My Science School

       The story of Hamlet is actually much older than Shakespeare’s play. The earliest presentation of the story in a still existing literary form was in the 12th century, by Dane Saxo Grammaticus. This version was expanded by Francois de BeIleforest in ‘Histories Tragique’, in 1582. It is generally believed that this book is the source of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

       Shakespeare’s Hamlet was played in 1600 or 1601, and it was printed first in 1603.

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     Hamlet was the Prince of Denmark. His father, the king died suddenly. Soon after the king’s death, his brother Claudius married the queen, Gertrude, and started to rule. Hamlet was very sad about these events.

     Then a strange thing happened. The castle guards and Hamlet’s friend Horatio saw the ghost of the murdered king. Hamlet sought the ghost out. The ghost said, “The one that took my life now wears the crown. Avenge this murder! Spare your mother, and let her suffer the punishment of sorrow.”

     Hamlet was shocked to hear this, and he did not want anybody to know about it. So he started to act like a mad man so as to hide his feelings. Hamlet was in love with a girl, Ophelia, the daughter of a wise courtier named Polonius. Polonius and Claudius thought Hamlet’s love for Ophelia had caused his madness. At the same time Hamlet’s mind was full of confusion: can evil undo evil? Was the ghost actually telling the truth? Too many thoughts clouded Hamlet’s mind, and he was unable to do anything.

    To make sure of the truth, Hamlet arranged to stage a play before the court, including in it some scenes that looked like the murder of his father. During the scene of the poisoning, Claudius suddenly stood up and left. Now, Hamlet was sure about what had happened.

     Hamlet and his mother had a bitter argument. Polonius, hiding behind the curtains was shocked to hear Hamlet’s accusations. He made a noise. Hamlet thought it was Claudius and he killed him. Soon after, Hamlet was sent away to England with two courtiers who carried a sealed letter asking the king of England to put Hamlet to death. On the way, Hamlet secretly read the letter and wrote in it the names of the two courtiers, rubbing out his own. Later, some pirates helped Hamlet to return to Denmark. On his return Hamlet was of full grief to learn that Ophelia had taken her own life. Ophelia’s brother Laertes was very angry with Hamlet.

     Claudius made an evil plan to use Laertes to kill Hamlet and arranged a duel between the two. The plan was to give Laertes a poison tipped sword.  If at all Hamlet won, Claudius would be ready with poisoned wine to celebrate the match. In the fight, both Hamlet and Laertes got wounded by the poisoned sword. In the meantime the queen accidentally drank from the poisoned wine and fell dead. Before his own death, Hamlet rushed at the king and stabbed him with the poisoned sword.

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     There are quite a few soulful heroines in Shakespeare’s plays. Desdemona, Lady Macbeth, Juliet, Portia, Ophelia, Rosalind, Cordelia, and Gertrude are some of them. Who played these characters on stage?

     In reality, women were forbidden to perform in plays, as it was illegal for women to appear on stage. Therefore, there were no female actors in the Elizabethan theatre. In fact, women in general considered it beneath their dignity to act in plays. Neither did their guardians allow them to do so, as it was a matter of prestige and status. Shakespeare’s women characters were played by young boys who had not developed masculine features in their faces. Boys between 13 and 19 years of age were selected to play these roles because their voices were still high, and their muscles had not fully developed.

     The costumes for the female roles were very elaborate. There were many layers of clothing, and therefore, it would have taken considerable time, and the help of a dresser, to dress a boy actor in the costume of a female. The make-up used for these boy-artists was lead-based and, hence, was toxic. It was quite normal that such boys were very unhealthy. They had facial skin diseases and many died of lead poisoning! These boys were employed as apprentices; and therefore, were not paid well. In fact, they were the worst paid lot among the crew.

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      Do we have all of Shakespeare’s plays? Is there any play lost to us? Many plays, which were once considered to have been written by Shakespeare, have now been discovered to be written by others. Shakespeare also has written plays in collaboration with others. A couple of his plays, however, are known to us only because they are mentioned by their name by his contemporaries and are lost. They are Love’s Labour Won and Cordenio.

      Francis Meres, an English churchman and author, lists a dozen or so plays by Shakespeare in his book Palladis Tamia. One of them is Love’s Labour Won. An English book-seller, Christopher Hunt also mentions the name of this play as Shakespeare’s work. Both of them were Shakespeare’s contemporaries and knew the bard’s works. Some say that this play was a sequel to Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost. There is a reason for this speculation. In the play Love’s Labour Lost, the weddings that were to take place at the end of the play were delayed for a year. Maybe, Shakespeare, scholars think, had a sequel named Love’s Labour Won in mind. There is also another theory that this is the alternative name of an already existing play.

      Cardenio, on the other hand, is thought to be a collaborative effort by Shakespeare and John Fletcher, another Elizabethan writer. Scholars say that this play’s plot was based on a story from Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Cardenio is a young man who lives in misery and madness in Sierra Morena, a mountain range in Spain, driven there by the apparent infidelity of his beloved Lucinda and the treachery of Duke Ferdinand. Lewis Theobald, and 18th century British writer, had written a play named Double Falsehood or The Distressed Lovers. Some say that this play is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Cardenio.

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     As can be easily imagined, Shakespeare’s plays were written primarily to be performed, and not to be read. Though Shakespeare authored so many plays, he never bothered about printing any of them as books. It was only after his death that his plays were compiled, and were made into respectable books. However, they were available during Shakespeare’s lifetime in the form of flimsy-looking booklets, called Quartos. Quartos were normal papers folded twice to make four pages. The people who printed these quartos did not have access to Shakespeare’s texts. Therefore, they were poorly printed, and contained many mistakes. Parts of these printed plays contained wrong passages or paraphrased texts. Some of them were adaptations. Shakespeare had not approved of them at all.

     It was not common for writers to publish their works in folios. Ben Jonson defied this convention, and published a folio collection of his own plays and poems in 1616, the year of Shakespeare’s death. Had Shakespeare’s friends not stepped in, and performed the most gracious act they could ever have done for the writer, probably, Shakespeare and his plays would have faded into oblivion! John Heminges and Henry Condell, two of Shakespeare’s close friends from the King’s Men collected 36 texts of Shakespeare’s plays in 1623, seven years after the bard’s death. This collected edition is known as the First Folio. The Second Folio appeared in 1632 and the Third Folio in 1663. Seven more plays were added to Shakespeare’s name in the Third Folio. The Fourth Folio was published in 1685 and retained all 43 plays. However, later scholars discovered that some of these plays were not, in fact, authored by Shakespeare.

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     Did all the wonderful tales that Shakespeare told through his plays have their inception in Shakespeare’s brain? Did he fashion all those tales from scratch? In fact, the plots of most of his plays are borrowed from various sources. This, however, does not diminish his brilliance. The bard’s genius lies more in the fabulous way he presented those tales than his originality.

     The sources of his plays with Greek and Roman themes such as Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Timon of Athens are Plutarch, a Greek biographer, and Ovid, a Roman poet. Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, written probably in the second century, has many biographies of famous men. Ovid’s Metamorphoses, on the other hand is a series of mythical stories.

     Raphael Holinshed was an English chronicler, meaning a historian, who lived in 16th century England. He undertook an ambitious project of writing the history of the world and was successful in completing only a small portion, which he published in 1577 as The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland. Shakespeare borrowed the themes of most of his historical plays and the plots of Macbeth, King Lear and Cymbeline from Holinshed’s Chronicles.

     The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio was another major source of Shakespeare’s plays. Boccaccio was an Italian writer and poet, whose Decameron is a collection of hundred stories told by seven young women and three young men. Many of Shakespeare’s comedies and romances have been inspired from the stories of this book. He has borrowed tales from Arthur Brooke, a 16th century English poet, and Saxo Grammaticus, a 12th century Danish historian, too. Another great book that inspired Shakespeare was, certainly, the Holy Bible.

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     Harold Bloom, one of the most celebrated Shakespeare scholars, thinks that the Bard of Avon invented the ‘modern man’. Shakespeare’s canvas was so wide that there was scarcely any kind of human being that does not appear in his plays. No character, not even the one that appears and disappears for a single scene, is a lifeless flat character in them. He has explored the human mind so thoroughly that the entire work of the writer is an extensive examination of diverse human emotions in their varied hues and tones. And we have internalized Shakespeare and his characters so much that all events of our lives are mirror images of Shakespearean lives.

      Shakespeare’s plays have been classified in many ways. The traditional classification falls into four categories: the comedies, the histories, the tragedies and the romances.

     Today, a comedy means an entertaining laugh-riot movie. However, the word ‘comedy’ had a very different meaning in the Elizabethan times. A comedy was a light-hearted, happy-ending play in which young men and women marry each other promising a successful life thereafter.

     A Comedy of Errors, Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love’s Labours Lost, The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale, Cymbeline, Pericles, All’s Well that Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream are some of Shakespeare’s comedies.

     In Shakespeare’s tragedies, the heroes undergo certain difficult situations, all the while suffering from internal conflicts. They all have a ‘tragic flaw’ that ultimately leads them to their own destruction. Othello, who was intensely in love with his wife Desdemona, was jealous of her because of the lies told to him by his enemy lago. His jealousy led him to kill his dear wife and commit suicide. Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Hamlet, Othello, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus and Timon of Athens are Shakespeare’s tragedies.

     There are ten history plays by Shakespeare. They are Henry VI, parts one, two and three, Richard III, Richard II, Henry IV, Parts one and two, Henry V, King John and Henry VIII. Shakespeare’s history plays centre around actual events and monarchs from Britain’s history. The Gain and loss of power and the divine rights of kings are the main themes of these plays.

    The fourth category is a recent addition. The romances were previously grouped with comedies. However, today, these plays are considered more mature plays of Shakespeare as he wrote them all after the success of his tragedies. They have characters of comedies and tragedies. He mixes them with mystical and fantastic elements in them. His romances are Pericles: Prince of Tyre, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest. Some scholars believe that Shakespeare wrote more plays, while these plays are not part of the Shakespearean canon currently. They are called Shakespeare’s Apocrypha. The names of the 12 apocryphal plays of Shakespeare are Locrine, The London Prodigal, The Puritan, Thomas: Lord Cromwell, Sir John Oldcastle, Arden of Feversham, A Yorkshire Tragedy, The Birth of Merlin, Edward III, Fair Em, Mucedorus and The Merry Devil of Edmonton.

 

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The question might seem absurd, but many scholars believed, and some still hold, that Shakespeare was either not real or too incompetent to have written so many great works of literature.

            The conspiracy theories took birth almost two centuries ago. One of their chief arguments is that the plays contain too much knowledge of foreign and distant places and too much familiarity with court life and the affairs of court to have been written by someone who had minimum educational qualifications and who was so low down in the social ladder. They also say that the plays of Shakespeare have too wide a range of style that makes it impossible for someone without advanced education to write them.

According to these theories, Shakespeare had no education in the classics, or the Latin language. There is no evidence of his handwriting in a letter or other documents. The six signatures that are available today are nothing more than the scrawl of an illiterate man.

Moreover, nowhere is Shakespeare mentioned as a writer. Instead, he is described as a businessman and property owner. To top it all, his will says nothing about his writings, and is phrased in ordinary uninspiring language.

So, who wrote in Shakespeare’s name? There are many names. The most prominent figure among them is Francis Bacon, the essayist and scientist. There are others such as Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, Christopher Marlowe, William Stanley, the 6th Earl of Derby, and Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke. There is another conspiracy theory too, that Shakespeare’s works were written by a group of collaborators led by Sir Francis Bacon and Sir Walter Raleigh.

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     Although we have no conclusive evidence, scholars think that Shakespeare had a very brief illness that led to his sudden and unexpected death. The great writer had retired to his old town Stratford some years prior to his demise. Shakespeare was still working in 1606; however, the spreading of the bubonic plague had caused long spells of closure of theatres. This meant that work was scarce. However, the bard was reportedly visiting London until 1612. He wrote fewer plays after 1610 and after 1613, no plays are attributed to his name. Shakespeare probably knew he was inching towards death. In his final play, The Tempest, he gives away hints about his signing off from the stage and the world. The great artist passed away on 23th April 1616 at the age of 52.

       How did Shakespeare die? His will, which had been written just two months prior to his death, said that he was in perfect health. John Ward, who was the Vicar of Stratford from 1662 to 1681, wrote in his diary some anecdotes that shed light into Shakespeare’s life.

       In one of his diary entries he noted that Michael Drayton, a poet, and Ben Jonson had visited Shakespeare once and they had a merry meeting. Shakespeare drank too hard. Subsequently, he died of a fever that lasted a few days.

      For the literary titan that he was, the inscription on Shakespeare’s tomb was not very inspiring. In fact, a curse was left on his tombstone as the epitaph. It read, “Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare To dig the dust enclosed here.

     Blessed be the man that spares these stones And cursed be he that moves my bones”.

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Shakespeare was no ordinary mortal. His tales and poems have travelled to the ends of the world and his name is familiar even to toddlers. What would such a great soul have written in his will, the document that he wrote to his near and dear ones as he was nearing death? Does the man, who wrote about kings, battles, courts, courtships, jealousy, pride, avarice, wealth and romance, say anything about his greatest assets, his plays and poems? Has he left any message to the world though his will?

For all those who love literature and especially Shakespeare’s works, his will is a huge disappointment. The document is nothing more than any other ordinary will written in the most boring legal language. No exquisite witticisms, no extravagance of expressions and no inspiring epigrams!

All that is said is about money and some of his immovable assets and whom he bequeaths it all. In fact, the will was made immediately after his daughter Judith’s marriage.

However, with the help of his lawyer, he kept altering his will until he was fully satisfied with it before his death. Shakespeare was concerned about his daughters. He was disturbed by the plight of his second daughter Judith, whose husband Thomas Quiney was an immoral man. Shakespeare did not like him and did not want his wealth to go to Quiney. However, his first son-in-law, John Hall was dear to him. Shakespeare’s wealth was divided among his wife, daughters and his colleagues.

Shakespeare’s will have been closely scrutinized by scholars to determine his personal opinions and beliefs. It also sheds light on his religious beliefs, moral values, attitude towards his two daughters and relationship with his colleagues.

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     Shakespeare is a colossal figure when it comes to his contributions to literature. As is expected from any writer of such magnitude, Shakespeare’s contribution to language is huge. Many words that we use today have been in some way or other were modified or used with a distinct meaning by Shakespeare. He has invented over 1700 words that we commonly use. Shakespeare achieved this by changing nouns into verbs, changing verbs into adjectives, connecting word never before used together, adding prefixes and suffixes and devising words wholly original. Several phrases that are still very much a part of our language and conversation such as ‘full circle’, ‘a sorry sight’, ‘strange bedfellow’ and ‘seen better days’ are coined by Shakespeare.

     Shakespeare turned the word ‘gloomy’, which was formerly used as a verb, into an adjective. The word is found in his play Titus Andronicus. In Merchant of Venice, he used the word ‘laughable’ for the first time. It was Shakespeare, who used the word ‘majestic’ for the first time in his play They Tempest. During the 15th century, the word ‘alone’ was shortened to ‘lone’ in common parlance. Shakespeare created the word ‘lonely’ from this word and used it in his Coriolanus. Shakespeare introduced the word ‘radiance’, in King Lear. The word was not in use formerly in English language as he modified the Latin word ‘radiantem’, meaning ‘beaming’. There are many others such as ‘hurry’ in Henry VI Part I, and ‘generous’ in Hamlet. ‘Critical’ was first used in Othello. Shakespeare created the word ‘courtship’ and used it in The Merchant of Venice. In his comedy, The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare used the word ‘undress’ for the first time.

    Considering the fact that English as a language was only evolving into its modern form, much scope existed for the kind of innovations Shakespeare made. Words were not sufficiently available for the bard in his creative ventures. Therefore, he had to invent!

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     Have you read Shakespeare’s plays or poems in its original language? It is highly likely that we understand hardly half of what is written. Some words and sentences do not have any resemblance to the modern English we are familiar with today. We may even wonder if Shakespeare wrote in the English language or some other tongue!

     It is indeed true that Shakespeare wrote in the English language. However, as all languages undergo evolution as time passes, the English language too has gone through considerable changes to become what it is today.

     The origins of English can be traced back to the beginning of the second millennium. To understand the evolution of English easily, the periods have been divided as Old English, Middle English and Modern English. Old English was spoken and written in Britain from the 5th century to the middle of the 11th century and is really closer to the Germanic mother tongue of the Anglo-Saxons.

     With the arrival of the French-speaking Normans in 1066, Old English underwent dramatic changes and by 1350, it had evolved into Middle English.

     By about 1450, Middle English was replaced with Early Modern English, the language of Shakespeare, which is almost identical to contemporary English. Shakespeare’s works were written in Early Modern English.

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     Shakespeare was born into not so rich circumstances. Although his mother was from an affluent family, his father had a business that did not fetch the family much. In the 1580s, Shakespeare’s father suffered failure in business. Circumstances were such that the bard had to marry at the age of 18 and thus had three extra mouths to feed. That must be the reason for his leaving for London for better fortune.

     However, soon his popularity and the acceptance of his plays made him a well-to-do man. Moreover, Shakespeare knew how to manage the money he received from his well-earned reputation. In his early years, Shakespeare did well as his plays were successful.

      Would you believe that Shakespeare ventured into the real estate business with his wealth? In fact, the bard did invest 900 pounds in a series of ambitious purchases of real estate. A good-sized house in Stratford could be resold for thirty pounds profit. The annual salary of a Stratford headmaster was just 20 pounds then. From these investments, Shakespeare must have made a return of around 75-80 pounds per year. However, did it make him extremely wealthy? It is difficult to say.

      Shakespeare did not even manage to break into the ranks of the minor local gentry in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon. This is most obvious in the marriages of his two daughters, Susanna to John Hall, and Judith to Thomas Quiney. These men were the sort of marriage partners thought inappropriate for the daughters of an aspiring gentleman. After Shakespeare’s death, neither of his sons-in-law, whose wives had inherited almost all of Shakespeare’s real and personal estate, lived out his life as a man of independent means.

     It was in 1605 that he made his highest purchase of real estate. This investment was of around 440 pounds and it doubled in value and earned him 60 pounds income each year.

     Some academics speculate that this investment gave Shakespeare the time he needed to write plays uninterrupted. However, this was also his last as he did not earn much after this.

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     Art and literature have been greatly appreciated and encouraged in societies for ages as they gave direction and shape to civilization and culture. Art and literature thrived, unfortunately, not in affluence; and therefore, artists and writers had to seek help and support from the wealthy and the aristocratic.

     There were patrons who volunteered to assist artists from time to time. In fact, during the medieval and Renaissance periods in European history, the structure of society itself was built on patronage. Shakespeare had patrons too. They helped him establish himself as an actor, playwright and poet.

     Edward Manners, the third Earl of Rutland, was Shakespeare’s first patron. The Earl was Shakespeare’s friend too. This patron was interested in Shakespeare from his teenage and encouraged him to write as the bard wished.  Maybe, Rutland also helped Shakespeare in building the stage in which his earlier plays were staged.

    Henry Wriothesley, the 3rd Earl of Southampton, was probably the most important patron of Shakespeare. Some say that the ‘fair youth’ in Shakespeare’s sonnets is, in fact, this Earl of Southampton. However, some others say that William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, was the ‘fair youth’. Among his other patrons Queen Elizabeth 1 and King James I are the most prominent. Both of them loved drama. Queen Elizabeth enjoyed poetry greatly and devoted herself to the study of the ancient classical period. Many times did the Queen attend the plays of Shakespeare in person?

     King James too encouraged art and drama and was often in the audience watching and enjoying Shakespeare’s plays. Both of them contributed greatly directly and indirectly in aiding the culture of art and literature in England and thus promoting Shakespeare who we see today as the epitome of theatre and poetry.

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    Shakespeare is best known to the world as a playwright. However, Shakespeare’s reputation as a writer was established in society through his poems first. During the Elizabethan times, it was hardly profitable to write poems. However, as it is today, attempting poetry was fashionable and poetry helped the author to enhance his social status. For Shakespeare, poetry was not only something he greatly enjoyed, but also a platform to express his most personal and intimate thoughts and desires.

      There was an interim during Shakespeare’s busy life of acting and writing plays. There was an attack of a plague in England between 1593 and 1594; and as a result, theatres had to be closed down for controlling the spread of the disease. It was during this period, Shakespeare turned to writing poems. The first of his long poems was ‘Venus and Adonis’, written in 1593 and ‘The Rape of Lucrece’, written in the next year. Both poems deal with passion and violence. ‘A Lover’s Complaint’, ‘The Phoenix and the Turtle’ and ‘The Passionate Pilgrim’ are some of his other narrative poems.

     However, Shakespeare’s reputation as a poet lies in his sonnets. They were published in 1609. There are 154 sonnets in total. The first 126 are addressed to a young man; whereas the last 28 are addressed to a young woman. While Shakespeare’s plays made him a popular dramatist, his poems cemented his place in the literary world.

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