William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is the most widely admired and respected writer in the English language. He is as significant a literary figure as the great writers of antiquity: Homer, Plato, Virgil. Only a handful of 'modern' authors can feasibly be seen as his equal: Dante, Cervantes, Molière, Tolstoy. He towers above his British contemporaries: Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson and John Webster. There are few writers of stature, both in Britain and abroad, who have not claimed Shakespeare as a powerful and overwhelming influence. He has generated more works of criticism than any other writer, and he is still the most performed playwright in the world. He is also the most frequently quoted writer in the world and many of his new coinages have passed into the language. He created some of the stage's most enduring characters: Falstaff, Hamlet, Shylock, Richard III, Ariel and Caliban. His works have been turned into operas by Verdi and Wagner and paintings by Delacroix, Turner and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. His plays have been filmed by Orson Welles, Laurence Olivier, Jean-Luc Godard and Akira Kurosawa. He remains the largest creative presence in Western culture.

However, in his own lifetime, things were different. Shakespeare was one of a number of talented playwrights operating in London between 1580 and 1610. Although his plays were always popular, Shakespeare was rarely singled out as the 'greatest' of Elizabethan writers. Perhaps because of this, few documents relating to Shakespeare's life survive. There are a few comments by rival dramatists and a number of legal documents about his marriage and later life. However, this gives no clear indication of his temperament or personality. Moreover, there are next to no clues in the plays. Keats claimed that Shakespeare had 'negative capability', that is to say, he could give equal dramatic weight to opposing points of view. However, this means that it is impossible to say anything about Shakespeare's politics or principles. Some critics have claimed that Shakespeare is a conservative, because he seems to show that royalty and hierarchy are central to the organic health of society. However, other critics have pointed to Shakespeare's implicit sympathy with outsider figures, like Shylock the Jew in The Merchant of Venice. In Coriolanus, his most political play, he finds both virtues and vices in the tyrannical Coriolanus and the democratic Tribunes.

Because of this elusive quality, some writers and critics have suggested that Shakespeare did not actually exist. He was a 'front' for a committee of writers and actors. Certainly, his plays often seem to be the work of many hands. In particular, the comic interludes in his works have a different linguistic and rhythmic cadence to his more ornate poetic scenes. However, to say that Shakespeare's plays were not entirely his own work is one thing. To say that he never existed is another. The fact is, there are similar stylistic and structural principles at work in Shakespeare's plays. One man clearly wrote most of the plays in the canon. However, some critics have responded to this by saying that this 'one man' was not Shakespeare, but Francis Bacon or Christopher Marlowe. Major cultural figures like Sigmund Freud and Henry James have joined this debate, arguing that Shakespeare was a barely-educated Warwickshire yokel who did not have the necessary sophistication and breadth of reference to write plays as intricate and profound as Hamlet and Twelfth Night. The Cambridge-educated Marlowe is a more likely candidate, especially as he mysteriously 'died' in 1593, just as Shakespeare started writing. Francis Bacon had the kind of scholarly tools that would be required to write an efficient dramatisation of Julius Caesar or Antony and Cleopatra. Edward De Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford, has also been put forward as a possible candidate.

However, it has to be said, that these sceptics have convinced neither the critical community nor the general public. Shakespeare, symbolised by the famous portrait in the First Folio, is the author of Richard III, Hamlet, Macbeth and all the other immortal works. So it is widely accepted that Shakespeare (not Bacon or Marlowe) is the greatest dramatist of all time. Now the question is, why is he regarded so highly?

To modern readers, the worship of Shakespeare (or 'Bardology') may seem excessive. Most readers first encounter Shakespeare at school, when they are not always equipped to appreciate the nuances of Elizabethan English or the subtleties of dramatic characterisation. Shakespeare's jokes are often obscure or dated. His historical references are often irrelevant to a modern audience. Since about 1620, most plays have been written in prose, not verse.

Furthermore, Shakespeare did not even invent his own plots. Like most Elizabethan dramatists, he stole ideas from other writers. Many of his history plays were based on Holinshed's Chronicles. The Comedy of Errors was based on Plautus' Menaechmi. Othello was a reworking of an Italian short story called The Deceived. He often used Plutarch and Tacitus to shape his Roman plays. Only The Tempest seems to be a completely original work and, for that reason, it is often seen as Shakespeare's most personal play, a veiled discussion of his aesthetic views and an extended farewell to stagecraft.

However, although Shakespeare stole his story-lines from other writers, he transformed them beyond recognition. He erased unnecessary scenes and characters. He often invented new protagonists. For instance, in Plautus' Menaechmi, there is only one set of identical twins. When Shakespeare rewrote the Menaechmi as The Comedy of Errors, he decided to double the number of twins so that there were two Dromios and two Antipholuses, thus increasing the confusion and hilarity. Throughout his life, he treated his sources with similar irreverence. A list of dry facts in Holinshed's Chronicles allowed him to create the supremely three-dimensional stage villain, Richard III.

Shakespeare was also a theatrical revolutionary. To the despair of more classically-trained playwrights, Shakespeare ignored the unities. His plays did not take place in one location, nor did they all happen in real time. He frequently introduced supernatural elements; he switched locations constantly. He tended to ignore past models. Much of this may have been caused by the demands of the new theatrical spaces in which he worked. For instance, many of Shakespeare's plays were first performed at the Globe, and, as a principal shareholder, he would have tried to take full advantage of the theatre's dramatic potential. There was a trap door for infernal entrances and exits, and the 'heavens' often concealed flying equipment. The actors were surrounded on all four sides by audience members and this may have encouraged a more intimate form of dramatic exchange, hence Shakespeare's fondness for soliloquies. Moreover, there was a definite desire to appeal to all sectors of the audience, from the 'groundlings' standing near the stage (who appreciated the bawdy humour) to the aristocrats in the balcony (who presumably preferred the epic poetry).

However, Shakespeare seems to have been revolutionary by nature. His plays thrive on new ideas. In particular, his work is full of new words, new phrases and new formulations. He was born at a time in which the English language was in transition. It was 150 years before the first dictionary and the establishment of Standard English. Although norms were being quietly prescribed, the English language was still a work in progress, constantly absorbing French and Latin words, modernising Anglo-Saxon epithets and coining original conflations of old and new terms. It was the ideal time for a writer like Shakespeare to be alive. He was able to take the language and twist it into a new shape. In his plays, we find the first recorded use of 'accommodation', 'amazement', 'assassination', 'auspicious', 'barefaced', 'bump', 'castigate', 'countless', 'courtship', 'critic', 'dislocate', 'dwindle', 'exposure', 'eyesore', 'faint-hearted', 'frugal', 'generous', 'gloomy', 'gnarled', 'heartsick', 'majestic', 'monumental' and a whole host of other words. He invented phrases like 'cold comfort', 'foul play', 'tongue-tied', 'fell swoop', 'short shrift', 'pitched battle', 'sea change', 'laughing stock', 'stony hearted', 'foregone conclusion' and 'to the manner born'. He was the first writer to realise the full potential of the English language, and many of his descriptions (of emotions, objects, places) remain unsurpassed.

Shakespeare is also loved by actors. Perhaps this is because he was an actor himself, often taking on roles in his own plays, like the Ghost of Hamlet's father in Hamlet. Certainly many of his most famous characters are actors playing actors. Hamlet pretends to be mad. Bottom and the 'rude mechanicals' play Pyramus and Thisbe. Richard III pretends to be sincere and benevolent. Iago tells Cassio 'I am not what I am', and pretends to be 'honest'. Viola disguises herself as a boy in Twelfth Night. In Much Ado, Don Pedro and Claudio act in order to gull Benedick; Hero and Margaret act in order to ensnare Beatrice. The Duke in Measure for Measure and Kent in King Lear both adopt disguises to return to their old realms. Acting is second nature to Shakespeare's characters, and they always jump at the chance of any masquerade or charade. As a result of this, Shakespeare's plays also seem to be about the gulf that separates reality from appearances, impersonation from authenticity.

Ultimately, Shakespeare is admired because he seems to know 'human nature'. His characters act realistically. He shows how kings and queens are human too. Furthermore, it is not just his principal characters who are three-dimensional and multi-faceted. His secondary characters are also fully realised and completely credible. In Hamlet for instance, it is not just the Prince who is a complex creation, there is also Ophelia, Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius and Laertes. In Midsummer Night's Dream, the cast includes the lovers (Lysander, Demetrius, Helena and Hermia), the fairies (Puck, Oberon, Titania) and the 'rude mechanicals' (Bottom, Flute). They are all superb roles. Furthermore, Shakespeare writes brilliantly for women (although admittedly, in his own time, female roles were played by young boys and women only played women after 1660). Lady Macbeth, Desdemona, Cleopatra, Rosalind, Beatrice and Viola are all fully rounded characters. Shakespeare cut across racial and social boundaries too. He created Othello the Moor and Shylock the Jew. In Much Ado, he created the working-class Dogberry and Verges and the upper class Don Pedro and Don John. It is another example of Shakespeare's 'negative capability', his ability to invest all of his characters with life, whether they are good or bad, rich or poor, male or female, young or old, mortal or supernatural.

William Shakespeare was born in April 1564. Nobody is certain about the exact date, only that he was baptised on 26th April at the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon. His mother, Mary Arden, had had two children before William, but they had died in infancy. His father, John Shakespeare, had moved to Stratford in 1552, and by the time of Shakespeare's birth, he was a successful businessman, specialising in making and selling gloves. In the 1560s, John Shakespeare became an active municipal politician, serving as chamberlain (1561), alderman (1565) and mayor (1568). Because of this, it is likely that William and his siblings were granted a solid middle-class provincial education. It is possible that Shakespeare attended King's New School, near the Guild Hall in Stratford.

The next significant fact that is known about Shakespeare concerns Anne Hathaway, a woman eight years his senior. She became pregnant by him in the summer of 1582 and a 'shotgun' wedding was arranged in November 1582. Their daughter Susannah was born in May 1583. Most critics seem to agree that Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway did not have a particularly close or happy marriage. They had only two more children (twins called Hamnet and Judith) and they spent few of the next thirty years together. In his will, Shakespeare famously left Anne his 'second-best bed'. However, outwardly, he provided well for his wife and children. In 1597 he purchased one of the finest houses in Stratford (New Place). He renewed his father's petition for a family crest and in 1596 it was granted.

Between 1585 and 1592, next to nothing is known about Shakespeare's movements. The unreliable biographer John Aubrey claimed that he became a schoolmaster. Other critics have suggested that he joined the army. However, what is beyond doubt is that sometime before 1592, he decided to join a troupe of players. It is possible that he joined that the Queen's Men in the late 1580s. What is more certain is that by 1592 he had established himself as an actor and writer. There is an unflattering reference to him as an 'upstart crow' in Robert Greene's Groatsworth of Wit (1592).

In the early 1590s, the theatres were closed due to plague. In consequence, Shakespeare produced two narrative poems. These are generally seen as Shakespeare's earliest work, although it is possible that Henry VI, The Comedy of Errors and Titus Andronicus were written before them. Both Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594) were dedicated to the Earl of Southampton. This has fuelled speculation by critics that Southampton and Shakespeare enjoyed a homosexual relationship at some time in the early 1590s. Critics have also read homoerotic meanings into the sonnets, which were written in this period, but not published until 1609.

Venus and Adonis is a 1194-line narrative poem, based on an episode in Ovid's Metamorphoses. It is about the obsessive love of the goddess Venus for the unwilling Adonis. Although it is rarely read today, it was hugely popular in Shakespeare's lifetime, going through nine reprints by 1616 and confirming the Elizabethan and Jacobean trend for long mythological poems, like Marlowe's Hero and Leander. The Rape of Lucrece followed in 1594. Also based on Ovid's writings, this is much darker in tone than Venus and Adonis. It depicts the cruel rape of Lucrece by the headstrong Tarquin, and Lucrece's subsequent despair and suicide. These long poems are interesting because they show how, even at an early age, Shakespeare was interested in courtly love, extended literary conceits and strong female protagonists. They also show that he had a creative and cavalier approach to his source material. They are not particularly popular today because they lack narrative momentum and three-dimensional characters. They also use excessively artificial and rhetorical language.

The sonnets, on the other hand, are still read and enjoyed. The most enduring are probably Sonnet 18 ('Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?'), Sonnet 29 ('When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes'), Sonnet 55 ('Not marble, nor the gilded monuments'), Sonnet 116 ('Let me not to the marriage of true minds') and Sonnet 130 ('My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun'). Some critics believe that many of the sonnets offer insights into Shakespeare's private life. Certainly there are coded references to a 'rival poet', who may or may not be George Chapman. Several sonnets are addressed to a young man ('for a woman wert thou first created', Sonnet 20). Later in the sequence, there is a Dark Lady who makes him 'swear beauty herself is black'. However, these mischievous hints prove little about Shakespeare's sexuality or professional status. Sonnets were conventionally a way of demonstrating technical and aesthetic proficiency. Love-objects (like Petrarch's Laura or Dante's Beatrice) were idealised or fictional. The Elizabethan sonnet was not a 'confessional' form. It is more likely that Shakespeare was trying to advertise himself as a virtuoso stylist with a comprehensive range of emotional registers.

During this period, Shakespeare also wrote his first plays. Titus Andronicus is usually seen as his earliest work, because of its combination of crudity and theatrical ambition. It focuses on the tragic life of the Roman soldier, Titus Andronicus. It has a number of promising moments, such as Titus' moving speech in Act III, scene i ('For now I stand as one upon a rock / Environed with a wilderness of sea'). But it is also marred by scenes of absurdity, such as Act I, scene i, when Titus loses his temper and stabs his son to death, Act II, scene iii, when two characters converse in a hole in the middle of the stage and Act III, scene i, when a mutilated Lavinia carries Titus' severed hand around in her mouth. The Comedy of Errors, on the other hand, was meant to be amusing. This is also an apprentice work, since it lacks the linguistic and psychological sophistication that would later become Shakespeare's forte. However it is redeemed by an ingenious and fast-paced plot and a cast of colourful characters. As the two Antipholuses and the two Dromios get mixed up, Shakespeare also tentatively considers the fragility of identity.

Other works by Shakespeare are also associated with this early period. 'The Phoenix and the Turtle' and 'A Lover's Complaint' are juvenile poems that are sometimes attributed to Shakespeare. Henry VI was an early attempt at a history play, drawn from Edward Hall's Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York (1548) and Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1587). The third part of Henry VI is notable because it introduces the figure of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, later Richard III. King John, written sometime between 1592 and 1595, is an uneven dramatisation of the life of the weak, controversial, medieval king.

Richard III is generally seen as Shakespeare's first great play. It was first published in a 1597 quarto edition, but it was probably written in 1591 or 1592. Like Titus Andronicus, it is meant to be a tragedy, but often it approaches a bloody farce, along the lines of Marlowe's The Jew of Malta. Richard III is too evil to be true: he kills his own brothers; he marries the wife of a man he has just killed; he murders his nephews. He is often compared to a stage devil, a quick-witted, charming Satan. For this reason, Shakespeare has sometimes been accused of writing Tudor propaganda. Richard III is completely demonised; Henry Tudor (Elizabeth I's grandfather) is idealised. However, this is to ignore the way in which Richard III is also invested with wit, intelligence, charisma and courage. He dominates the stage, consigning all the other protagonists to minor roles. He is a brilliant actor (especially when he pretends to be pious and meek in Act III, scene vii). Shakespeare can never depict a talented role-player without sympathy. Richard also tends to make the audience complicit with his schemes, by confiding in them beforehand. 'I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter', he tells us, before wooing Lady Anne. Richard III is the template for many of Shakespeare's later creations, both villains (like Iago) and heroes (like Macbeth).

The Taming of the Shrew was written sometime between 1591 and 1593. It was probably first performed in London in January 1594. Before the play itself begins, there is a prologue centring on the gulling of Christopher Sly. A wealthy lord finds him drunk in the gutter and convinces him he is a rich nobleman. This demonstrates Shakespeare's fondness for practical jokes and play-acting. Deception of this nature will feature in many of the comedies: there is the gulling of Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado and the duping of Malvolio in Twelfth Night. The ennobled Sly is presented with a play and The Taming of the Shrew begins. Lucentio and Tranio arrive in Padua. Most of Shakespeare's comedies will take place in exotic locations: Much Ado is set in Messina; Twelfth Night is set in Illyria; A Midsummer Night's Dream is set in Athens. It seems that Shakespeare's audiences liked plays with a Mediterranean backdrop. However the protagonists in his comedies speak and behave like Elizabethan Englishmen.

The Taming of the Shrew centres on two sisters, Bianca and Katharine. Bianca is modest and studious. Katharine is hot-headed and disdainful. However, their father decrees that Bianca cannot marry until Katharine has found a husband. Bianca has two suitors and they are both devastated by this news. Fortunately, a bluff adventurer called Petruchio is persuaded to marry Katharine for her money. He also succeeds in 'taming' her and making her a pliant wife. Understandably, many feminist critics have balked at the apparent sexism in Shakespeare's play. Other critics have tried to read Katharine's 'submission' as ironic or as an outward gesture concealing inner defiance or as an acceptable concession to the necessary compromise of marriage. In his later play, Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare would attempt a more mature assessment of a 'fiery' relationship, with both the husband (Benedick) and the wife (Beatrice) learning to 'bear the yoke'.

Two other comedies belong to this period: Love's Labour's Lost (c.1592-4) and A Midsummer Night's Dream (c.1593-5). Love's Labour Lost centres on King Ferdinand of Navarre's misguided attempt to forswear the company of women. It is infrequently performed today because of its impenetrable and highly artificial language.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's most perennially popular dramas. It is generally seen as the first thoroughly 'Shakespearean' comedy, because it has the split-level plot and broad canvas usually associated with the genre. There are four distinct character groupings of varying social class. Theseus and Hippolyta are the upper-class mortals. Then there are the lovers: Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia and Helena. Then there are the fairies: Titania, Oberon and Puck. There are also the lower-class rustics: Bottom, Flute, Snug and Quince. All of these groups interact and overlap. Furthermore, there is a 'play within a play', which creates another set of characters: Pyramus, Thisbe, Moonshine and the Lion. The play's subject-matter is encapsulated by Lysander: 'The course of true love never did run smooth'. This description could also apply to Shakespearean comedy as a whole. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, for the first time, Shakespeare allows love to dominate each strand of the drama, turning the world upside down, flouting social boundaries and conventions, sending everyone mad. Then, at the close, order is restored.

The plot is extremely intricate. Theseus is about to marry Hippolyta. However, in the first scene, they are asked to intervene in a family feud. Egeon's daughter, Hermia, will not marry her father's choice of husband, Demetrius. She loves Lysander. Demetrius previously loved Helena, but now he is besotted with Hermia. Lysander and Hermia run away to the woods. Helena and Demetrius pursue them. There, Puck mistakenly covers Lysander's eyes with 'love-in-idleness' so that he loves Helena. Then Puck tries to make amends by covering Demetrius's eyes with 'love-in-idleness'. Now both Lysander and Demetrius love Helena. Oberon, King of the Fairies, intervenes. Lysander will love Hermia. Demetrius will love Helena.

At the same time, Oberon is quarrelling with Titania, the Queen of the Fairies. Titania has a changeling boy that Oberon wants in his retinue. To get his own back, Oberon makes Titania fall in love with Bottom, a weaver who is rehearsing a play in the woods. Moreover, Bottom has been turned into a donkey. At the end of the play, Oberon relents and Titania is restored to her senses. Bottom is allowed to act his play before Theseus and Hippolyta.

A Midsummer Night's Dream moves at a frantic speed. Indeed, the play's title is accurate, because it has a dream-like pace and immediacy. Like a dream, its essence is metamorphosis. Here Shakespeare was evidently influenced by his reading of Ovid (a writer he first reinterpreted in Venus and Adonis). In A Midsummer Night's Dream, everyone is transformed. Bottom is turned into an ass. Titania becomes Bottom's lover. Lysander and Demtrius become Helena's admirers. As in a dream, Eros is allowed free play, and alliances and allegiances continually shift. Supernatural intervention is completely normal and language dissolves into puns, nonsense and nursery rhymes. As Bottom puts it, 'reason and love keep little company together nowadays', and the play seems to celebrate dream-like irrationality.

Richard II was probably Shakespeare's next play, written sometime between 1594 and 1595. It is a short historical tragedy, heavily indebted to Marlowe's Edward II. It is built on the contrast between the weak and vulnerable Richard and the strong, courageous Henry Bolingbroke (later Henry IV). It contains one of Shakespeare's most famous speeches: John of Gaunt's celebration of England as 'This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, / This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, / This other Eden, demi-paradise'.

Henry IV was probably written next, sometime between 1595 and 1596. This is generally seen as one of Shakespeare's finest historical plays: certainly it is a marked improvement on Richard III and Richard II. It has two parts. Henry IV, Part One is about Henry V's coming of age. Hotspur, Mortimer and Worcester have rebelled against Henry IV. Henry IV fears that his son (later Henry V) will not be able to help him fight these traitors, because he is too busy drinking with Sir John Falstaff. But Prince Henry rises to the occasion and beats the quick-tempered Hotspur in single combat. In Henry IV, Part Two, the rebellion against Henry IV is continued by Northumberland, the Archbishop of York, Mowbray and Hastings. Henry IV's army prevails, but soon afterwards the King dies. In spite of his victories, there is a sense in which he never persuaded the English people of his legitimacy.

On the surface, this sounds like a straightforward history play. Fortunately, it is transformed into something more extraordinary by the presence of Falstaff, Prince Henry's drinking companion. He is generally regarded as Shakespeare's finest comic creation. He is a drunk, vain coward who never tires of inventing imaginary battles and touching his friends for money. In the last act of Henry IV, Part One, he leads a ragged army on to the battlefield, then feigns death when Douglas proves too strong for him. After this, he tries to claim the credit for killing Hotspur. In Henry IV, Part Two, he fights in a similarly craven fashion, then idles away his spare time with Justice Shallow and Doll Tearsheet. Falstaff symbolises the dissolution and depravity that Prince Henry must leave behind if he is to become a good King. However, audiences have tended to find him a symbol of incorrigibility and geniality. He was so popular in Shakespeare's day that he was given a play of his own, The Merry Wives of Windsor (c.1597), an uneven, bawdy farce.

Romeo and Juliet was written around the same time as Henry IV, Part One, sometime between 1595 and 1596. It is Shakespeare's first wholly successful tragedy. Like A Midsummer Night's Dream, it is not one of Shakespeare's 'greatest' plays, but it is unquestionably one of his most popular. Like A Midsummer Night's Dream, it has a buoyancy, grace and lyricism that is the special preserve of the younger Shakespeare.

It has several traits which mark it down as an early play. For a start, the language is still highly formalised. It begins with a punning exchange between Sampson and Gregory, and puns and wordplay dominate the rest of the play's dialogue. Even Romeo and Juliet converse in strained conceits and puns. Most of Shakespeare's lovers flirt in this fashion -- there is an adversarial quality to Shakespearean courtship that encourages jokes and ripostes. However, Romeo and Juliet are more verbally dexterous than most. For instance, this is their first exchange, which is constructed like a sonnet:

ROMEO: If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

JULIET: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

ROMEO: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

JULIET: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROMEO: O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

JULIET: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

ROMEO: Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.

Of course, this verbal sparring is wholly suitable for Romeo and Juliet, since they are enemies. Romeo is a Montague; Juliet is a Capulet. The plot famously revolves around a boy and a girl from warring Italian families falling in love with each other. Indeed, Shakespeare makes this a more general metaphor for the exclusiveness and precariousness of love. Romeo and Juliet have become such archetypes because they embody love at its most irrational: they should not fall in love, but they don't care. Their youth also gives them an added vulnerability. They are too inexperienced to act sensibly.

In fact, this is the closest Romeo and Juliet get to having a 'fatal flaw'. In essence, Romeo and Juliet is the tragedy of two innocents. Unlike Shakespeare's later tragic heroes, they are not responsible for their own downfall: they are the victims of their environment. At times, their bad luck is almost absurd. The final Act involves Juliet feigning death; Romeo failing to receive a letter; Romeo killing himself because he mistakenly believes Juliet to be dead; then Juliet killing herself after seeing Romeo's corpse. The play would be almost unbearably cruel, were it not for the lyric poetry. It contains some of Shakespeare's most beautiful lines: 'But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? / It is the east, and Juliet is the sun', 'What's in a name? that which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet', 'parting is such sweet sorrow, / That I shall say good night till it be morrow.'

After Henry IV and Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare wrote his four greatest comedies, The Merchant of Venice (c.1596-7), Much Ado About Nothing (c.1598-9), As You Like It (c.1599-1600) and Twelfth Night (c.1600-1), his finest history play, Henry V (c.1598-9), two of his most renowned tragedies, Julius Caesar (c.1599) and Hamlet (c.1600-1), and the 'problem plays': Troilus and Cressida (c.1601-2), All's Well That End's Well (c.1601-3) and Measure for Measure (c.1602-3). It was a phenomenal burst of creativity, an unparalleled seven-year burst of invention. Even more astonishingly, it would be equalled by the seven years that followed (1604-11), seven years that would produce Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest.

The Merchant of Venice was first performed in London in c.1597, but it may have been written the year before. On the surface, The Merchant of Venice resembles a conventional Shakespearean comedy, dominated by love and courtship. Bassanio woos Portia, Gratiano pursues Nerissa and Lorenzo wins the heart of Jessica. There is an atmosphere of riddles and role-play, as Bassanio chooses between three caskets, Portia dresses up as a boy to defend Antonio, and Portia and Nerissa trick Bassanio and Gratiano in the final Act.

However, in reality, the play is dominated by Shylock, the Jewish money-lender. He agrees to finance Bassanio's pursuit of Portia, provided he can have a 'pound of flesh' from Antonio the merchant if his money is not repaid within three months. In theory, Shylock should be a stage villain, an anti-Semitic caricature of a Jew. That he is the most complex and attractive character in the play is testimony to Shakespeare's dramatic skill. Shylock may be brutal, but he has been made that way by Venetian society. People like Antonio spit on him, then ask him for money. Above all, it is clear that his bloodthirsty desire for Antonio's flesh in Act IV is motivated by the abduction of his daughter and the plundering of his coffers. His speech in Act III is a justly famous assertion of his common humanity: 'Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?'

Shylock is unquestionably bigger than the play in which he features, like Falstaff in Henry IV. The fact that he is forcibly converted by the 'Christian' authorities (for cleverly manipulating their flawed justice system) says more about the dubious constitution of society than about Shylock's 'villainy'. Later Shakespearean comedies would provoke similar questions. Superficially, they have a comic momentum, banishing misfits (like Don John and Malvolio) and celebrating a rejuvenated community with multiple marriages. But in reality, they problematise the way in which individuals are sacrificed for 'the greater good' and they tacitly challenge the stigmatisation of difference and weakness.

Much Ado About Nothing was written between 1598 and 1599. Once more, this seems to be a celebration of love. It is set in Messina. There are two sets of lovers: Claudio and Hero, and Beatrice and Benedick. Claudio and Hero are the young, inexperienced couple: they have to use proxies to woo each other, and nearly separate after Hero is falsely accused of infidelity. Benedick and Beatrice are slightly older: they publicly disparage the idea of marriage and use wit and wordplay as a means of self-defence. They are 'gulled' into loving each other by Don Pedro. At the end of the play, the two couples marry.

However, there are more disturbing undercurrents. Much Ado is a play which satirises the falseness of aristocratic society. Everybody seems to be acting. Deception is second nature to the protagonists: in the second Act everybody attends a ball, in which everyone wears masks and disguises. At this ball, Don Pedro pretends to be Claudio in order to woo Hero. Shortly afterwards, Don John hatches a scheme in which Margaret will play Hero and Borachio her lover. At the same time, Don Pedro is deceiving Benedick about Beatrice and Hero is lying to Beatrice about Benedick. Nobody trusts anybody. In the first Act, both Don John and Antonio have servants listening in on Don Pedro and Claudio. Benedick and Beatrice both eavesdrop on staged conversations in Act III. Don Pedro and Claudio spy on Hero's chamber window at the end of the third Act. This atmosphere of falseness and disguise leads to multiple misunderstandings. In Act One, Claudio thinks Don Pedro is wooing Hero for himself. Leonato too thinks Don Pedro is wooing his daughter. Ultimately, Claudio and Don Pedro are tricked into believing that Hero is unchaste.

Don John is the man who exploits and manipulates this illusory community. He is described as the villain of the piece but, in reality, most of his schemes are flawed and would not get anywhere, were it not for the complicity and gullibility of the main protagonists. He is singled out and persecuted, but in reality he is made a scapegoat for the rottenness of Messina as a whole. Like Shylock, he is punished for embodying the principal qualities of his society: elusiveness and trickery. After all, he does not act any worse than Claudio and Don Pedro when they cruelly reject Hero as a 'rotten orange' in front of her whole family in Act IV. The fact that the play does not have a universally dark tone is largely thanks to Beatrice and Benedick. Although they are tricked into marriage, they are, to all intents and purposes, in love right from the start. From Act I, scene i, they are obsessed with each other. Their witty, warm, entertaining relationship has always been the heart of the play.

After writing two comedies, it is probable that Shakespeare returned to the history genre at the end of 1598. Henry V (c.1598-9) was the last time he would reconfigure Plantagenet history. It picks up where Henry IV left off, and the play has a similar intensity, elegance and dramatic tension. Indeed for some critics, it is not merely Shakespeare's finest history play, it is one of the most satisfying and accomplished dramas he ever wrote.

The subject of the play is war. Henry V declares war on France and leads his troops across the channel. There is a Chorus at the beginning of each Act that emphasises the idea of epic struggle. The play contains Henry's famous address to his troops: 'Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more / Or close the wall up with our English dead.'

However the play isn't simply a chronicle of bloody conquest. It is also a subtle study of leadership and heroism. Prince Henry has turned into a model soldier-king. He knows exactly when to be cruel, such as when he tells the people of Harfleur that if they don't yield: 'why, in a moment look to see / The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand / Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters; / Your fathers taken by the silver beards, / And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls, / Your naked infants spitted upon pikes'. But Henry also knows when to be humble, such as when he goes among his men in disguise. One need only compare the character of Henry V with Marlowe's Tamburlaine to see how rounded and credible Shakespeare's hero is. Shakespeare makes us believe that Henry can lead his troops to victory in spite of their dispirited and exhausted condition. The complete submission of France is symbolised by Henry's conquest of Princess Katharine in Act V. The King's wooing of the Princess also provides a more tender and human end to an otherwise cold and steely play.

Julius Caesar was written in 1599. It is seen as the first of Shakespeare's great tragedies, preceding Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. It is also grouped with the 'Roman' plays: Titus Andronicus, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus. Critics have disagreed over whether Shakespeare creates a unified and consistent picture of ancient Rome. The majority seem to argue that Shakespeare rebuilds the city in each play, remodelling it around the character of his tragic hero. Furthermore, each of the plays take place in different Roman eras: from Coriolanus at the beginning of the city's history, to Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra at the height of the Empire, to Titus Andronicus at the end. Julius Caesar is probably the most 'Roman' of the four plays, not merely because of the presence of Caesar, but also because it does not have a second focus (symbolised by Tamora and Aaron in Titus, Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra and Aufidius in Coriolanus). It is a civil conflict, conducted between warring Romans.

At the beginning of the play, Caesar is at the height of his power. He has just defeated Pompey on the battlefield. Brutus begins to suspect that Caesar is too ambitious. Cassius encourages Brutus to join his conspiracy against Caesar and Mark Antony. Brutus agrees to slay Caesar, but insists that Mark Antony be spared. After killing Caesar, Brutus speaks at his funeral. However, Mark Antony also gives a speech, in which he subtly attacks Brutus and defends Caesar's reputation. The people of Rome turn against Brutus. There is a civil war, with Cassius and Brutus on one side and Antony and Octavius on the other. Cassius and Brutus quarrel all the time, and eventually lose the war. Cassius falls on his sword, then Brutus does the same. Mark Antony commends Brutus as 'the noblest Roman of them all'.

Julius Caesar pre-empts many of the later tragedies. Brutus' weakness and hesitation, expressed in a number of brooding soliloquies, anticipate Hamlet. The relationship between Cassius and Brutus is the template for later tragic pairings. Cassius urges Brutus on to the bloody deed, like Iago in Othello and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. The ghost of Caesar later appears before the guilt-ridden Brutus, just as Banquo will return to haunt Macbeth.

In other ways, Julius Caesar differs considerably from later works. For a start, there is no central hero, no Lear, no Macbeth, no Coriolanus. The dramatic burden is shared by Julius Caesar, Brutus, Mark Antony and Cassius, and it shifts continually. At one moment, Caesar seems to be the dominant force, casting a shadow over the entire play. At another, Cassius seems to be the engine of the play, driving the plot onwards with his relentless scheming. However, the two main heroic candidates are Brutus and Mark Antony. Brutus is the 'noblest Roman' who kills Caesar because he loves Rome. Mark Antony is the friend of Caesar who will avenge his master. However, both of these men are also flawed. Brutus is a self-deluding prig, who believes that he can kill Caesar without being brutal: 'Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods, / Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds.' Mark Antony is a shrewd politician whose manipulation of the crowd in Act III, scene ii is justly acclaimed as one of Shakespeare's finest depictions of rhetorical connivance. Indeed, Julius Caesar shows all of Shakespeare's genius for characterisation. The principal characters are both noble and ignoble, admirable and suspect, honourable and underhand.

In between Julius Caesar and his next tragedy, Hamlet, Shakespeare probably wrote another comedy: As You Like It (c.1599-1600). Along with Twelfth Night, this is seen as Shakespeare's supreme contribution to the comic genre. In other ways too, the two plays are similar. Like Twelfth Night, As You Like It possesses a female lead character (Rosalind) who dresses as a man. Furthermore, she has been banished and must try and survive in a new environment. Like Viola in Twelfth Night, Rosalind also manages to make another woman (Phebe) fall in love with her. Rosalind is accompanied by a jester, Touchstone. Shakespeare's decision to use a 'fool' to marshal much of the play's wit is repeated in Twelfth Night, when he creates Feste. However, As You Like It also resembles other Shakespeare plays. The Forest of Arden is the direct descendant of the woods in A Midsummer Night's Dream. The atmosphere of pastoral innocence and courtship anticipates The Winter's Tale. The theme of feuding brothers and unjust exile pre-empts The Tempest. Certainly, the undercurrent of melancholy (which returns in Twelfth Night) makes Shakespeare's later comedies more like the 'problem plays' and the late romances.

Of course, that is not to say that there is not laughter and happiness. As You Like It contains the usual assortment of courting lovers: Orlando and Rosalind, Oliver and Celia, Silvius and Phebe, Touchstone and Audrey. There is a movement towards reconciliation and justice, as the good Duke triumphs over the bad Duke, and Orlando is reconciled with his malicious brother Oliver.

But ultimately the sad elements refuse to dissipate. In particular, the character of Jaques is the embodiment of morbidity and disillusionment. He is responsible for the famous 'seven ages of man' speech in which all the world is a stage 'and all the men and women merely players'. He cannot bring himself to participate in the silliness and high spirits of courtship. Significantly, at the end of the play, he feels that there is no place for him in the good Duke's relentlessly cheerful community. He joins the bad Duke in his monastical retreat, asserting: 'So, to your pleasures: / I am for other than for dancing measures.'

In some ways, previous Shakespeare plays paved the way for the creation of Hamlet (c.1600-1). Hamlet himself has something of Brutus's hesitancy and Jaques's melancholy. The development of Prince Hal from frivolous wastrel to steely warrior in Henry IV mirrors, in some ways, the transformation of Hamlet in the final acts. But in other ways, nothing in Shakespeare's repertoire could have prepared his audience for the towering and unsurpassable achievement of Hamlet, the most famous play in the Western world and the most complex and challenging drama in Shakespeare's canon.

Hamlet is based on a twelfth-century story by Saxo Grammaticus (Amleth, Prince of Denmark). This gave Shakespeare the basic structure of the story, in which Hamlet revenges his murdered father. However, Shakespeare was also hugely influenced by the whole 'revenge tragedy' genre, particularly Thomas Kyd's seminal Spanish Tragedy (c.1590). In Kyd's play, Hieronimo is driven to madness by the death of his son and avenges his murder by means of an ingenious 'play within a play'. There are also rumours of an earlier play called Hamlet (termed the Ur-Hamlet by scholars), which may have provided Shakespeare with yet more material.

In Shakespeare's play, Hamlet's father, the King of Denmark, is killed by his brother, Claudius. Claudius claims the crown and the King's widowed wife, Gertrude. In the first Act, the ghost of the murdered King appears on the castle battlements. Hamlet is told about this, and confronts the 'dreaded sight'. The King's ghost tells Hamlet to revenge his 'foul murder'. After five acts of prevarication, Hamlet finally kills Claudius in the final Act. In the interim, Hamlet accidentally kills Polonius, drives his lover (Ophelia) mad, castigates his 'incestuous' mother, Gertrude, and unwillingly murders Laertes. In the final Act, he also dies himself, stabbed with Laertes's poisoned sword.

On the surface, this looks like a fairly conventional revenge tragedy. However, several aspects make it exceptional. First and foremost, there is the character of Hamlet. Hamlet's psychological upheaval is plausibly and thrillingly rendered. He is a man of thought, who must become a man of action. He is an upper-class student, who is required to act like an experienced killer. He is an adolescent, but must act with maturity and equipoise. The pressure of this drives him mad. He claims that he is merely putting on 'an antic disposition', but there is no doubt (indeed Hamlet admits as much in the final Act) that much of the insanity is genuine. He cannot bring himself to kill Claudius, and he chastises himself in a number of electrifying soliloquies ('O that this too too solid flesh would melt', 'O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I', 'To be, or not to be: that is the question'). Instead of killing his uncle, he invents a number of diversions, including a play ('The Murder of Gonzago') that will re-enact the murder in Claudius's presence. He eventually does kill the usurper, but only after he is roused to murderous passion by the death of his mother and Laertes.

Other elements of the play are similarly impressive. For example, Shakespeare creates an atmosphere of palpable unease and corruption. The rightful king of Denmark has been poisoned and replaced by his craven brother. As a result, the whole of Elsinore is contaminated. Time is 'out of joint' and 'something is rotten in the state of Denmark'. The natural bonds of affection between family members are broken. Polonius spies on his own son, Laertes. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are used as spies. Claudius and Polonius spy on Hamlet wooing Ophelia. Polonius hides behind the arras and watches Hamlet and Gertrude. It seems that Claudius's paranoia is contagious. Just as Claudius lives in guilt and fear, dreading discovery, so all the other characters refuse to trust their senses. Gertrude is driven to distraction by the 'madness' of her son. Ophelia kills herself after the death of her father.

It is this atmosphere of malignancy that explains the success of the play, with the desperate, humane, self-doubting Prince at the centre. Shakespeare seems to insert real people into a old-fashioned, melodramatic plot. He seems to ask: what would it really be like to lose your father, then watch your mother and uncle marry? He makes revenge a complex, difficult, terrifying option, instead of a straightforward dramatic resource. It has often been said that Hamlet himself is the first modern man. Previously, medieval man had a simple view of vengeance, in which life was cheap, and honour was paramount. But Hamlet belongs to the Renaissance, and uses reason to probe his own motives and methods. He is also a 'modern', in that he is emotionally dependent on his parents, and when the family unit is broken up, he descends into neurotic depression. There is none of the formality and coldness that is often apparent between 'royal' relations, particularly on stage. Hamlet has a colourful and complicated 'inner life' that still feels contemporary.

It is possible that Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Night (c.1601), his greatest comedy, in the same year as Hamlet, perhaps his greatest tragedy. If so, it would make the twelve months between 1600 and 1601, among the most important in English Literature. Certainly it seems that Shakespeare felt no further need to write conventional comedies after Twelfth Night: it was as if he had exhausted the possibilities of the genre. He took refuge in a number of 'problem plays', like Measure for Measure and All's Well That Ends Well. Moreover, Julius Caesar and Hamlet seemed to have reawakened his passion for tragedy, first explored in Titus Andronicus and Romeo and Juliet. After 1603, he would write three dramas (Lear, Othello and Macbeth) that would confirm him as the most accomplished tragedian of modern times.

Perhaps this explains the edge of bitterness and morbidity that is detectable in Twelfth Night. Like Much Ado and As You Like It, Twelfth Night is a late comedy, and it attempts to balance light and shade, joy and cruelty. Once more, the play has a conventionally comic surface. Viola and Sebastian are identical twins. After their ship sinks, they are both washed up on the island of Illyria. There, Viola dresses as a boy and secures a position in Orsino's household. Viola is asked to woo Olivia on Orsino's behalf. However, Olivia falls in love with Viola. At the same time, Olivia is troubled by two other wooers: Sir Andrew Aguecheek, a aristocratic 'clodpole' and Malvolio, a steward who has been tricked into thinking that Olivia is in love with him. By the fifth Act, the plot becomes maddeningly complex as Sebastian, Viola's twin brother, appears. But everything ends happily: Viola marries Orsino and Olivia marries Sebastian. Feste assures us that 'the rain it raineth every day', and the play ends.

So Twelfth Night seems to be the apotheosis of Shakespearean comedy. It has identical twins, like The Comedy of Errors. It has a secondary plot, in which a self-deluded character is gulled, like Much Ado About Nothing. It has male-female cross-dressing, like As You Like It. Sebastian and Antonio seem to have a similar relationship to Bassanio and Antonio in The Merchant of Venice. Even Sir Toby Belch seems to be a descendant of Shakespeare's most triumphant comic character: Sir John Falstaff.

But Twelfth Night also suggests that there is a fine line between cathartic laughter and downright malice. Sir Andrew Aguecheek is a fool and a coward who is totally dependent on Sir Toby. But he is also an innocent. There is something nasty about the way in which Sir Toby exploits him, and spends his money. Certainly Sir Andrew doesn't merit being destroyed by Sir Toby in the last Act. After he loses a duel to Sebastian, Sir Toby labels Sir Andrew 'an ass-head and a coxcomb and a knave, a thin-faced knave, a gull!' Similarly, Malvolio may be vain and ambitious, but he doesn't deserve imprisonment and mockery by 'Sir Topas'. The scenes in which he appears 'smiling', wearing 'yellow stockings cross-gartered', are hilarious. But the joke is taken too far, and Malvolio is left a broken man, devastated by Olivia's apparent 'duplicity' and reduced to impotent curses ('I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you'). Furthermore, Feste is always in the background. He is Shakespeare's most melancholy fool, and his rueful wit gives the entire play a bittersweet quality.

After Twelfth Night, Shakespeare wrote the three 'problem plays': Troilus and Cressida (c.1601-2), All's Well That Ends Well (c.1602-3) and Measure for Measure (c.1602-4). These allowed him to reassume the ambivalent tone of the late comedies. Indeed, they are called 'problem plays' because the comic elements are almost completely smothered and replaced by a heightened awareness of human frailty, corruption and mortality. Only the nominal 'happy endings' save them from being labelled tragedies.

Measure for Measure is generally seen as the most successful of the three plays. Duke Vincentio is depressed by the condition of his realm. He decides to abdicate and hand over his authority to Angelo. Angelo is a fierce moralist, cold and cruel ('when he makes water, his urine is congealed ice'). As soon as he assumes power, Angelo sentences Claudio to death for getting Julietta pregnant. Meanwhile, Claudio's sister, Isabella is about to enter a nunnery. When she hears about her brother's arrest, she goes to Angelo and entreats him to spare Claudio. Angelo agrees to pardon Claudio, provided that Isabella agrees to sleep with him.

Fortunately, all of these events are observed by the Duke. He has disguised himself as Friar Lodowick. He tells Isabella to agree to Angelo's request. However, instead of Isabella, Mariana will be sent to Angelo's bedchamber. Five years previously, Angelo had promised to marry Mariana, before breaking his word. After sleeping with Mariana (who he believes to be Isabella), Angelo decides to kill Claudio anyway. He knows that Isabella will not confess, because she will be too ashamed of what she has done. In the final Act, the Duke removes his disguise and passes judgement on everyone. Unlike Angelo, he acts mercifully. Mariana and Angelo will marry. Lucio, a rake, is forced to marry a prostitute. The Duke marries the virginal Isabella.

Unlike Shakespeare's previous plays, Measure for Measure works best as a moral conundrum. It does not have particularly memorable characters. It is not full of beautiful poetry. It is difficult to feel complete sympathy with any of the protagonists. Angelo is a wretched hypocrite whose duplicity in Act IV is almost cartoon-like. The Duke seems to be good and noble, but then again, there is something cowardly about his abdication in the first Act. He admits that he is using Angelo to enforce the 'most biting laws' that he himself is too lax to administer. His plan to switch Isabella and Mariana in Act IV seems heartless and childish. Similarly, Isabella seems to be a pure and honourable novice. But there is something off-putting about her self-righteous asceticism. Furthermore, her willingness to trick Angelo and use Mariana as her substitute seems morally questionable. Of course, the unattractiveness of all the protagonists is not, in itself, a flaw. In recent years, the 'problem plays' have been praised by critics for their convincing depiction of human folly. It is difficult to take sides and often impossible to penetrate the protagonists' motives. Moreover, a play like Measure for Measure has an invigorating austerity and strangeness.

Troilus and Cressida is a retelling of the Greek love story, previously rendered into English by Chaucer. It is a strange mixture of epic, tragedy and comedy and Coleridge has justly commented: 'there is none of Shakespeare's plays harder to characterise.' All's Well That Ends Well is a sombre romantic comedy, dominated by the blusterous conceit of the cowardly Parolles. In the past, it was assumed to be the otherwise lost Love's Labour's Won, written in the 1590s. However, scholars now believe that its literary style has more in common with the plays of the 'problem' period. Like Measure for Measure, it contains an implausible scene in which two women change places in bed.

While Shakespeare was writing his late comedies, his great tragedies and the 'problem plays', his life was also changing fast. He was now a prominent member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, guaranteed a market for his new plays. It is likely that he wrote his plays with particular members of the company in mind: Richard Burbage for the tragic roles like Othello and King Lear, Will Kempe for the early clowns like Launce and Dogberry, and Robert Armin for later 'wise fools' like Feste and Lear's Fool. In 1599, his company built a new theatre (the Globe) after 'The Theatre' was dismantled because of a disagreement with the landlord. Along with the rest of the company, Shakespeare owned the new venue, and probably made a sizeable amount of money from the gate takings. Certainly he was able to buy property in London and Stratford. By about 1600, Shakespeare was a hugely successful professional playwright, financially and artistically flourishing.

Othello was first performed in 1604, but it may have been written in 1603. It tells the story of Othello, the Moor of Venice, and his young wife, Desdemona. Othello's 'ancient', Iago, decides to turn Othello against Desdemona by convincing him that Desdemona is having an affair with Cassio. Othello believes this, and asks Iago to kill Cassio. He himself kills Desdemona. When he discovers that Desdemona is innocent, he kills himself.

Shakespeare's plot, based on a short story in Cinthio's Hecatommithi, seems melodramatic enough. However, Shakespeare creates two of his most compelling characters in Othello and Iago, as well as a supporting cast (Desdemona, Emilia, Cassio and Roderigo) that adds texture and density to the whole. Indeed, Othello is one of Shakespeare's most painful and pathetic tragedies. Othello is a psychologically convincing depiction of an outsider. His jealousy is not merely a stage 'vice', but a credible reaction to his place in Venetian society. As one of the few black men in Venice, he is bound to be insecure. He knows that he is only valued because he is a brave and skilful soldier. He is surrounded by characters who remind him of his 'barbaric' origins. Desdemona's father accuses him of voodoo, saying that he has won Desdemona by 'chains of magic'. Every time he is referred to, a racist epithet seems to be employed. He is 'the thicklips', 'an old black ram', 'a Barbary horse'. In Act One, even Desdemona refers to him as 'the Moor'. In this way, we can see how, once Iago sows the seeds of discontent, Othello is bound to fear the worst. After all, Desdemona seems to prize Othello for the same reasons that Venice prizes him. As Othello puts it: 'She loved me for the dangers I had passed.' As such, it is conditional love, dependent on Othello's military reputation. It is no wonder that Othello feels that his marriage cannot last, especially when it is threatened by the bold, white, young Cassio.

In this way, Othello's jealousy is human and sympathetic. He is cruelly manipulated, and this makes him a tragic figure. Complimenting this, there is the character of Iago. He really is the embodiment of jealousy and envy: he is paranoid, self-tormenting and vicious. He is jealous of Cassio being made Othello's lieutenant. He despises Roderigo for his youth and wealth. He is jealous of Othello's virility and even wonders if 'he has done my office' with Emilia. He also envies Othello the possession of Desdemona (because 'I do love her too'). There is no question that this rancour and cunning make Iago the play's dominant character. His resentment runs so deep that it makes him ingenious and inventive. Indeed, there is something bleakly impressive in his creativity and inspired artistry. He dreams up new schemes, he comes up with fiendish stratagems, and he devises insidious lies. In particular, he knows exactly how to play on people's weaknesses, and this makes him one of Shakespeare's most spellbinding villains. The fact that his plans are entirely successful adds to the general sense of tragic waste and loss.

King Lear (c.1605) has a variety of original sources. The story first appeared in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, although the tale of 'Lyr' or 'Ler' and his daughters dates from ancient British mythology. Lear reappears in Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotlande and Irelande and in John Higgins's A Mirror for Magistrates. However, Shakespeare's principal source was probably the anonymous True Chronicle History of King Leir. The True Chronicle provides nearly all of the framework for Shakespeare's play, although it omits Lear's madness and it gives the play a happy ending, in which Cordelia's armies triumph and Lear reigns for a few more years. Shakespeare borrowed the subplot (focusing on Gloucester, Edmund and Edgar) from Philip Sidney's Arcadia.

However, once more, Shakespeare turns unpromising and disparate source material into a luminous and unified tragedy. Lear himself is a masterly psychological study. His 'fatal flaw' is traditionally called 'vanity', but to today's audience it looks more like senile dementia or Alzheimer's disease. In the first Act, he foolishly asks his three daughters to declare their undying love for him. In return, he will divide his kingdom into three and give them an equal portion each. Goneril and Regan, his treacherous daughters, happily proclaim their affection. However, Cordelia, who is virtuous and honest, tells Lear that she loves him 'according to her bond'. Lear is enraged, and banishes Cordelia. He goes to live with Goneril. However, he antagonises both Goneril and Regan with the size of his entourage. When they cross him, Lear overreacts again. He is consumed with bilious spite. He curses Goneril: 'Into her womb convey sterility! / Dry up in her the organs of increase'. He swears at Regan: 'Infect her beauty, / You fen-suck'd fogs, drawn by the powerful sun / To fall and blast her pride!' He rails at Goneril: 'thou art a boil / A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle, / In my corrupted blood.' Although Goneril and Regan are unpleasant, this language says more about the diseased state of Lear's mind.

After these explosions, Lear goes mad. Shakespeare had written about madness before, in Titus Andronicus and in Hamlet. But arguably, King Lear contains his most poignant and haunting depiction of a character losing his mind. It is utterly convincing. The scene in which Lear rends his clothes on the moor, while a storm rages around him, has become almost synonymous with insanity. In every sense, he is exposed. He realises that he was mistaken in Goneril and Regan. He knows that he has been unjust to Cordelia. Because this knowledge is so painful, he chooses to know nothing, and takes refuge in lunacy and distraction. Shakespeare also gives him three companions: Kent, Edgar and the Fool. Kent has disguised himself as a pauper, so he can continue to serve the capricious Lear. Edgar has dressed up as a madman, to escape the wrath of his father. The Fool has descended into depression after Cordelia's banishment and stays with Lear to goad and tease him. Somehow, the presence of these three misfits adds to the pathos of Lear's condition.

The subplot also acts as an interesting commentary on the main plot, as well as being a harrowing and absorbing story in its own right. Gloucester, like Lear, is a fallible patriarch. He has two sons, Edmund and Edgar, but because Edmund is illegitimate, he has automatically given Edgar all his love and affection. The first scene, in which Gloucester, indicating Edmund, admits, 'I have so often blushed to acknowledge him, that now I am brazed to it', establishes Gloucester as a bad father and Edmund as a jealous and resentful son. However, just as Lear is 'more sinned against than sinning', so Edmund's revenge will exceed his father's crimes. The blinding of Gloucester, which Edmund helps to initiate, is one of the most bloodcurdling scenes in Shakespeare's repertoire. Like Lear, the blinded Gloucester is left to wander around on the heath, pursued by assassins, bent on self-destruction. And just as Cordelia nurses Lear in his madness, Edgar will nurse Gloucester. Edgar has also been maltreated by his father, but he believes in forgiveness and mercy.

The combination of these two plots makes for a devastatingly tragic play. Both Lear and Gloucester make mistakes, and they are punished in the worst possible way. Evil thrives, as Edmund, Goneril and Regan take control. Although all three of these villains die in the final Act, they survive long enough to ensure the death of Gloucester, Lear and Cordelia. The final scene, in which Lear enters, cradling the body of Cordelia in his arms, is the culmination of the play's tragic momentum. The sight of his dead daughter literally kills the King: 'Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, / And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more, / Never, never, never, never, never!'

Macbeth was probably written after Othello and Lear, sometime in 1605 or 1606. It is the last of the four 'great' tragedies, and Macbeth himself is the natural 'bridge' between the sympathetic early heroes (Hamlet, Othello, Lear) and the more problematic late tragic heroes (Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Timon). Although Lear, Hamlet and Othello are flawed human beings, they are also victims of their surroundings, and suffer unduly for their moral and psychological shortcomings. Macbeth is the architect of his own downfall. Like Antony, Cleopatra, Coriolanus and Timon, he is not always likeable and seldom inspires confidence or empathy.

The plot of Macbeth is hugely dramatic. It begins when Macbeth and Banquo return from a bloody battle and meet three witches. Macbeth is told he will be King; Banquo is told his children will be kings. Macbeth is then urged by his ambitious wife to murder King Duncan as he sleeps. 'The bloody deed' is done, and Macbeth is made King. However, Macbeth feels that his throne will never be secure while Banquo lives. He kills his friend, but Banquo's son, Fleance, escapes. Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth lose their minds: Macbeth becomes an impassive psychopath; Lady Macbeth becomes inwardly disturbed and suicidal. Macbeth keeps killing, murdering Lady Macduff and her children. In the final scene, Macduff takes his revenge on Macbeth, killing him, and proclaiming Malcolm king.

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's bloodiest plays. It was probably written on the occasion of James I's accession, celebrating Scottish history, and glorifying legitimate kingship. This is appropriate, because it feels like one of the first Jacobean tragedies. After 1603, the plays of the Elizabethan period gradually made way for the more macabre and garish melodramas of Webster, Tourneur and Middleton. Characters are haunted and ambitious; their language is glutted and troubling. The first time he appears, Macbeth is covered in blood. He has just slashed someone open 'from the nave to the chaps' and 'fix'd his head' on the ramparts. In the second Act, he appears again, with his arms covered in blood, having murdered Duncan. 'Blood will have blood', and Banquo and Macduff's children are murdered. Macbeth explains: 'I am in blood / Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o'er.' There is so much blood that, when Lady Macbeth goes mad, she compulsively tries to wash it from her hands ('who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him'). Interestingly, most of the blood is described rather than observed. It is the language that is bloody. We do not see Macbeth impale his enemy in the first Act, nor do we see him kill Duncan. We see one of Macduff's children die, but we do not witness the death of his wife or his other children. We don't even see Macbeth's death: Macduff merely enters carrying Macbeth's head. Significantly, this makes the play more troubling, rather than less. The characters' minds and words are distorted by the gory atmosphere. Watching character after character being killed is so often over-the-top or absurd. Shakespeare's early play, Titus Andronicus, bears this out. In Macbeth, Shakespeare shows the psychological consequences of bloodshed, not merely the bloodshed itself. The horrendous events seep through into the characters' speeches. Lady Macbeth is one example of this, particularly before she goes mad. Her language is excessive and intense:

Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry 'Hold, hold!'

Macbeth is also excitable and verbose:

Light thickens; and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood:
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;
While night's black agents to their preys do rouse.

But Shakespeare does not simply rely on poetry to convey a sense of foreboding and horror. Everything in the play adds to the atmosphere of terrifying unease. In particular, Shakespeare makes use of supernatural portents and manifestations. In previous plays, Shakespeare had also used 'unnatural' incidents to increase the general sense of impending tragedy. In Julius Caesar, before Caesar is killed, there is a storm in which 'a lioness hath whelped in the streets; / And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead' and 'ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets'. In King Lear, Gloucester explains to Edmund, 'these late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us' for it follows that 'love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason'. However, in Macbeth, the portents are not merely incidental, rather they shape the entire play. In Act One, the witches appear to Macbeth and tell him he shall be Thane of Cawdor, then King of Scotland. Later in the play, they tell him 'no man of woman born' shall kill him, and that he will not be beaten 'till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane'. Moreover, like the Ghost in Hamlet, the witches may be demonic, but they are telling the truth. The rest of the play is full of strange apparitions. On the night Duncan is killed, Lennox tells Macbeth: 'The night has been unruly: where we lay, / Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say, / Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death.' Even more strangely, Ross explains that Duncan's horses 'turn'd wild in nature' and ate each other. Furthermore, these supernatural events seem to be structured around the character of Macbeth himself. Shakespeare often does this to unify and intensify dramatic momentum in his plays. Claudius the poisoner takes control in Hamlet and the whole of Elsinore is poisoned. Olivia mourns in Twelfth Night and makes the whole of her entourage mourn. So Macbeth, with his visions and superstitions, takes the throne, and the whole of Scotland starts seeing things. Macbeth imagines a bloody dagger in Act Two: 'Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand', or 'art thou but / A dagger of the mind, a false creation, / Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?' In the third Act, Macbeth is the only person who can see Banquo's ghost: he is terrified and has to lie to his guests: 'I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing / To those that know me.' Later this capacity to hallucinate will be transferred to his wife: 'Out, damned spot, out I say!'

As Freud has suggested, Macbeth is a play in which nothing is natural. The emphasis is on blood and portents, because 'unnatural' rulers are on the throne doing 'unnatural' deeds. In particular, they cannot have children. Killing Duncan establishes Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as unnatural, but it is confirmed by their inability to breed and consolidate their rule. This is the root of their psychological breakdown. They have killed Duncan for nothing, just so Banquo's children can rule. This is their tragedy. It seems that Lady Macbeth has had children, indeed she admits: 'I have given suck, and know / How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me.' It can be assumed, then, that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have had children, but they have died. Shakespeare uses other events and characters to emphasise this motif. Macduff is a happy father, until Macbeth kills his 'pretty ones'. Banquo has a son who will become King. Macduff is 'not of woman born', but only because he was born by Caesarian section. Other images accentuate this: killing King Duncan is described as if it were parricide. Lady Macbeth says she would have killed the King 'had he not resembled / My father as he slept'. In this moment of weakness, she seems to acknowledge the power of parental bonds. It is as if she forsees how and why she and her husband will fail.

Antony and Cleopatra was written sometime between 1605 and 1607. It continues the story of Mark Antony and Octavius from Julius Caear, although the characters of the two men are comprehensively altered. Octavius becomes wilier and less sympathetic. Antony becomes more humane and mature. Indeed, the loquacious, lyrical lover in Antony and Cleopatra has next to nothing in common with the cagey, dexterous politician of Julius Caesar.

Plutarch was Shakespeare's primary source for Antony and Cleopatra. The story is set between about 40 and 30 BC. Cleopatra and Antony begin an affair, which causes Antony to neglect his duties in Rome. He rules the Empire with Lepidus and Octavius. Octavius is furious because he is trying to wage a War against Pompey, and Antony will not help him. Eventually Antony realises that he is needed in Rome and returns to fight. The Romans win. Antony and Octavius are reconciled and Antony marries Octavius's sister, Octavia. However, he cannot stay away from Cleopatra and returns to Egypt soon after. Octavius declares war on Antony and Cleopatra and, after initial success, Antony and his armies lose. Antony believes that Cleopatra has conspired with Octavius. Cleopatra is mortified by this, and feigns death. This destroys Antony, and he falls on his sword. When Cleopatra realises what she has done, she too kills herself.

Antony and Cleopatra is a long and intricate play, full of historical incident. However, Shakespeare turns his source material into a profound study of two complicated characters. Antony is a deeply divided soul. He has two obsessions: Rome and Cleopatra. In the course of the play, he tries to remain completely loyal to both, and it tears him apart. Cleopatra is also an unforgettable character. On the surface, she is a conventional wily female: at one point she tells one of her servants to find Antony: 'if you find him sad, / Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report / That I am sudden sick.' However, in reality, she knows Antony inside out, she knows how to ensnare him, and she is determined to keep him. When it comes to seduction, she is an artist. For example, there is Enorbarbus's famous description of her first appearance:

The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke.

She has set her heart on Antony, and she will use all of her resources to attract him. It is no wonder that Enorbarbus exclaims: 'Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety.'

However, if Antony and Cleopatra has a flaw, it is that the two heroes are too human. They may be credible characters, but they are also overloaded with unsympathetic traits. Antony is often arrogant and selfish. He treats both of his wives, Fulvia and Octavia, with little consideration. He also has a fiery temper: for instance, in the third Act, he orders an innocent messenger to be whipped. Cleopatra too has an unpleasant streak. She also has a short fuse, beating a messenger in the second Act merely for bringing unwanted news. Furthermore, she is something of an opportunist and a coward. In the third Act, she insists on fighting alongside Antony, then she flees at the height of the battle. Above all, there is something dislikeable and self-indulgent about the love affair between Antony and Cleopatra. They are both obsessed with spectacle and theatrical gestures. In Act I, scene i, they exchange their vows of love in full view of everybody. 'If it be love indeed, tell me how much', Cleopatra asks. 'There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd', Antony replies. Similarly, at the end of the third Act, their argument is a public event.

Enobarbus is a good moral barometer. He is Antony's right-hand man, an upright and honourable Roman, not blind to Cleopatra's many good qualities. But even he has had enough by the third Act and he switches allegiance to Octavius. As the second soldier puts it: 'the god Hercules, whom Antony loved / Now leaves him.' This refers to the way in which Antony followed Cleopatra after she retreated during the battle with Octavius. For Enobarbus, this confirms that Antony and Cleopatra's relationship is destructive and degrading. Although he later repents of his treachery, his doubts about Antony and Cleopatra are confirmed in the final Act, when a number of false and misinterpreted signals lead to the suicides of both protagonists. Although there is something sad about the deaths of two such charismatic figures, critics have disagreed as to whether the play really possesses tragic gravity. Certainly the grief of Antony when he thinks Cleopatra has died is genuinely moving. Similarly, when Antony dies in Cleopatra's arms in Act V, Cleopatra's misery is unaffected: 'Noblest of men, woo't die? / Hast thou no care of me? shall I abide / In this dull world, which in thy absence is / No better than a sty?' However, the two lovers are narcissistic and theatrical right till the end, as the dying Antony is borne into Cleopatra by his guards, and the grief-stricken Cleopatra clutches an asp to her bosom and dies.

Coriolanus was written between 1606 and 1608. It focuses on Caius Martius, who becomes 'Coriolanus' after he defeats an enemy army at the town of Corioli. Coriolanus is Shakespeare's final Roman tragedy, although it takes place before Titus, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. The ideals and customs of Rome are still being forged. It is a more primitive place, with less refined ceremonies and tenser relationships between the classes. This partly explains Caius Martius's temperament, which is proud, overbearing and pugnacious. The play centres on his life and death. He fights for Rome until he is banished in the third Act. Then he fights for the Volsces until they turn on him in the final Act.

Coriolanus is Shakespeare's most martial play. It is full of fighting and conflict. Of course, he had always been interested in soldiers. In the history plays, Richard III, Henry IV and Henry V are warriors; in Much Ado, Benedick, Don Pedro and Claudius are soldiers; in All Well That Ends Well, Bertram joins the King of France's army after his marriage to Helena; in the tragedies, Othello, Mark Antony and Macbeth are all valiant fighters. But in Coriolanus, Shakespeare puts warfare at the heart of the drama, and shows the political and psychological effects of battle, both on individuals and on society as a whole. Rome is a military state, and military relationships colour and distort everything.

Like Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus is also the tragedy of an unsympathetic hero. True, Caius Martius has some good qualities. He is an astonishing fighter. Moreover, he fights because he loves Rome, not because he seeks praise and renown. Indeed, he hates flattery and compliments (which he calls 'false-faced soothing'). Unfortunately, he has nothing but contempt for those weaker than himself. He seems to despise humanity, especially when they are poor or unlucky. As a result, he hates the idea of the patricians yielding power to the people and giving them a level of democratic freedom: he associates this with surrender. His fatal flaw has often been called 'pride', but it could also be interpreted as a refusal to tolerate flaws. He expects everyone to be as single-minded and self-sufficient as him. This is perhaps why the only other man he admires is his sworn enemy, Aufidius.

The tragedy of Coriolanus is his lack of self-knowledge. He believes that he is flawless. He associates flaws with cowardice and concession. But to be flawed is to be human: it is to acknowledge your own limitations and to love the limitations of others. Coriolanus is also 'flawed', because he loves his family and, in particular, he loves his mother. When his mother begs him to spare Rome in Act V, Coriolanus breaks down. Psychoanalytic critics have been particularly drawn to this scene, because it establishes Coriolanus as the stereotypical child of a dominant mother. Many writers have characterised Coriolanus as a repressed homosexual. Certainly, Coriolanus does not know himself: he has desires and weaknesses that he refuses to acknowledge. In many ways, he is an overgrown child: bullying, bombastic, emotionally stunted, prone to tantrums. He overreacts to everything; he blows things out of all proportion. Fortunately, for much of the play, Roman society can find a role for him. Like Othello, he can fight and therefore he is tolerated. However, when he switches sides in the middle of the play, he exposes himself to a variety of dangers. His immaturity and lack of social awareness will get him killed. It makes for compelling drama, but questionable tragedy.

Timon of Athens also centres on a protagonist that few audiences have warmed to. It was written between 1607 and 1609. It tells the story of Timon, a generous Athenian, who is spurned by his friends in his hour of need. He becomes an embittered and misanthropic hermit. Some critics believe that it was only partly written by Shakespeare, because it lacks the playwright's usual lyricism and humanity.

The Winter's Tale is classified as a romance, one of the group of plays that mark the end of Shakespeare's writing career. It was preceded by two lesser achievements, Pericles (c.1608) and Cymbeline (c.1609). Pericles is about a rambling tale about the disparate adventures of the Prince of Tyre. It was not included in the First Folio and many critics believe that the first two acts were not written by Shakespeare, but by George Wilkins. Cymbeline focuses on the attempts of Imogen to prove her chastity to her worthless husband, Posthumus. Like Pericles, it is bewildering and overlong and it has rarely been revived. In 1938 George Bernard Shaw produced an emended version of the play's long fifth act, entitled Cymbeline Revisited, in which he eliminated many of Shakespeare's melodramatic devices.

The Winter's Tale is a more complex and arresting work and, along with The Tempest, it forms a fitting end to Shakespeare's restless creative career. In essence, it is a study of jealousy. Leontes, the King of Sicilia, accuses his wife of being a 'bed-swerver'. He believes she has committed adultery with his childhood friend, Polixenes. He quickly descends into paranoiac self-loathing and suspiciousness. Within two scenes, he becomes one of Shakespeare's most hateful characters, behaving irrationally and spitefully. He tries to have Polixenes killed. He sends Hermione, his innocent wife, to prison. When Hermione gives birth to a daughter, Leontes proclaims this a bastard. He orders Antigonus to leave his baby daughter in the middle of a heath, at the mercy of the elements. Then he asks the oracle to confirm his suspicions. However, the oracle announces that Leontes is unjust, Hermione is chaste and Polixenes is wronged. The oracle declares that Leontes will die without an heir if he doesn't find his new-born daughter. At first, Leontes dismisses this. Then there is news -- his only son has died. He realises the oracle has told the truth. His wife, Hermione, dies of grief.

Sixteen years pass. Perdita, Leontes daughter, has been adopted by shepherds. She is being courted by Polixenes' son, Florizel. The play now turns into a pastoral romance. Florizel loves Perdita, but Polixenes forbids the match because he assumes she is a peasant. Florizel and Perdita flee to Sicilia, where Leontes is still mourning his wife and children. There it is revealed that Perdita is Leontes' long-lost daughter. Now Polixenes approves of the marriage. After this, Leontes goes to visit a statue of his late wife, Hermione. At the end of the play, the statue comes to life; Hermione had only pretended to be dead. The family unit is restored.

The Winter's Tale is often seen as a flawed work. Leontes' jealousy seems to come from nowhere. It is unfounded and implausible. Similarly, his remorsefulness is far too sudden. It seems impossible to believe that such an unstable character has been the model of temperance and reason before now. Other critics have condemned it as a broken-backed play. The first half is a tragedy of marital jealousy, like Othello. The second half is a rural comedy like As You Like It. Then there are the other incredible elements, like Hermione feigning death for over twenty years.

However, this kind of psychological implausibility and generic blending is typical of the late romances. Shakespeare seems more interested in dramatic patterns and symbols in these later dramas. He also idealises human potential: he shows how love can survive the worst of traumas. Husbands and wives, parents and children, survive years of separation without any diminishment in their love. Forgiveness and mercy are the dominant emotions. More specifically, The Winter's Tale seems to be about how men victimise women, and how women subversively reassert agency and autonomy. Women suffer, but their suffering gives them dramatic power.

Some critics have read autobiographical elements into the romances. The plays centre on fantastical reunions of long-separated family members. Similarly, Shakespeare was about to retire and return to his wife and children after a thirty-year absence. Does this explain the insane optimism of these late plays? Was he hoping for forgiveness from his long-suffering wife? All of this is pure conjecture. Nevertheless, it has not stopped many critics reading his next play, The Tempest, as a directly personal statement.

The Tempest is set on an imaginary island, ruled by Prospero, exiled Duke of Milan. His brother, Antonio, usurped his throne, because Prospero spent all his time researching the 'liberal arts' and undertaking 'secret studies'. On his island, Prospero continues to practise magic and sorcery. The play begins during a tempest that Prospero has conjured up. A boat containing Antonio, Alonso (the Duke of Naples), and a variety of courtiers and relatives has sailed by. During the tempest it is wrecked, and Antonio, Alonso and everybody else are washed up on Prospero's island. Now Prospero can carry out his revenge. He will reclaim his Dukedom and expose his wicked brother. He uses his supernatural assistant, Ariel, to help him enchant the castaways. He also witnesses his daughter, Miranda, fall in love with Alonso's son, Ferdinand. Furthermore, Prospero has to deal with an insurrection organised by his diabolical servant, Caliban.

The Tempest has often been read as Shakespeare's conscious farewell to the stage. It seems to contain elements of all of his previous plays. The romance between Ferdinand and Miranda recalls both tragic lovers like Romeo and Juliet and more comedic love affairs between Rosalind and Orlando, Hero and Claudio, Florizel and Perdita. Antonio, the wicked usurper, is a character who seems to combine elements of Richard III (from the history plays), Iago (from the tragedies) and Don John (from the comedies). Gonzalo is the benign old man, like a cross between Adam in As You Like It and Menenius in Coriolanus. Ariel and Prospero interact like Puck and Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Trincolo and Stephano are the standard lower-class comic sub-plot denizens, like Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice, the drunken porter in Macbeth or Pompey the pimp in Measure for Measure. Caliban is a more unique creation, but even he often recalls previous protagonists: his vicious cursing is reminiscent of Coriolanus and Timon. Ultimately, The Tempest is also the apotheosis of the 'late romances', since it contains shipwrecks, storms, enchantment, implausible coincidences, miraculous reunions, belated justice, long journeys, intense father and daughter bonds, youthful love and thwarted treachery.

The Tempest has been interpreted in other ways. For instance, it has been read politically, as an allegory of Empire. Prospero is an imperial presence who has taken over the island, enslaved Ariel and Caliban and exhausted its resources. Ariel keeps begging for his freedom but Prospero explains (and the argument is familiar to any student of imperialism) that Ariel was in a far worse state before Prospero arrived: 'Dost thou forget / From what a torment I did free thee?', Sycorax 'did confine thee, / By help of her more potent ministers / And in her most unmitigable rage, / Into a cloven pine.' Similarly, Caliban curses his enslavement. At first, Prospero was kind to his captive. Caliban explains:

When thou camest first,
Thou strokedst me and madest much of me, wouldst give me
Water with berries in't, and teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less,
That burn by day and night.

However, Caliban decided to act independently and pursue Prospero's daughter. This 'violation' is punished by eternal slavery. Prospero would be lost without his two principal servants. But he nevertheless continues to act as if he is completely in control.

As well as a political reading, The Tempest has also been subject to further allegorical interpretations. It is also an examination of art. Once more, this hints at autobiographical content, for Prospero is the symbol of the artist: he is a magician, and he has recreated everything on the island. He can enchant everyone who comes within his power. At the end of the play, Prospero, like Shakespeare, can break his staff. ('Now my charms are all o'erthrown, / And what strength I have's mine own'.) This is not only because the play has finished, but also because Shakespeare has decided to retire. He has written one last play, full of his favourite character types. He has looked at the connections between political and artistic tyranny. He has 'broken his staff', buried it 'certain fathoms in the earth' and concluded his career as a playwright.

Two other plays remain in Shakespeare's canon, but they were possibly not written by Shakespeare at all. Most scholars have argued that a large part of Henry VIII (1613) was written by John Fletcher. Similarly, The Two Noble Kinsman (1613-4) was written with Fletcher. There is also a lost play, Cardenio, by Shakespeare and Fletcher, that only exists in later, corrupted forms. The Tempest was the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone.

Shakespeare's final years were probably spent in Stratford. In 1613, two years after The Tempest was performed there, the Globe was destroyed by fire. On 23rd April, 1616, Shakespeare died and was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford. The town of Stratford remains inextricably bound up with its most famous resident. The whole city is now something of a monument to Shakespeare, with its range of Shakespeare-related gift shops, its civic monument to Shakespeare, its tomb of Shakespeare in Holy Trinity Church, its three Royal Shakespeare Company theatres, its wholesale preservation of Anne Hathaway's cottage, its Shakespeare Institute and 'Shakespeare's Birthplace' in Henley Street. This is in spite of the fact that Shakespeare wrote no plays there and spent most of his life in London.

There has been a wealth of Shakespeare criticism produced over the last four centuries. Each age has rediscovered Shakespeare, emphasising different elements in different plays. The two greatest critics of Shakespeare have also been poets: Samuel Johnson and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. However, there have also been useful contributions from other authors (notably De Quincey, Hazlitt, T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden), scientists (Sigmund Freud) and scholars (A.C. Bradley, Harold Bloom). Moreover, actors and directors have had a huge influence on the history of Shakespeare's reception. Certain productions of seminal works have arguably had a greater impact on the popular perception of Shakespeare than any work of academic criticism.

Shakespeare criticism begins with the publication of the First Folio in 1623, by two of Shakespeare's actor-friends, John Heminge and Henry Condell. It was compiled as 'an office to the dead, to procure his orphans guardians'. The Folio contained prefatory lines by Ben Jonson that are still among the most famous in the history of criticism: 'He was not of an age, but for all time.' Jonson also remembered Shakespeare in Timber, or Discoveries, a series of posthumously published reflections. Here Jonson admits that he loved Shakespeare 'on this side Idolatry' and that, in spite of his refusal to 'blot out' a line, 'hee redeemed his vices, with his vertues'.

By the mid seventeenth century, Shakespeare was established as one of the finest English writers of the Renaissance. Dryden played an important role in advancing Shakespeare's cause, rewriting Antony and Cleopatra as All For Love and producing critical studies of his stagecraft. In Of Dramatic Poesie, he asserted: '[Shakespeare] was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily : when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too.' However, Shakespeare was not yet the central cultural presence of today. Even Dryden felt that Beaumont and Fletcher were wittier than Shakespeare and had 'great natural gifts, improv'd with study'. For the Augustans, Shakespeare was frequently seen as ill-educated and slovenly. His plays were inelegantly constructed. Dryden's 'improvement' of Antony and Cleopatra was typical. Sir William Davenant adapted Macbeth and Nahum Tate rewrote Lear (giving it a happy ending).

By Samuel Johnson's day, this had changed. During the mid eighteenth century, 'Bardolatry' (the excessive worship of Shakespeare) was rife. The origins of this cult are usually dated to the appearance of Samuel Johnson's edition of Shakespeare's plays, in 1765, and the 'Shakespeare Jubilee' staged by David Garrick in Stratford, in 1769. The playwright who neglected the unities, who never blotted out a line, who ignored plot for the sake of character development, who made ghosts materialise and speak in poetry, who made kings appear and speak in bad puns, was now a national institution, ponderous, immoveable and 'official'.

However, if this was the beginning of the canonisation of Shakespeare, it was also the start of useful academic criticism of this most complex of writers. Johnson's preface to Shakespeare's works is justly regarded as an invaluable critical intervention. In Johnson's essay, Shakespeare was praised for his 'just representations of general nature'. His characters are all life-like. Moreover, Johnson is amazed by Shakespeare's skill at 'mingled drama' -- he is able to write comedy and tragedy, often including both in the same play. Johnson writes: 'The players, who in their edition divided our authour's works into comedies, histories, and tragedies, seem not to have distinguished the three kinds, by any very exact or definite ideas.' For Johnson, Shakespeare is unique in his capacity to deliver 'seriousness and merriment' in the space of a single scene. It is his willingness to ignore generic conventions and include all of human life, and all of human moods, in all of his plays that makes him revolutionary.

Interestingly, Johnson feels that Shakespeare is instinctively a comic writer: 'In tragedy he is always struggling after some occasion to be comick, but in comedy he seems to repose, or to luxuriate, as in a mode of thinking congenial to his nature.' Johnson also lists other flaws. Shakespeare writes 'without moral purpose'. The plots are 'carelessly pursued' and end too quickly. He does not bother to make Athenians sound Greek or medieval kings sound medieval, rather he 'gives to one age or nation, without scruple, the customs, institutions, and opinions of another'. He is also obsessed with puns: 'A quibble was for him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it.' However Johnson defends Shakespeare for violating the unities ('unity of action' is all that is required) and rejects the idea of plagiarism ('it would not be easy to find any author, expect Homer, who invented so much as Shakespeare'). In the final part of his essay, Johnson looks at other writers who have edited Shakespeare's works, including Rowe, Theobald and Alexander Pope.

The Romantics also made a vital contribution to Shakespeare criticism. Significantly, they were intrigued by the psychological aspects of Shakespearean characterisation, praising him as the poet of interiority. Hamlet played a particularly important role in Romantic iconography. The Romantics were responsible for deepening and extending the hagiographic approach to Shakespeare's works. He was still the poet of nature, but 'nature' meant something different after the appearance of the Lyrical Ballads. Shakespeare's erratic plotting and intuitive lyricism were now seen as startling achievements. Johnson elaborated many of Shakespeare's 'flaws', but for the Romantics, most of these flaws were evidence of his natural, electrifying, revolutionary talent. Hazlitt, De Quincey and Coleridge all wrote important essays.

De Quincey's 'On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth' is an expert analysis of Act II, scene ii of Macbeth. Hazlitt's Characters of Shakespeare's Plays (1817) contains his seminal comments on Hamlet: 'It is we who are Hamlet. This play has a prophetic truth, which is above that of history.' Hazlitt is possessive of the text: 'We do not like to see our author's plays acted, and least of all Hamlet. There is no play that suffers so much in being transferred to the stage. Hamlet himself seems hardly capable of being acted.'

Coleridge's comments are among the most important in Shakespearean criticism. He too has a deep attachment to Hamlet: 'I have a smack of Hamlet myself, if I may say so', he remarked in his Table Talk. His writings and lectures on Shakespeare were inspired by German Romanticism. He praises the playwright for his 'organic form' -- the way in which he invents his own structural rules. Coleridge had the highest regard for the synthesising powers of the imagination, and he bestows this power on Shakespeare: 'He never wrote at random, or hit upon points of character and conduct by chance; and the smallest fragment of his mind not unfrequently gives a clue to a most perfect, regular and consistent whole.' Coleridge's comments on individual characters and plays are also well-known. He characterises Iago's soliloquies as 'the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity'. Hamlet is 'full of purpose, but void of that quality of mind which accomplishes purpose'.

At the same time as Coleridge, other writers were attempting to broaden Shakespeare's appeal, usually by editing or mutilating the texts. Bowdler's 1807 edition of The Family Shakespeare is now notorious, because of its expurgation of anything 'offensive' from the plays. The term 'bowdlerise' was born. A more honourable contribution was Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. This rendered the plays into lucid prose narratives.

In the late Victorian age, the Shakespeare industry developed further. Swinburne published A Study of Shakespeare in 1880, which saw the playwright as something of an aesthete. George Bernard Shaw famously debunked the mythologising of the 'Bard', claiming that his own works were superior. In 1904, A.C. Bradley published Shakespearean Tragedy, one of the most famous and influential books of Shakespearean criticism. Today its naturalistic interpretation of the four 'great' tragedies seems dated, but many of Bradley's insights are still useful. He is particularly good at noticing correspondences between the tragic heroes.

In the twentieth century, the growth of academia has also lead to an unprecedented explosion of Shakespeare criticism. In the early part of the century, the best work was still produced by other writers (like T.S. Eliot) and amateur literary critics (like Freud). However, by the 1920s, the study of Shakespeare was professionalised. A number of significant works have been produced. L.C. Knights' 'How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?' was a challenge to Bradley's naturalism. William Empson, like most adherents of the New Criticism, focused on Shakespeare's poetic style. G. Wilson Knight's The Wheel of Fire (1930) was a series of unconventional close-readings. Recently, Marxist and feminist critics have produced revealing works, although more 'conventional' studies are still written by the likes of Jonathan Bate (The Genius of Shakespeare (1997)), Frank Kermode (Shakespeare's Language (2001)) and Harold Bloom (Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (1998)). New historicist approaches such as Stephen Greenblatt's Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England (1987) and like the essays collected in Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield (ed.), Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism (1985), have attempted to place Shakespeare in his social context. The Matter of Difference (1991), edited by Valerie Wayne, contains a good selection of feminist readings. What is unquestionable is that Shakespeare is still the centre of any English undergraduate course and still the most critically revered poet and dramatist in modern history.

Finally, it is important to mention acting and acting styles since, although academic studies are widely read on university campuses, they are almost completely unknown to the wider world. The same cannot be said of famous productions of Shakespeare plays, which often reach a huge audience, especially if they are filmed. There have been several famous interpreters of Shakespeare through the ages. David Garrick was the first to break with the 'formal' tradition of acting Shakespeare in the mid-eighteenth century. In the early nineteenth century, Sarah Siddons and her brother, John Philip Kemble, restored a more formal grace to the tragedies. In the 1880s, 'traditional' performances of Shakespeare were staged by Henry Irving and Beerbohm Tree. In the early twentieth century, a more natural and unforced manner of acting was popularised by Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud, although to today's audiences, these two actors sound artificial, stilted and out-of-date. Since Olivier, there has been no single dominant acting style. Rather, new interpretations and new acting styles are continually applied to Shakespeare's greatest works. In modern times, the most widely respected interpreters of Shakespeare have included Paul Scofield, Robert Stephens, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Brian Cox and Kenneth Branagh. Noted directors include Peter Brook, Peter Hall, Adrian Noble and Trevor Nunn. Shakespeare's plays have often been filmed, with varying results. Olivier's 1944 production of Henry V has been widely praised. Kurosawa's 1957 version of Macbeth (Throne of Blood) patented a new kind of 'imaginative' retelling of Shakespeare's stories. Roman Polanski's 1971 version of Macbeth took several liberties with the original. In recent times, Kenneth Branagh's full-length production of Hamlet (1996) has been popular, as has Franco Zeffirelli's 1990 version (with Mel Gibson as Hamlet). Baz Luhrmann's Romeo+Juliet (1996) successfully introduced Shakespeare to younger audiences. Al Pacino's Looking for Richard (1996) centred on the actor's obsession with Richard III. John Madden's Shakespeare in Love (1998) was a loosely biographical comic speculation about Shakespeare's private life.

AF, 2001

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