Learn English Through Story: Shakespeare's Life and Plays (Level 4) with Subtitles

[00:00:01]chapter 1 stratford childhood on or about the 22nd of april 1564 mary arden the wife of john shakespeare gave birth to a son in stratford-upon-avon she had lost two baby girls before that now all through the hot summer she was afraid of losing her third child because there was a plague in stratford her husband was a member of the town council so they could not leave the town by the end of the year 300 of the population of 1500 were dead but fortunately for mary and for us her baby william did not die he grew up and became the greatest writer in the english language mary was about 24 when he was born she was the youngest of four daughters of a farmer near stratford soon after her father died in 1557 she married john shakespeare who was about 10 years older as a young man john had worked on one of the arden's farms but he had left the village and moved to stratford he learnt how to make gloves and other things from leather and he became a successful businessman a year before his marriage he bought the two houses that are now known as shakespeare's birthplace the family lived in one and used the other as their shop nobody can explain how ordinary parents produce sums like william shakespeare he had three younger brothers and a sister but none of them did anything very important in life but william became a good businessman like his father and his mother was clearly intelligent though she was the youngest daughter her father had made her responsible for his will when he died and had left her his best property william's childhood was probably quite happy his father's business was doing well and when william was four years old john shakespeare became the leader of the town council after shakespeare's death many stories were told about him that were not true a long time afterwards people began to wonder whether he had really written the plays he had not been to a university like most other writers for the theater in those days shakespeare's friend and rival ben johnson was partly responsible for this doubt he said that shakespeare was the greatest of all dramatists although he had small latin and less greek these were the main subjects that boys studied at school but johnson had been one of the best students at a famous school so when he compared himself with shakespeare small latin and less greek only meant that johnson knew a lot more in fact williams school in stratford was a good one from the age of nine or ten all the lessons there were in latin and the boys stayed until they were fifteen we can also see from studying the sources of his plays that shakespeare could certainly read latin and could also read french and italian but the plays are clearly the work of a professional man of the theater this is the real answer to the question did shakespeare write them william's last years at school were probably not as happy as the early ones from 1576 when he was 12 his father stopped going to council meetings perhaps he was ashamed to meet his friends his business was not going so well in 1579 he borrowed money from one of his wife's relatives who took a house and land in exchange he could not pay the money back on the date that they had agreed and afterwards the man refused to take it he preferred to keep the property this house and land had belonged to mary's family and william tried for many years to get them back but was not successful there was perhaps another reason why john shakespeare did not go to council meetings we need to know something about the political and religious history of england in the 16th century to understand it in those days religion always played a very important part in politics henry viii who was king of england from 1509 to 1547 had married a spanish princess catherine of aragon they had a daughter mary but henry wanted a son so he asked the pope to end his marriage the pope refused he knew that charles the king of spain would be angry at this insult to his aunt so henry made himself the head of the new church of england and married anne boleyn when she could only give him another daughter he executed her his third wife jane seymour gave him the son that he desired but she died soon afterwards this son edward became king when he was 10 years old his mother's relatives were protestants so the country changed from being almost catholic but without the pope to protestant but when edward died six years later his sister mary became queen she was a very religious woman she married her catholic cousin philip ii the king of spain and burnt protestants to death five years later she died and anne boleyn's daughter elizabeth who had been in prison became queen [Music] people wondered if elizabeth would marry a foreign king or prince like her sister he would probably be a catholic or would she marry the man that she loved the earl of leicester who was a protestant nobody imagined that a woman could govern the country alone in fact she never married but was queen of england for nearly 50 years religion mattered less to elizabeth than politics english people were worried that the wars between different members of the royal family would return elizabeth wanted peace she expected everyone to go to church on sundays but she did not mind if they were still catholics at home by 1579 when william shakespeare left school things had changed catholics had rebelled against the queen they aimed to make her cousin mary queen of scots queen mary had lost her throne and was in prison in england england was not yet at war with spain but elizabeth supported men like francis drake who attacked spanish ships carrying gold from america shakespeare's mother's family the ardens were catholics a document was found in the roof of his birthplace many years after his death which suggests that john shakespeare was privately a catholic too elizabeth did not execute catholics for their religion only if they were politically dangerous but it is easy for people in a small town to invent stories about their neighbors perhaps john shakespeare stayed away from council meetings because he was afraid that someone would ask him about his religion but he was a popular man his friends kept him on the council for ten years after he stopped going to the meetings it is unlikely that william thought of being an actor or of writing plays at this time the theater was not a profession for gentlemen actors were either employed by lords and rich men to entertain them and their guests or they traveled around the country performing plays if the council allowed it most councils refused permission actors did not earn their living just by acting either they were expected to dance and sing to tell jokes and perform tricks there was a great tradition of acting in england but the actors were not professionals in big cities groups still performed religious plays on corpus christi day every summer shakespeare saw them when he was young because coventry near stratford was the last city where they were performed but protestants did not celebrate corpus christi and the government thought that the plays kept the old religion alive they did not punish anyone for performing them they just asked for the playbooks to check that there was nothing in them against protestant beliefs and forgot to give them back later the books were usually destroyed at that time the professional theater was only just beginning and there were very few plays for actors to perform the first real theater in london opened in 1576 the owner and builder was james burbidge years later his son richard played the hero in all of shakespeare's greatest successes chapter 2 a wife and children we do not hear of shakespeare again until 1582 when he married anne hathaway but there is an interesting story about him that may explain what he did after leaving school john aubry writing about a hundred years later did not agree with ben johnson's report that shakespeare had small latin he says that shakespeare understood latin well because he had been a teacher in the country when he was young this story may be true because it was told by william beaston the son of one of the actors in shakespeare's theater company shakespeare was not a professional teacher but young men sometimes worked privately in rich men's houses teaching their families or servants there is a tradition in a family called horton in lancashire that shakespeare worked for them for two years the hortons were catholics and rich enough to have their own group of actors when alexander horton died in 1581 he left the actors clothes and musical instruments to his brother he asked him to employ two men who had lived with him or to help them find work and one of those men was called william shakeshaft it is unusual to speak of a servant living with a family and so it seems that these two men had special jobs shakeshaft and shakespeare mean the same thing and in those days people often confused names or copied them down wrongly we cannot prove that shakespeare taught in the horton house or that he had his first experience of theater there but it is interesting that the earls of derby were among the horton's neighbors and the families were friends when shakespeare joined his first theater company in london it was probably strangers the company's patron was lord ferdinando strange the earl of darby's son we do not know whether shakespeare went to lancashire or stayed at home to help his father with his business but in the summer of 1582 he was certainly in stratford then if not before he began to walk across the fields to the village of chottery to see anne hathaway shakespeare was only 18 and anne was 26 or 27 so some writers imagine that she tricked him into marrying her but shakespeare's sonnets about 150 short poems published in 1609 are our only guide to his private thoughts and feelings they tell a different story shakespeare and other elizabethan poets were fond of using words with two meanings or words that sounded similar in one of the sonnets he suggests anne's surname with the words hate away the poem is about a young man excited and in love and a girl who at first says no to him but then pities him and says that she loves him anne's father had died the year before leaving her some money for the day when she got married he had married twice and anne the oldest daughter of the first marriage had to help his second wife look after her four young children anne probably found the clever young man attractive and wanted to have her own children she had known shakespeare since he was a boy many years before john shakespeare had helped her father when mr hathaway could not pay his bills william shakespeare at this time was probably a young man in search of romantic experience in november when anne was expecting a baby the couple were given special permission to get married the next day shakespeare was under the age of 21 so he also needed his father's permission perhaps shakespeare's parents did not agree to the marriage until they were sure of anne's condition towards the end of may 1583 anne gave birth to a daughter susanna there is reason to believe that susanna was the person that shakespeare loved most and the member of his family who was most like him for the next two years at least the young couple lived with shakespeare's parents at the end of january 1585 they had twins a boy and a girl they called them hamnit and judith after their friends hamnet sadler the baker and his wife most elizabethan wives had children almost every year so it is a little surprising that shakespeare and anne had only three it is true that he was not often at home after he moved to london though he probably returned to stratford once a year it is also possible that anne could not have more children after she had twins in those days it was more difficult and dangerous to give birth than it is now during this time we suppose that shakespeare helped his father it was useful for a businessman to have a son who could read and write but it is unlikely that shakespeare wanted to spend the rest of his life in stratford making gloves we do not know when or why he left the town he probably went to london a year or two after the twins were born perhaps he carried with him a letter to lord strange's company of actors from friends in lancashire long after his death nicholas rowe who wrote the first life of shakespeare said that he had to leave stratford it was a punishment for hunting in a park that belonged to sir thomas lucy if the story is true shakespeare took his revenge in the merry wives of windsor a play that contains many memories of his childhood lucy was a judge in stratford and shallow the foolish country judge in the play may be like him chapter 3 the lost years no one has solved the mystery of the lost years in shakespeare's life the years between 1585 and 1592.

[00:18:01]we can only imagine what happened before we first hear of him as a dramatist the first person to write about shakespeare's plays criticized him robert greene a successful dramatist was dying in the autumn of 1592 his last work contains an angry personal attack on shakespeare we learn from it that shakespeare was an actor he had also certainly written three plays and probably as many as seven or eight he had therefore worked in the theater for a number of years and had started writing plays not long after he joined a theater company green attacks shakespeare for two reasons at that time plays were usually written by men like himself who had been to a university green wants to warn other dramatists of the danger to their profession if actors like shakespeare are allowed to write plays his more serious complaint is that shakespeare has copied their work he compares him to a bird that copies the sounds made by other birds it is unlikely that green really believed that shakespeare copied other writers speeches he was angry because he realized that shakespeare had borrowed their ideas and used those ideas to write better plays by 1592 shakespeare was already very successful and had succeeded with different kinds of play plays about english history comedies and a tragedy green complains that this young man thinks that he can do everything in the theater we can understand green's attitude better if we compare the theater in london in shakespeare's time to hollywood in the 1930s the situation was similar in many ways the actors were the stars everyone in london knew the name of edward allen the most famous actor at time but that were like the people who wrote the 1930s films their names did not appear outside the theater and the manager of the company often made them right in small teams to produce plays faster films in hollywood were written in this way when the cinema was the main form of popular entertainment when the writers sold their work to a theater company they lost control over it plays were not usually published because that allowed rival companies to perform them the company only published them if it needed money or if someone had produced a bad copy of one only half of shakespeare's 37 plays were printed in his lifetime it seems surprising that the world's greatest dramatist did not take more care of his work to understand that we must again make a comparison with hollywood until the 1950s the films of great directors like john ford or howard hawks were not accepted as art in the same way during the 25 years of shakespeare's life in the theater plays were not literature shakespeare probably accepted the general opinion he published his poems which in his opinion proved his ability as a writer his first plays show that he was still learning christopher marlowe who was the same age as shakespeare but had started earlier was a greater poet at this time and his plays had made edward alain a star thomas kidd had written the most exciting play of the 1580s the spanish tragedy people today think that shakespeare stood alone far above the other dramatists of his time but many of them wrote excellent plays that are still performed shakespeare's greatest strength was his willingness to try new ideas he remembered the latin comedies of plortus and terence and the tragedies of seneca that he had studied at school and copied them he studied the plays of his rivals and the changing fashions among the audience when he was the most successful dramatist in london he used the subjects of old plays that he had seen or acted in and produced something much better even his own tragedies and comedies are different from each other most dramatists repeat their successes shakespeare only seemed to write the same kind of play if he was not satisfied at first then he continued until he got it right the early plays are therefore very different from each other as shakespeare tried one form after another he wrote three plays about the wars in england in the 15th century and another play about english history there was a roman tragedy that is so violent that many people would like to believe he did not write it and he wrote three comedies a romantic comedy a comedy taken from plortus and one that uses familiar scenes from stratford the most interesting are the last two the comedy of errors and the taming of the shrew the first is the story of a man and his servant they were lost when they were babies and arrive in a town where each one has a twin brother with the same name it is one of the funniest plays that shakespeare wrote he makes clever use of all the possibilities for confusion antipholus of syracuse the recently arrived brother cannot understand why a strange woman adriama his brother's wife is angry with him when he falls in love with her sister luciana he is surprised that she is shocked and upset the taming of the shrew is often criticized today it seems to be about a man who marries a bad tempered girl and is cruel to her until she is willing to obey him the play is one of a number that modern audiences are unwilling to accept we should not be surprised that shakespeare did not always have the same view of life as we have since he died nearly 400 years ago but the real problem is often that the modern director does not understand the play and introduces his own ideas shakespeare did not usually give the elizabethan audience just what they expected either there were hundreds of stories about bad tempered women in europe but the taming of the shrew is not typical of them it tries to show that in a good marriage the two people are partners and work together as a team the wife does not always have to obey her husband as most of the audience believed chapter four plague poems and a patron when robert greene wrote his attack on shakespeare in 1592 the theaters were closed the plague had returned to london that summer and the future for a dramatist was uncertain who could say when the theaters would open again in fact they were closed all through the following year and by the spring of 1594 the actors were in serious trouble most writers at that time needed a patron a lord like lord ferdinando strange sometimes gave his name to a company of actors but poets were the only writers who could hope for support no help was given to dramatists so in the spring of 1593 shakespeare wrote a poem venus and adonis and published it with a letter to henry rosely earl of southampton we cannot be sure that he knew the earl at this time but it seems likely that they met and that southampton invited him to his country house in hampshire shakespeare's second long poem the rape of lucrece was published in the following year in it he says that his love for the earl is without end and promises that his past and future work is for his patron the relationship between shakespeare and southampton has been a cause of argument was the earl the handsome young man who appears in the sonnets in these poems the poet loves him but the young man takes a dark-haired woman from him we shall never know southampton was certainly handsome and people said that he had physical relationships with other men which was a crime in those days when shakespeare published venus and adonis southampton was only 20 years old the political connections are more important southampton was a close friend of the earl of essex a favorite of queen elizabeth and the leader of a political party essex continually criticized the government of lord burley who had been the queen's first minister since the beginning of her reign after 1594 shakespeare's theater company supported essex and they were very lucky to escape punishment when he was executed in 1601.

[00:28:44]southampton 2 was fortunate to be sent to prison instead of dying with him there are two reasons for believing that shakespeare spent time as a guest in southampton's house in 1593 first during that time he wrote a play called love's labour's lost he usually used stories by other people as a starting point but on three occasions in the 1590s the story was the product of his own imagination these plays were written for special occasions though they were all performed in the public theater later loves labour's lost is full of the kind of romantic language that lords and ladies like to hear but there are also a few political jokes and characters who make fun of other writers the story begins with the real meeting some years before between the protestant king of navarre by 1593 henry iv king of france and the princess of france the king's followers in the play byron and longville have the names of the lords who were with him when the earl of essex met henry in france in 1591.

[00:30:05]it seems likely that the play was written for a private performance at southampton's house while the theaters were closed because of the plague after queen elizabeth's death in 1603 king james the first freed southampton from prison and he soon became the favorite dancing partner of the new queen anna of denmark in the winter of 1604-5 shakespeare's company performed at court 11 times southampton probably chose the plays eight of them by shakespeare most of them were his more recent successes but among them was love's labour's lost it seems a strange choice unless southampton was celebrating his good luck and remembered its first performance in happier times many years earlier even if shakespeare spent some time in southampton's house in 1593-4 the young lord could not give him much help he had annoyed lord burley by refusing to marry his granddaughter and had spent most of his money it seems that southampton continued to think well of shakespeare but shakespeare had to return to the theater to earn his living the future of the theater in england in the spring of 1594 was very uncertain marlow was dead according to the official report he had an argument with another man over a bill in a pub and was killed but the man was not punished the other man was a government spy and marlow had also worked as a spy modern writers suggest that marlow was killed because he liked to shock people and knew too many of the government's secrets on the 16th of april 1594 lord ferdinando strange died suddenly he had been the patron of the company that shakespeare had probably joined when he came to london people said that the government had poisoned strange because some catholics wanted him to be king his company had divided in two in 1591 when edward alain had had an argument with james burbidge alain and some other actors had left burbage's theater taking some of the play books with them and had joined a rival theater owner philip henslow lord strange had continued to be the patron of this group while the theaters were closed alain had married henslow's daughter shakespeare probably stayed with the burbidge family at first and for a time the earl of pembroke was their patron in 1593 during the time of the plague the two companies went on tours of the country the pembrokes tour was a disaster and the actors lost everything shakespeare was not with them perhaps because he was staying with the earl of southampton it seemed that the theater in london would come to an end because there was no one to support it then the government saved it it was fortunate for elizabethan actors and for us that the queen was very fond of plays every year she liked to see performances at court at christmas time the city council often asked the government to close the theaters but they were always told that they had to keep them open the actors needed to practice before performing in front of the queen the government formed two new companies and each had a patron one company acting at henslow's theater was led by edward allen shakespeare returned to the other company at burbage's theater the leading actor there was burbidge's son richard and its patron was lord hunsden lord hunsden was the queen's cousin and an important man at court he was an old man but was a good friend to the actors shakespeare chose wisely when he joined burbidge burbidge like henslow often cheated the actors but his son richard was shakespeare's friend when his father died shakespeare became one of the partners in the company shakespeare wrote for the actors that he knew and his plays are the result of working as part of a team so it is important for us that burbidge was a more interesting actor than alain and spent his whole life in the theater alain left the stage in 1597 and grew rich as henslow's partner burbidge was still acting in the year of his death three years after shakespeare in 1619 alain and burbidge was similar to the two leading actors in shakespeare's plays in england in the 20th century john gielgud and lawrence olivier alain like gilgood had a beautiful voice he was at his best in the long speeches that marlow wrote for him they were fine words but did not demand much movement burbidge like olivier was more active on the stage and could play many different parts we do not know if shakespeare had written richard iii before the theaters closed he had already invented the character of this wonderful villain in the last part of his history play henry vi it was the perfect part for burbidge as it was hundreds of years later for lawrence olivier as usual shakespeare had copied another writer and improved his work richard is like the jew of malta in marlow's play of that name but shakespeare's play is better the audience watch half shocked and half amused as the villain comes to the front of the stage in the elizabethan theater he was in the middle of them and tells them his plans then they watch half shocked and half excited to see if he will succeed chapter five great success and a personal tragedy in the next four years between 1594 and 1598 shakespeare wrote eight plays and became the leading dramatist of his time the first three richard ii romeo and juliet and a midsummer night's dream showed that the years of writing poems were still very much in his mind two are tragedies and the third is a comedy specially written for the wedding of lord hansdon's granddaughter in 1596 but all three are still loved above all for the beauty of the language while lawrence olivier's best part was richard iii john gilgoods was richard ii even in these plays we can see how shakespeare's skill in the theater was growing in romeo and juliet the scenes between the lovers are full of beautiful speeches but shakespeare also included the practical words of the nurse who came straight from his stratfor childhood and the rather different ways of speaking of mercutio and capulet juliet's father he was beginning to give each character a personal voice a midsummer night's dream is perhaps the loveliest play that shakespeare wrote shakespeare invented three stories and put them together cleverly as the perfect entertainment for a wedding one is about young lovers as usual unwilling to obey their parents wishes another is about the fairy king and queen who use their magic power to confuse the lovers the third is about a group of actors who are going to perform a play for the wedding of theseus the duke of athens and hippolyta professional actors enjoy making fun of ordinary people trying to act a midsummer night's dream contains a number of jokes about shakespeare and his friends the actors in the play perform a tragedy about two young lovers like shakespeare's last play romeo and juliet but their performance is full of comic mistakes the leading actor bottom is like many stars in the theater he wants to play all the parts himself in a midsummer night's dream though for the first time shakespeare suggests that he was beginning to think of plays as art his character theseus says that poets are like mad people they imagine things that are not real but hippolyta answers that the audience have seen a dream which has the power to stay in the mind afterwards we can recognize that something is true more easily in art than in real life at one time it was thought that shakespeare planned to write a group of four plays about english history in the early 15th century but the plays are very different from each other so it seems that he wrote them one by one richard ii is the tragedy of a man with little political ability who becomes king his cousin bollingbrook rebelled against him and became king in his place as henry iv soon afterwards richard was murdered in prison and henry's supporters in the north the percy family rebelled against him in 1596 shakespeare had a good reason for writing a play on this subject the percy family were catholics and many years earlier the company's patron lord hansdon had fought against them and beaten them when they had rebelled against his cousin the queen when they watched richard ii the audience was sure to think of the queen and her cousin many people in the audience also remembered two plays about the reigns of henry iv and henry v that had been very popular a few years before these plays were really both about henry v the greatest english war leader in history at that time he had got into trouble as a young man because he had a friend called sir john old castle and they behaved badly when he became king he changed completely and was remembered afterwards as a hero at first shakespeare planned to write two plays like this one about henry v while he was still a prince the other about him as king but when he invented the character of the prince's friend old castle he saw that it was the perfect part for one of the stars of his company the comic actor will kemp as in many other plays he used two similar stories for comparison here one is serious and one is comic the relationship between the prince and old castle tells us something about the relationship between the prince and his father but because the two stories are both very interesting shakespeare realized that he had too much to say for one play so he divided the first play called henry iv in two this was not the end of the matter henry iv part 1 was acted with great success but soon afterwards lord hunsden died and lord cobham took his place at the royal court lord cobham belonged to the old castle family he complained that the company were making fun of old castle so shakespeare had to change the name this is why one of his most famous characters is called falstaff there is a story that queen elizabeth enjoyed the play so much that she wanted to see a play about falstaff in love lord cobham died in march and lord hunstan's son took his position he was going to join the queen for a celebration at windsor that summer shakespeare had started writing henry iv part two but he had to stop and write a special entertainment the merry wives of windsor it is said that he wrote it in two weeks the play is very funny and has a lot of characters with amusing accents one of them is a welsh teacher who is annoyed with a little boy called william in a latin lesson here shakespeare was remembering his childhood as usual he used the experience to improve his next play henry iv part 2 is not really a history play falstaff and his men appear in most of the scenes which clearly take place in the england of shakespeare's own time the play suggests that the great days of the past have ended many people felt like that towards the end of the great queen's reign full staff in this play is not so amusing he is old and tired and cheats simple country people like the judge shallow while he is waiting for the prince to become king then he hopes that he will be a favorite at court but at the end of the play the new king henry v gives him money but says that he must stay away from him falstaff is the first of shakespeare's characters who is so interesting on the stage that he has a life outside the theater people have heard of him before they see or read the play this situation began 200 years ago when it became the custom to talk about characters in plays as real people and so today we may see henry iv part 2 performed with the prince as a kind of villain the director thinks that the audience will feel more sorry for full staff and blame the prince for what happens to him the same custom is the reason why the villain in the merchant of venice is often changed into a man who is unfairly punished and hamlet becomes a sad dreamer who cannot make up his mind although shakespeare understood life better than most of his audience he belonged to his own time we cannot always expect him to think in the same way as we do the merchant of venice is a typical example of this modern audiences feel guilty if they see a jew as a villain because of the suffering of the jewish people under hitler but in 1597 there were very few jewish people in london and they were not popular because most people thought that they had killed jesus christ shakespeare wrote this play because the rival company had had a great success the year before with new performances of marlows the jew of malta written a few years earlier barabbas the jew in marlow's play is a villain like richard iii with a cruel sense of humor burbidge probably asked shakespeare to write a part for him as good as that shakespeare found an italian story about a businessman in venice who borrowed money from a jew to help his nephew the young man hoped to marry a rich woman the businessman signed a document which allowed the jew to cut him with a knife if he did not pay on time there was nothing in the story about revenge in shakespeare's play porsche the rich woman becomes a beautiful young girl in love with the nephew bassanio antonio the businessman is bisanio's friend not his uncle shylock's behavior is in the old religious tradition of revenge an eye for an eye while porsha argues for christian mercy and forgiveness but in the great trial scene she has to win according to the law the document allows to cut antonio with his knife and he chooses to do this near antonio's heart but it does not say anything about blood loses because antonio must not lose a drop of blood when he cuts him but is not the devil with red hair that elizabethan audiences expected he is given a great speech to prove that jews are human like christians not devils shakespeare's understanding of people of all kinds allows him to make a real character and explain his behavior but this does not make him right he uses the speech as an excuse for taking his revenge during this busy time in the theater there was tragedy at home in stratford shakespeare's only son hamnet died in august 1596 at the age of 11.

[00:49:56]we do not know how shakespeare felt but it surely affected his view of life two months after that he was given a coat of arms which was the sign of a gentleman his father had asked for one a long time before when he was the leader of the council in stratford john shakespeare was probably pleased but william made a joke about it in the merry wives of windsor it would not now belong to his family after his own death though because he had no son to follow him we do not know anything about shakespeare's private life in london stories about him suggest that he lived quietly and did not go out with other actors drinking and looking for women but the more powerful sonnets were probably written at this time and they suggest that at times he felt guilty one of the greatest of them sonnet 129 is about sex all men know he says that sex without love seems attractive but afterwards they are ashamed of it but although they know this they cannot stop themselves doing it shakespeare's success in the theater had made him rich his son was dead but he now had even more reason to take care of his wife and daughters early in 1597 he bought new place the second largest house in stratford anne and their daughters moved there later in the year while his parents stayed at the house where shakespeare was born chapter 6 the globe theater during 1598 shakespeare wrote another comedy that is still popular today much ado about nothing as usual he used two stories for a comparison he took one couple claudio and hiro from an italian story they have traditional ideas of love and arranged marriage he invented the other couple beatrice and benedick they learn that real love is the product of what he calls in one of his summits the marriage of true minds the character of the comic town policeman dogberry comes from his stratfor childhood everything seemed to be going well for the company james burbidge was dead and the company now belonged to his sons richard and cuthbert but in the cold winter of 1598 they had problems the theater stood inside the city of london and the owner of the land refused to let them continue there they had to perform a number of times at court at christmas time and for a month or two they acted in another smaller building then the brothers reached a brave decision between their performances at court they took the whole wooden theater in pieces across the river to some land outside the city in the spring they built a new theater and called it the globe the burbidges needed money and so they invited the five leading members of the company to join them from this time shakespeare was a partner in the theatre for the new theater shakespeare wrote three plays he finished henry v to complete the story of the prince and he also produced a comedy as you like it and a tragedy julius caesar laurence olivier made a great film of henry v at the end of the second world war he was able to show the scenes of fighting in colour in the film realized how difficult it would be to do this on the stage so he wrote speeches which he probably spoke himself asking the audience to use their imagination in an elizabethan theater they always had to do this the theater was outdoors and some of the audience stood around the stage in the open air people could pay more money for seats at the sides if they wanted to be seen not to see the play they could pay to sit on the stage itself there were only two entrances both at the back of the stage but there was a special door in the floor where characters like ghosts and devils could suddenly appear but although the actors had some simple pieces of furniture the audience had to imagine where the scene was taking place the dramatist also had to remember that the actors would not always perform in a theater they often performed at court if there was plague in the city and they had to go on tour they had to act in any building that they could find unlike most other dramatists shakespeare acted in the plays himself this was a great advantage while he was writing he imagined where the actors would be his plays are full of lines that tell the audience what is happening and show the actors what to do the main story of his beautiful comedy as you like it comes from a popular book by thomas lodge early in the play the heroine rosalind and her cousin celia go to the forest to look for rosalind's father perhaps the actors put up two or three trees on the stage but the audience knew that the girls had arrived when rosalind said well this is the forest of arden in the same way shakespeare told the audience when characters were coming on the stage or going off he gave them a picture of the scene and told them the time plays at the globe were acted in the afternoon but the first scene of hamlet begins at midnight and ends as horatio describes the sun coming up over a hill in the east although it may seem that the audience had to use their imagination all the time elizabethan theaters had one great advantage when compared with most theaters today the stage area was much bigger and the actors could stand in the middle of the audience it was easier for a character like richard iii or hamlet to make the audience believe that the other actors on the stage could not hear him he was much nearer to the audience than to them in the second scene of hamlet at least 10 actors came onto the stage they placed thrones for the king and queen and stood near them while claudius made a long political speech everyone was dressed in bright colors to celebrate the wedding of claudius and gertrude except hamlet who was dressed in black he stood at the front of the stage as far from the king and queen as possible and told the audience what he thought of them the globe immediately became the most popular theatre in london in september 1599 a swiss visitor thomas platter saw a performance of julius caesar there his diary gives us an idea of what an elizabethan performance was like even after a tragedy the actors danced i saw the tragedy of julius caesar with at least 15 characters very well acted at the end they danced according to their custom [Music] chapter 7 hamlet the last comedy and a lucky escape hamlet is probably shakespeare's greatest play it is certainly the most famous but today's hamlets are usually very different from each other and from the one that shakespeare wrote about in hundred goethe began this fashion two hundred years ago he said that hamlet was a gentle young man unable to obey his father's command that he must revenge his murder after that it was easy to imagine that he was a man who could not make up his mind but to some modern writers hamlet is cruel and violent and not really the hero others have suggested that hamlet's relationship with his mother is the most important point in the play it is also often difficult today to know whether the actor thinks that hamlet is really mad or is only pretending to be shakespeare had seen a play about hamlet when he first came to london probably written by thomas kidd we only know that kids play had a ghost who called for revenge but there was probably a scene like the one where the actors act the murder of hamlet's father proving that claudius is guilty kid had a scene like this in the spanish tragedy shakespeare had also read the story in a translation from the french and had studied a medical book he had to show the difference between someone who really goes mad like ophelia and someone like hamlet who has suffered a shock but at times pretends to be mad to trick his enemies here are a few short answers to the problems that modern directors have with hamlet officially protestants like hamlet's friend horatio did not believe in ghosts for religious reasons so when the ghost first appears horatio is sure that it is the devil hamlet thinks that it may be the devil so he has to wait until he can prove that the king is guilty before taking his revenge he sees his opportunity halfway through the play when he asks the actors to perform a play with a scene like his father's murder but even then only he and horatio understand why the king is shocked if they have not read the story the audience do not know if the ghost is the devil either until just before that scene after that hamlet acts immediately but by mistake kills the minister polonius ophelia's father instead of the king he does not have another opportunity until the end of the play polonius's death is the cause of the tragedy ophelia goes mad and her brother laertes when he returns from france is in the same situation as hamlet the king blames hamlet and laertes wants revenge he is more typical of an elizabethan gentleman than hamlet he does not stop to find out if the king's story is true he says that he will cut hamlet's throat in the church the elizabethan audience shared hamlet's view of his mother's marriage to his uncle for them this was the same as a man marrying his sister so when the king pretending that he is hamlet's friend calls him my cousin relative and my son hamlet turns away from him he tells the audience that the king is closer than a relative but less than natural elizabethan audiences were never in doubt about hamlet's madness shakespeare used different forms of language for his speeches these showed clearly when he was shocked by his father's death and his mother's marriage and when he was pretending most audiences admire hamlet but it is true that he changes during the play we admire the hamlet that we see at the end then he speaks calmly to horatio saying that the opportunity to revenge his father will come in time and he will be ready we should also recognize that the tradition in revenge plays is similar to the tradition in a western film the villain had to be the cause of his own death in the same way the bad man in a western always reaches for his gum first before the hero shoots him if the hero shot first we would not like it shakespeare gives us his idea of hamlet in the words of ophelia when she thinks that he is mad she speaks of him as he was before the play began and as he is again at the end he is the perfect elizabethan prince a man who knows how to behave in society who reads books to increase his knowledge of the world and who will fight bravely when this is necessary at this time shakespeare also wrote twelfth night his last romantic comedy it is a fine play with wonderfully funny scenes and beautiful romantic speeches but there is a kind of sadness about it that lasts even after the happy ending orsino the hero is in love with the idea of love but viola the heroine is really in love she acts as orsino's servant for most of the play dressed as a boy in the end we feel that he does not really deserve her at the end of twelfth night feste one of the main comic characters in the play sings a song will kemp had left the company and a different actor robert armin who could sing well had taken his place shakespeare wrote the comic parts in his plays to suit him the meaning of feste's song is not clear but it may be about an actor's life it is a hard life the wind blows and the rain falls every day when feste sings about men shutting their gates against thieves we remember that councils disliked actors and wanted to shut them out but at the end of the song feste tells the audience that they will try to please them every day john manningham a law student kept a diary law students in london were fond of plays and could afford to pay the actors to put on special performances for them manningham saw twelfth night in february and the next month he wrote down a story that he had heard about burbidge and shakespeare burbidge had seen a good-looking woman in the audience and arranged to meet her but shakespeare had heard the conversation and when burbidge knocked on her door shakespeare was already making love to her her servant gave burbidge a message from shakespeare saying william the first the first king of england came before richard iii burbidge's most famous part the story is almost certainly not true it is the kind of joke that students invent about famous people but it shows that by this time they thought of burbidge and shakespeare as stars although shakespeare did not act the hero or the villain in his plays people knew that he was one of the main reasons for his company's success students at cambridge university had written a comedy about actors a year or two before this and in that play the characters were burbage kemp and shakespeare between writing hamlet and twelfth night shakespeare had had a lucky escape his company had always supported the earl of essex who was popular with the ordinary people and the earl of southampton was essex's closest friend essex had been a favorite at court for many years although he had annoyed the queen and the government on several occasions they gave him the command of the army when the irish rebelled in 1599 shakespeare included a speech in henry v comparing him to the hero of that play but essex failed he was ordered to stay at home and keep away from the court early in february 1601 one of his friends asked shakespeare's company to perform richard ii a play in which the king loses the throne essex and his friends wanted to see it before they rode to the queen's palace the actors agreed but the next day essex failed to get any popular support he was sent to prison and executed a few days later southampton was lucky to escape with his life but stayed in prison until the queen died in 1603 augustine phillips one of the actors defended his friends at the trial he said that they had only acted richard ii because they were offered more money it is unlikely that the queen believed him she told one of the lords at court i am richard ii you know that don't you but she did not punish the actors or the man who had written the play perhaps she was so fond of plays that she did not want to lose the best actors in the country instead she warned them of the danger they were ordered to perform at court on the night before essex was executed troilus and cressida was the last play that shakespeare wrote during the old queen's reign it is a clever cruel play popular then and now with young people and was probably first performed for the law students in london the traditional characters hector and troilus have simple beliefs about love and war but in the real world shakespeare suggests neither love nor war is fair in the end people win by using force achilles murders hector and cressida accepts diomedes as her lover because she has never believed that love can last the play is typical of attitudes in the last year of the old queen's reign people looked back at the past sadly and were not confident about the future towards the end of 1601 john shakespeare died he had lived long enough to see his son become the most successful man in stratford he left his two houses to william joan william's sister lived in one with her husband and a man and his wife rented the other as a pub chapter 8 towards tragedy in february 1603 queen elizabeth died her nearest relative james king of scotland became king of england too shakespeare's company had reason to be pleased the earl of southampton came out of prison and soon became a favorite of the new king and queen james decided to take personal control of the theatre companies only two were allowed to operate shakespeare's company became the king's men the other company was called the queens shakespeare probably gave up acting at about this time he had never played the main parts according to later stories about him he had a fine voice and usually took serious parts kings dukes or old men in hamlet for example he played the ghost there was a practical reason for this shakespeare was the director of his own plays and the most difficult scenes are usually at the end when almost all the characters are on the stage he needed to be off the stage to organize the other actors so he usually played the part of a man who was dead or had disappeared before the end his next two plays all's well that ends well and measure for measure are not completely successful shakespeare was still using stories from popular sources but by this time his characters were too real to support the happy ending of a fairy story all's well that ends well does not end well the nasty young hero bertram who has refused to marry a girl from a lower social class does not deserve her measure for measure has some wonderful scenes but it annoys women today the heroine isabella refuses to sleep with the judge to save her brother's life but does not mind when another girl takes her place we cannot accept this kind of solution to a problem if the characters seem real but there was one advantage for shakespeare in using this story by an italian writer cynthia in the same book he found the story for his next play othello shakespeare wrote three tragedies between 1604 and 1606 othello king lear and macbeth if we compare them with his sources we can understand their meaning from the changes that he made each of these three plays is great but the characters the subject and the language are different as always he does not repeat his successes but moves on to something new like hamlet othello is often misunderstood because people already have an idea of him in their minds when they come to the theater they suppose that he is a typical jealous husband but this is the othello of cynthia's story not of shakespeare's play cynthia's characters do not have names and the moore and his wife are already married an officer who became iago in shakespeare's play makes the moore believe that his wife has slept with another officer who became cassio the moor and the officer murder her together there is a trial but neither of them is proved guilty afterwards the wife's relatives kill them or and the officer explains what really happened when he is in prison for another crime shakespeare knew that jealous husbands usually belong to comedy not tragedy but desdemona loves othello so much that she dies saying that she killed herself before he introduced cynthia's story almost halfway through the play shakespeare had to show othello as a great man and othello and desdemona as two people who are very much in love this love is destroyed by the lies of a clever man iago shakespeare's audience were probably surprised by the scenes that he added at the beginning black men were usually shown as devils on the stage not because people hated them in real life they had probably never seen a black person but because black was the devil's color but in this play the devil is white shakespeare's attitude becomes clear if we realize that at this time he was living with a family of french protestants the mount joys protestants had suffered for their religious beliefs in france but when some moved to england they were unpopular because they worked so hard just before he wrote othello shakespeare was asked to write some scenes for a play about sir thomas moore henry viii's minister who was executed because he did not agree to the king's marriage to ann berlin the play was never acted but we have a scene in shakespeare's own writing sir thomas asks a crowd of people in london who have been attacking foreigners how would you feel if you went to a foreign country like france and people did not accept you as human beings othello defends himself at the end of the play saying that he is not jealous by nature everyone in the play even emilia his wife believes that iago is the honest soldier that he pretends to be but shakespeare shows us why othello is tricked he loves his beautiful young wife but he has never really understood why she loves him she comes from one of the best families in venice but she has fallen in love with a black man a foreigner a man almost old enough to be her father although he is a great soldier and the venetians have given him command of their army a fellow has no experience of women in othello the love between husband and wife is destroyed the next play king lear is about parents and children there was an old play about king lear that we can compare with shakespeare's the story also appeared in histories of britain although there was no real king lear in all the sources lear was an old king with three daughters too bad and one good he decided to divide the country between them equally but he asked them to tell him which of them loved him most two daughters made long speeches saying how much they loved him but the third in shakespeare's play cordelia did not king lear was angry and sent her away but found that the older daughters were cruel to him when she had gone in shakespeare's play the two older daughters are married so they have to say that they love their father more than their husbands leah goes mad and in his madness discovers that he is not a king but only a man for comparison shakespeare also used another story by sir philip sydney about a man with one good son and one bad one and gave the father the name of gloucester finally in all the sources there is a happy ending gloucester dies happily in the arms of his good son this is the kind of ending that we can expect in stories but the ending of lear's story shows us a world where there is no god to save us from suffering in this world we can only believe in human love and this is not enough to save us from dying or even worse to save the lives of the people that we love leah comes onto the stage at the end of the play carrying the dead body of cordelia in his arms we realize then that it does not matter who is king or queen or who has political power in the country leah's best loved child is dead and he can do nothing to change that at such moments most dramatists of shakespeare's time wrote long speeches for the actor but shakespeare always uses simple language in scenes like these he wanted to make sure that everyone in the audience understood what was happening and so king lear before he dies of a broken heart says that he will never see his daughter again never never never never never perhaps in this play shakespeare showed how he felt about the death of his only son the patron of shakespeare's company was now a scottish king and so macbeth the third great tragedy was probably written to please him the story is taken from a history of scotland and james the first believed that he belonged to the family of one of the characters banquo when shakespeare began to write about a hero who becomes a villain he was probably thinking of the lucky escape that james had had on the 5th of november 1605.

[01:22:38]some catholics tried to kill him with an explosion under the houses of parliament the earl of southampton and the brothers of two of shakespeare's friends were there the date is still celebrated in britain every year as guy fawkes day when shakespeare began writing plays characters alone on the stage spoke to the audience mainly to tell them what was going to happen but by the time he wrote macbeth he could show the hero's mind working before and after macbeth murders the king we hear him thinking about his actions in this way we can see how he realizes that one crime leads to another he never feels guilty about anything that he has done but we are unable to look away from the stage because of the power and beauty of the language shakespeare's speeches in his greatest plays suit the character who is speaking and come naturally from what is happening on the stage in plays like macbeth we remember the lines because of the pictures that shakespeare paints in our minds halfway through the play macbeth decides to kill the wife and children of his enemy macduff why not he asks himself he imagines that he is halfway across a river of blood it is so deep that he would feel as tired if he went back as if he crossed over to the other side he does not feel guilty by now another crime is just something that makes him tired not something that he is sorry for macbeth and the later tragedies show that shakespeare like other elizabethan dramatists thought that tragedy simply meant the fall of a great man the man did not need to be good most audiences admire hamlet and feel sorry for othello and king lear but macbeth is a villain shakespeare's opinion of him and of all political leaders like him is clear from the words that he puts into macbeth's own mouth at the end macbeth realizes that after all his crimes he has none of the things that people look forward to when they grow old love friends the knowledge that people admire them the people around him only obey him because they are afraid chapter 9 romans greeks and a wedding shakespeare returned to roman history for the subjects of his next three plays julius caesar had been successful a few years earlier so the company probably thought that it would be a good idea to continue the story shakespeare's source for that play had been the greek historian plutarch who wrote in the second century there was a very good translation of his work in english which shakespeare used so towards the end of 1606 or early in 1607 he wrote the first of these plays anthony and cleopatra in shakespeare's time people thought that the romans were the most important people who had ever lived latin was not needed in protestant churches but boys still studied it at school so they could read roman literature the work of writers like plutarch helped them form their ideas about society and politics above all they were interested in the lives of great men like julius caesar and mark anthony shakespeare followed his source more closely than in other plays but he did not always share plutarch's opinion of the characters and by this time he was able to turn the excellent translation into the form of language that was best for the subject for this reason the language of anthony and cleopatra a play about two of the most famous lovers in the history of the world is perhaps the finest and most romantic that he ever wrote cleopatra's wonderful speeches make it a very difficult part for an actress there were no actresses in the theater at that time so all the women's parts were played by boys it is hard to believe that a boy appeared as cleopatra but shakespeare always wrote with his company in mind in comedies like as you like it and twelfth night the story gave him the excuse to dress the heroine in boy's clothes for most of the play and so the boy could use his own voice but lady macbeth cleopatra and volumnia the heroes mother in coriolanus are much older women it seems likely that between 1606 and 1608 there was a boy in the company with the ability to play such parts shakespeare shows that he is confident in the actors by reminding the audience that they are seeing a play when brutus and cassius have killed caesar in julius caesar cassius says that the scene of the murder will be acted in countries like england that do not yet exist and in languages like english that are not yet known in anthony and cleopatra shakespeare is even more daring cleopatra realizes after anthony's death that octavius will take her to rome and show her to the ordinary people actors she says will make fun of her and of anthony and she will see a boy with a high voice playing the part of cleopatra and making her a great queen look cheap some writers have imagined that when he wrote this shakespeare was apologizing to the audience it can be argued though that the opposite is true he was so sure of himself and the actors that at the most important moments in the play he was saying we are good enough to show you the greatest people who have ever lived today people have very different opinions about anthony and cleopatra romantics would like to give the play the title that john dryden gave his play about the lovers some years later all for love or the world well lost others see it as mainly political like plutarch who said that antony's relationship with cleopatra destroyed him this second group cannot understand why shakespeare allows cleopatra to compare anthony to octavius his rival for power in rome at the end of the play and to say that octavius's success means nothing shakespeare is suggesting that greatness is a personal quality that anthony had and octavius will never have shakespeare does not take sides in the argument he knew from his own experience that in politics the cool head of a man like octavius will always beat the warm generous heart of a man like anthony he had seen this happen when lord burley's son cecil was too clever for the more popular earl of essex the play is really about being a star for shakespeare and his audience stars were not as they are today actors pop singers and footballers they were people with power kings and queens lords and ladies it is interesting that when anthony believes that cleopatra is dead and decides to kill himself he imagines that the two of them will meet again after death he is not looking forward to making love forever it is important for him that the other great lovers in history will recognize them as the greatest of all in the same way cleopatra kills herself at the end of the play because this proves that she is a queen she will not let any ordinary person have the opportunity to destroy her we do not feel sorry for anthony and cleopatra at the end of the play as we do when young lovers like romeo and juliet die we can only admire them because the truly great are beyond pity after this shakespeare probably worked on another story from plutarch timon of athens the play seems unfinished and there is no report of a performance in his lifetime in the story of tyman the greek general alcibiades appears in the war between athens and sparta alcibiades was driven out of athens and in revenge led a spartan army against it but when shakespeare decided to write a play about a man like that he chose a similar story about a roman choriolanes instead choreolanos is shakespeare's most political play in it he compares the attitudes of different social classes and so most readers today understand it according to their own political beliefs this is a mistake because society has changed so much since shakespeare's time and had already changed when he wrote the play in comparison with the rome of his source when rome was still a small city state fighting against its neighbors it needed a special group of professional soldiers in time of war they were similar to the men in films about japanese history like the seven samurai in the play choreolanos is the bravest of them at the end of a war men like these were often chosen to govern the city in peacetime coriolanus is proud and has no political skill the ordinary people's leaders attack him they do not need him now and he is not willing to tell lies to get their votes in his opinion only people from his own class who have fought for the city should have the right to vote none of the characters in coriolenus is admirable shakespeare gives the people a better reason for disliking correlanus than plutarch did but shows that they are easily tricked in all his plays ordinary people are generally kind and sensible but when they form a crowd they stop thinking and become violent in some ways corey elena's himself is like anthony and tymon they are all men who do not obey the customs of their society and in the end are destroyed for this reason we can only guess shakespeare's own political views but they were probably the same as the views of the parliamentary leaders who rebelled against the king 40 years later and executed him in 1649 unlike the king they believed that the people should have the right to choose their leaders but they also believed that only property owners should vote because other people had nothing to lose shakespeare who owned quite a lot of property almost certainly agreed during this time there were two important events in shakespeare's private life in june 1607 his older daughter susanna married dr john hall susanna was now 24 and her husband was 32.

[01:35:33]hall had studied at cambridge university and moved to stratford a few years earlier he became well known in the medical profession using plants to cure his patients he was a serious man and almost certainly the most intelligent in stratford except for shakespeare himself it is clear that shakespeare liked him and was pleased that his favorite daughter had found such a good husband from this time the main subject of his plays is the relationship between parents and children especially between fathers and daughters shakespeare was probably serious about his responsibilities as a father and was probably a better father than he was a husband or son some writers have suggested that when he invented powerful female characters like volumnia corey elena's mother he was thinking of his own mother mary arden she died in september 1608 perhaps he waited until after her death before publishing his sonnets the following year because he was unwilling to let her know the details of his private life chapter 10 return to stratford many years earlier in 1596 james burbidge had rented a hall in london although the actors continued to act at the globe theatre they preferred to work indoors shakespeare was again one of the partners when they opened the black friars theater in 1608 the other great advantage of a second theater for the company was that in future they could act in london in winter as well as in summer until then they had only acted at court at christmas time or in special performances for the law students at this time a new kind of play was coming into fashion the rival company to shakespeare's had performed an old play called muchidorus with great success in 1607.

[01:37:57]two years later two young dramatists francis beaumont and john fletcher wrote philasta a play that fletcher described as mixing tragedy and comedy these plays were taken from popular stories like shakespeare's romantic comedies but the stories were more serious at first they began like a tragedy but had a happy ending shakespeare as always noticed changes in fashion early in 1608 he worked on a play called pericles he never wrote anything as bad as the scenes at the beginning but suddenly almost halfway through the style changes the rest of the play is typical of shakespeare at this time it seems that a man called george wilkins wrote the early scenes and shakespeare finished the play it was not included in his collected works in 1623 so it is clear that his friends who acted with him knew that he had not written all of it in pericles the hero is separated from his wife and daughter he believes that they are dead but meets them again their meeting is one of shakespeare's finest scenes but the play is difficult because the first half is so different from the second shakespeare's next play of this type cymbeline is also rather confused he was probably not completely satisfied with it and as usual when he had not succeeded he returned to the same subject in the third play the winter's tale written in 1610 he manages to solve the problem of a play that begins like a tragedy but has a happy ending the title of this play means a fairy story the kind of story that people tell in winter to pass the time the play is about forgiveness for the past and there are a number of things in it that seem to be connected with shakespeare's own life the source is an old story by robert greene the man who had attacked shakespeare when he first succeeded as a dramatist greene's story ends sadly but shakespeare changed the ending to write the kind of play that beaumont and fletcher had described leontes the king of sicily has always been friendly with the king of bohemia polixenese leontes is shakespeare's idea of a jealous man a fellow only becomes jealous when iago tricks him but leontes imagines a relationship between his wife hermione and polythenes for no reason after polixenes has been staying at his court for some time leontes suddenly decides that hermione's unborn child is polixenese's not his polygamy's escapes but when the baby girl is born leontes orders one of his lords antigonus to take it to another country and leave it for wild animals to eat he puts hermione on trial acting as the judge himself and says that she is guilty he has sent two men to ask the god apollo for advice but he does not wait for them to return when they do they bring the message that hermione is innocent at this point another messenger comes in to say that the young prince mamilius has died afraid of what will happen to his mother hermione falls to the ground and is carried out of the court paulina antigonus's wife comes back to tell leontes that she is dead too we see antigonus with the baby in bohemia polixenesis country and there is an amusing moment when an animal comes on the stage and antigonus runs away an old man finds the baby and tells the audience that the animal has eaten antigonus before the next scene an actor tells the audience that 16 years have passed the baby has grown up into a beautiful young girl called perdita which means lost and the young prince polixenese's son is in love with her his father is very angry but the young couple escape to sicily there leontes helps them and in the end the old man brings some letters that he kept these prove that she is leontes's daughter the young couple are married and finally we learn that hermione did not die paulina looked after her so leontes finds his wife and daughter again after many years when he wrote this play shakespeare was living in stratford again for most of the year if it tells us something about his own life we may suppose that he became jealous of his wife while he was absent in london many years earlier but susanna's marriage to dr hall had helped him to discover happiness again with his family we cannot prove that this is true but it is interesting that at the end of the winter's tale when everyone is happy no one says anything about the young prince mamilius in the play he died 16 years earlier almost the same length of time in 1610 since the death of shakespeare's own son hamnet chapter 11 last years shakespeare still belonged to the king's men and in 1611 he wrote the last play that is completely his own work the tempest it is another play about forgiveness and as in the winter's tale the happy ending is produced by a marriage between the children of two men who are enemies in this play shakespeare found a different solution to the problem of time passing instead of having a break of 16 years in the middle of the play prospero the main character explains to his daughter miranda how they arrived on the island where they live prospero was the duke of milan but when miranda was a baby his brother antonio with the help of the king of naples rebelled against him prospero was put into a boat with the baby and came to the island but he brought his books with him and as a result of studying them he now has magic power before this scene we have seen all his enemies on a ship in a storm prospero says that he caused the storm because he wanted to bring them to the island the play is complicated for many people today for two reasons first prospero has a servant caliban who is half human and lived on the island before he arrived prospero was kind to him until he attacked miranda second shakespeare invented this story himself but included details from a report of a voyage to america by a man called strategy at that time the english were trying to build a town in virginia some modern directors see prospero as the villain not the hero connecting caliban with native americans but shakespeare's island as the character's name suggest is in the mediterranean not far from italy and the subject of the play is forgiveness many writers have imagined that prospero is shakespeare himself towards the end of the play he makes a speech forgiving his enemies and promising not to use magic again this was the last play that shakespeare wrote by himself he had used the magic of words for many years but perhaps he had now decided like prospero to return to his family there his strength as prospero says would be his own this may be partly true but shakespeare took prospero's speech about magic from a speech made by madea in his favorite latin poem ovid's metamorphoses in fact he continued to write for two more years with the help of john fletcher who took his place as the main dramatist for the king's men only one of these plays henry viii appears in his collected works shakespeare was still a partner in the company but in 1613 the globe theater burned down during a performance of henry viii and after that it seems that he ended his connection with them shakespeare lived quietly in stratford until 1616 but in march of that year he became ill he died a month later on the 23rd of april just after his 52nd birthday there has been a lot of discussion about his will especially because he only left his wife the second best bed it seems that he first made his will in january 1616 but did not sign it at that time and changed it when he realized that he was dying in that time he had a very worrying experience his second daughter judith who was then 31 married a man called thomas quinney on the 10th of february shakespeare's family had known the queenie family for many years but a month later another woman margaret wheeler died giving birth to a child and quinny was named as the father when he signed his will on the 25th of march shakespeare clearly thought about this he left almost everything to his older daughter susanna she and her husband dr hall were given responsibility for the will he was probably afraid that his wife's relatives the hathaway family would come to her for money and judith's husband quinny was clearly not a good man he did not leave the second best bed to anne as an insult to his wife but as a memory of their marriage it was the bed that they slept in they kept the best bed for guests chapter 12 not of an age but for all time shakespeare remembered a number of his friends with small gifts in his will but only three of them were members of his company the great actor richard burbidge john hemmings and henry condell burbidge died in 1619 the other two are the men who made it possible for us to see and read shakespeare's plays today at that time few people thought of plays as literature when ben johnson published his collected works in 1616 the year of shakespeare's death people made a joke about it they said that johnson did not know the difference between work and play so hemmings and condole did not expect to make much money from publishing shakespeare's plays in the same way they did it as a duty in memory of their friend 18 of shakespeare's 37 plays appeared for the first time in the collected works published in 1623 they included some of his finest tragedies and comedies macbeth anthony and cleopatra as you like it and twelfth night ben johnson often criticized shakespeare's work in private conversations he was a great dramatist himself but he wrote a different kind of play but for hemings and condole's complete works he wrote a fine poem about his friend and rival he compared him to the best of the greek and roman dramatists and said that shakespeare was the greatest of them all he was not of an age but for all time he did not only belong to his own time his work will live forever all writers belong to the time when they live it is a mistake to imagine that shakespeare had the same views on religion or politics as we have no serious student accepts that and it is a pity that so many modern directors changed the meaning of his plays in performance to suit their own opinions so johnson was right that shakespeare was not only a man of his own time but he was also right in the sense that shakespeare's plays give pleasure to people at all times and help them to understand life better this is partly because the plays are full of exciting scenes and wonderful speeches and the characters are still real for us because they have a special way of speaking that suits them personally shakespeare was never satisfied with one form of play and so almost all of his plays contain something new and different he studied the successes of other dramatists and improved on them finally he was a great dramatist because he was an actor in some of his sonnets he seems ashamed of his profession he wanted to be known as a gentleman but his plays are great because he always imagined them on the stage while he was writing and he knew which actor was going to play each part but shakespeare's great ability in the theater is only part of the story king lear is a play that asks the question what is a man in this play lear realizes that titles like king or lord are not the things that matter in life he learns that ordinary people suffer in the same way as he does and that before everything else a man is a father son or husband shakespeare understood the minds of men and women and can help us to understand them because he was an actor and spent his life studying people and listening to them he could imagine the thoughts and emotions of all kinds of men and women he can make us believe that he knew what an old jewish person or a black soldier thought although he had probably never spoken to one he can show us the hopes and fears of an intelligent young girl or an egyptian queen although in his lifetime these parts were always acted by boys and so if you are fortunate enough to see a great shakespeare play well acted this is still the most wonderful experience that you can have in a theater