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Authors: William Shakespeare
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BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
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With the founding of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, Shakespeare’s career was placed upon a firm footing. It is not the purpose of this Introduction to describe his development as a dramatist, or to attempt a thorough discussion of the chronology of his writings. The Introductions to individual works state briefly what is known about when they were composed, and also name the principal literary sources on which Shakespeare drew in composing them. More detailed discussion of dating is to be found in the
Textual Companion
. The works themselves are arranged in a conjectured order of composition. There are many uncertainties about this, especially in relation to the early plays. The most important single piece of evidence is a passage in a book called
Palladis Tamia: Wit’s Treasury,
by a minor writer, Francis Meres, published in 1598. Meres wrote:
Textual Companion
. The works themselves are arranged in a conjectured order of composition. There are many uncertainties about this, especially in relation to the early plays. The most important single piece of evidence is a passage in a book called
Palladis Tamia: Wit’s Treasury,
by a minor writer, Francis Meres, published in 1598. Meres wrote:
As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latins, so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage; for comedy, witness
his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Love Labour’s Lost, his Love Labour’s Won, his Midsummer’s Night Dream, and his Merchant of Venice; for tragedy, his Richard II, Richard III, Henry IV, King John, Titus Andronicus, and his Romeo and Juliet.
Some of the plays that Meres names had already been published or alluded to by 1598; but for others, he supplies a date by which they must have been written. Meres also alludes to Shakespeare’s ‘sugared sonnets among his private friends’, which suggests that some, if not all, of the poems printed in 1609 as Shakespeare’s Sonnets were circulating in manuscript by this date. Works not mentioned by Meres that are believed to have been written by 1598 are the three plays concerned with the reign of Henry VI,
The Taming of the Shrew, Edward III
, and the narrative poems.
The Taming of the Shrew, Edward III
, and the narrative poems.
Shakespeare seems to have had less success as an actor than as a playwright. We cannot name any of his roles for certain, though seventeenth-century traditions have it that he played Adam in
As You Like It
, and Hamlet’s Ghost—and more generally that he had a penchant for ‘kingly parts’. Ben Jonson listed him first among the ‘principal comedians’ in
Every Man in his Humour
, acted in 1598, when he reprinted it in his 1616 Folio, and Shakespeare is also listed among the performers of Jonson’s tragedy Sejanus in 1603. He was certainly one of the leading administrators of the Chamberlain’s Men. Until 1597, when their lease expired, they played mainly in the Theatre, London’s first important playhouse, situated north of the River Thames in Shoreditch, outside the jurisdiction of the City fathers, who exercised a repressive influence on the drama. It had been built in 1576 by James Burbage, a joiner, the tragedian’s father. Then the company seems to have played mainly at the Curtain until some time in 1599. Shakespeare was a member of the syndicate responsible for building the first Globe theatre, in Southwark, on the south bank of the Thames, out of the dismantled timbers of the Theatre in 1599. Initially he had a ten-per-cent financial interest in the enterprise, fluctuating as other shareholders joined or withdrew. It was a valuable share, for the Chamberlain’s Men won great acclaim and made substantial profits. After Queen Elizabeth died, in 1603, they came under the patronage of the new king, James I; the royal patent of 19 May 1603 names Shakespeare along with other leaders of the company. London was in the grip of another severe epidemic of plague which caused a ban on playing till the following spring. The King’s processional entry into London had to be delayed; when at last it took place, on 15 March 1604, each of the company’s leaders was granted four and a half yards of scarlet cloth for his livery as one of the King’s retainers; but the players seem not to have processed. Their association with the King was far from nominal; during the next thirteen years—up to the time of Shakespeare’s death—they played at court more often than all the other theatre companies combined. Records are patchy, but we know, for instance, that they gave eleven plays at court between I November 1604 and 31 October 1605, and that seven of them were by Shakespeare: they included older plays—
The Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labour’s Lost
—and more recent ones—
Othello
and
Measure for Measure. The Merchant of Venice was played twice.
As You Like It
, and Hamlet’s Ghost—and more generally that he had a penchant for ‘kingly parts’. Ben Jonson listed him first among the ‘principal comedians’ in
Every Man in his Humour
, acted in 1598, when he reprinted it in his 1616 Folio, and Shakespeare is also listed among the performers of Jonson’s tragedy Sejanus in 1603. He was certainly one of the leading administrators of the Chamberlain’s Men. Until 1597, when their lease expired, they played mainly in the Theatre, London’s first important playhouse, situated north of the River Thames in Shoreditch, outside the jurisdiction of the City fathers, who exercised a repressive influence on the drama. It had been built in 1576 by James Burbage, a joiner, the tragedian’s father. Then the company seems to have played mainly at the Curtain until some time in 1599. Shakespeare was a member of the syndicate responsible for building the first Globe theatre, in Southwark, on the south bank of the Thames, out of the dismantled timbers of the Theatre in 1599. Initially he had a ten-per-cent financial interest in the enterprise, fluctuating as other shareholders joined or withdrew. It was a valuable share, for the Chamberlain’s Men won great acclaim and made substantial profits. After Queen Elizabeth died, in 1603, they came under the patronage of the new king, James I; the royal patent of 19 May 1603 names Shakespeare along with other leaders of the company. London was in the grip of another severe epidemic of plague which caused a ban on playing till the following spring. The King’s processional entry into London had to be delayed; when at last it took place, on 15 March 1604, each of the company’s leaders was granted four and a half yards of scarlet cloth for his livery as one of the King’s retainers; but the players seem not to have processed. Their association with the King was far from nominal; during the next thirteen years—up to the time of Shakespeare’s death—they played at court more often than all the other theatre companies combined. Records are patchy, but we know, for instance, that they gave eleven plays at court between I November 1604 and 31 October 1605, and that seven of them were by Shakespeare: they included older plays—
The Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labour’s Lost
—and more recent ones—
Othello
and
Measure for Measure. The Merchant of Venice was played twice.
Some measure of Shakespeare’s personal success during this period may be gained from the ascription to him of works not now believed to be his;
Locrine
and
Thomas Lord Cromwell
were published in 1595 and 1602 respectively as by ‘W.S.’; in 1599 a collection of poems,
The Passionate Pilgrim
, containing some poems certainly by other writers, appeared under his name; so, in 1606 and 1608, did
The London Prodigal and A Yorkshire
Tragedy
. Since Shakespeare’s time, too, many plays of the period, some published, some surviving only in manuscript, have been attributed to him. In modern times, the most plausible case has been made for parts, or all, of
Edward III
, which was entered in the registers of the Stationers’ Company (a normal, but not invariable, way of setting in motion the publication process) in 1595 and published in 1596. It was first ascribed to Shakespeare in 1656. When this edition of the Complete Works first appeared, we said that if any play deserved to be added to the canon, this was it. Since then the scholarly case for Shakespeare having written part, or even all, of the play has grown, and we reprint it here according to its conjectural date of composition.
Locrine
and
Thomas Lord Cromwell
were published in 1595 and 1602 respectively as by ‘W.S.’; in 1599 a collection of poems,
The Passionate Pilgrim
, containing some poems certainly by other writers, appeared under his name; so, in 1606 and 1608, did
The London Prodigal and A Yorkshire
Tragedy
. Since Shakespeare’s time, too, many plays of the period, some published, some surviving only in manuscript, have been attributed to him. In modern times, the most plausible case has been made for parts, or all, of
Edward III
, which was entered in the registers of the Stationers’ Company (a normal, but not invariable, way of setting in motion the publication process) in 1595 and published in 1596. It was first ascribed to Shakespeare in 1656. When this edition of the Complete Works first appeared, we said that if any play deserved to be added to the canon, this was it. Since then the scholarly case for Shakespeare having written part, or even all, of the play has grown, and we reprint it here according to its conjectural date of composition.
4. King James I (1566-1625): a portrait 1621) by Daniel Mytens
In August 1608 the King’s Men took up the lease of the smaller, ‘private’ indoor theatre, the Blackfriars; again, Shakespeare was one of the syndicate of owners. The company took possession in 1609. The Blackfriars served as a winter home; in better weather, performances continued to be given at the Globe. By now, Shakespeare was at a late stage in his career. Perhaps he realized it; he seems to have been willing to share his responsibilities as the company’s resident dramatist with younger writers.
Timon of Athens,
tentatively dated to early 1606, seems on internal evidence to be partly the work of Thomas Middleton (1580-1627). Another collaborative play, very successful in its time, was
Pericles
(
c
. 1607-8), in which Shakespeare probably worked with George Wilkins, an unscrupulous character who gave up his brief career as a writer in favour of a longer one as a tavern (or brothel) keeper. But Shakespeare’s most fruitful collaboration was with John Fletcher, his junior by fifteen years. Fletcher was collaborating with Francis Beaumont on plays for the King’s Men by about 1608. Beaumont stopped writing plays when he married, in about 1613, and it is at this time that Fletcher began to collaborate with Shakespeare. A lost play,
Cardenio,
acted by the King’s Men some time before 20May 1613, was plausibly ascribed to Shakespeare and Fletcher in a document of 1653;
All is True
(
Henry VIII
), first acted about June 1613, is generally agreed on stylistic evidence to be another fruit of the same partnership; and
The Two Noble Kinsmen
, also dated 1613, which seems to be the last play in which Shakespeare had a hand, was ascribed to the pair on its publication in 1634. One of Shakespeare’s last professional tasks was the minor one of devising an
impress
—which has not survived—for the Earl of Rutland to bear at a tournament held on 24 March 1613 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the King’s accession. An
impresa
was a paper or pasteboard shield painted with an emblematic device and motto which would be carried and interpreted for a knight by his squire; such a ceremony is portrayed in
Pericles
(Sc. 6). Shakespeare received forty-four shillings for his share in the work; Richard Burbage was paid the same sum ‘for painting and making it’.
The Drama and Theatre of Shakespeare’s TimeTimon of Athens,
tentatively dated to early 1606, seems on internal evidence to be partly the work of Thomas Middleton (1580-1627). Another collaborative play, very successful in its time, was
Pericles
(
c
. 1607-8), in which Shakespeare probably worked with George Wilkins, an unscrupulous character who gave up his brief career as a writer in favour of a longer one as a tavern (or brothel) keeper. But Shakespeare’s most fruitful collaboration was with John Fletcher, his junior by fifteen years. Fletcher was collaborating with Francis Beaumont on plays for the King’s Men by about 1608. Beaumont stopped writing plays when he married, in about 1613, and it is at this time that Fletcher began to collaborate with Shakespeare. A lost play,
Cardenio,
acted by the King’s Men some time before 20May 1613, was plausibly ascribed to Shakespeare and Fletcher in a document of 1653;
All is True
(
Henry VIII
), first acted about June 1613, is generally agreed on stylistic evidence to be another fruit of the same partnership; and
The Two Noble Kinsmen
, also dated 1613, which seems to be the last play in which Shakespeare had a hand, was ascribed to the pair on its publication in 1634. One of Shakespeare’s last professional tasks was the minor one of devising an
impress
—which has not survived—for the Earl of Rutland to bear at a tournament held on 24 March 1613 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the King’s accession. An
impresa
was a paper or pasteboard shield painted with an emblematic device and motto which would be carried and interpreted for a knight by his squire; such a ceremony is portrayed in
Pericles
(Sc. 6). Shakespeare received forty-four shillings for his share in the work; Richard Burbage was paid the same sum ‘for painting and making it’.
Shakespeare came upon the theatrical scene at an auspicious time. English drama and theatre had developed only slowly during the earlier part of the sixteenth century; during Shakespeare’s youth they exploded into vigorous life. It was a period of secularization; previously, drama had been largely religious in subject matter and overtly didactic in treatment; as a boy of fifteen, Shakespeare could have seen one of the last performances of a great cycle of plays on religious themes at Coventry, not far from his home town. 1567 saw the building in London of the short-lived Red Lion, and in 1576 the Theatre went up, to be rapidly followed by the Curtain: England’s first important, custom-built playhouses. There was a sudden spurt in the development of all aspects of theatrical art: acting, production, playwriting, company organization, and administration. Within a few years the twin arts of drama and theatre entered upon a period of achievement whose brilliance remains unequalled.
The new drama was literary and rhetorical rather than scenic and spectacular: but its mainstream was theatrical too. Its writers were poets. Prose was only beginning to be used in plays during Shakespeare’s youth; a playwright was often known as a ‘poet’, and most of the best playwrights of the period wrote with distinction in other forms. Shakespeare’s most important predecessors and early contemporaries, from whom he learned much, were John Lyly (c.1554-1606), pre-eminent for courtly comedy and elegant prose, Robert Greene (1558-92), who helped particularly to develop the scope and language of romantic comedy, the tragedian Thomas Kyd (1558-94),and Christopher Marlowe (1564-93), whose ‘mighty line’ put heroism excitingly on the stage and who shares with Shakespeare credit for establishing the English history play as a dramatic mode. As Shakespeare’s career progressed, other dramatists displayed their talents and, doubtless, influenced and stimulated him. George Chapman (c.1560-1634) emerged as a dramatist in the mid-1590s and succeeded in both comedy and tragedy. He was deeply interested in classical themes, as was Ben Jonson (1572-1637), who became Shakespeare’s chief rival. Jonson was a dominating personality, vocal about his accomplishments (and about Shakespeare, who, he said, ‘wanted art’), and biting as a comic satirist. Thomas Dekker (c.1572-1632) wrote comedies that are more akin to Shakespeare’s than to Jonson’s in their romantic warmth; the satirical plays of John Marston (c.1575-1634) are more sensational and cynical than Jonson’s. Thomas Middleton (1580-1627) brought a sharp wit to the portrayal of contemporary London life, and developed into a great tragic dramatist. Towards the end of Shakespeare’s career, Francis Beaumont (1584-1616) and John Fletcher (1579-1625) came upon the scene; the affinity between Shakespeare’s late tragicomedies and some of Fletcher’s romances is reflected in their collaboration.
The companies for which these dramatists wrote were organized mainly from within. They were led by the sharers: eight in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men at first, twelve by the end of Shakespeare’s career. Collectively they owned the joint stock of play scripts, costumes, and properties; they shared both expenses and profits. All were working members of the company. Exceptionally, the sharers of Shakespeare’s company owned the Globe theatre itself; more commonly, actors rented theatres from financial speculators such as Philip Henslowe, financier of the Admiral’s Men. Subordinate to the sharers were the ‘hired men’—lesser actors along with prompters (‘bookholders’), stagekeepers, wardrobe keepers (‘tiremen’), musicians, and money-collectors (‘gatherers’). Even those not employed principally as actors might swell a scene at need. The hired men were paid by the week. Companies would need scribes to copy out actors’ parts and to make fair copies from the playwrights’ foul papers (working manuscripts), but they seem mainly to have been employed part-time. The other important group of company members were the apprentices. These were boys or youths each serving a formal term of apprenticeship to one of the sharers. They played female and juvenile roles.
The success of plays in the Elizabethan theatres depended almost entirely on the actors. They had to be talented, hard-working, and versatile. Above all they had to have extraordinary memories. Plays were given in a repertory system on almost every afternoon of the week except during Lent. Only about two weeks could be allowed for rehearsal of a new play, and during that time the company would be regularly performing a variety of other plays. Lacking printed copies, the actors worked from ‘parts’ written out on scrolls giving only the cue lines from other characters’ speeches. The bookholder, or prompter, had to make sure that actors entered at the right moment, properly equipped. Many of them would take several parts in the same play: doubling and more was a necessary practice. The strain on the memory was great, demanding a high degree of professionalism. Conditions of employment were carefully regulated: a contract of 1614 provides that an actor and sharer, Robert Dawes (not in Shakespeare’s company), be fined one shilling for failure to turn up at the beginning of a rehearsal, two shillings for missing a rehearsal altogether, three shillings if he was not ‘ready apparelled’ for a performance, ten shillings if four other members of the company considered him to be ‘overcome with drink’ at the time he should be acting, and one pound if he simply failed to turn up for a performance without ‘licence or just excuse of sickness’.
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