英国文学选读unit2课件.pptVIP

Unit2 William Shakespeare  (I564-1616) Hamlet Romeo and Juliet Sonnet 18 William Shakespeare (1564—1616) We don’t know much about Shakespeare because very few facts of his life have been preserved. The facts of his life mainly came from three sources: church and legal records, folk traditions, and the comments of his contemporaries. From these facts we piece together his life. William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564 in Stratford-on-Avon in Warwickshire. His father, John Shakespeare, was a well-to-do merchant and leading citizen in the town. There is no official record of Shakespeare’s schooling, but it is widely believed that he attended the local grammar school and read widely. In 1582, Shakespeare, aged eighteen and half, married Anne Hathaway, a farmer’s uneducated daughter, who was eight years older than Shakespeare. Shakespeare went to London in 1586 or 1587 when drama was rapidly becoming popular. There are legends that he kept horses outside the playhouses (theater). After many hardships he became an actor and playwright in one of the leading companies of players—“Lord Chamberlaine’s Company.” He revised old plays and wrote new ones. His plays always have traces of the events of contemporary life. Because of this, together with his matured craftsmanship, his plays became extremely popular. Beside plays, Shakespeare wrote some narrative poems and sonnets. His narrative poem, Vernus and Adonis, was published in 1593. It immediately became popular and was reprinted eleven times in the first few years. His 154 sonnets were first circulated among friends, and were not published until 1609. The contemporaries soon recognized him as a genius of a poet. Today some of his sonnets are regarded as the best in the world of poetry. Shakespeare’s history plays and major comedies were written before the end of the sixteenth century. After the turn of the century, he wrote his major tragedies. The comedies were mainly written in the last few ye