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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 2

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                                              WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE

            William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon in 1564,and died there in 1616.His father had a glove business, and became major of the town.When he was eighteen ,William married an older woman,Anne Hathaway,whom he had made pregnant.There is a record of him acting ,and writing plays in London in 1590;in 1592 the theatres closed for two years becase of plague,which would have left him and his family penniless,but his aristocratic patron supported him during his bad times,and bought him a share in the new Globe Theatre Company.Thus, eventually it acquired both pestige and commercial success.Shakespeare's family remained in Stratford,and then William bought a fire house there.He was an excellent actor and kind good friend:he had good friends too,especially Ben Jonson who undertook the task of publishing his collected works after his death.

           Shakespeare  is not the only greatest dramatist in the English language,but also the greatest poet.His 154 sonnets are love poetry,adressed to a man and to a woman.The woman of the sonnets,the "Dark Lady" though neither beautiful nor kind ,enslaved his soul!

           Shakespeare wrote 38 plays such as comedies ,history plays and tragedies.The comedies can have classical and contemporary sources.In the history plays,andin the tragedies he creates  out of traditional  stereotypes comic figures.The tragedies are generally regarded as Shakespeare's supreme achievement .Many of the main figures are kings and queens .Lastly ,for four hundred years his works have fascinated readers all over Here are some great achivements;

 

 SONNET
It is a form of poem originating in Italy ,developed by the Italian humanist Petrarch.
The sonnet must have 14 lines ,and a specific rhyme pattern .
Petrarchan Sonnet:"The Bard" It is a Platonic Love..
Rhyme Form:1 octave (abba,abba)+ 1 seslet (cddcdd,cdecde,cddcee)
Shakespearer Sonnet:       
 SONNET 18 BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and temperate:

 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

 

Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold  complexion dimm'd;

And every  fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance  or nature 's changing course untrimm'd;

 

But thy eternal summer shall  not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

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

When in eternal lines to come thou growest:

 

So long as men can breath or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

       Rhyme Form:3 Quatrains + 1 Couplet(abab,cdcd,efef,gg)

          Metre:Iambic (unstressed - stressed syllable  pairs)

 

     It is written in Eary Modern English.There is a rhetorical question in the begining of the poem.This poem makes the beauty immortal.In the poem,it says that  summer can have imperfection ,but his love can not..Metaphor is used (such as "eye of heaven","eternal summer").Personification,which means "an ontological metaphor in which a thing or abstraction is represented as a person",is also used in the poem.The product of a person's creativity lives the poem.The poem also reflects the idea of humanism.

FOR FURTHER READING

 

  • A SURVEY OF ENGLISH  LITERATURE IN ITS HISTORICAL CONTEXT BY RUTH  FLEISCHMANN

 

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