion through an anticipation of Romeo's death.[79] This leads on to
speculation as to the playwright's psychology, in particular to a consideration of Shakespeare's grief for the death of
his son, Hamnet.[80]
Feminist criticism
Feminist literary critics argue that the blame for the family feud lies in Verona's patriarchal society. For Coppélia
Kahn, for example, the strict, masculine code of violence imposed on Romeo is the main force driving the tragedy to
its end. When Tybalt kills Mercutio, Romeo shifts into this violent mode, regretting that Juliet has made him so
"effeminate".[81] In this view, the younger males "become men" by engaging in violence on behalf of their fathers, or
in the case of the servants, their masters. The feud is also linked to male virility, as the numerous jokes about
maidenheads aptly demonstrate.[82] Juliet also submits to a female code of docility by allowing others, such as the
Friar, to solve her problems for her. Other critics, such as Dympna Callaghan, look at the play's feminism from a
historicist angle, stressing that when the play was written the feudal order was being challenged by increasingly
centralised government and the advent of capitalism. At the same time, emerging Puritan ideas about marriage were
less concerned with the "evils of female sexuality" than those of earlier eras, and more sympathetic towards
love-matches: when Juliet dodges her father's attempt to force her to marry a man she has no feeling for, she is
challenging the patriarchal order in a way that would not have been possible at an earlier time.[83]
Queer theory
Critics utilizing queer theory have examined the sexuality of Mercutio and Romeo, comparing their friendship with
sexual love. Mercutio, in friendly conversation, mentions Romeo's phallus, suggesting traces of homoeroticism.[84]
An example is his joking wish "To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle ... letting it there stand / Till she had laid it and
conjured it down."[85] [86] Romeo's homoeroticism can also be found in his attitude to Rosaline, a woman who is
distant and unavailable and brings no hope of offspring. As Benvolio argues, she is best replaced by someone who
will reciprocate. Shakespeare's procreation sonnets describe another young man who, like Romeo, is having trouble
creating offspring and who may be seen as being a homosexual. Gender critics believe that Shakespeare may have
used Rosaline as a way to express homosexual problems of procreation in an acceptable way. In this view, when
Juliet says "...that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet",[87] she may be raising the question
of whether there is any difference between the beauty of a man and the beauty of a woman.[88]
Romeo and Juliet 40
Legacy
Shakespeare's day
Romeo and Juliet ranks with Hamlet as one of Shakespeare's
most-performed plays.[90] Its many adaptations have made it one of his
most enduring and famous stories.[90] Even in Shakespeare's lifetime it
was extremely popular. Scholar Gary Taylor measures it as the sixth
most popular of Shakespeare's plays, in the period after the death of
Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd but before the ascendancy of
Ben Jonson during which Shakespeare was London's dominant
playwright.[91] The date of the first performance is unknown. The First
Quarto, printed in 1597, says that "it hath been often (and with great
applause) plaid publiquely", setting the first performance prior to that
date. The Lord Chamberlain's Men were certainly the first to perform
it. Besides their strong connections with Shakespeare, the Second
Quarto actually names one of its actors, Will Kemp, instead of Peter in
a line in Act five. Richard Burbage was probably the first Romeo,
being the company's leading actor, and Master Robert Goffe (a boy) Richard Burbage, probably the first actor to
the first Juliet.[89] The premiere is likely to have been at "The Theatre", portray Romeo
[89]
[92]
with other early productions at "The Curtain". Romeo and Juliet is
one of the first Shakespearean plays to have been performed outside England: a shortened and simplified version was
performed in Nördlingen in 1604.[93]
Restoration and 18th-century theatre

All theatres were closed down by the puritan government on 6 September 1642. Upon the restoration of the
monarchy in 1660, two patent companies (the King's Company and the Duke's Company) were established, and the
existing theatrical repertoire divided between them.[94]
Sir William Davenant of the Duke's Company staged a 1662 adaptation
in which Henry Harris played Romeo, Thomas Betterton Mercutio, and
Betterton's wife Mary Saunderson Juliet: she was probably the first
woman to play the role professionally.[95] [96] Another version closely
followed Davenant's adaptation and was also regularly performed by
the Duke's Company. This was a tragicomedy by James Howard, in
which the two lovers survive.[97]
Thomas Otway's The History and Fall of Caius Marius, one of the
more extreme of the Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare, debuted
in 1680. The scene is shifted from Renaissance Verona to ancient
Rome; Romeo is Marius, Juliet is Lavinia, the feud is between
patricians and plebeians; Juliet/Lavinia wakes from her potion before
Romeo/Marius dies. Otway's version was a hit, and was acted for the
next seventy years.[96] His innovation in the closing scene was even
Mary Saunderson, probably the first woman to
more enduring, and was used in adaptations throughout the next 200
play Juliet professionally
years: Theophilus Cibber's adaptation of 1744, and David Garrick's of
Romeo and Juliet 41
1748 both used variations on it.[98] These versions also eliminated elements deemed inappropriate at the time. For
example, Garrick's version transferred all language describing Rosaline to Juliet, to heighten the idea of faithfulness
and downplay the love-at-first-sight theme.[99] In 1750 a "Battle of the Romeos" began, with Spranger Barry and
Susannah Maria Arne (Mrs. Theophilus Cibber) at Covent Garden versus David Garrick and George Anne Bellamy
at Drury Lane.[100]
The earliest known production in North America was an amateur one: on 23 March 1730, a physician named
Joachimus Bertrand placed an advertisement in the Gazette newspaper in New York, promoting a production in
which he would play the apothecary.[101] The first professional performances of the play in North America were
those of the Hallam Company.[102]
19th-century theatre
Garrick's altered version of the play was very popular, and ran for
nearly a century.[96] Not until 1845 did Shakespeare's original return to
the stage in the United States with the sisters Susan and Charlotte
Cushman as Juliet and Romeo, respectively,[103] and then in 1847 in
Britain with Samuel Phelps at Sadler's Wells Theatre.[104] Cushman
adhered to Shakespeare's version, beginning a string of eighty-four
performances. Her portrayal of Romeo was considered genius by
many. The Times wrote: "For a long time Romeo has been a
convention. Miss Cushman's Romeo is a creative, a living, breathing,
animated, ardent human being."[105] Queen Victoria wrote in her
journal that "no-one would ever have imagined she was a woman".[106]
Cushman's success broke the Garrick tradition and paved the way for
later performances to return to the original storyline.[96]
Professional performances of Shakespeare in the mid-19th century had The American Cushman sisters, Charlotte and
two particular features: firstly, they were generally star vehicles, with Susan, as Romeo and Juliet in 1846
supporting roles cut or marginalised to give greater prominence to the

central characters. Secondly, they were "pictorial", placing the action on spectacular and elaborate sets (requiring
lengthy pauses for scene changes) and with the frequent use of tableaux.[107] Henry Irving's 1882 production at the
Lyceum Theatre (with himself as Romeo and Ellen Terry as Juliet) is considered an archetype of the pictorial
style.[108] In 1895, Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson took over from Irving, and laid the groundwork for a more natural
portrayal of Shakespeare that remains popular today. Forbes-Robertson avoided the showiness of Irving and instead
portrayed a down-to-earth Romeo, expressing the poetic dialogue as realistic prose and avoiding melodramatic
flourish.[109]
American actors began to rival their British counterparts. Edwin Booth (brother to John Wilkes Booth) and Mary
McVicker (soon to be Edwin's wife) opened as Romeo and Juliet at the sumptuous Booth's Theatre (with its
European-style stage machinery, and an air conditioning system unique in New York) on 3 February 1869. Some
reports said it was one of the most elaborate productions of Romeo and Juliet ever seen in America; it was certainly
the most popular, running for over six weeks and earning over $60,000.[110] The programme noted that: "The tragedy
will be produced in strict accordance with historical propriety, in every respect, following closely the text of
Shakespeare."[111]
The first professional performance of the play in Japan may have been George Crichton Miln's company's
production, which toured to Yokohama in 1890.[112] Throughout the 19th century, Romeo and Juliet had been
Shakespeare's most popular play, measured by the number of professional performances. In the 20th century it would
become the second most popular, behind Hamlet.[113]
Romeo and Juliet 42
20th-century theatre
In 1933, the play was revived by actress Katharine Cornell and her director husband Guthrie McClintic and was
taken on a seven-month nationwide tour throughout the United States. It starred Orson Welles, Brian Aherne and
Basil Rathbone. The production was a modest success, and so upon the return to New York, Cornell and McClintic
revised it and for the first time, the play was presented with almost all the scenes intact, including the Prologue. The
new production opened in December 1934 with Ralph Richardson as Mercutio and Maurice Evans as Romeo. Critics
wrote that Cornell was "the finest Juliet of her time," "endlessly haunting," and "the most lovely and enchanting
Juliet our present-day theatre has seen."[114]
John Gielgud's New Theatre production in 1935 featured Gielgud and
Laurence Olivier as Romeo and Mercutio, exchanging roles six weeks
into the run, with Peggy Ashcroft as Juliet.[115] Gielgud used a
scholarly combination of Q1 and Q2 texts, and organised the set and
costumes to match as closely as possible to the Elizabethan period. His
efforts were a huge success at the box office, and set the stage for
increased historical realism in later productions.[116] Olivier later
compared his performance and Gielgud's: "John, all spiritual, all
spirituality, all beauty, all abstract things; and myself as all earth,
blood, humanity ... I've always felt that John missed the lower half and
that made me go for the other ... But whatever it was, when I was
playing Romeo I was carrying a torch, I was trying to sell realism in
Shakespeare."[117]
Peter Brook's 1947 version was the beginning of a different style of

Romeo and Juliet performances. Brook was less concerned with John Gielgud, who was among the more famous
20th-century actors to play Romeo, Friar
realism, and more concerned with translating the play into a form that
Laurence and Mercutio on stage
could communicate with the modern world. He argued, "A production
is only correct at the moment of its correctness, and only good at the
moment of its success."[118] Brook excluded the final reconciliation of the families from his performance text.[119]
Throughout the century, audiences, influenced by the cinema, became less willing to accept actors distinctly older
than the teenage characters they were playing.[120] A significant example of more youthful casting was in Franco
Zeffirelli's Old Vic production in 1960, with John Stride and Judi Dench, which would serve as the basis for his 1968
film.[119] Zeffirelli borrowed from Brook's ideas, altogether removing around a third of the play's text to make it
more accessible. In an interview with The Times, he stated that the play's "twin themes of love and the total
breakdown of understanding between two generations" had contemporary relevance.[121]
Recent performances often set the play in the contemporary world. For example, in 1986 the Royal Shakespeare
Company set the play in modern Verona. Switchblades replaced swords, feasts and balls became drug-laden rock
parties, and Romeo committed suicide by hypodermic needle.[122] In 1997, the Folger Shakespeare Theatre produced
a version set in a typical suburban world. Romeo sneaks into the Capulet barbecue to meet Juliet, and Juliet
discovers Tybalt's death while in class at school.[123]
The play is sometimes given a historical setting, enabling audiences to reflect on the underlying conflicts. For
example, adaptations have been set in the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,[124] in the apartheid era in South
Africa,[125] and in the aftermath of the Pueblo Revolt.[126] Similarly, Peter Ustinov's 1956 comic adaptation,
Romanoff and Juliet, is set in a fictional mid-European country in the depths of the Cold War.[127] A mock-Victorian
revisionist version of Romeo and Juliet's final scene (with a happy ending, Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio and Paris
restored to life, and Benvolio revealing that he is Paris's love, Benvolia, in disguise) forms part of the 1980
stage-play The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.[128] Shakespeare’s R&J, by Joe Calarco, spins the classic
Romeo and Juliet 43
in a modern tale of gay teenage awakening.[129] A recent comedic musical adaptation was The Second City's The
Second City's Romeo and Juliet Musical: The People vs. Friar Laurence, the Man Who Killed Romeo and Juliet, set
in modern times.[130]
In the 19th and 20th century, Romeo and Juliet has often been the choice of Shakespeare plays to open a classical
theatre company, beginning with Edwin Booth's inaugural production of that play in his theatre in 1869, the newly
reformed company of the Old Vic in 1929 with John Gielgud, Martita Hunt and Margaret Webster,[131] as well as the
Riverside Shakespeare Company in its founding production in New York City in 1977, which used the 1968 film of
Franco Zeffirelli's production as its inspiration.[132]
Music
"Romeo loved Juliet

Juliet felt the same
When he put his arms around her
He said Juliet, baby, you're my flame
Thou givest fever..."
[133]
—Peggy Lee's rendition of "Fever".
At least 24 operas have been based on Romeo and Juliet.[134] The earliest, Romeo und Julie in 1776, a Singspiel by
Georg Benda, omits much of the action of the play and most of its characters, and has a happy ending. It is
occasionally revived. The best-known is Gounod's 1867 Roméo et Juliette (libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel
Carré), a critical triumph when first performed and frequently revived today.[135] Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi is
also revived from time to time, but has sometimes been judged unfavourably because of its perceived liberties with
Shakespeare; however, Bellini and his librettist, Felice Romani, worked from Italian sources—principally Romani's
libretto for an opera by Nicola Vaccai—rather than directly adapting Shakespeare's play.[136] Among later operas
there is Heinrich Sutermeister's 1940 work Romeo und Julia.
Roméo et Juliette by Berlioz is a "symphonie dramatique", a large scale work in three parts for mixed voices, chorus
and orchestra, which premiered in 1839.[137] Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture (1869, revised 1870
and 1880) is a long symphonic poem, containing the famous melody known as the "love theme".[138] Tchaikovsky's
device of repeating the same musical theme at the ball, in the balcony scene, in Juliet's bedroom and in the tomb[139]
has been used by subsequent directors: for example Nino Rota's love theme is used in a similar way in the 1968 film
of the play, as is Des'ree's Kissing You in the 1996 film.[140] Other classical composers influenced by the play
include Svendsen (Romeo og Julie, 1876), Delius (A Village Romeo and Juliet, 1899–1901) and Stenhammar
(Romeo och Julia, 1922).[141]
The best-known ballet version is Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.[142] Originally commissioned by the Kirov Ballet, it
was rejected by them when Prokofiev attempted a happy ending, and was rejected again for the experimental nature
of its music. It has subsequently attained an "immense" reputation, and has been choreographed by John Cranko
(1962) and Kenneth MacMillan (1965) among others.[143]
The play influenced several jazz works, including Peggy Lee's "Fever".[144] Duke Ellington's Such Sweet Thunder
contains a piece entitled "The Star-Crossed Lovers"[145] in which the pair are represented by tenor and alto
saxophones: critics noted that Juliet's sax dominates the piece, rather than offering an image of equality.[146] The
play has frequently influenced popular music, including works by The Supremes, Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift,
Tom Waits and Lou Reed.[147] The most famous such track is Dire Straits' "Romeo and Juliet".[148]
The most famous musical theatre adaptation is West Side Story with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by
Stephen Sondheim. It débuted on Broadway in 1957 and in the West End in 1958, and became a popular film in
1961. This version updated the setting to mid-20th century New York City, and the warring families to ethnic
gangs.[149] Other musical adaptations include Terrence Mann's 1999 rock musical William Shakespeare's Romeo and
Romeo and Juliet 44
Juliet, co-written with Jerome Korman,[150] Gérard Presgurvic's 2001 Roméo et Juliette, de la Haine à l'Amour and
Riccardo Cocciante's 2007 Giulietta & Romeo.[151]
Literature and art

Romeo and Juliet had a profound influence on subsequent literature.
Before then, romance had not even been viewed as a worthy topic for
tragedy.[152] In Harold Bloom's words, Shakespeare "invented the
formula that the sexual becomes the erotic when crossed by the shadow
of death."[153] Of Shakespeare's works, Romeo and Juliet has generated
the most—and the most varied—adaptations, including prose and verse
narratives, drama, opera, orchestral and choral music, ballet, film,
television and painting.[154] The word "Romeo" has even become
synonymous with "male lover" in English.[155]
Romeo and Juliet was parodied in Shakespeare's own lifetime: Henry

Porter's Two Angry Women of Abingdon (1598) and Thomas Dekker's
Blurt, Master Constable (1607) both contain balcony scenes in which a
virginal heroine engages in bawdy wordplay.[156] The play directly
influenced later literary works. For example the preparations for a Romeo at Juliet's Deathbed, Henry Fuseli,
performance form a major plot arc in Charles Dickens' Nicholas 1809
Nickleby.[157]
Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare's most-illustrated works.[158] The first known illustration was a woodcut of
the tomb scene,[159] thought to be by Elisha Kirkall, which appeared in Nicholas Rowe's 1709 edition of
Shakespeare's plays.[160] Five paintings of the play were commissioned for the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery in the
late 18th century, one representing each of the five acts of the play.[161] The 19th century fashion for "pictorial"
performances led to directors drawing on paintings for their inspiration, which in turn influenced painters to depict
actors and scenes from the theatre.[162] In the 20th century, the play's most iconic visual images have derived from
its popular film versions.[163]
Screen
For a comprehensive list, see Romeo and Juliet (films).
Romeo and Juliet may be the most-filmed play of all time.[164] The most notable theatrical releases were George
Cukor's multi-Oscar-nominated 1936 production, Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 version, and Baz Luhrmann's 1996
MTV-inspired Romeo + Juliet. The latter two were both, in their time, the highest-grossing Shakespeare film
ever.[165] Romeo and Juliet was first filmed in the silent era, by Georges Méliès, although his film is now lost.[164]
The play was first heard on film in The Hollywood Revue of 1929, in which John Gilbert recited the balcony scene
opposite Norma Shearer.[166]
Shearer and Leslie Howard, with a combined age over 75, played the teenage lovers in George Cukor's MGM 1936
film version. Neither critics nor the public responded enthusiastically. Cinemagoers considered the film too "arty",
staying away as they had from Warner's A Midsummer Night Dream a year before: leading to Hollywood
abandoning the Bard for over a decade.[167] Renato Castellani won the Grand Prix at the Venice Film Festival for his
1954 film of Romeo and Juliet.[168] his Romeo, Laurence Harvey, was already an experienced screen actor.[169] By
contrast, Susan Shentall, as Juliet, was a secretarial student who was discovered by the director in a London pub, and
was cast for her "pale sweet skin and honey-blonde hair".[170]
Stephen Orgel describes Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 Romeo and Juliet as being "full of beautiful young people, and the
camera, and the lush technicolour, make the most of their sexual energy and good looks."[171] Zeffirelli's teenage
Romeo and Juliet 45
leads, Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, had virtually no previous acting experience, but performed capably and
with great maturity.[172] Zeffirelli has been particularly praised,[173] for his presentation of the duel scene as bravado
getting out-of-control.[174] The film courted controversy by including a nude wedding-night scene[175] while Olivia
Hussey was only fifteen.[176]
Baz Luhrmann's 1996 Romeo + Juliet and its accompanying soundtrack successfully targeted the "MTV
Generation": a young audience of similar age to the story's characters.[177] Far darker than Zeffirelli's version, the
film is set in the "crass, violent and superficial society" of Verona Beach and Sycamore Grove.[178] Leonardo
DiCaprio was Romeo and Claire Danes was Juliet.
The play has been widely adapted for TV and film. In 1960, Peter Ustinov's cold-war stage parody, Romanoff and
Juliet was filmed.[127] The 1961 film of West Side Story—set among New York gangs–featured the Jets as white
youths, equivalent to Shakespeare's Montagues, while the Sharks, equivalent to the Capulets, are Puerto Rican.[179]
The 1994 film The Punk uses both the rough plot outline of Romeo and Juliet and names many of the characters in
ways that reflect the characters in the play. In 2006, Disney's High School Musical made use of Romeo and Juliet's
plot, placing the two young lovers in rival high school cliques instead of feuding families.[180] Film-makers have
frequently featured characters performing scenes from Romeo and Juliet.[181] The conceit of dramatising
Shakespeare writing Romeo and Juliet has been used several times,[182] including John Madden's 1998 Shakespeare
in Love, in which Shakespeare writes the play against the backdrop of his own doomed love affair.[183] An anime
series produced by Gonzo and SKY Perfect Well Think, called Romeo x Juliet, was made in 2007; its plot was an
edited version of the original story's, and had many new supporting characters whose names were often derived from
those of characters in other Shakespeare works.
Modern social media

In April and May 2010 the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Mudlark Production Company presented a version
of the play, entitled Such Tweet Sorrow, as an improvised, real-time series of tweets on Twitter. The production used
RSC actors who engaged with the audience as well each other, performing not from a traditional script but a "Grid"
developed by the Mudlark production team and writers Tim Wright and Bethan Marlow. The performers also make
use of other media sites such as YouTube for pictures and video.[184]
References
Notes
All references to Romeo and Juliet, unless otherwise specified, are taken from the Arden Shakespeare second edition
(Gibbons, 1980) based on the Q2 text of 1599, with elements from Q1 of 1597.[185] Under its referencing system,
which uses Roman numerals, II.ii.33 means act 2, scene 2, line 33, and a 0 in place of a scene number refers to the
prologue to the act.
[1] Romeo and Juliet, I.0.6. Levenson (2000: 142) defines "star-cross'd" as "thwarted by a malign star".
[2] Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 1, Line 73.
[6] Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 3, Lines 308-309.
[7] Halio (1998: 93).
[8] Gibbons (1980: 33).
[9] Moore (1930: 264–277).
[10] Higgins (1998: 223).
[11] Higgins (1998: 585)
[12] Hosley (1965: 168).
[13] Gibbons (1980: 33–34); Levenson (2000: 4).
[14] Moore (1937: 38–44).
Romeo and Juliet 46
[15] Gibbons (1980: 34–35).

[16] Gibbons (1980: 35–36).
[17] Gibbons (1980: 37).
[18] Keeble (1980: 18).
[19] Roberts (1902: 41–44); Gibbons (1980: 32, 36–37); Levenson (2000: 8–14).
[20] Romeo and Juliet: I.iii.23.
[21] Gibbons (1980: 26–27).
[22] Gibbons (1980: 29–31). As well as A Midsummer Night's Dream, Gibbons draws parallels with Love's Labour's Lost and Richard II.
[23] Gibbons (1980: 29).
[24] Spencer (1967: 284).
[25] Halio (1998: 1–2).
[26] Gibbons (1980: 21).
[27] Gibbons (1980: ix).
[28] Halio (1998: 8–9).
[29] Bowling (1949: 208–220).
[30] Halio (1998: 65).
[31] Romeo and Juliet, I.v.92–99.
[32] Honegger (2006: 73–88).
[33] Groves (2007: 68–69).
[34] Groves (2007: 61)
[35] Siegel (1961: 371–392).
[36] Romeo and Juliet, II.v.38–42.
[37] Romeo and Juliet, V.iii.169–170.
[38] MacKenzie (2007: 22–42).
[39] Romeo and Juliet, III.i.138.
[40] Evans (1950: 841–865).
[41] Draper (1939: 16–34).
[42] Nevo (1969: 241–258).
[43] Romeo and Juliet, I.i.167–171.
[44] Parker (1968: 663–674).
[45] Romeo and Juliet, II.ii.
[46] Romeo and Juliet, I.v.42.
[48] Romeo and Juliet, II.ii.26–32.
[50] Romeo and Juliet, III.ii.17–19.
[51] Halio (1998: 55–56).
[52] Tanselle (1964: 349–361).
[53] Romeo and Juliet, III.iv.8–9.
[54] Romeo and Juliet, II.ii.109–111
[55] Muir (2005: 34–41).
[56] Lucking (2001: 115–126).
[57] Halio (1998: 55–58); Driver (1964: 363–370).
[58] Scott (1987: 415).
[59] Scott (1987: 410).
[60] Scott (1987: 411–412).
[61] Shapiro (1964: 498–501).
[62] Bonnard (1951: 319–327).
[63] Halio (1998: 20–30).
[64] Halio (1998: 51).
[65] Halio (1998: 47–48).
[66] Halio (1998: 48–49).
[67] Romeo and Juliet, II.ii.90.
[68] Halio (1998: 49–50).
[69] Levin (1960: 3–11).
[70] Halio (1998: 51–52).
[71] Halio (1998: 52–55).
[72] Bloom (1998: 92–93).
[73] Wells (2004: 11–13).
Romeo and Juliet 47
[74] Halio (1998: 82) quoting Karl A. Meninger's 1938 Man Against Himself.
[75] Appelbaum (1997: 251–272).
[76] Romeo and Juliet V.i.1–11.
[77] Halio (1998: 83, 81).
[78] Romeo and Juliet I.v.137.
[79] Halio (1998: 84–85).
[80] Halio (1998: 85).
[81] Romeo and Juliet, III.i.112.
[82] Kahn (1977: 5–22); Halio (1998: 87–88).
[83] Halio (1998: 89–90).
[84] Halio (1998: 85–86).
[85] Romeo and Juliet, II.i.24–26
[86] Rubinstein (1989: 54)
[87] Romeo and Juliet, II.ii.43–44.
[88] Goldberg (1994: 221–227).
[89] Halio (1998: 97).
[90] Halio (1998: ix).
[91] Taylor (2002: 18). The five more popular plays, in descending order, are Henry VI, Part 1, Richard III, Pericles, Hamlet and Richard II.
[92] Levenson (2000: 62).
[93] Dawson (2002: 176)
[94] Marsden (2002: 21).
[95] Van Lennep (1965).
[96] Halio (1998: 100–102).
[97] Levenson (2000: 71).
[98] Marsden (2002: 26–27).
[99] Branam (1984: 170–179); Stone (1964: 191–206).
[100] Pedicord (1954: 14).
[101] Morrison (2007: 231).
[102] Morrison (2007: 232).
[103] Gay (2002: 162).
[104] Halliday (1964: 125, 365, 420).
[105] The Times 30 December 1845, cited by Gay (2002: 162).
[106] Potter (2001: 194–195).
[107] Levenson (2000: 84)
[108] Schoch (2002: 62–63).
[109] Halio (1998: 104–105).
[110] Winter (1893: 46–47, 57). Booth's Romeo and Juliet was rivalled in popularity only by his own "hundred night Hamlet" at The Winter
Garden of four years before.
[111] First page of the program for the opening night performance of Romeo and Juliet at Booth's Theatre, 3 February 1869.
[112] Holland (2002: 202–203)
[113] Levenson (2000: 69–70).
[114] Tad Mosel, "Leading Lady: The World and Theatre of Katharine Cornell," Little, Brown & Co., Boston (1978)
[115] Smallwood (2002: 102).
[116] Halio (1998: 105–107).
[117] Smallwood (2002: 110).
[118] Halio (1998: 107–109).
[119] Levenson (2000: 87).
[120] Holland (2001: 207).
[121] The Times 19 September 1960, cited by Levenson (2000: 87).
[122] Halio (1998: 110).
[123] Halio (1998: 110–112).
[124] Pape (1997: 69).
[125] Quince (2000: 121–125).
[126] Lujan (2005).
[127] Howard (2000: 297).
[128] Edgar (1982: 162).
[129] Marks (1997).
[130] Houlihan Mary, "Wherefore Art Thou, Romeo? To Make Us Laugh at Navy Pier", Chicago Sun-Times (May 16, 2004) (http:/ / www.
secondcity. com/ ?id=touring/ theatricals/ romeo/ reviews& reviewid=34)
Romeo and Juliet 48
[131] Barranger (2004: 47).

[132] New York Times (1977).
[133] Buhler (2007: 156); Sanders (2007: 187).
[134] Meyer (1968: 36–38).
[135] Sadie (1992: 31); Holden (1993: 393).
[136] Collins (1982: 532–538).
[137] Sanders (2007: 43-45).
[138] Stites (1995: 5).
[139] Romeo and Juliet I.v, II.ii, III.v, V.iii.
[140] Sanders (2007: 42–43).
[141] Sanders (2007: 42).
[142] Nestyev (1960: 261).
[143] Sanders (2007: 66–67)
[144] Sanders (2007: 187).
[145] Romeo and Juliet I.0.6.
[146] Sanders (2007: 20).
[147] Sanders (2007: 187)
[148] Buhler (2007: 157)
[149] Sanders (2007: 75-76).
[150] Ehren (1999).
[151] Arafay (2005: 186).
[152] Levenson (2000: 49–50).
[153] Bloom (1998: 89).
[154] Levenson (2000: 91), crediting this list of genres to Stanley Wells.
[155] "Romeo", Merriam-Webster Online.
[156] Bly (2001: 52)
[157] Muir (2005: 352–362).
[158] Fowler (1996: 111)
[159] Romeo and Juliet V.iii.
[160] Fowler (1996:112–113).
[161] Fowler (1996: 120).
[162] Fowler (1996: 126–127)
[163] Orgel (2007: 91).
[164] Brode (2001: 42).
[165] Rosenthal (2007: 225).
[166] Brode (2001: 43).
[167] Brode (2001: 48).
[168] Tatspaugh (2000: 138).
[169] Brode (2001: 48–9)
[170] Brode (2001: 51) quoting Renato Castellani.
[171] Orgel (2007: 91).
[172] Brode (2001: 51–52); Rosenthal (2007: 218).
[173] For example, by Anthony West of Vogue and Mollie Panter-Downes of The New Yorker, cited by Brode (2001: 51–53).
[174] Brode (2001: 53).
[175] Romeo and Juliet, III.v.
[176] Rosenthal (2007: 218-220).
[177] Tatspaugh (2000: 140).
[178] Tatspaugh (2000: 142).
[179] Rosenthal (2007: 215–216).
[180] Daily Mail "Disney's teenage musical 'phenomenon' premieres in London" (http:/ / www. dailymail. co. uk/ tvshowbiz/ article-404621/
Disneys-teenage-musical-phenomenon-premieres-London. html). Daily Mail. September 11, 2006. . Retrieved 2007-08-19.
[181] McKernan and Terris (1994: 141–156) list 39 instances of uses of Romeo and Juliet, not including films of the play itself.
[182] Lanier (2007: 96); McKernan and Terris (1994: 146).
[183] Howard (2000: 310); Rosenthal (2007: 228).
[184] "Modern take for Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet" (http:/ / news. bbc. co. uk/ 1/ hi/ entertainment/ arts_and_culture/ 8615432. stm).
BBC News. 12 April 2010. . Retrieved 23 April 2010.
[185] Gibbons (1980: vii).
Romeo and Juliet 49
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External links
• Romeo and Juliet (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1112) Plain vanilla text from Project Gutenberg
• Romeo and Juliet (http://shakespeare.mit.edu/romeo_juliet/) HTML version at MIT
• Romeo and Juliet (http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/romeoscenes.html) HTML Annotated Play
• Romeo and Juliet (http://romeoandjuliet.publicliterature.org/) Full text with audio.
Prologue 53
Prologue
A prologue (Greek πρόλογος prologos, from προ~, pro~ - fore~, and lógos, word) is an opening to a story that
establishes the setting and gives background details, often some earlier story that ties into the main one, and other
miscellaneous information. The Greek prologos included the modern meaning of prologue, but was of wider
significance, embracing any kind of preface, like the Latin praefatio. In a book, the prologue is a part of the front
matter which is in the voice of one of the book's characters rather than in that of the author.
Use in drama
Early prologues were composed to introduce a drama.
Greek
In Attic Greek drama, a character in the play, as very often a
deity, stood forward or appeared from a machine before the
action of the play began, and made from the empty stage such
statements necessary for the audience to hear so that they
might appreciate the ensuing drama. It was the early Greek
custom to dilate in great detail on everything that had led up
to the play, the latter being itself, as a rule merely the
catastrophe which had inevitably to ensue on the facts related
in the prologue. The importance, therefore, of the prologue in
Greek drama was very great; it sometimes almost took the
place of a romance, to which, or to an episode in which, the
Late-Hellenistic relief honouring tragedy writer Euripides,
play itself succeeded. Istanbul Archaeological Museum
It is believed that the prologue in this form was practically the

invention of Euripides, and with him, as has been said, it takes the place of an explanatory first act. This may help to
modify the objection which criticism has often brought against the Greek prologue, as an impertinence, a useless
growth prefixed to the play, and standing as a barrier between us and our enjoyment of it. The point precisely is that,
to an Athenian audience, it was useful and pertinent, as supplying just what they needed to make the succeeding
scenes intelligible. But it is difficult to accept the view that Euripides invented the plan of producing a god out of a
machine to justify the action of deity upon man, because it is plain that he himself disliked this interference of the
supernatural and did not believe in it. He seems, in such a typical prologue as that to the Hippolytus, to be accepting
a conventional formula, and employing it, almost perversely, as a medium for his ironic rationalismo.
Prologue 54
Latin
Many of the existing Greek prologues may be later in date than the
plays they illustrate, or may contain large interpolations. On the Latin
stage the prologue was often more elaborate than it was in Athens, and
in the careful composition of the poems which Plautus prefixes to his
plays we see what importance he gave to this portion of the
entertainment; sometimes, as in the preface to the Rudens, Plautus rises
to the height of his genius in his adroit and romantic prologues, usually
placed in the mouths of persons who make no appearance in the play
itself.
Molière revived the Plautian prologue in the introduction to his

Amphitryon. Racine introduced Piety as the speaker of a prologue
which opened his choral tragedy of Esther.
The tradition of the ancients vividly affected our own early dramatists.
Plautus
Not only were the mystery plays and miracles of the Middle Ages
begun by a homily, but when the drama in its modern sense was
inaugurated in the reign of Elizabeth, the prologue came with it,
directly adapted from the practice of Euripides and Terence. Sackville,
Lord Buckhurst, prepared a sort of prologue in dumb show for his
Gorboduc of 1562; and he also wrote a famous Induction, which is,
practically, a prologue, to a miscellany of short romantic epics by
diverse hands.
Elizabethan
Though less prevalent in the Elizabethan than in the Classical or
Restoration periods, prologues of Renaissance plays are an interesting
composite of styles and forms. As a direct audience from one actor to
the assembled audience, the functions of the prologue were to quieten
and appease the audience, introduce the themes and particulars of the
play they are about to hear, and beg their indulgence for any
imperfections in the writing and/or performance.[1] Bruster and
Weimann further argue that the prologue of the Early Modern period
serves as a liminal entity. Firstly, a prologue is at once the text which is
spoken, the actor who speaks that text, and the performance given by Title page of 1616 printing of Every Man in His
the actor in speaking.[2] Secondly, in ushering the audience from the Humour, a 1598 play by the English playwright
Ben Jonson. The play belongs to the subgenre of
real world into the world of the play, the prologue straddles boundaries
the "humours comedy"
between audience, actors, characters, playwrights, the fiction of the
play, the physical theatre and the outside world.[3] Ben Jonson has been
credited with using the prologue as a means to remind the audience of the complex relationships between themselves
and all aspects of the performance they are about to view.[4] In performance, the actor appeared dressed all in black.
This is in contrast to the costume of the play proper, where elaborate and colourful costumes were worn, in the
fashion of the day.[5] The prologue removed his hat and wore no makeup. He probably carried a book or scroll, or a
placard displaying the title of the play.[6] He was introduced by three short trumpet calls, on the third of which he
entered and took a position downstage. He made three bows in the current fashion of the court, and then addressed
the audience.[7] The Elizabethan prologue was unique in incorporating aspects of both classical and medieval
Prologue 55
traditions.[8] In the classical tradition, the prologue conformed to one of four sub-genres: the sustatikos, which
recommends either the play or the poet; the epitimetikos, in which a curse is given against a rival, or thanks given to
the audience; dramatikos, in which the plot of the play is explained; and mixtos, which contains all of these things.[9]
In the medieval tradition, expressions of morality and modesty are seen,[10] as well as a meta-theatrical
self-consciousness, and an unabashed awareness of the financial contract engaged upon by paid actors and
playwrights, and a paying audience.[11]
Use in fiction
Prologues have long been used in non-dramatic fiction, since at least the time of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales,[12]
although Chaucer had prologues to many of the tales, rather than one at the front of the book.
References
[1] Bruster, Douglas, and Robert Weimann, Prologues to Shakespeare's Theatre, 2004. 17
[4] Cave, Richard, Elizabeth Schafer and Brian Wooland, Ben Jonson and Theatre, 1999. 24
[5] White, Martin, Renaissance Drama in Action, 1998. 125
[7] Bruster, Douglas, and Robert Weimann, Prologues to Shakespeare's Theatre, 2004. 26-27
[12] Books.Google.com (http:/ / books. google. com. au/ books?id=hXCi_DViuqwC& pg=PR7& dq=prologue& source=gbs_selected_pages&
cad=0_1)
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Prologue". Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911).
Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press.
56
Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe
An anonymous portrait in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge believed to show Christopher Marlowe.
Born Baptized 26 February 1564Canterbury, England
Died 30 May 1593 (aged 29)Deptford, England
Occupation Playwright, poet
Nationality English
Period circa 1586–93
Literary movement English Renaissance theatre
Notable work(s) "Hero and Leander" the Tragical History of Doctor Faustus
Signature
Christopher Marlowe[1] (baptised 26 February 1564; died 30 May 1593) was an English dramatist, poet and
translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian,[2] next to William Shakespeare, he is known
for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.
A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May 1593. No reason for it was given, though it was thought to be
connected to allegations of blasphemy—a manuscript believed to have been written by Marlowe was said to contain
"vile heretical conceipts". He was brought before the Privy Council for questioning on 20 May, after which he had to
report to them daily. Ten days later, he was stabbed to death by Ingram Frizer. Whether the stabbing was connected
to his arrest has never been resolved.[3]
Early life
Marlowe was born to a shoemaker in Canterbury named John Marlowe and his wife Catherine.[4] His date of birth is
not known, but he was baptised on 26 February 1564, and is likely to have been born a few days before. Thus he was
just two months older than his contemporary Shakespeare, who was baptised on 26 April 1564 in
Stratford-upon-Avon.
Marlowe attended The King's School, Canterbury (where a house is now named after him) and Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge on a scholarship and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1584.[5] In 1587 the university
hesitated to award him his master's degree because of a rumour that he had converted to Roman Catholicism and
intended to go to the English college at Rheims to prepare for the priesthood. However, his degree was awarded on
schedule when the Privy Council intervened on his behalf, commending him for his "faithful dealing" and "good
service" to the Queen.[6] The nature of Marlowe's service was not specified by the Council, but its letter to the
Cambridge authorities has provoked much speculation, notably the theory that Marlowe was operating as a secret
agent working for Sir Francis Walsingham's intelligence service.[7] No direct evidence supports this theory, although
the Council's letter is evidence that Marlowe had served the government in some capacity.
Literary career
Dido, Queen of Carthage was Marlowe's first drama, and is
believed to have been performed by the Children of the Chapel, a
company of boy actors, between 1587 and 1593. The play was first
published in 1594; the title page attributes the play to Marlowe and
Thomas Nashe.
Marlowe's first play performed on the regular stage in London, in
1587, was Tamburlaine, about the conqueror Timur, who rises
from shepherd to warrior. It is among the first English plays in
blank verse,[8] and, with Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy,
generally is considered the beginning of the mature phase of the
Elizabethan theatre. Tamburlaine was a success, and was followed
with Tamburlaine Part II.
The two parts of Tamburlaine were published in 1590; all

Marlowe's other works were published posthumously. The
sequence of the writing of his other four plays is unknown; all deal
with controversial themes.
Marlowe was christened at St. George's Church, in
• The Jew of Malta, about a Maltese Jew's barbarous revenge
Canterbury.
against the city authorities, has a prologue delivered by a
character representing Machiavelli. It was probably written in
1589 or 1590, and was first performed in 1592. It was a success, and remained popular for the next fifty years.
The play was entered in the Stationers' Register on May 17, 1594, but the earliest surviving printed edition is from
1633.
• Edward the Second is an English history play about the deposition of King Edward II by his barons and the
Queen, who resent the undue influence the king's favourites have in court and state affairs. The play was entered
into the Stationers' Register on July 6, 1593, five weeks after Marlowe's death. The full title of the earliest extant
edition, of 1594, is "The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England, with
the Tragical Fall of Proud Mortimer." The play was first acted in 1592 or 1593.
• The Massacre at Paris is a short and luridly written work, the only surviving text of which was probably a
reconstruction from memory of the original performance text,[9] portraying the events of the Saint Bartholomew's
Day Massacre in 1572, which English Protestants invoked as the blackest example of Catholic treachery. It
features the silent "English Agent", whom subsequent tradition has identified with Marlowe himself and his
connections to the secret service.[10] The Massacre at Paris is considered his most dangerous play, as agitators in
London seized on its theme to advocate the murders of refugees from the low countries and, indeed, it warns
Elizabeth I of this possibility in its last scene.[11] [12]
• The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, based on the German Faustbuch, was the first dramatised version of the
Faust legend of a scholar's dealing with the devil. While versions of "The Devil's Pact" can be traced back to the
4th century, Marlowe deviates significantly by having his hero unable to "burn his books" or repent to a merciful
God in order to have his contract annulled at the end of the play. Marlowe's protagonist is instead torn apart by
demons and dragged off screaming to hell. Dr Faustus is a textual problem for scholars as it was highly edited
(and possibly censored) and rewritten after Marlowe's death. Two versions of the play exist: the 1604 quarto, also
known as the A text, and the 1616 quarto or B text. Many scholars believe that the A text is more representative
of Marlowe's original because it contains irregular character names and idiosyncratic spelling: the hallmarks of a
text that used the author's handwritten manuscript, or "foul papers", as a major source.
Marlowe's plays were enormously successful, thanks in part, no doubt, to the imposing stage presence of Edward
Alleyn. Alleyn was unusually tall for the time, and the haughty roles of Tamburlaine, Faustus, and Barabas were
probably written especially for him. Marlowe's plays were the foundation of the repertoire of Alleyn's company, the
Admiral's Men, throughout the 1590s.
Marlowe also wrote the poem Hero and Leander (published with a continuation by George Chapman in 1598), the
popular lyric The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, and translations of Ovid's Amores and the first book of Lucan's
Pharsalia. In 1599, his translation of Ovid was banned and copies publicly burned as part of Archbishop Whitgift's
crackdown on offensive material.
The legend
As with other writers of the period, little is known about Marlowe. What little evidence there is can be found in legal
records and other official documents. This has not stopped writers of both fiction and non-fiction from speculating
about his activities and character. Marlowe has often been described as a spy, a brawler, a heretic and a homosexual,
as well as a "magician", "duellist", "tobacco-user", "counterfeiter" and "rakehell". J. A. Downie and Constance
Kuriyama have argued against the more lurid speculation,[13] but J.B. Steane[14] remarked, "it seems absurd to
dismiss all of these Elizabethan rumours and accusations as 'the Marlowe myth'".[15]
Spying
Marlowe is often alleged to have been a government spy (Park
Honan's 2005 biography even had "Spy" in its title [16] ) The
author Charles Nicholl speculates this was the case and suggests
that Marlowe's recruitment took place when he was at Cambridge.
Surviving college records from the period indicate Marlowe had a
series of unusually lengthy absences from the university – much
longer than permitted by university regulations – that began in the
academic year 1584-1585. Surviving college buttery (dining room)
accounts indicate he began spending lavishly on food and drink
during the periods he was in attendance[17] – more than he could
have afforded on his known scholarship income.
As noted above, in 1587 the Privy Council ordered Cambridge

University to award Marlowe his MA, denying rumours that he
intended to go to the English Catholic college in Rheims, saying
instead that he had been engaged in unspecified "affaires" on
"matters touching the benefit of his country". This is from a
document dated 29 June 1587, from the Public Records Office –
Acts of Privy Council.
It has sometimes been theorised that Marlowe was the "Morley" Title page of the earliest published text of Edward II
[18] (1594)
who was tutor to Arbella Stuart in 1589. This possibility was
first raised in a TLS letter by E. St John Brooks in 1937; in a letter
to Notes and Queries, John Baker has added that only Marlowe could be Arbella's tutor due to the absence of any
other known "Morley" from the period with an MA and not otherwise occupied.[19] If Marlowe was Arbella's tutor,
(and some biographers think that the "Morley" in question may have been a brother of the musician Thomas
Morley[20] ) it might indicate that he was a spy, since Arbella, niece of Mary, Queen of Scots, and cousin of James
VI of Scotland, later James I of England, was at the time a strong candidate for the succession to Elizabeth's
throne.[21]
In 1592 Marlowe was arrested in the town of Flushing in the Netherlands for his alleged involvement in the
counterfeiting of coins, presumably related to the activities of seditious Catholics. He was sent to be dealt with by the
Lord Treasurer (Burghley) but no charge or imprisonment resulted.[22] This arrest may have disrupted another of
Marlowe's spying missions: perhaps by giving the resulting coinage to the Catholic cause he was to infiltrate the
followers of the active Catholic plotter William Stanley and report back to Burghley.[23]
Arrest and death

In early May 1593 several bills were posted about London threatening
Protestant refugees from France and the Netherlands who had settled in
the city. One of these, the "Dutch church libel,"[24] written in blank
verse, contained allusions to several of Marlowe's plays and was
signed, "Tamburlaine". On 11 May the Privy Council ordered the arrest
of those responsible for the libels. The next day, Marlowe's colleague
Thomas Kyd was arrested. Kyd's lodgings were searched and a
fragment of a heretical tract was found. Kyd asserted that it had
belonged to Marlowe, with whom he had been writing "in one
chamber" some two years earlier.[25] At that time they had both been
working for an aristocratic patron, probably Ferdinando Stanley, Lord
Strange.[26] Marlowe's arrest was ordered on 18 May, when the Privy
Council apparently knew that he might be found staying with Thomas
Walsingham, whose father was a first cousin of the late Sir Francis
Walsingham, Elizabeth's principal secretary in the 1580s and a man
more deeply involved in state espionage than any other member of the Marlowe was buried in an unmarked grave in the
Privy Council.[27] Marlowe duly appeared before the Privy Council on churchyard of St Nicholas, Deptford. The plaque
shown here is modern.
20 May and was instructed to "give his daily attendance on their
Lordships, until he shall be licensed to the contrary". On Wednesday
30 May Marlowe was killed.
Various accounts of Marlowe's death were current over the next few years. Francis Meres says Marlowe was
"stabbed to death by a bawdy serving-man, a rival of his in his lewd love" as punishment for his "epicurism and
atheism."[28] In 1917, in the Dictionary of National Biography, Sir Sidney Lee wrote that Marlowe was killed in a
drunken fight, and this is still often stated as fact today.
The official account came to light only in 1925 when the scholar Leslie Hotson discovered the coroner's report of the
inquest on Marlowe's death, held two days later on Friday 1 June 1593.[29] Marlowe had spent all day in a house in
Deptford, owned by the widow Eleanor Bull, and together with three men: Ingram Frizer, Nicholas Skeres and
Robert Poley. All three had been employed by one or other of the Walsinghams. Skeres and Poley had helped snare
the conspirators in the Babington plot and Frizer was manager of Thomas Walsingham's business affairs and
occasional intermediary with his intelligence agents.[30] These witnesses testified that Frizer and Marlowe had
argued over the bill (now famously known as the 'Reckoning') exchanging "divers malicious words" while Frizer
was sitting at a table between the other two and Marlowe was lying behind him on a couch. Marlowe snatched
Frizer's dagger and wounded him on the head. In the ensuing struggle, according to the coroner's report, Marlowe
was stabbed above the right eye, killing him instantly. The jury concluded that Frizer acted in self-defence, and
within a month he was pardoned. Marlowe was buried in an unmarked grave in the churchyard of St. Nicholas,
Deptford [31] immediately after the inquest, on 1 June 1593.
Marlowe's death is alleged by some to be an assassination for the following reasons:
1. The three men who were in the room with him when he died were all connected both to the state secret service
and to the London underworld.[32] Frizer and Skeres also had a long record as loan sharks and con-men, as shown
by court records. Bull's house also had "links to the government's spy network".[33]
2. Their story that they were on a day's pleasure outing to Deptford is alleged to be implausible. In fact, they spent
the whole day together. Also, Robert Poley was carrying urgent and confidential despatches to the Queen, who
was at her residence Nonsuch Palace in Surrey, but instead of delivering them, he spent the day with Marlowe and
the other two, and didn't in fact hand them in until well over a week later, on 8 June.[34]
3. It seems too much of a coincidence that Marlowe's death occurred only a few days after his arrest, apparently for
heresy.
4. The manner of Marlowe's arrest is alleged to suggest causes more tangled than a simple charge of heresy would
generally indicate. He was released in spite of prima facie evidence, and even though other accusations about him
received within a few days, as described below, implicitly connected Sir Walter Raleigh and the Earl of
Northumberland with the heresy. Thus, some contend it to be probable that the investigation was meant primarily
as a warning to the politicians in the "School of Night", or that it was connected with a power struggle within the
Privy Council itself.[35]
5. The various incidents that hint at a relationship with the Privy Council (see above), and by the fact that his patron
was Thomas Walsingham, Sir Francis's second cousin once removed, who had been actively involved in
intelligence work.
For these reasons and others, Charles Nicholl (in his book The Reckoning on Marlowe's death) argues there was
more to Marlowe's death than emerged at the inquest. There are different theories of some degree of probability.
Since there are only written documents on which to base any conclusions, and since it is probable that the most
crucial information about his death was never committed to writing at all, it is unlikely that the full circumstances of
Marlowe's death will ever be known.
Atheism
Marlowe was reputed to be an atheist which, at that time, held the
dangerous implication of being an enemy of God.[36] Some modern
historians, however, consider that his professed atheism, as with his
supposed Catholicism, may have been no more than an elaborate and
sustained pretence adopted to further his work as a government spy.[37]
Contemporary evidence comes from Marlowe's accuser in Flushing, an
informer called Richard Baines. The governor of Flushing had reported
that each of the men had "of malice" accused the other of instigating
the counterfeiting, and of intending to go over to the Catholic "enemy";
such an action was considered atheistic by the Protestants, who
constituted the dominant religious faction in England at that time.
Following Marlowe's arrest in 1593, Baines submitted to the
authorities a "note containing the opinion of one Christopher Marly
concerning his damnable judgment of religion, and scorn of God's
word."[38] Baines attributes to Marlowe a total of eighteen items which
"scoff at the pretensions of the Old and New Testament"[15] such as,
"Christ was a bastard and his mother dishonest [unchaste]", "the A foul sheet from Marlowe's writing of The
woman of Samaria and her sister were whores and that Christ knew Massacre at Paris (1593). Reproduced from
them dishonestly", and, "St John the Evangelist was bedfellow to Folger Shakespeare Library Ms.J.b.8
[39]
Christ and leaned always in his bosom" (cf. John 13:23-25 ), and,
"that he used him as the sinners of Sodom". He also implies that Marlowe had Catholic sympathies. Other passages
are merely sceptical in tone: "he persuades men to atheism, willing them not to be afraid of bugbears and
hobgoblins". The final paragraph of Baines' document reads:
These thinges, with many other shall by good & honest witnes be aproved to be his opinions and Comon
Speeches, and that this Marlow doth not only hould them himself, but almost into every Company he
Cometh he perswades men to Atheism willing them not to be afeard of bugbeares and hobgoblins, and
vtterly scorning both god and his ministers as I Richard Baines will Justify & approue both by mine oth
and the testimony of many honest men, and almost al men with whome he hath Conversed any time will
testify the same, and as I think all men in Cristianity ought to indevor that the mouth of so dangerous a
member may be stopped, he saith likewise that he hath quoted a number of Contrarieties oute of the
Scripture which he hath giuen to some great men who in Convenient time shalbe named. When these
thinges shalbe Called in question the witnes shalbe produced.[40]
Similar examples of Marlowe's statements were given by Thomas Kyd after his imprisonment and possible torture
(see above);[41] [42] both Kyd and Baines connect Marlowe with the mathematician Thomas Harriot and Walter
Raleigh's circle. Another document[43] claimed at around the same time that "one Marlowe is able to show more
sound reasons for Atheism than any divine in England is able to give to prove divinity, and that ... he hath read the
Atheist lecture to Sir Walter Raleigh and others."[15]
Some critics believe that Marlowe sought to disseminate
these views in his work and that he identified with his
rebellious and iconoclastic protagonists.[44] However, plays
had to be approved by the Master of the Revels before they
could be performed, and the censorship of publications was
under the control of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Presumably these authorities did not consider any of
Marlowe's works to be unacceptable (apart from the
Amores).
Sexuality
Like his contemporary William Shakespeare, Marlowe is
sometimes described today as homosexual. The question of
whether an Elizabethan was gay or homosexual in a modern
sense is anachronistic; for the Elizabethans, what is often
today termed homosexual or bisexual was more likely to be
recognised as a sexual act, rather than an exclusive sexual
orientation and identity.[45] Some scholars argue that the
evidence is inconclusive and that the reports of Marlowe's
homosexuality may simply be exaggerated rumours
produced after his death. Richard Baines reported Marlowe Poster for WPA performance of Marlowe's Faustus, New
York, circa 1935
as saying: "All they that love not Tobacco and Boys are
fools". David Bevington and Eric Rasmussen describe
Baines's evidence as "unreliable testimony" and make the comment: "These and other testimonials need to be
discounted for their exaggeration and for their having been produced under legal circumstances we would regard as a
witch-hunt".[46] One critic, J.B. Steane, remarked that he considers there to be "no evidence for Marlowe's
homosexuality at all."[15] Other scholars,[47] however, point to homosexual themes in Marlowe's writing: in Hero
and Leander, Marlowe writes of the male youth Leander, "in his looks were all that men desire"[48] and that when
the youth swims to visit Hero at Sestos, the sea god Neptune becomes sexually excited, "imagining that Ganymede,
displeas'd ... the lusty god embrac'd him, call'd him love ... and steal a kiss ... upon his breast, his thighs, and every
limb ... [a]nd talk of love",[49] while the boy, naive and unaware of Greek love practices, said that, "You are deceiv'd,
I am no woman, I ... Thereat smil'd Neptune."[50]
Reputation among contemporary writers

Whatever the particular focus of modern critics, biographers and novelists, for his contemporaries in the literary
world, Marlowe was above all an admired and influential artist. Within weeks of his death, George Peele
remembered him as "Marley, the Muses' darling"; Michael Drayton noted that he "Had in him those brave
translunary things / That the first poets had", and Ben Jonson wrote of "Marlowe's mighty line". Thomas Nashe
wrote warmly of his friend, "poor deceased Kit Marlowe". So too did the publisher Edward Blount, in the dedication
of Hero and Leander to Sir Thomas Walsingham.
Among the few contemporary dramatists to say anything negative about Marlowe was the anonymous author of the
Cambridge University play The Return From Parnassus (1598) who wrote, "Pity it is that wit so ill should dwell, /
Wit lent from heaven, but vices sent from hell."
The most famous tribute to Marlowe was paid by Shakespeare in As You Like It, where he not only quotes a line
from Hero and Leander (Dead Shepherd, now I find thy saw of might, "Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?")
but also gives to the clown Touchstone the words "When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit
seconded with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room."
This appears to be a reference to Marlowe's murder which involved a fight over the "reckoning", the bill, as well as
to a line in Marlowe's Jew of Malta - "Infinite riches in a little room".
Shakespeare was heavily influenced by Marlowe in his work, as can be seen in the re-using of Marlovian themes in
Antony and Cleopatra, The Merchant of Venice, Richard II, and Macbeth (Dido, Jew of Malta, Edward II and Dr
Faustus respectively). In Hamlet, after meeting with the travelling actors, Hamlet requests the Player perform a
speech about the Trojan War, which at 2.2.429-32 has an echo of Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage. In Love's
Labour's Lost Shakespeare brings on a character "Marcade" (three syllables) in conscious acknowledgement of
Marlowe's character "Mercury", also attending the King of Navarre, in Massacre at Paris. The significance, to those
of Shakespeare's audience who had read Hero and Leander, was Marlowe's identification of himself with the god
Mercury.[51]
As Shakespeare
Given the murky inconsistencies concerning the account of Marlowe's death, a theory has arisen centered on the
notion that Marlowe may have faked his death and then continued to write under the assumed name of William
Shakespeare. However, academic consensus rejects alternative candidates for authorship, including Marlowe.[52]
Works
The dates of composition are approximate.
Plays
• Dido, Queen of Carthage (c.1586) (possibly co-written with Thomas Nashe)
• Tamburlaine, part 1 (c.1587)
• Tamburlaine, part 2 (c.1587-1588)
• The Jew of Malta (c.1589)
• Doctor Faustus (c.1589, or, c.1593)
• Edward II (c.1592)
• The Massacre at Paris (c.1593)
The play Lust's Dominion was attributed to Marlowe upon its initial publication in 1657, though scholars and critics
have almost unanimously rejected the attribution.
Poetry
• Translation of Book One of Lucan's Pharsalia (date unknown)
• Translation of Ovid's Elegies (c. 1580s?)
• The Passionate Shepherd to His Love (pre-1593; because it is constantly referred to in his own plays we can
presume an early date of mid-1580s)
• Hero and Leander (c. 1593, unfinished; completed by George Chapman, 1598)
Fictional works about Marlowe

• Philip Lindsay's One Dagger for Two, fictionalised account of Marlowe's life . 1932 (Novel)
• Leo Rost's Marlowe, stage musical based on Rost's book. 1981
• Louise Welsh's Tamburlaine Must Die, about the last two weeks of Marlowe's life. 2004 (Novel)
• Anthony Burgess' A Dead Man in Deptford fictionalised account of Marlow's death. 1993 (Novel)
• Peter Whelan's The School of Night about Marlowe's playwriting career after his faked death at Deptford. (Play)
References
[1] "Christopher Marlowe was baptised as 'Marlow,' but he spelled his name 'Marley' in his one known surviving signature." David Kathman.
"The Spelling and Pronunciation of Shakespeare's Name: Pronunciation." (http:/ / shakespeareauthorship. com/ name1. html#3)
[2] Robert A. Logan, Shakespeare's Marlowe (2007) p.4. "During Marlowe's lifetime, the popularity of his plays, Robert
Greene's...remarks...including the designation "famous," and the many imitations of Tamburlaine suggest that he was for a brief time
considered England's foremost dramatist."
[3] Nicholl, Charles (2006). "By my onely meanes sett downe: The Texts of Marlow's Atheism", in Kozuka, Takashi and Mulryne, J.R.
Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson: new directions in biography. Ashgate Publishing, p. 153.
[4] This is commemorated by the name of the town's main theatre, the Marlowe Theatre, and by the town museums. However, St. George's was
gutted by fire in the Baedeker raids and was demolished in the post-war period - only the tower is left, at the south end of Canterbury's High
Street http:/ / www. digiserve. com/ peter/ cant-sgm1. htm
[5] Marlowe, Christopher (http:/ / venn. lib. cam. ac. uk/ cgi-bin/ search. pl?sur=& suro=c& fir=& firo=c& cit=& cito=c& c=all&
tex=MRLW580C& sye=& eye=& col=all& maxcount=50) in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press, 10 vols,
1922–1958.
[6] For a full transcript, see Peter Farey's Marlowe page (http:/ / www. prst17z1. demon. co. uk/ pc_cert. htm)
[7] He died in a deadly brawl.Hutchinson, Robert (2006). Elizabeth's Spy Master: Francis Walsingham and the secret war that saved England.
London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 111. ISBN 0 297 84613 2.
[8] http:/ / www. wwnorton. com/ college/ english/ nael/ 16century/ topic_1/ welcome. htm See especially the middle section in which the author
shows how another Cambridge graduate, Thomas Preston makes his title character express his love in a popular play written around 1560 and
compares that "clumsy" lines with Doctor Faustus addressing Helen of Troy.
[9] Deats, Sarah Munson (2004). "'Dido Queen of Carthage' and 'The Massacre at Paris'". In Cheney, Patrick. The Cambridge Companion to
Christopher Marlowe. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. p. 193. ISBN 0-521-82034-0.
[10] Wilson, Richard (2004). "Tragedy, Patronage and Power". in Cheney, Patrick, 2007, p. 207
[11] Nicholl, Charles (1992). "Libels and Heresies". The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe. London: Jonathan Cape. p. 41.
ISBN 0224031007.
[12] Hoenselaars, A. J. (1992). "Englishmen abroad 1558—1603". Images of Englishmen and Foreigners in the Drama of Shakespeare and His
Contemporaries. Madison, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. pp. 78–79. ISBN 0838634311.
[13] J. A. Downie in his and J. T. Parnell's Constructing Christopher Marlowe (2000) and Constance Kuriyama in her Christopher Marlowe: A
Renaissance Life (2002).
[14] J. B. Steane was a Scholar of Jesus College, Cambridge, where he read English. He is the author of Marlowe: A Critical Study and he edited
and wrote an introduction to the Penguin English Library edition of Christopher Marlowe: The Complete Plays.
[15] Steane, J.B. (1969). Introduction to Christopher Marlowe: The Complete Plays. Aylesbury, UK: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-043-037-7.
[16] Park Honan, Christopher Marlowe: Poet and Spy, 2005.
[17] Nicholl, Charles (1992). "12". The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0224031007.
[18] He was described by Arbella's guardian, the Countess of Shrewsbury, as having hoped for an annuity of some £40 from Arbella, his being
"so much damnified (i.e. having lost this much) by leaving the University.": BL Lansdowne MS 71,f.3.and Charles Nicholl, The Reckoning
(1992), pp. 340-2.
[19] John Baker, letter to Notes and Queries 44.3 (1997), pp. 367-8
[20] Constance Kuriyama, Christopher Marlowe: A Renaissance Life (2002), p. 89. Also in Handover's biography of Arbella, and Nicholl, The
Reckoning, p. 342.
[21] Elizabeth I and James VI and I (http:/ / www. history. ac. uk/ ihr/ Focus/ Elizabeth/ index. html), History in Focus (http:/ / www. history. ac.
uk/ ).
[22] For a full transcript, see Peter Farey's Marlowe page (http:/ / www. prst17z1. demon. co. uk/ flushing. htm)
[23] Nicholl (1992: 246-248)
[24] A Libell, fixte vpon the French Church Wall, in London (http:/ / www. prst17z1. demon. co. uk/ libell. htm)
[25] For a full transcript, see Peter Farey's Marlowe page (http:/ / www. prst17z1. demon. co. uk/ kyd2. htm)
[26] Mulryne, J. H. "Thomas Kyd." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
[27] Haynes, Alan. The Elizabethan Secret Service. London: Sutton, 2005.
[28] Palladis Tamia. London, 1598: 286v-287r.
[29] The Coroner's Inquisition (Translation) (http:/ / www. prst17z1. demon. co. uk/ inquis~2. htm)
[30] Honan (2005: 325)
[31] http:/ / www. deptfordchurch. org
[32] Seaton, Ethel. "Marlowe, Robert Poley, and the Tippings." Review of English Studies 5 (1929): 273.
[33] Greenblatt, Stephen Will in the World. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2004: 268.
[34] Nicholl (1992: 32)
[35] Gray, Austin. "Some Observations on Christopher Marlowe, Government Agent." PMLA 43 (1928): 692-4.
[36] Stanley, Thomas (1687). The history of philosophy 1655–61. quoted in Oxford English Dictionary.
[37] Riggs, David (2004). Cheney, Patrick. ed. The Cambridge Companion to Christopher Marlowe. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University
Press. p. 38. ISBN 0521527341.
[38] The 'Baines Note' (1) (http:/ / www. prst17z1. demon. co. uk/ baines1. htm)
[39] http:/ / www. biblegateway. com/ cgi-bin/ bible?passage=JOHN%2B13%3A23-25& showfn=on& showxref=on& language=english&
version=KJV& x=12& y=12
[40] "The 'Baines Note'" (http:/ / www2. prestel. co. uk/ rey/ baines1. htm). . Retrieved 2008-04-14.
[41] Kyd's Accusations (http:/ / www. prst17z1. demon. co. uk/ kyd1. htm)
[42] Kyd's letter to Sir John Puckering (http:/ / www. prst17z1. demon. co. uk/ kyd2. htm)
[43] The so-called 'Remembrances' against Richard Cholmeley. For a full transcript, see Peter Farey's Marlowe page (http:/ / www. prst17z1.
demon. co. uk/ chumley1. htm)
[44] Waith, Eugene. The Herculean Hero in Marlowe, Chapman, Shakespeare, and Dryden. London: Chatto and Windus, 1962. The idea is
commonplace, though by no means universally accepted.
[45] Smith, Bruce R. (March 1995). Homosexual desire in Shakespeare's England. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press. p. 74.
ISBN 0-226-76366-8.
[46] Doctor Faustus and Other Plays, pp. viii - ix
[47] White, Paul Whitfield, ed. (1998). Marlowe, History and Sexuality: New Critical Essays on Christopher Marlowe. New York: AMS Press.
[48] Hero and Leander, 88 (see Project Gutenberg (http:/ / www. gutenberg. org/ files/ 21262/ 21262-h/ 21262-h. htm)).
[49] Hero and Leander, 157-192.
[50] Hero and Leander, 192-193.
[51] Wilson, Richard (2008). "Worthies away: the scene begins to cloud in Shakespeare's Navarre". In Mayer, Jean-Christophe. Representing
France and the French in early modern English drama. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press. pp. 95–97. ISBN 0-87413-000-X.
[52] Kathman, David (2003), "The Question of Authorship", in Wells, Stanley; Orlin, Lena C., Shakespeare: an Oxford Guide, Oxford University
Press, pp. 620–32, ISBN 978-0-19-924522-2
Further reading
• Brooke, C.F. Tucker. The Life of Marlowe and "The Tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage." London: Methuen,
1930. (pp. 107, 114, 99, 98)
• Bevington, David and Eric Rasmussen, Doctor Faustus and Other Plays, OUP, 1998; ISBN 0-19-283445-2
• Burgess, Anthony, A Dead Man in Deptford, Carroll & Graf, 2003. (novel about Marlowe based on the version of
events in The Reckoning) ISBN 0-7867-1152-3
• Marlow, Christopher. Complete Works. Vol. 3: Edward II. Ed. R. Rowland. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. (pp.
xxii-xxiii)
• Downie, J. A. and J. T. Parnell, eds., Constructing Christopher Marlowe, Cambridge 2000. ISBN 0-521-57255-X
• Honan, Park. Christopher Marlowe Poet and Spy Oxford University Press, 2005 ISBN 0-19-818695-9
• Kuriyama, Constance. Christopher Marlowe: A Renaissance Life. Cornell University Press, 2002. ISBN
0-8014-3978-7
• Logan, Robert A. Shakespeare's Marlowe: The Influence of Christopher Marlowe on Shakespeare's Artistry.
Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 2007. ISBN 978-7546-5763-7
• Nicholl, Charles. The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe, Vintage, 2002 (revised edition) ISBN
0-09-943747-3
• Parker, John. The Aesthetics of Antichrist: From Christian Drama to Christopher Marlowe. Cornell University
Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8014-4519-4
• Riggs, David. "The World of Christopher Marlowe", Henry Holt and Co., 2005 ISBN 0-8050-8036-8
• Shepard, Alan. "Marlowe's Soldiers: Rhetorics of Masculinity in the Age of the Armada", Ashgate, 2002. ISBN
0-7546-0229-X
• Trow, M. J. Who Killed Kit Marlowe?, Sutton, 2002; ISBN 0-7509-2963-4
• Ule, Louis. Christopher Marlowe (1564–1607): A Biography, Carlton Press, 1996. ISBN 0-8062-5028-3
• Welsh, Louise. "Tamburlaine Must Die", novella based on the build up to Marlowe's death.
• Wraight, A.D. and Virginia F. Stern, In Search of Christopher Marlowe: A Pictorial Biography, Macdonald,
London 1965
External links
• The Marlowe Society (http://www.marlowe-society.org)
• The works of Marlowe at Perseus Project (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Texts/Marlowe.html)
• Works by Christopher Marlowe (http://www.classicistranieri.com/english/indexes/authm.htm) in e-book
• BBC audio file (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003k9d6). In Our Time Radio 4 discussion programme
on Marlowe and his work
• http://www.themarlowestudies.org The Marlowe Studies, an online library of books concerning Christopher
Marlowe
• Works by or about Christopher Marlowe (http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n78-88955) in libraries (WorldCat
catalog)
67
Benjamin Jonson
Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson, after Abraham Blyenberch, c. 1617.
Born c. 11 June 1572Westminster, London, England
Died 6 August 1637 (aged 65)Westminster, London, England
Occupation Dramatist, poet and actor
Benjamin Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – 6 August 1637) was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A
contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist,
and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best,[1] and his lyric poems. A man of vast reading and a seemingly
insatiable appetite for controversy, Jonson had an unparalleled breadth of influence on Jacobean and Caroline
playwrights and poets.
Biography
Early life
Although he was born in Westminster, London, Jonson claimed his family was of Scottish Border country descent,
and this claim may have been supported by the fact that his coat of arms bears three spindles or rhombi, a device
shared by a Borders family, the Johnstones of Annandale. His father died a month before Ben's birth, and his mother
remarried two years later, to a master bricklayer.[2] Jonson attended school in St. Martin's Lane, and was later sent to
Westminster School, where one of his teachers was William Camden. Jonson remained friendly with Camden,
whose broad scholarship evidently influenced his own style, until the latter's death in 1623. On leaving, Jonson was
once thought to have gone on to the University of Cambridge,[2] but Jonson himself contradicts this, saying that he
did not go to university, but was put to a trade, probably bricklaying, immediately: a legend recorded by Thomas
Fuller indicates that he worked on a garden wall in Lincoln's Inn. He soon had enough of the trade and spent some
Ben Jonson 68
time in the Low Countries as a volunteer with the regiments of Francis Vere. In conversations with poet William
Drummond of Hawthornden, subsequently published as the Hawthornden Manuscripts, Jonson reports that while in
the Netherlands he killed an opponent in single combat and stripped him of his weapons.[3]
Jonson married, some time before 1594, a woman which he described to Drummond as "a shrew, yet honest." His
wife has not been definitively identified, but she is sometimes identified as the Ann Lewis who married a Benjamin
Jonson at St Magnus-the-Martyr, near London Bridge. The registers of St. Martin's Church state that his eldest
daughter Mary died in November 1593, when she was six months old. His eldest son Benjamin died of the plague
ten years later (Jonson's epitaph to him On My First Sonne was written shortly after), and a second Benjamin died in
1635. For five years somewhere in this period, Jonson lived separately from his wife, enjoying the hospitality of
Lord Aubigny.
Career
By summer 1597, Jonson had a fixed engagement in the Admiral's Men, then performing under Philip Henslowe's
management at The Rose. John Aubrey reports, on uncertain authority, that Jonson was not successful as an actor;
whatever his skills as an actor, he was evidently more valuable to the company as a writer.
By this time Jonson had begun to write original plays for the Lord Admiral's Men; in 1598 he was mentioned by
Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia as one of "the best for tragedy." None of his early tragedies survives, however.
An undated comedy, The Case is Altered, may be his earliest surviving play.
In 1597 a play which he co-wrote with Thomas Nashe, The Isle of Dogs, was suppressed after causing great offence.
Arrest warrants for Jonson and Nashe were issued by Elizabeth's so-called interrogator, Richard Topcliffe. Jonson
was jailed in Marshalsea Prison and charged with "Leude and mutynous behavior", while Nashe managed to escape
to Great Yarmouth. A year later, Jonson was again briefly imprisoned, this time in Newgate Prison, for killing
another man, an actor Gabriel Spenser, in a duel on 22 September 1598 in Hogsden Fields,[3] (today part of Hoxton).
Tried on a charge of manslaughter, Jonson pleaded guilty but was subsequently released by benefit of clergy, a legal
ploy through which he gained leniency by reciting a brief bible verse (the neck-verse), forfeiting his 'goods and
chattels' and being branded on his left thumb.[4]
In 1598 Jonson produced his first great success, Every Man in his Humour, capitalising on the vogue for humour
plays which George Chapman had started with An Humorous Day's Mirth. William Shakespeare was among the first
cast. Jonson followed the next year with Every Man Out of His Humour, a pedantic attempt to imitate Aristophanes.
It is not known whether this was a success on stage, but when published, it proved popular and went through several
editions.
Jonson's other work for the theater in the last years of Elizabeth I's reign was unsurprisingly marked by fighting and
controversy. Cynthia's Revels was produced by the Children of the Chapel Royal at Blackfriars Theatre in 1600. It
satirized both John Marston, who Jonson believed had accused him of lustfulness, probably in Histrio-Mastix, and
Thomas Dekker, against whom Jonson's animus is not known. Jonson attacked the two poets again in 1601's
Poetaster. Dekker responded with Satiromastix, subtitled "the untrussing of the humorous poet". The final scene of
this play, whilst certainly not to be taken at face value as a portrait of Jonson, offers a caricature that is recognisable
from Drummond's report - boasting about himself and condemning other poets, criticising performances of his plays,
and calling attention to himself in any available way.
This "War of the Theatres" appears to have ended with reconciliation on all sides. Jonson collaborated with Dekker
on a pageant welcoming James I to England in 1603 although Drummond reports that Jonson called Dekker a rogue.
Marston dedicated The Malcontent to Jonson and the two collaborated with Chapman on Eastward Ho, a 1605 play
whose anti-Scottish sentiment briefly landed both authors in jail.
Ben Jonson 69
Royal Patronage
At the beginning of the reign of James I of England in 1603 Jonson joined other poets and playwrights in welcoming
the new king. Jonson quickly adapted himself to the additional demand for masques and entertainments introduced
with the new reign and fostered by both the king and his consort Anne of Denmark. In addition to his popularity on
the public stage and in the royal hall, he enjoyed the patronage of aristocrats such as Elizabeth Sidney (daughter of
Sir Philip Sidney) and Lady Mary Wroth. This connection with the Sidney family provided the impetus for one of
Jonson's most famous lyrics, the country house poem To Penshurst.
In 1603 Thomas Overbury reported that Jonson was living on Aurelian Townsend and "scorning the world." Perhaps
this explains why his his trouble with English authorities continued. That same year he was questioned by the Privy
Council about Sejanus, a politically-themed play about corruption in the Roman Empire. He was again in trouble for
topical allusions in a play, now lost, in which he took part. After the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, he appears to
have been asked by the Privy Council to attempt to prevail on a certain priest to cooperate with the government; the
priest he found was Father Thomas Wright, who heard Fawkes's confession (Teague, 249).
At the same time, Jonson pursued a more prestigious career,
writing masques for James' court. The Satyr (1603) and The
Masque of Blackness (1605) are two of about two dozen masques
which Jonson wrote for James or for Queen Anne; The Masque of
Blackness was praised by Algernon Charles Swinburne as the
consummate example of this now-extinct genre, which mingled
speech, dancing, and spectacle.
On many of these projects he collaborated, not always peacefully,

with designer Inigo Jones. For example, Jones designed the
scenery for Jonson's masque Oberon, the Faery Prince performed
at Whitehall on January 1, 1611 in which Prince Henry, eldest son
of James I, appeared in the title role. Perhaps partly as a result of
this new career, Jonson gave up writing plays for the public
theaters for a decade. He later told Drummond that he had made
less than two hundred pounds on all his plays together.
In 1616 Jonson received a yearly pension of 100 marks (about

£60), leading some to identify him as England's first Poet
Laureate. This sign of royal favour may have encouraged him to
publish the first volume of the folio collected edition of his works Title page of The Workes of Beniamin Ionson (1616),
the first folio publication that included stage plays
that year. Other volumes followed in 1640–41 and 1692. (See:
Ben Jonson folios)
In 1618 Jonson set out for his ancestral Scotland on foot. He spent over a year there, and the best-remembered
hospitality which he enjoyed was that of the Scottish poet, Drummond of Hawthornden, in April of 1619, sited on
the River Esk. Drummond undertook to record as much of Jonson's conversation as he could in his diary, and thus
recorded aspects of Jonson's personality that would otherwise have been less clearly seen. Jonson delivers his
opinions, in Drummond's terse reporting, in an expansive and even magisterial mood. Drummond noted he was "a
great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others".
In Edinburgh, Jonson is recorded as staying with a John Stuart of Leith.[2] While there he was made an honorary
citizen of Edinburgh. On returning to England, he was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree from Oxford
University.
From Edinburgh he travelled west and lodged with the Duke of Lennox where he wrote a play based on Loch
Lomond.[2]
Ben Jonson 70
The period between 1605 and 1620 may be viewed as Jonson's heyday. By 1616 he had produced all the plays on
which his present reputation as a dramatist is based, including the tragedy Catiline (acted and printed 1611), which
achieved limited success, and the comedies Volpone, (acted 1605 and printed in 1607), Epicoene, or the Silent
Woman (1609), The Alchemist (1610), Bartholomew Fair (1614) and The Devil is an Ass (1616). The Alchemist and
Volpone were immediately successful. Of Epicoene, Jonson told Drummond of a satirical verse which reported that
the play's subtitle was appropriate, since its audience had refused to applaud the play (i.e., remained silent). Yet
Epicoene, along with Bartholomew Fair and (to a lesser extent) The Devil is an Ass have in modern times achieved a
certain degree of recognition. While his life during this period was apparently more settled than it had been in the
1590s, his financial security was still not assured.
Decline and death

Jonson began to decline in the 1620s. He was still well-known; from this time dates the prominence of the Sons of
Ben or the "Tribe of Ben", those younger poets such as Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, and Sir John Suckling
who took their bearing in verse from Jonson. However, a series of setbacks drained his strength and damaged his
reputation. He resumed writing regular plays in the 1620s, but these are not considered among his best. They are of
significant interest, however, for their portrayal of Charles I's England. The Staple of News, for example, offers a
remarkable look at the earliest stage of English journalism. The lukewarm reception given that play was, however,
nothing compared to the dismal failure of The New Inn; the cold reception given this play prompted Jonson to write a
poem condemning his audience (the Ode to Myself), which in turn prompted Thomas Carew, one of the "Tribe of
Ben," to respond in a poem that asks Jonson to recognize his own decline.[5]
The principal factor in Jonson's partial eclipse was, however, the death of James and the accession of King Charles I
in 1625. Jonson felt neglected by the new court. A decisive quarrel with Jones harmed his career as a writer of court
masques, although he continued to entertain the court on an irregular basis. For his part, Charles displayed a certain
degree of care for the great poet of his father's day: he increased Jonson's annual pension to £100 and included a
tierce of wine.
Despite the strokes that he suffered in the 1620s, Jonson continued to write. At his death in 1637 he seems to have
been working on another play, The Sad Shepherd. Though only two acts are extant, this represents a remarkable new
direction for Jonson: a move into pastoral drama. During the early 1630s he also conducted a correspondence with
James Howell, who warned him about disfavour at court in the wake of his dispute with Jones.
Jonson died on 6 August 1637 and his funeral was held on 9 August. He is buried in the north aisle of the Nave in
Westminster Abbey, with the inscription "O Rare Ben Johnson" (sic) set in the slab over his grave. It has been
suggested that this could be read "Orare Ben Jonson" (pray for Ben Jonson), which would indicate a deathbed return
to Catholicism, but the carving shows a distinct space between "O" and "rare".[6] Researchers suggest that the tribute
came from William D’Avenant, Jonson’s successor as Poet Laureate, as the same phrase appears on D'Avenant's
nearby gravestone.[6] The fact that he was buried in an upright grave could be an indication of his reduced
circumstances at the time of his death,[7] although it has also been written that Jonson asked for a grave exactly
18 inches square from the monarch and received an upright grave to fit in the requested space.[8] The same source
claims that the epitaph came from the remark of a passerby to the grave.[8]
His work
Drama
Apart from two tragedies, Sejanus and Catiline, that largely failed to impress Renaissance audiences, Jonson's work
for the public theatres was in comedy. These plays vary in some respects. The minor early plays, particularly those
written for boy players, present somewhat looser plots and less-developed characters than those written later, for
adult companies. Already in the plays which were his salvos in the Poet's War, he displays the keen eye for absurdity
Ben Jonson 71
and hypocrisy that marks his best-known plays; in these early efforts, however, plot mostly takes second place to
variety of incident and comic set-pieces. They are, also, notably ill-tempered. Thomas Davies called Poetaster "a
contemptible mixture of the serio-comic, where the names of Augustus Caesar, Maecenas, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and
Tibullus, are all sacrificed upon the altar of private resentment." Another early comedy in a different vein, The Case
is Altered, is markedly similar to Shakespeare's romantic comedies in its foreign setting, emphasis on genial wit, and
love-plot. Henslowe's diary indicates that Jonson had a hand in numerous other plays, including many in genres such
as English history with which he is not otherwise associated.
The comedies of his middle career, from Eastward Ho to The Devil is an Ass are for the most part city comedy, with
a London setting, themes of trickery and money, and a distinct moral ambiguity, despite Jonson's professed aim in
the Prologue to Volpone to "mix profit with your pleasure". His late plays or "dotages", particularly The Magnetic
Lady and The Sad Shepherd, exhibit signs of an accommodation with the romantic tendencies of Elizabethan
comedy.
Within this general progression, however, Jonson's comic style remained constant and easily recognizable. He
announces his programme in the prologue to the folio version of Every Man in His Humour: he promises to represent
"deeds, and language, such as men do use." He planned to write comedies that revived the classical premises of
Elizabethan dramatic theory—or rather, since all but the loosest English comedies could claim some descent from
Plautus and Terence, he intended to apply those premises with rigour.[9] This commitment entailed negations: after
The Case is Altered, Jonson eschewed distant locations, noble characters, romantic plots, and other staples of
Elizabethan comedy, focussing instead on the satiric and realistic inheritance of new comedy. He set his plays in
contemporary settings, peopled them with recognizable types, and set them to actions that, if not strictly realistic,
involved everyday motives such as greed and jealousy. In accordance with the temper of his age, he was often so
broad in his characterisation that many of his most famous scenes border on the farcical (as William Congreve, for
example, judged Epicoene.) He was more diligent in adhering to the classical unities than many of his
peers—although as Margaret Cavendish noted, the unity of action in the major comedies was rather compromised by
Jonson's abundance of incident. To this classical model Jonson applied the two features of his style which save his
classical imitations from mere pedantry: the vividness with which he depicted the lives of his characters, and the
intricacy of his plots. Coleridge, for instance, claimed that The Alchemist had one of the three most perfect plots in
literature.
Poetry
Jonson's poetry, like his drama, is informed by his classical learning. Some of his better-known poems are close
translations of Greek or Roman models; all display the careful attention to form and style that often came naturally to
those trained in classics in the humanist manner. Jonson largely avoided the debates about rhyme and meter that had
consumed Elizabethan classicists such as Thomas Campion and Gabriel Harvey. Accepting both rhyme and stress,
Jonson used them to mimic the classical qualities of simplicity, restraint, and precision.
“Epigrams” (published in the 1616 folio) is an entry in a genre that was popular among late-Elizabethan and
Jacobean audiences, although Jonson was perhaps the only poet of his time to work in its full classical range. The
epigrams explore various attitudes, most from the satiric stock of the day: complaints against women, courtiers, and
spies abound. The condemnatory poems are short and anonymous; Jonson’s epigrams of praise, including a famous
poem to Camden and lines to Lucy Harington, are longer and are mostly addressed to specific individuals. Although
it is an epigram in the classical sense of the genre, "On My First Sonne" is neither satirical nor very short; the poem,
and others like it, resemble what a later age sometimes called "lyric poetry", and it is almost in the form of a Sonnet,
however there are some elements missing. It is possible that the title symbolizes this with the spelling of 'son' as
'Sonne'. Johnson's poems of “The Forest” also appeared in the first folio. Most of the fifteen poems are addressed to
Jonson’s aristocratic supporters, but the most famous are his country-house poem “To Penshurst” and the poem “To
Celia” (“Come, my Celia, let us prove”) that appears also in ‘’Volpone.’’
Ben Jonson 72
Underwood, published in the expanded folio of 1640, is a larger and more heterogeneous group of poems. It contains
A Celebration of Charis, Jonson’s most extended effort at love poetry; various religious pieces; encomiastic poems
including the poem to Shakespeare and a sonnet on Mary Wroth; the Execration against Vulcan and others. The
1640 volume also contains three elegies which have often been ascribed to Donne (one of them appeared in Donne’s
posthumous collected poems).
Relationship with Shakespeare

There are many legends about Jonson's rivalry with Shakespeare, some of which may be true. Drummond reports
that during their conversation, Jonson scoffed at two apparent absurdities in Shakespeare's plays: a nonsensical line
in Julius Caesar, and the setting of The Winter's Tale on the non-existent seacoast of Bohemia. Drummond also
reported Jonson as saying that Shakespeare "wanted (i.e. lacked) art." Whether Drummond is viewed as accurate or
not, the comments fit well with Jonson's well-known theories about literature.
In Timber, which was published posthumously and reflects his lifetime of practical experience, Jonson offers a fuller
and more conciliatory comment. He recalls being told by certain actors that Shakespeare never blotted (i.e., crossed
out) a line when he wrote. His own response, "Would he had blotted a thousand," was taken as malicious. However,
Jonson explains, "He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature, had an excellent phantasy, brave notions,
and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be
stopped".[10] Jonson concludes that "there was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned." Also when
Shakespeare died he said "He was not of an age, but for all time."
Thomas Fuller relates stories of Jonson and Shakespeare engaging in debates in the Mermaid Tavern; Fuller
imagines conversations in which Shakespeare would run rings around the more learned but more ponderous Jonson.
That the two men knew each other personally is beyond doubt, not only because of the tone of Jonson's references to
him but because Shakespeare's company produced a number of Jonson's plays, at least one of which (Every Man in
his Humour) Shakespeare certainly acted in. However, it is now impossible to tell how much personal
communication they had, and tales of their friendship cannot be substantiated in the present state of knowledge.
Jonson's most influential and revealing commentary on Shakespeare is the second of the two poems that he
contributed to the prefatory verse that opens Shakespeare's First Folio. This poem, "To the memory of my beloved,
The AUTHOR, Mr. William Shakespeare: And what he hath left us," did a good deal to create the traditional view of
Shakespeare as a poet who, despite "small Latine, and lesse Greeke",[11] had a natural genius. The poem has
traditionally been thought to exemplify the contrast which Jonson perceived between himself, the disciplined and
erudite classicist, scornful of ignorance and skeptical of the masses, and Shakespeare, represented in the poem as a
kind of natural wonder whose genius was not subject to any rules except those of the audiences for which he wrote.
But the poem itself qualifies this view:
Yet must I not give Nature all: Thy Art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
Some view this elegy as a conventional exercise, but others see it as a heartfelt tribute to the "Sweet Swan Of Avon,"
the "Soul of the Age!" It has been argued that Jonson helped to edit the First Folio, and he may have been inspired to
write this poem, surely one of his greatest, by reading his fellow playwright's works, a number of which had been
previously either unpublished or available in less satisfactory versions, in a relatively complete form.
Ben Jonson 73
Reception and influence

During most of the 17th century Jonson was a towering literary figure, and his influence was enormous. Before the
English Civil War, the "Tribe of Ben" touted his importance, and during the Restoration Jonson's satirical comedies
and his theory and practice of "humour characters" (which are often misunderstood; see William Congreve's letters
for clarification) was extremely influential, providing the blueprint for many Restoration comedies. In the 18th
century Jonson's status began to decline. In the Romantic era, Jonson suffered the fate of being unfairly compared
and contrasted to Shakespeare, as the taste for Jonson's type of satirical comedy decreased. Jonson was at times
greatly appreciated by the Romantics, but overall he was denigrated for not writing in a Shakespearean vein. In the
20th century, Jonson's status rose significantly.
Drama
As G. E. Bentley notes in Shakespeare and Jonson: Their Reputations in the Seventeenth Century Compared,
Jonson's reputation was in some respects equal to Shakespeare's in the 17th century. After the English theatres were
reopened on the Restoration of Charles II, Jonson's work, along with Shakespeare's and Fletcher's work, formed the
initial core of the Restoration repertory. It was not until after 1710 that Shakespeare's plays (ordinarily in heavily
revised forms) were more frequently performed than those of his Renaissance contemporaries. Many critics since the
18th century have ranked Jonson below only Shakespeare among English Renaissance dramatists. Critical judgment
has tended to emphasize the very qualities that Jonson himself lauds in his prefaces, in Timber, and in his scattered
prefaces and dedications: the realism and propriety of his language, the bite of his satire, and the care with which he
plotted his comedies.
For some critics, the temptation to contrast Jonson (representing art or craft) with Shakespeare (representing nature,
or untutored genius) has seemed natural; Jonson himself may be said to initiate this interpretation in the second folio,
and Samuel Butler drew the same comparison in his commonplace book later in the century.
At the Restoration, this sensed difference became a kind of critical dogma. Charles de Saint-Évremond placed
Jonson's comedies above all else in English drama, and Charles Gildon called Jonson the father of English comedy.
John Dryden offered a more common assessment in the Essay of Dramatic Poesie, in which his Avatar Neander
compares Shakespeare to Homer and Jonson to Virgil: the former represented profound creativity, the latter polished
artifice. But "artifice" was in the 17th century almost synonymous with "art"; Jonson, for instance, used "artificer" as
a synonym for "artist" (Discoveries, 33). For Lewis Theobald, too, Jonson “ow[ed] all his Excellence to his Art,” in
contrast to Shakespeare, the natural genius. Nicholas Rowe, to whom may be traced the legend that Jonson owed the
production of Every Man in his Humour to Shakespeare's intercession, likewise attributed Jonson's excellence to
learning, which did not raise him quite to the level of genius. A consensus formed: Jonson was the first English poet
to understand classical precepts with any accuracy, and he was the first to apply those precepts successfully to
contemporary life. But there were also more negative spins on Jonson's learned art; for instance, in the 1750s,
Edward Young casually remarked on the way in which Jonson’s learning worked, like Samson’s strength, to his own
detriment. Earlier, Aphra Behn, writing in defence of female playwrights, had pointed to Jonson as a writer whose
learning did not make him popular; unsurprisingly, she compares him unfavorably to Shakespeare. Particularly in the
tragedies, with their lengthy speeches abstracted from Sallust and Cicero, Augustan critics saw a writer whose
learning had swamped his aesthetic judgment.
In this period, Alexander Pope is exceptional in that he noted the tendency to exaggeration in these competing
critical portraits: "It is ever the nature of Parties to be in extremes; and nothing is so probable, as that because Ben
Johnson had much the most learning, it was said on the one hand that Shakespear had none at all; and because
Shakespear had much the most wit and fancy, it was retorted on the other, that Johnson wanted both."[12] For the
most part, the 18th century consensus remained committed to the division that Pope doubted; as late as the 1750s,
Sarah Fielding could put a brief recapitulation of this analysis in the mouth of a "man of sense" encountered by
David Simple.
Ben Jonson 74
Though his stature declined during the 18th century, Jonson was still read and commented on throughout the century,
generally in the kind of comparative and dismissive terms just described. Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg
translated parts of Peter Whalley's edition into German in 1765. Shortly before the Romantic revolution, Edward
Capell offered an almost unqualified rejection of Jonson as a dramatic poet, who (he writes) "has very poor
pretensions to the high place he holds among the English Bards, as there is no original manner to distinguish him,
and the tedious sameness visible in his plots indicates a defect of Genius."[13] The disastrous failures of productions
of Volpone and Epicoene in the early 1770s no doubt bolstered a widespread sense that Jonson had at last grown too
antiquated for the contemporary public; if he still attracted enthusiasts such as Earl Camden and William Gifford, he
all but disappeared from the stage in the last quarter of the century.
The romantic revolution in criticism brought about an overall decline in the critical estimation of Jonson. Hazlitt
refers dismissively to Jonson’s “laborious caution.” Coleridge, while more respectful, describes Jonson as
psychologically superficial: “He was a very accurately observing man; but he cared only to observe what was open
to, and likely to impress, the senses.” Coleridge placed Jonson second only to Shakespeare; other romantic critics
were less approving. The early 19th century was the great age for recovering Renaissance drama. Jonson, whose
reputation had survived, appears to have been less interesting to some readers than writers such as Thomas
Middleton or John Heywood, who were in some senses “discoveries” of the 19th century. Moreover, the emphasis
which the romantic writers placed on imagination, and their concomitant tendency to distrust studied art, lowered
Jonson's status, if it also sharpened their awareness of the difference traditionally noted between Jonson and
Shakespeare. This trend was by no means universal, however; William Gifford, Jonson's first editor of the 19th
century, did a great deal to defend Jonson's reputation during this period of general decline. In the next era,
Swinburne, who was more interested in Jonson than most Victorians, wrote, “The flowers of his growing have every
quality but one which belongs to the rarest and finest among flowers: they have colour, form, variety, fertility,
vigour: the one thing they want is fragrance” — by “fragrance,” Swinburne means spontaneity.
In the 20th century, Jonson’s body of work has been subject to a more varied set of analyses, broadly consistent with
the interests and programmes of modern literary criticism. In an essay printed in The Sacred Wood, T.S. Eliot
attempted to repudiate the charge that Jonson was an arid classicist by analysing the role of imagination in his
dialogue. Eliot was appreciative of Jonson's overall conception and his "surface," a view consonant with the
modernist reaction against Romantic criticism, which tended to denigrate playwrights who did not concentrate on
representations of psychological depth. Around mid-century, a number of critics and scholars followed Eliot’s lead,
producing detailed studies of Jonson’s verbal style. At the same time, study of Elizabethan themes and conventions,
such as those by E. E. Stoll and M. C. Bradbrook, provided a more vivid sense of how Jonson’s work was shaped by
the expectations of his time.
The proliferation of new critical perspectives after mid-century touched on Jonson inconsistently. Jonas Barish was
the leading figure among critics who appreciated Jonson's artistry. On the other hand, Jonson received less attention
from the new critics than did some other playwrights and his work was not of programmatic interest to
psychoanalytic critics. But Jonson’s career eventually made him a focal point for the revived sociopolitical criticism.
Jonson’s works, particularly his masques and pageants, offer significant information regarding the relations of
literary production and political power, as do his contacts with and poems for aristocratic patrons; moreover, his
career at the centre of London’s emerging literary world has been seen as exemplifying the development of a fully
commodified literary culture. In this respect he is seen as a transitional figure, an author whose skills and ambition
led him to a leading role both in the declining culture of patronage and in the rising culture of mass consumption.
Ben Jonson 75
Poetry
If Jonson's reputation as a playwright has traditionally been linked to Shakespeare, his reputation as a poet has, since
the early 20th century, been linked to that of John Donne. In this comparison, Jonson represents the cavalier strain of
poetry, emphasizing grace and clarity of expression; Donne, by contrast, epitomized the metaphysical school of
poetry, with its reliance on strained, baroque metaphors and often vague phrasing. Since the critics who made this
comparison (Herbert Grierson for example), were to varying extents rediscovering Donne, this comparison often
worked to the detriment of Jonson's reputation.
In his time Jonson was at least as influential as Donne. In 1623, historian Edmund Bolton named him the best and
most polished English poet. That this judgment was widely shared is indicated by the admitted influence he had on
younger poets. The grounds for describing Jonson as the "father" of cavalier poets are clear: many of the cavalier
poets described themselves as his "sons" or his "tribe." For some of this tribe, the connection was as much social as
poetic; Herrick described meetings at "the Sun, the Dog, the Triple Tunne." All of them, including those like Herrick
whose accomplishments in verse are generally regarded as superior to Jonson's, took inspiration from Jonson's
revival of classical forms and themes, his subtle melodies, and his disciplined use of wit. In these respects Jonson
may be regarded as among the most important figures in the prehistory of English neoclassicism.
The best of Jonson's lyrics have remained current since his time; periodically, they experience a brief vogue, as after
the publication of Peter Whalley's edition of 1756. Jonson's poetry continues to interest scholars for the light which it
sheds on English literary history, such as politics, systems of patronage, and intellectual attitudes. For the general
reader, Jonson's reputation rests on a few lyrics that, though brief, are surpassed for grace and precision by very few
Renaissance poems: "On My First Sonne"; "To Celia"; "To Penshurst"; and the epitaph on boy player Solomon
Pavy.
Jonson's works
Plays
• A Tale of a Tub, comedy (ca. 1596? revised? performed 1633; printed 1640)
• The Case is Altered, comedy (ca. 1597–98; printed 1609), with Henry Porter and Anthony Munday?
• Every Man in His Humour, comedy (performed 1598; printed 1601)
• Every Man out of His Humour, comedy ( performed 1599; printed 1600)
• Cynthia's Revels (performed 1600; printed 1601)
• The Poetaster, comedy (performed 1601; printed 1602)
• Sejanus His Fall, tragedy (performed 1603; printed 1605)
• Eastward Ho, comedy (performed and printed 1605), a collaboration with John Marston and George Chapman
• Volpone, comedy (ca. 1605–06; printed 1607)
• Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, comedy (performed 1609; printed 1616)
• The Alchemist, comedy (performed 1610; printed 1612)
• Catiline His Conspiracy, tragedy (performed and printed 1611)
• Bartholomew Fair, comedy (performed 31 October 1614; printed 1631)
• The Devil is an Ass, comedy (performed 1616; printed 1631)
• The Staple of News, comedy (performed Feb. 1626; printed 1631)
• The New Inn, or The Light Heart, comedy (licensed 19 January 1629; printed 1631)
• The Magnetic Lady, or Humors Reconciled, comedy (licensed 12 October 1632; printed 1641)
• The Sad Shepherd, pastoral (ca. 1637, printed 1641), unfinished
• Mortimer his Fall, history (printed 1641), a fragment
Ben Jonson 76
Masques
• The Coronation Triumph, or The King's Entertainment (performed 15 March 1604; printed 1604); with Thomas
Dekker
• A Private Entertainment of the King and Queen on May-Day (The Penates) (1 May 1604; printed 1616)
• The Entertainment of the Queen and Prince Henry at Althorp (The Satyr) (25 June 1603; printed 1604)
• The Masque of Blackness (6 January 1605; printed 1608)
• Hymenaei (5 January 1606; printed 1606)
• The Entertainment of the Kings of Great Britain and Denmark (The Hours) (24 July 1606; printed 1616)
• The Masque of Beauty (10 January 1608; printed 1608)
• The Masque of Queens (2 February 1609; printed 1609)
• The Hue and Cry after Cupid, or The Masque at Lord Haddington's Marriage (9 February 1608; printed ca. 1608)
• The Entertainment at Britain's Burse (11 April 1609; lost, rediscovered 2004)
• The Speeches at Prince Henry's Barriers, or The Lady of the Lake (6 January 1610; printed 1616)
• Oberon, the Faery Prince (1 January 1611; printed 1616)
• Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly (3 February 1611; printed 1616)
• Love Restored (6 January 1612; printed 1616)
• A Challenge at Tilt, at a Marriage (27 December 1613/1 January 1614; printed 1616)
• The Irish Masque at Court (29 December 1613; printed 1616)
• Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists (6 January 1615; printed 1616)
• The Golden Age Restored (1 January 1616; printed 1616)
• Christmas, His Masque (Christmas 1616; printed 1641)
• The Vision of Delight (6 January 1617; printed 1641)
• Lovers Made Men, or The Masque of Lethe, or The Masque at Lord Hay's (22 February 1617; printed 1617)
• Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue (6 January 1618; printed 1641) The masque was a failure; Jonson revised it by
placing the anti-masque first, turning it into:
• For the Honour of Wales (17 February 1618; printed 1641)
• News from the New World Discovered in the Moon (7 January 1620: printed 1641)
• The Entertainment at Blackfriars, or The Newcastle Entertainment (May 1620?; MS)
• Pan's Anniversary, or The Shepherd's Holy-Day (19 June 1620?; printed 1641)
• The Gypsies Metamorphosed (3 and 5 August 1621; printed 1640)
• The Masque of Augurs (6 January 1622; printed 1622)
• Time Vindicated to Himself and to His Honours (19 January 1623; printed 1623)
• Neptune's Triumph for the Return of Albion (26 January 1624; printed 1624)
• The Masque of Owls at Kenilworth (19 August 1624; printed 1641)
• The Fortunate Isles and Their Union (9 January 1625; printed 1625)
• Love's Triumph Through Callipolis (9 January 1631; printed 1631)
• Chloridia: Rites to Chloris and Her Nymphs (22 February 1631; printed 1631)
• The King's Entertainment at Welbeck in Nottinghamshire (21 May 1633; printed 1641)
• Love's Welcome at Bolsover ( 30 July 1634; printed 1641)
Ben Jonson 77
Other works
• Epigrams (1612)
• The Forest (1616), including To Penshurst
• A Discourse of Love (1618)
• Barclay's Argenis, translated by Jonson (1623)
• The Execration against Vulcan (1640)
• Horace's Art of Poetry, translated by Jonson (1640), with a commendatory verse by Edward Herbert
• Underwood (1640)
• English Grammar (1640)
Timber, or Discoveries, a commonplace book
• On My First Sonne (1616), elegy
• To Celia (Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes), poem
As with other English Renaissance dramatists, a portion of Ben Jonson's literary output has not survived. In addition
to The Isle of Dogs (1597), the records suggest these lost plays as wholly or partially Jonson's work: Richard
Crookback (1602); Hot Anger Soon Cold (1598), with Porter and Henry Chettle; Page of Plymouth (1599), with
Dekker; and Robert II, King of Scots (1599), with Chettle and Dekker. Several of Jonson's masques and
entertainments also are not extant: The Entertainment at Merchant Taylors (1607); The Entertainment at Salisbury
House for James I (1608); and The May Lord (1613–19).
Finally, there are questionable or borderline attributions. Jonson may have had a hand in Rollo, Duke of Normandy,
or The Bloody Brother, a play in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators. The comedy The Widow was
printed in 1652 as the work of Thomas Middleton, Fletcher and Jonson, though scholars have been intensely
skeptical about Jonson's presence in the play. A few attributions of anonymous plays, such as The London Prodigal,
have been ventured by individual researchers, but have met with cool responses.[14]
Biographies of Ben Jonson

• Ben Jonson: His Life and Work by Rosalind Miles
• Ben Jonson: His Craft and Art by Rosalind Miles
• Ben Jonson: A Literary Life by W. David Kay
• Ben Jonson: A Life by David Riggs
References
[1] Evans, Robert C (2000). "Jonson's critical heritage". In Harp, Richard; Stewart, Stanley. The Cambridge companion to Ben Jonson.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-64678-2.
[2] Robert Chambers, Book of Days
[3] Drummond, William (1619). Heads of a conversation betwixt the famous poet Ben Johnson and William Drummond of Hawthornden,
January 1619 (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=ubHPBcMk2OMC& printsec=frontcover& dq="William+ Drummond"+ jonson&
as_brr=3& ei=S0PASPT7GY-2iwGjjPTsDQ& client=firefox-a#PPA43,M1). .
[4] 1911 Encyclopedia biography (http:/ / www. 1911encyclopedia. org/ Ben_Jonson)
[5] Maclean, p. 88
[6] "Monuments & Gravestones: Ben Jonson" (http:/ / web. archive. org/ web/ 20080107172342/ http:/ / www. westminster-abbey. org/
history-research/ monuments-gravestones/ people/ 12177). Westminster Abbey 1065 to today. Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey.
Archived from the original (http:/ / www. westminster-abbey. org/ history-research/ monuments-gravestones/ people/ 12177) on 2008-01-07. .
Retrieved 2008-05-26.
[7] Adams, J. Q. The Jonson Allusion Book. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1922. pp. 195–6
[8] Dunton, Larkin (1896). The World and Its People. Silver, Burdett. p. 34.
[9] Doran, 120ff
[10] Gutenberg.org (http:/ / www. gutenberg. org/ dirs/ etext04/ dscv10h. htm#footnote11)
[11] W.T. Baldwin 's William Shakspere's Smalle Latine and Lesse Greeke, 1944 (http:/ / durer. press. uiuc. edu/ baldwin/ vol. 1/ html/ 2. html)
[12] Alexander Pope, ed. Works of Shakespeare (London, 1725), p. 1
Ben Jonson 78
[13] Quoted in Craig, D. H., ed. Jonson: The Critical Heritage (London: Routledge, 1995). p. 499
[14] Logan and Smith, pp. 82–92
• Bentley, G. E. Shakespeare and Jonson: Their Reputations in the Seventeenth Century Compared. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1945
• Bush, Douglas. English Literature in the Earlier Seventeenth Century, 1600–1660. Oxford History of English
Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1945
• Butler, Martin. "Jonson's Folio and the Politics of Patronage." Criticism 35 (1993)
• Chute, Marchette. "Ben Jonson of Westminster." New York: E.P. Dutton, 1953
• Doran, Madeline. Endeavors of Art. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1954
• Eccles, Mark. "Jonson's Marriage." Review of English Studies 12 (1936)
• Eliot, T.S. "Ben Jonson." The Sacred Wood. London: Methuen, 1920
• Jonson, Ben. Discoveries 1641, ed. G. B. Harrison. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966
• Knights, L. C. Drama and Society in the Age of Jonson. London: Chatto and Windus, 1968
• Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith. The New Intellectuals: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in
English Renaissance Drama. Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1975
• MacLean, Hugh, editor. Ben Jonson and the Cavalier Poets. New York: Norton Press, 1974
• Ceri Sullivan, The Rhetoric of Credit. Merchants in Early Modern Writing (Madison/London: Associated
University Press, 2002)
• Teague, Frances. "Ben Jonson and the Gunpowder Plot." Ben Jonson Journal 5 (1998). pp. 249–52
• Thorndike, Ashley. "Ben Jonson." The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. New York:
Putnam, 1907–1921
External links
• Digitized Facsimiles of Jonson's second folio, 1640/1 Jonson's second folio, 1640/1 (http://www.johngeraghty.
com/books/index.php?cat=4)
• Video interview with scholar David Bevington The Collected Works of Ben Jonson (http://research.uchicago.
edu/highlights/item.php?id=25)
• Audio resources on Ben Jonson at TheEnglishCollection.com (http://www.engelsklenker.com/english-search.
php?search_term=ben+jonson&hislit=Literature&listedsites=Listed+Search)
• Poems by Ben Jonson at PoetryFoundation.org (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.
html?id=3567)
• Works by Ben Jonson (http://www.gutenberg.org/author/Ben_Jonson_(1573-1637)) at Project Gutenberg
• Works of Ben Jonson (http://hollowaypages.com/Jonson.htm)
• Ben Jonson at Find-A-Grave (http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=5942)
• Audio: Robert Pinsky reads "His Excuse For Loving" (http://poemsoutloud.net/blog/archive/
ben_jonson_speaks_his_mind/) by Ben Jonson
• Audio: Robert Pinsky reads "My Picture Left in Scotland" (http://poemsoutloud.net/blog/archive/
my_mountain_belly_and_my_rocky_face/) by Ben Jonson
• Free scores by Ben Jonson in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
Article Sources and Contributors

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Александр Мотин, Александър, 3235 anonymous edits
Romeo and Juliet Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=429207765 Contributors: -Midorihana-, 1234567890q1993, 12thNight, 198.45.18.xxx, 21655, 23skidoo, 2dcartocu, 2help,
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Elizabethan Theatre

W. Shakespeare and his contemporaries

English Renaissance theatre

English Renaissance Theatre is sometimes called "Elizabethan

Massinger, are marked by financial uncertainty, struggle, and poverty.

Termination (September 2, 1642)

Playhouses Playing companies Significant others

Collaborative play writing

Born Baptised 26 April 1564 (birth date unknown)Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England

Died 23 April 1616 (aged 52)Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England

Occupation Playwright, poet, actor

Literary movement English Renaissance theatre

Spouse(s) Anne Hathaway (m. 1582–1616)

Children Susanna Hall

Relative(s) John Shakespeare (father)

London and theatrical career

"All the world's a stage,

Later years and death

Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare,

Shakespeare's early classical and Italianate comedies, containing tight

In the early 17th century, Shakespeare wrote the so-called "problem

probably with John Fletcher.[103]

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay

Shakespeare influenced novelists such as Thomas Hardy, William

Between the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the end of

Speculation about Shakespeare

Classification of the plays

Comedies Histories Tragedies

Lost plays Apocrypha

[14] Schoenbaum 1987, 23–24.

[72] Schoenbaum 1987, 308–10.

[131] Shakespeare 1914.

Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare's use of dramatic structure, especially effects such as

Title page of the first edition

Meanwhile, Benvolio talks with his cousin Romeo, Lord Montague's

One of the earliest references to the names Montague and Capulet is

However, the reference is part of a polemic against the moral decay of

Date and text

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was published in two quarto editions

Themes and motifs

debated by scholars are discussed below.[30]

Fate and chance

"O, I am fortune's fool!"

Duality (light and dark)

"O brawling love, O loving hate,

"These times of woe afford no time to woo."

Criticism and interpretation

Restoration and 18th-century theatre

supporting roles cut or marginalised to give greater prominence to the

Peter Brook's 1947 version was the beginning of a different style of

"Romeo loved Juliet

Literature and art

Romeo and Juliet was parodied in Shakespeare's own lifetime: Henry

Modern social media

[15] Gibbons (1980: 34–35).

[131] Barranger (2004: 47).

It is believed that the prologue in this form was practically the

Molière revived the Plautian prologue in the introduction to his

Born Baptized 26 February 1564Canterbury, England

Died 30 May 1593 (aged 29)Deptford, England

Occupation Playwright, poet