In the twentieth century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians hero-worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called 'bardolatry'. Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime, and in 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Next he wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest examples in the English language. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century.

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 15. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Between 15 he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of the playing company the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men.

Scholars believe that he died on his fifty-second birthday, coinciding with St George’s Day.Īt the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. His plays have been translated into every major living language, and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. He is often called England's national poet and the 'Bard of Avon' (or simply 'The Bard'). William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. We are confronted by spectacles of a generous and trusting Othello in the grip of Iago's schemes of an innocent Desdemona, who has given herself up entirely to her love for Othello only to be subjected to his horrifying verbal and physical assaults, the outcome of Othello's mistaken convictions about her faithlessness. As Othello succumbs to Iago's insinuations that Desdemona is unfaithful, fascination-which dominates the early acts of the play-turns to horror, especially for the audience. But most people who see or read the play feel that the love that the play presents between Othello and Desdemona is so strong that it would have overcome all these differences were it not for the words and actions of Othello's standard-bearer, Iago, who hates Othello and sets out to destroy him by destroying his love for Desdemona.

Shakespeare builds so many differences into his hero and heroine-differences of race, of age, of cultural background-that one should not, perhaps, be surprised that the marriage ends disastrously. He sets this story in the romantic world of the Mediterranean, moving the action from Venice to the island of Cyprus and giving it an even more exotic coloring with stories of Othello's African past. In Othello, Shakespeare creates a powerful drama of a marriage that begins with fascination (between the exotic Moor Othello and the Venetian lady Desdemona), with elopement, and with intense mutual devotion and that ends precipitately with jealous rage and violent deaths.

Othello full text