William Shakespeare was born in 1564 to John and Mary Arden Shakespeare. He was a very popular English poet and writer.
William Shakespeare’s Achievements
William Shakespeare had made some great achievements during his career. Every play that was written by him had a different theme or plot. The variations in the story of the play brought out several emotions that human beings experience like sadness, betrayal, joy, jealously and many others.
Thus, each time the audience watched his play there was something different for them to watch than the previous play. Shakespeare worked for the London Theatre World. The name of his company was renamed as The Kings Men in 1603 and it became the official player for King James I.
As a writer and poet William Shakespeare wrote over 38 plays, 154 sonnets and 2 narrative poems. A complied collection of his poems known as Sonnets was published in 1609. The two narrative poems, Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrene had erotic theme. Of the several plays written by him, King Lear was recognized as his artistic achievement.
King Lear essays the relationship between parents and their children. The theme of his play varied from love and beauty, tragedy, comedy and friendship and betrayal. Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Macbeth are some of the popular tragedies written by Shakespeare.
Comedy like ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ was very popular. In fact, A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet have been considered to be the greatest work of Shakespeare. First Folio, the primary source of several of Shakespeare’s play was published by his friends posthumously in 1623.
During his career Shakespeare was also known to have coined or invented more than 1700 words. Several of the phrases that we commonly used today in our lives were used for the first time by Shakespeare in his plays. The following are some of the words and phrases invented by him:
Addiction (Othello), Academe (Love’s Labour’s Lost), Bedroom (A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream), Fitful and Dauntless (Macbeth). Some of the phrases invented by Shakespeare were- All that glitters is not gold, Brave new world, In a pickle, Live long day and many more.
William Shakespeare’s Contribution
The contribution by William Shakespeare through his works has been tremendous. His works have deeply influenced the literary world for several centuries. Shakespeare inspired writers around the world like Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Herman Mehille and many more through his work. His plays during the 17th and 18th century are said to have helped regulate the English language.
The words and phrases used by Shakespeare in his plays were becoming increasingly popular and were even official added to the English language. He invented many words and used them in his plays and poems. He invented new words by changing nouns into verbs, verbs into adjectives or by simply adding pre-fixes and suffixes to the existing words.
Shakespeare’s contribution to theatre cannot be ignored. Shakespeare through his plays created new characters and each character had a role to play. His plays had been written to essay different themes and none of them had similar or common theme than the other. Thus, there was a variation of ideas and characters.
Feelings like love, jealously, sadness were all expressed in his plays. William Shakespeare even contributed to modern culture throughout the world. His contribution to Renaissance is also known.
William Shakespeare’s Legacy
William Shakespeare wrote 38 plays, 154 sonnets and 2 narrative poems. For his plays he used conventional topic like love. He also used themes like tragedy and comedy in his plays. Of the several plays written by him Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, Macbeth had become extremely popular.
He coined many words that are used by us today. His plays helped standardize English language. Shakespeare’s works have influenced several of the popular writers like Charles Dickens. It is evident from the fact that he mentions Shakespeare in his books. Even today his sonnets and plays are admired by people across the world.
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