Literary Epistle: Shakespeare and Macbeth

5 April 2017

Room US028

Dear Sophomores,

Why, you may ask, is Shakespeare still such a revered poet and playwright four hundred or so years after he wrote his final work? The answers are manifold, but at least one answer has to do with the seemingly infinite number of ways that Shakespeare’s work has been and can be adapted to fit the needs of audiences in different times and places. Take Macbeth, for example. Not only can you attend performances staged in either modern or traditional dress, but also it is known or reputed to be an inspiration for such popular culture mainstays as House of Cards; Empire (along with King Lear--according to the Folger Shakespeare Library, there is a quote from Shakespeare on the first page of the script for every episode); Scotland, PA; Throne of Blood (by Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa); and one segment of The Simpsons: “Four Great Women and a Manicure” (Episode 20 , Season 20) to name a few.

As I’ve already mentioned to you, William Shakespeare was born in April of 1564, in Stratford-Upon-Avon, Warwickshire, a country town in the Midlands of England. Here’s a link to a map that shows the location of Warwickshire in England:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warwickshire#/media/File:Warwickshire_UK_locator_map_2010.svg. The little that we know about Shakespeare can be summed up in a few bullet points:

• Shakespeare was the son of John and Mary (Arden) Shakespeare and was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-Upon-Avon on 26 April 1564, so he could have been born anywhere between 23 April and 26 April.
• Shakespeare’s father was a prominent citizen of Stratford. As a boy, William attended The King’s School (a grammar school), where he would have learned Latin and Greek, grammar and rhetoric, his prayers in English, some basic mathematics, particularly geometry, rhetoric, and history. William left school around the age of fourteen, but did not attend university.
• In 1582 when he was 18, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway from the nearby village of Shottery. She was 26. About six months later, their first child, Susanna, was born. In 1585, William and Anne had twins: Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet died in 1596.
• From 1586 to 1590 or 1591 little to no record exists about William’s activities or movements. All sorts of conjectures exist about Shakespeare’s “Lost Years.” It is possible that during that time Shakespeare joined a company of players (actors) travelling through Stratford and continued touring with them until finally settling in London where he eventually became a member of an acting troupe called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.
• From the early 1590s to about 1598, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men staged performances at the playhouse called The Theatre in East London. When they were prevented from using The Theatre because of a dispute over the lease to the land, they performed in The Curtain, also in East London, and perhaps The Rose, on the south bank of the Thames River.
• In 1599, The Lord Chamberlain’s Men built a new playhouse called The Globe in Bankside across the street from The Rose using material from The Theatre, which they disassembled around Christmas of 1598 and transported across the river. The Tragedy of Julius Caesar was probably the first play performed at The Globe in 1599. Shakespeare also became a “sharer” or shareholder in the company in this year, which meant that he received a portion of the profits from performances.
• In 1603, Queen Elizabeth died. She had been queen since 1557. James Stuart, aka James VI of Scotland, was named as her successor and became James I of England. Upon his accession to the throne, James became the patron of Shakespeare’s acting troupe. They changed their name to The King’s Men.
• In 1606, the first recorded performance of The Tragedy of Macbeth takes place. The play is set mostly in Scotland and features a protagonist based on a historical Scottish king. The play reflects James’ fascination with witchcraft and demonic possession (he had actually written and published a book on the subject) as well as events of the day, especially the Gunpowder Plot and the subsequent arrest and execution of Henry Garnet, the Jesuit superior in England, in connection with the plot.
• In 1608, The King’s Men begin to use an indoor playhouse, Blackfriars, across the river from The Globe. Their use of this space may have affected the style of Shakespeare’s final plays, although the company still performed at The Globe.
• In 1609, Shakespeare’s sonnets were published in a collection that includes 154 poems. Shakespeare may or may not have been involved in their publication.
• In June 1613, The Globe burned down because a special effect involving the firing of a cannon set fire to the thatched roof. Shakespeare seems to have gone fully into retirement at this point and to have returned to Stratford-Upon-Avon to live full time.
• On 23 April 1616, William Shakespeare died. He was buried in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church. In his will, the only thing he left his wife Anne was their “second best bed.”
• In 1623, his former colleagues and friends, John Heminges and Henry Condell, collected his plays and published them in a book now known as “The First Folio.” The folio, titled Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, preserved at least 18 plays that had not been published during Shakespeare’s life, including Macbeth. The First Folio included 35 plays in its first edition. The second edition included a 36th play, Pericles, Prince of Tyre. The Folio is the basis of all subsequent editions of the complete plays of William Shakespeare.
• To recap, Shakespeare is given credit for authorship of 38 or 39 existing plays, some of which are collaborations with other authors. There are three lost plays that are credited to Shakespeare: Edward III, Love’s Labour’s Won, and Cardenio. Shakespeare is also known to have collaborated with two or three other playwrights on a play titled The Book of Thomas More, which was never performed. In addition, Shakespeare is known to have written two long narrative poems, 154 sonnets, and a short elegy titled “The Phoenix and the Turtle” published in 1601 in collection titled Love’s Martyr along with poems by several other poets.

Shakespeare’s contributions have been both linguistic and artistic. Scholars have assessed that Shakespeare’s works employ a vocabulary of over 17,000 words. About a tenth of those are words that Shakespeare is known or thought to have invented or coined, although many of those words are not new coinages but creative uses and variations of existing words. Words such as assassination (from Macbeth) and swagger (from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which also gives rise to the word swag) are still in common use today.

To me the greatness of Shakespeare can be explained both by his masterful use of poetic language to create larger-than-life characters and intriguing situations in his plays and by the way in which he invites the audience to enter into the drama of his plays and poems by raising questions and problems that don’t have definitive answers or solutions. Thus, Shakespeare begins a conversation with his audience that has been continuous since the first performances and publication of his plays and poems into the present day, and will continue for years to come. That must be what his friend and rival, the poet Ben Jonson, meant when he wrote in his dedicatory poem for the First Folio that Shakespeare’s work “is for all time, not just for an age.”

I hope that’s helpful. What do you think?

Yours in the Bard,

Dr. C.