In similar fashion, the evidence establishing William Shakespeare as the foremost playwright of his day is positive and persuasive. Robert Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit, in which he attacked Shakespeare, a mere actor, for presuming to write plays in competition with Greene and his fellow playwrights, was entered in the Stationers’ Register on September 20, 1592. In 1594, Shakespeare acted before Queen Elizabeth, and in 1594 and 1595, his name appeared as one of the shareholders of the Lord Chamberlain’s Company. Francis Meres, in his Palladis Tamia (a work of criticism published in 1598), called Shakespeare “mellifluous and honey-tongued” and compared his comedies and tragedies with those of Plautus and Seneca in excellence.
Shakespeare’s continued association with Burbage’s company is equally definite. His name appears as one of the owners of the Globe Theatre in 1599. On May 19, 1603, he and his fellow actors received a patent from James I designating them as the King’s Men and making them Grooms of the Chamber. Late in 1608 or early in 1609, Shakespeare and his colleagues purchased the Blackfriars Theatre and began using it as their winter location when weather made production at the Globe inconvenient.
Other specific allusions to Shakespeare, to his acting and his writing, occur in numerous places. Put together, they form irrefutable testimony that William Shakespeare of Stratford and London was the leader among Elizabethan playwrights. One of the most impressive of all proofs of Shakespeare’s authorship of his plays is the First Folio of 1623, with the dedicatory verse that appeared in it. John Heminge and Henry Condell, members of Shakespeare’s own company, stated that they collected and issued the plays as a memorial to their fellow actor. Many contemporary poets contributed eulogies to Shakespeare; one of the best known of these poems is by Ben Jonson, a fellow actor and, later, a friendly rival.
The question of authorship aside, Shakespeare had an illustrious career in London as both actor and playwright from the 1580s until the 1610s. He began by writing a series of history plays that were meant to chronicle England’s past—an ambitious undertaking for a young man. During a forced closure of the theaters in 1592 because of an outbreak of the plague, Shakespeare wrote a long poem, Venus and Adonis. This was not his final effort at poetry: Over his career, he wrote a number of long poems, as well as a series of sonnets, which were popular in Elizabethan England. Shakespeare’s sonnets were significant for their addressees (a young man and a dark lady), the subject matter, and the complexity of his metaphorical language.
Generally, the early part of Shakespeare’s career was taken up, aside from history plays, with writing comedies. One exception, Romeo and Juliet, written in 1595 and 1596, is known as a broken-back play because its beginning is comic and after the murder of Mercutio, it takes on tragic tones. In addition, Shakespeare wrote a straightforward revenge tragedy, Titus Andronicus. Until recently, this play was considered not up to the quality of his later plays, but its reputation has been reclaimed to some degree.
In 1599, Julius Caesar was likely the first play to be performed at the newly built Globe Theatre. At the time, England was concerned about questions of unclear succession and consequent civil strife because Queen Elizabeth had neither provided nor named an heir. It is no surprise then, that Shakespeare turned to ancient Rome and their problems with leadership and violence to explore current issues of concern.
During this period, from 1596 to 1604, Shakespeare continued to write comedies, but they gradually began to take on darker tones and, in fact, were not pure comedy but tragi-comedy. The darkness of his writing also took expression in a series of his greatest tragedies such as Hamlet (1600–1601), Othello (1604), King Lear (1605), Macbeth (1606), and Antony and Cleopatra (1606– 1607).
As Shakespeare’s career came to an end, he began to write what are now called his romances. Harkening back to more traditional romance motifs of quests, magical events, and great lessons learned, these plays are concerned with questions of religion and show a recognition that it is a younger generation who will affect the future.
Shakespeare continued to write until 1613, but his works after the romances are often collaborations, reflecting his retirement from the fray. He’d earned the rest. In a career spanning three decades, William Shakespeare provided works that became the basis of the Western canon of literature and that resonate with meaning for audiences to this day.
