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Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
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Romeo and Juliet

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

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Read & Co. Classics presents this new beautiful edition of William Shakespeare's romantic tragedy, "Romeo and Juliet". Featuring a specially commissioned new biography of William Shakespeare, it is a must for Shakespeare enthusiasts and newcomers alike. “Romeo and Juliet” is set in the town of Verona, amidst the two feuding houses to which they each belong: Montague and Capulet. Two “star-crossed lovers” meet by chance, and, transcending the rift between their families, fall in love. Beauty and innocence collide with hate and violence. The families unite in sorrow. The play is highly renowned for its poetic use of dramatic structures, and marks Shakespeare’s talent for interspersing comedy and tragedy. First printed in 1597, it was one of the most popular plays during Shakespeare’s lifetime, and remains one of his best-known today. William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is considered to be the greatest writer in the English language and is celebrated as the world's most famous dramatist.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 17, 2015
ISBN9781473370487
Author

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is the world's greatest ever playwright. Born in 1564, he split his time between Stratford-upon-Avon and London, where he worked as a playwright, poet and actor. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway. Shakespeare died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two, leaving three children—Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. The rest is silence.

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Rating: 3.734417010800645 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Romeo and Juliet. William Shakespeare. Folger Shakespeare Library. 1992. As I said above, this was a book club selection. Cannot remember when I last read this play, but I loved reading it this time. How can I forget how much I love Shakespeare?!! After I read the play, I found a BBC Radio production with Kenneth Branagh playing Romeo and Judie Dench playing Nurse! I really enjoyed reading along as I listened and got more out of the play the second reading. I sort of wanted to listen to it again, but instead decided to watch Zeffierlli’s movie and am so glad I did. A great way to enjoy Shakespeare!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    O teach me how I should forget to think

    I was prepared to be underwhelmed by a jaded near fifty return to this plethora of love-anchored verse. It was quite the opposite, as I found myself steeled with philosophy "adversity's sweet milk" and my appreciation proved ever enhanced by the Bard's appraisal of the human condition. How adroit to have situated such between two warring tribes, under a merciful deity, an all-too-human church and the wayward agency of hormonal teens. Many complain of this being a classic Greek drama adapted to a contemporary milieu. There is also a disproportionate focus on the frantic pacing in the five acts. I can appreciate both concerns but I think such is beyond the point. The chorus frames matters in terms of destiny, a rumination on Aristotelian tragedy yet the drama unfolds with caprice being the coin of the realm. Well, as much agency as smitten couples can manage. Pacing is a recent phenomenon, 50 episodes for McNulty to walk away from the force, a few less for Little Nell to die.

    Shakespeare offers insights on loyalty and human frailty as well as the Edenic cursing of naming in some relative ontology. Would Heidegger smell as sweet? My mind's eye blurs the poise of Juliet with that of Ophelia; though no misdeeds await the Capulet, unless being disinherited by Plath's Daddy is the road's toll to a watery sleep. The black shoe and the attendant violent delights.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I'm not a big Shakespeare fan, so I won't rate any of his works very high
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Publiekslieveling, maar ik vond het niet altijd overtuigend, soms zelfs stroef. Bevat uiteraard weergaloze passages. Vertaling van Komrij.1595, bekend verhaal, midden XV², maar wel afstand van moralistische behandeling,exuberante poêzie, evolutie van romantische komedie naar tragedie, maar heel vlot alsof het door Shakespeare zelf niet serieus werd bevonden. Twee stijlen: hoogdraven-maniëristisch en rijper en sober. Thema is de roekeloze hartstocht; daarom een noodlottragedie: ondergang buiten hun wil om (bij de andere tragedies komt de ondergang door een tekort aan krachten of een gebrek).Huis van Montague tegen het huis van Capulet in Verona. Julia is 14 jaar.Boodschap van de prins tegen geweld I,1 (“Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace…, p 1012); omschrijving liefde I,1 (“Love is a smoke rais’d with the fume of sighs:/Beining purg’d, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;/Being vex’d, a sea nourish’d with lovers’ tears:/What is it else? A madness most discreet,/A choking gall and a preserving sweet.”, 1013)Hoogtepunt: de dialoog Romeo-Julia II,2 en III,5Vlottere taal dan de vorige, maar toch ook stroeve delen; opvallend korte, komische entractes.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This review is for the 2012 edition of The Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet as annotated by Demitra Padadinas, founder and producing art director of the New England Shakespeare Festival.I’ve been a big fan of Shakespeare ever since high school when a clever English teacher pointed out that, in his day, Shakespeare was looked on as anything but high-brow. His audiences were more likely to consist of pickpockets, tavern-goers and whores than fine lords and ladies. Consequently, his scripts had to be snappy and laced with bawdy humor and innuendo to keep the audience coming back. While some of Shakespeare’s double entendres have survived the editors’ quills over the centuries, most of what we see in the editions taught in schools is muted and laced with safe footnotes that do more to conceal Shakespeare’s intent than to illuminate it. As an example, in Act 1 scene 3, the nurse, a comic character known for her bawdy humor, swears by “by my holidam” which Folger describes as referring to a holy relic while Papidinis explains that what she was swearing on was her “holy place”, an oath that, if accompanied by appropriate body language from the performer, could have an entirely different meaning.This version of Romeo and Juliet is as it appeared when the First Folio was first published in 1623 so its spelling and punctuation is a little more challenging to read than the modernized versions. It doesn’t take long, though, for the reader to catch on that, if read phonetically, such lines as “sailes upon the bosome of the ayre” are easily understood.I also like that Papadinis carries on the format seen in Folger editions of putting the text of the play on the left page and the annotations on the right. This makes it a lot easier to read the annotations and still keep you place.*Quotations are cited from an advanced reading copy and may not be the same as appears in the final published edition. The review copy of this book was obtained from the publisher via the LibraryThing Early Reader Program.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Beautiful language, classic Shakespeare.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    great classic
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    "Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things.Some shall be pardoned, and some punishèd.For never was a story of more woeThan this of Juliet and her Romeo."So ends the play Romeo and Juliet which is probably the most popular play by William Shakespeare. You will have a hard time finding someone who has never heard of its plot. It is a timeless tragedy of two star-crossed lovers finding eternal love in death. While it is one thing to read the script on paper, it is a truly amazing experience to see it performed on stage. The play explores themes that will never be out of date: friendship, love, family rivalry, desperation, and mourning, to name but a few. It is well worth having a closer look at Romeo's relation to love and whether he is really in love with Rosaline or Juliet or just in love with the feeling of being in love. Then there is Romeo's unlikely friendship to Mercutio, two very different characters. Generally, there are many aspects to explore and with every new reading I discover yet another one. You might want to watch the 2014 Broadway performance with Orlando Bloom as Romeo. At least I enjoyed it very much. 5 stars. A true masterpiece.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Ah, my favorite classic.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Sigh. Well, another time through, and I still don't care for Romeo and Juliet. I've been a silly teenager, and I have silly teenagers, I have parents who have been wrong-headed, and I am a parent who is sometimes wrong-headed (some say “frequently”), and I still find the characters here utterly unsympathetic and annoying. In large part, I think, the idea of “love at first sight” just irritates me so much that all the stupidities that follow are just icing on the cake, and that's coming from someone who married her husband after two weeks' acquaintance, so I believe I can claim some experience in the area of efficient assessment of compatibility.. While I fully sympathize with those who find extended dating wearisome, Romeo and Juliet spend so little time in conversation – one joint sonnet does not a relationship make – that their “love” never appears to move beyond hormone crazed obsession. The most tragic aspect of the story is that the nurse and the friar, foolishly indulgent, assist these ridiculous kids in their melodramatic stunts.As with the other plays I've read so far in this “year of Shakespeare,” I read Garber's chapter on “Romeo & Juliet,” from her wonderful Shakespeare After All, before reading the play. Her analysis did improve my reading, but, sadly, recognition of artistic merit does not always translate into real appreciation. When Juliet wails that she'd rather her parents and everyone else she knows were dead than that the boy she's met just the day before was banished, and, across town, Romeo is lying on the floor of the friar's cell, howling and kicking his heels because there was a consequence for killing Tybalt (who'd have thought?), the play seems to me to shift, not as Garber suggests, from comedy to tragedy, but, rather, into the realm of farce. Overwrought teenagers yowling like a pair of sex crazed alley cats because their romantic evening plans have been overturned hardly qualify as tragedy, and the nurse's eager plan to accommodate them with one night of passion (her enthusiasm for the deflowering of the thirteen year old girl she's raised is just creepy) doesn't help. The “tragedy” is that, instead of sensible friends, these youngsters, deranged with sudden infatuation and lust, have dimwitted adults to encourage and pander to them in their harebrained schemes.The poetry is lovely, the literary and dramatic effects are masterful, but I just don't care for the story. The final couplet, “For never was a story of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo,” leaves me not with any feelings of sorrow for these violent, petulant brats, but simply disgust.For this reading I used the Updated Folger Shakespeare Library edition, which is nicely formatted with notes opposite each page of text, and read along with the audio recording by L.A. Theatre Works (2012) starring Calista Flockhart, Matthew Wolf, etc. While I rate this play at three stars for my enjoyment of the story, the dramatic performance by Flockhart and Co. is really superb! Definitely a five star production. So maybe I should rate the play at four stars? (I notice that I previously rated it at four.) Still, my “inner teen” stamps her foot and pouts, and I stick with my emotion-guided three star rating.*Okay. I forgot LT allows half stars. Three and a half, then.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    As long as you remind yourself that this is teen melodrama and not tragedy the essential vapidity of the central relationship and the frustratingly buried deeper and more complex relationships--actually all Romeo's, with Mercutio but also Benvolio, Tybalt, the priest--don't get in the way of good tawdry enjoyment. Now I think about it, Romeo's like a cryptohomoerotic sixteenth-century Archie.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Teenage Proclivity for Conjugation: "Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare, J.A. Bryant Jr. Published 1998.

    Upon each re-reading I always wonder why Shakespeare does not reveal the reason that the families hate each other. We are told that the households are alike in dignity (social status). We are even provided with a "spoiler alert" when we learn that the "star crossed lovers" will commit suicide, resulting in a halt to the feuding between the two families. In addition, we receive the clue that the feud has gone on for a long time (ancient grudge) However, the omission of the reason for the feud leaves us wondering and imagining a variety of scenarios--just as Shakespeare must have intended. I think it is important for an author to leave a mystery for the reader to explore. In Star Wars there was a sense of mystery about the Force, what was it. Are there any reasons needed, ever? The humankind's history is filled with feuds which are completely pointless... "Ancient grudge", servants' street fight -- and general desire to feel better than someone else. Isn't this very pointlessness that Shakespeare intended the viewers to see?

    The rest of this review can be read elsewhere.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I love Shakespeare. I simply detest this play.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Classic story of love and loss. ;) It's Shakespeare, and it's beautiful.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Found this very easy to use and understand. I think my family is tired of me quoting the play then explaining it according to the book. As a theater major I found this book fascinating.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This review is for the Frankly Annotated First Folio Edition, with annotations by Demitra Papadinis.The layout of the book is fantastic, making it easy to keep your place in the play when checking on the notes. The notes themselves are fantastic, going in depth and not leaving out the dirty jokes. A thoroughly enjoyable and educational edition!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Easily one of my least favorite of The Bard's works. Reading this in high school very nearly put me off Shakespeare for good. One of the first books I ever remember reading that made me want to smack both main characters upside the head and ask them "What the heck are you thinking?!"
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    It's a classic, but not really a favorite of mine.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.Reading a Shakespeare-play and seeing one is two entirely different things. Having been to the Globe in London and experienced the magic of an evening with Shakespeare it seems a dry thing to "just" read the play. Still, reading it offers time to stop and contemplate and enjoy and savour all the famous quotes and lines of poetry.In this romantic tragedy there's plenty of over-the-top emotions, frantic pace, overwhelming love-songs and declarations of eternal bliss or eternal sorrow - it's just a thing you accept coming to Shakespeare. This is his world and it's just for us to drink it in.And although it's exaggerated the theme is eternal and universal - love - mixed with infatuation and madness - it's a force too powerful to be kept down - and it's explosive in the midst of a feud between two families. This emotional tour de force between Romeo and Juliet is something to be appraised and lamented at the same time. I'm not sure what Shakespeare does most. But both things are there. The admiration of such head-over-the-heels love and the warning against it's power to overwhelm and blinding the persons involved. Good Night, Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    overly compressed, beautifully-written play in which two teenagers fall in love, marry, fuck, and die, all in the span of three days. concessions should be made to late 16th century literary convention, but still...
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Classic... what else is there to say?
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Romeo and Juliet is fairly far down on my list of Shakespeare's plays (compared, say, with The Tempest, Macbeth, and Twelfth Night at the top), so my five***** rating of this book (ISBN 978-0786447480) is not for the play itself but for the editorial work. I snagged Demitra Papadinis's "Frankly Annotated First Folio Edition" as an Early Reviewer, and after browsing it I've definitely wish-listed her similar edition of As You Like It (ISBN 978-0786449651, which I didn't win as an Early Reviewer) as well as her pre-order edition of Macbeth (ISBN 978-0786464791).I was particularly curious to see how Papadinis's "Frankly Annotated" editions would stack up versus the Norton Critical Editions (generically, that is, because there is no NCE of Romeo and Juliet to the best of my knowledge). There is simply no comparison between the two, and I say this in praise of both Papadinis and NCE. The strength of NCE is in its supplementary materials, which are completely lacking to Papadinis, while the strength of Papadinis is in her highly detailed line-by-line annotation. Papadinis and NCE, in other words, complement rather than compete with each other.Papadinis's annotation is highly detailed and presented in facing-page format, with the play's text on the left-hand page and the corresponding annotation on the right. What this means is that some left-hand text pages may contain only four or five lines while a corresponding right-hand annotation page will be completely filled, so that Papadinis's "Frankly Annotated" editions are not for a newcomer or casual reader, who will most likely find the design cumbersome and the trade paperback edition's price higher than a beginner would like. (Leaving out introduction and bibliography, both quite short, Papadinis's text/annotations for Romeo and Juliet run from pages 28 through 447 inclusive.)Another Early Reviewer has expressed some objection that these annotations represent a "tendentious study of the vulgar in Shakespeare's play." In reality, though, Romeo and Juliet (like Twelfth Night) in fact is one of Shakespeare's most bawdy plays, so I have to object to such a criticism. On the other hand, I also have to admit that I have not studied Papadinis's annotations that comprehensively, considering the time limit in posting an Early Review. In fact, this is not the kind of book that you are likely to read cover-to-cover, but rather one that you'll browse through, maybe just a scene (or even a few lines) at a time to savor the wealth of annotation that Papadinis provides. For that matter, I'm not such a Shakespeare specialist that I'd necessarily pick up on small annotational glitches anyway, so here's hoping some other ER can comment with more specificity on this subject.Papadinis's "Frankly Annotated" editions are available in both trade paperback and Kindle, but this does not seem like the kind of text that could be properly formatted for eBook reading, given the need for facing-page capability. I did download a Kindle sample, but it was too short (it included only some of the introduction, with none of the facing-page text/annotation) to be sure of this, but I'd definitely recommend the trade paperback edition. It's a bit pricey but worth it, though not recommended for a first-timer to the play.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I listened to an audiobook version by the BBC. It was very well done and a pleasure to listen to. It was also very short, only about 3 hours long. I enjoyed the story and am glad that I have finally experienced it. Would like to see the play performed live some day.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I'm giving Romeo and Juliet 3 stars because the writing was brilliant. I must admit, Shakespeare was a master in this aspect; in others, not so much. Oh how much I loathe the characters of Romeo and Juliet. But Mercutio was pretty awesome.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I absolutely love this! Romeo can be an idiot sometimes, their families are jerks and the Friar seriously screwed up but you have to love it all.

    Favourite Quote ;

    Oh she doth teach the torches to burn bright, it seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
    As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear, beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Bruce Colville’s retells Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in story form. It includes a narration of the major plot points in a clear and easy to follow language that is appropriate for younger children (as early as third grade or so). The book also contains beautiful pictures that capture the important parts of the story and help to tell the story. What I like most about this book is that it incorporates quotes from the play itself. The way that it is mixed in with the easy-to-follow narration of the book would, I believe, help children develop a basic understanding of Shakesperian language that will be helpful to them as they advance into higher grades. This book could also be useful to students in middle and high school. This book could be helpful to me in my current situation as a high school English tutor: Many of the students I tutor are completely thrown off by the language that Shakespeare uses, which inhibits their understanding of the entire story. Supplementing a lesson on Romeo and Juliet with this book would be a good way to get students to grasp the basics of the play and also to ease them into the complex language of the play. Great Book!
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    This is a tragedy in the sense that Shakespeare did so much better with his other plays. This one is weak. The amount of coincidence is down right ridiculous, Shakespeare plays way too much into the "love" for a tale that is supposed to be cautionary(or so I think it might've been senseless fighting between two families led to tragic deaths, never really capitalizes on it til the end). It's also the standard for classic love story although it is nothing of the sort. I despised it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It makes for a more interesting read if you choose to interpret it as a Trainwreck, instead of a love story against which all others should be measured. If ~anyone~ in the entire play had enough sense to tell them "Hey, slow down, you knew each other for under a day when you decided to get married, let's just be rational," things wouldn't have turned out as they did. Shakespeare's very very impressive in how lifelike his characters are, and how engaging his plays are (compared to many other dull dull plays of the time), but...Romeo and Juliet really pushes the boundaries of credibility for me
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    In the book Romeo and Juliet, two families, the Montagues and the Capulets, who are worst enemies, try to discourage the love between their children Romeo and Juliet. Things only get worse when Romeo kills one of the Capulet’s kinsmen, Tybalt, in a duel. Romeo is banished and Juliet is broken hearted when she finds out that she will have to marry Paris. To get rest and pass the time, she drinks a vile which will make her appear dead. After she drinks the vile she is pronounced dead and put into a charnel house. Word reaches Romeo that Juliet is dead so he buys a bottle of poison and drinks it next to Juliet’s body. When Juliet wakes up and sees Romeo dead, she takes his dagger and stabs herself. This book was a page-turner! I think it was so exciting because it had just the right amount of romance. It was also a little sad because death could have been prevented. A lesson I have been reminded of is think before you act. I look forward to reading another Shakespeare book. This edition was useful because it had a vocabulary list for some of the Old-English. In my opinion this is a must read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I give this book 5 stars because it uses creative and expresses a true form of writing that makes you want to read more until you've read the whole book!!

Book preview

Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare

1.png

ROMEO AND JULIET

By

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ROMEO AND JULIET

A Tragedy

By

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

First published in 1597

This edition is published by Classic Books Library

an imprint of Read Books Ltd.

Copyright © 2018 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library

Contents

William Shakespeare

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

THE PROLOGUE

ACT I.

SCENE I. A Public Place.

SCENE II. A Street.

SCENE III. Room in Capulet's House.

SCENE IV. A Street.

SCENE V. A Hall in Capulet's House.

ACT II.

SCENE I. An Open Place Adjoining Capulet's Garden.

SCENE II. Capulet's Garden.

SCENE III. Friar Lawrence's Cell.

SCENE IV. A Street.

SCENE V. Capulet's Garden.

SCENE VI. Friar Lawrence's Cell.

ACT III.

SCENE I. A Public Place.

SCENE II. A Room in Capulet's House.

SCENE III. Friar Lawrence's cell.

SCENE IV. A Room in Capulet's House.

SCENE V. An Open Gallery to Juliet's Chamber, Overlooking the Garden.

ACT IV.

SCENE I. Friar Lawrence's Cell.

SCENE II. Hall in Capulet's House.

SCENE III. Juliet's Chamber.

SCENE IV. Hall in Capulet's House.

SCENE V. Juliet's Chamber; Juliet on the Bed.

ACT V.

SCENE I. Mantua. A Street.

SCENE II. Friar Lawrence's Cell.

SCENE III. A Churchyard; in it a Monument Belonging to the Capulets.

TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED

THE AUTHOR, MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

By BEN JONSON

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare, as any reader of this book will presumably know, was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language - and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Referred to as England's national poet, and the 'Bard of Avon', his extant works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, (some with unconfirmed authorship). Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about matters as wide ranging as his physical appearance, sexuality and religious beliefs.

William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26th April 1564. His actual date of birth remains unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23rd April, Saint George's Day. Although no attendance records for the period survive, biographers agree that Shakespeare was probably educated at the King's New School in Stratford, a free school chartered in 1553, about a quarter-mile from his home. Grammar schools varied in quality during the Elizabethan era, but grammar school curricula were largely similar. Basic Latin education had been standardised by royal decree, and the school would have provided an intensive education in grammar based upon Latin classical authors.

At the age of eighteen, Shakespeare married the twenty-six year old Anne Hathaway (who was pregnant at the time), with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins, Hamnet and Judith. After the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in the 'complaints bill' of a law case before the Queen's Bench court at Westminster, dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9th October 1589. 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. By 1598, his name had become enough of a selling point to appear on the title pages.

Shakespeare continued to act in his own and in 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). During this time, Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford, and in 1596 bought ‘New Place’ as his family home in Stratford, whilst retaining a property in Bishopsgate, North of the river Thames. He moved across the river to Southwark by 1599, the year his company constructed the Globe Theatre there. By 1604, Shakespeare had moved north of the river again, to an area north of St Paul's Cathedral with many fine houses. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at the age of forty-nine, where he died three years later.

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. 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, 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. 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. A Midsummer Night's Dream, one of his earliest comedies, is a witty mixture of romance, fairy magic, and comic lowlife scenes. The wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing, the charming rural setting of As You Like It, and the lively merrymaking of Twelfth Night complete the sequence of great comedies.

Shakespeare then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608. Many critics believe that his 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 character, especially for his famous soliloquy beginning; ‘To be or not to be; that is the question.’ 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. In Othello, the villain Iago stokes Othello's sexual jealousy to the point where he murders the innocent wife who loves him. In King Lear, the old king commits the tragic error of giving up his powers, initiating the events which lead to the torture and blinding of the Earl of Gloucester and the murder of Lear's youngest daughter Cordelia. According to the critic Frank Kermode, ‘the play-offers neither its good characters nor its audience any relief from its cruelty.’ In Macbeth, the shortest and most compressed of Shakespeare's tragedies, 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. His last major tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus, contain some of Shakespeare's finest poetry.

Many of Shakespeare’s plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. His sonnets were published as a collection in 1609. Scholars are not certain when each of the 154 sonnets was composed, but evidence suggests that Shakespeare wrote poetry throughout his career for a private readership. In 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two friends and fellow actors of Shakespeare, published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. It was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as ‘not of an age, but for all time.’ Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called ‘bardolatry’. His plays remain immensely popular and are constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

Shakespeare died on 23rd April 1616 and was survived by

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