Did Shakespeare Work? "Boy" at a butcher? – BBC Arabic

The Encyclopædia Britannica states that William Shakespeare was born on April 26, 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, and died on April 23, 1616, in Stratford-upon-Avon, an English poet and dramatist, Which many people believe. The greatest playwright of all time. Every moment.

His work has been translated into 80 languages, and he helped shape the English language we use today, introducing over 300 words and dozens of well-known phrases.

His plays are known worldwide for their universal themes and insight into the human condition. However, much about his life is still a mystery, as historians do not know how he spent the last 7 years of his life.

There is no record of the date of his birth, but his baptism is recorded as 26 April 1564, and it was customary to be baptized on the third day after birth.

He was born during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, who converted England to Protestantism. Shakespeare’s parents were both Catholic, and the tension between the two religions can be seen in much of his work.

William’s father, John Shakespeare, was a member of Stratford-upon-Avon City Council. William was the third of 8 children.

The details of Shakespeare’s education are unknown. He probably started his education at the age of six or seven.

Young William probably attended a local school that focused on the Greek classics, and the pupils also learned plays in Latin.

Religious education was also important, and Shakespeare relied on these sources in his dramatic works in the form of classical and religious allusions. There is no record of him going to university.

The King Edward VI School in Stratford-upon-Avon has lost attendance records for its time.

Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway in 1582, when she was 18, and Hathaway was already three months pregnant with their first child.

The baptism of three of his sons is the last record for a 7-year period between 1585 and 1592, known as his lost years.

Some claim that he worked as a tutor or “boy” for a butcher or solicitor’s clerk at the time.

At some point, Shakespeare left his family in Stratford and moved to London, the British capital, where he established himself as a playwright and actor.

A century later, his first biographer noted, he fled to London from a sentence for deer poaching. However, no records have been found of his activities in those years.

The next known record of Shakespeare appears after he became a playwright in London. This record, which appeared in 1592, was a review of his work, not a positive review.

Playwright Robert Greene called Shakespeare an “arrogant crow”, accusing him of being higher than college-educated writers such as Christopher Marlowe and Greene himself.

Drama in Elizabethan theater came under the patronage of the nobility, as Shakespeare belonged to the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and it is believed that he wrote the three parts of Henry VI and Richard III on this stage.

Some academics suggest that his historical plays were supportive of Elizabeth I’s claim to the throne, and that he was involved in performances of his plays before the Queen.

He was described in 1598 by the author Francis Meres as “the best” of English writers on both comedy and tragedy, and his works attracted royal attention.

In the early seventeenth century, Shakespeare produced the plays Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Shakespeare became famous and rich because of his plays. He was also a member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Band.

The company built its own theater called the Globe, and Shakespeare owned a 12.5 percent stake, which made him even richer. He invested in real estate in Stratford and London, and records of his purchases remain.

In 1597, he bought a 107-acre farm for his family in Stratford and the second largest house with a country house.

In this sense, many historians consider him not only a talented playwright, but also a successful businessman.

After the death of Elizabeth I, Shakespeare’s troupe gained the patronage of King James I. The play King Lear, which he may have composed at this time, takes the idea of ​​the divided kingdoms as a story that reflects the situation in England, Scotland and Wales during the reign of James I (of Scottish descent).

Meanwhile, he commissioned the play Macbeth, which he also wrote early in James’ reign and was probably intended to honor the Scottish king’s ancestors.

His more recent plays, such as The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale, are characterized by endings in reconciliation and forgiveness compared to his earlier plays.

This change in mood may reflect the prevailing dramatic style at the time, but may also be evidence that Shakespeare developed a more moderate outlook on life as he grew older.

On April 23, 1616, Shakespeare died, and there are no contemporary accounts of his death.

Fifty years later, the vicar of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote that Shakespeare died of a fever after a “homosexual meeting” where he “drank too much”.

In 1623, 7 years after his death, a collection of Shakespeare’s writings was published. It was the most complete version of his work to date.

It was compiled by his friends John Heming and Henry Condell and contained 36 plays, including 18 that had not been published before. In 2006, a copy of that first set sold for £2.8 million.

His theater was closed in 1642 and destroyed two years later by the Puritans, who viewed theater and festivals as a way of distracting people from studying religion and drawing closer to God. When the Puritans seized power in England during Cromwell’s Republic (1649–1660), anyone caught performing a play was flogged, and anyone who took part in a play was fined.

At the time, the works of Shakespeare – and those of his contemporaries – were not publicly performed. The plays were not legalized again until Charles II regained the throne and the monarchy was restored in 1660.

His plays were performed over the next hundred years as his fame and reputation grew across the country.

Samuel Johnson quoted Shakespeare thousands of times in his English Dictionary published in 1755. He said that Shakespeare coined or introduced thousands of words and phrases to the English language.

In 1769, Shakespeare was celebrated in his home town of Stratford-upon-Avon by the actor David Garrick. Since then, his home in the area has been visited by hundreds of famous writers, whose names are inscribed on the glass of the room where Shakespeare was born. The window has been replaced, but the original glass is still on display.

Every year thousands of people continue this tradition and visit Shakespeare’s birthplace. The house is therefore one of Stratford-upon-Avon’s busiest attractions.

In the nineteenth century, Shakespeare became an important symbol of national pride, and was used to spread the influence of British imperial power.

And the works of Shakespeare, taught in schools across the empire, helped to instill a sense of cultural patriotism among the empire’s subjects. and in 1841 Thomas Carlyle described it as “a real asset, marketable and solidly useful”.

Post-colonial critics argued that this was a way in which the British Empire attempted to subjugate the cultures of the countries to which Shakespeare was exported, adapted and translated around the world. Shakespeare’s work was also used to spread English culture throughout the empire and around the world.

With the advent of the cinema, Shakespeare’s plays were rediscovered in new ways, with the first Shakespeare film made in 1899.

The film was a simple recording of a short part of the King John play.

Decades later, came Shakespeare’s first film masterpieces, including Laurence Olivier’s masterpieces such as Henry V, Hamlet and Richard III, and later such films as Romeo and Juliet.

With over 400 film adaptations of his plays, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, Shakespeare is the most widely used author in cinema.

In 1997 Queen Elizabeth II opened Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, a few hundred yards from Shakespeare’s co-owner’s original Globe on Thames, built in 1599.

In 2014, the Globe Theater sold 368,000 tickets, proof that Shakespeare’s plays are still big business.

Today, Shakespeare is considered the national playwright of England, and the prestige of his plays and star cast reflect this. But Shakespeare might have been forgotten if his works had not been compiled by two of his actor friends.