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This video is sponsored by Incogni

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"Life's but a walking shadow,

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"a poor player.

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"That struts and frets his hour[br]upon the stage."

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"And then is heard no more."

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"It is a tale, told by an idiot, [br]full of sound and fury."

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"Signifying nothing."

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Despite being arguably[br]the most famous writer of all time,

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William Shakespeare is still a widely [br]misunderstood figure.

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Today, Shakespeare is often viewed

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as the property of the cultural elite

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and his work is often approached[br]out of obligation rather than desire.

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And yet Shakespeare's plays

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were written first and foremost[br]to entertain audiences of all kinds,

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they are full of humour, [br]slapstick, and clever word play

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- and have a deep simpathy[br]for ordinary people

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and the heartache, beauty, [br]joy, and pain of human life.

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They are also hugely popular[br]all over the world

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and have been translated[br]into more than 100 languages.

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Shakespeare has had more impact[br]on the English language and culture

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than any other writer.

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And it all started with one book,

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assembled by two[br]of his friends and colleagues,

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and published in 1623,

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seven years after Shakespeare's death.

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Without this book, we may have lost[br]so much of his work

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- as 18 out of the 36 plays[br]included in the first folio

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had never been published before,

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including Julia Caesar, [br]The Tempest, and Macbeth.

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If it were not for this book,

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Shakespeare might be considered[br]just another Elizabethan writer.

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Many of his plays[br]are about Kings or nobility,

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but Shakespeare always wrote[br]about the human being beneath the crown.

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Likewise, he would not want to be seen[br]as a one-of-a-kind "genius",

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but instead he would want us[br]to try and understand him as a man,

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a person with feelings, flaws[br]and contradictions.

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Just as his character,[br]Richard II wishes, when he says:

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"throw away respect, tradition,[br]form and ceremonious duty."

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"For you have but mistook me[br]all this while."

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"I live with bread like you,

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"feel want,

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"taste grief, need friends,

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"subjected.

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"How can you say to me I am a King."

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"All the world's a stage,

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"And all the men and women merely players;

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"They have their exits[br]and their entrances;

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"and one man in his time[br]plays many parts."

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William Shakespeare was born[br]in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon,

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then a small unexceptional town.

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William went to a grammar school

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where he learned Classics [br]like Ovid and Plutarch,

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whose work he would later[br]draw upon in his plays.

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Unlike other dramatists of his time,

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Shakespeare did not attend University.

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In 1582 William married [br]a farmer's daughter called Anne Hathaway.

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He was only 18 on his wedding day[br]while Anne was 26

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- she was also pregnant[br]with their first child.

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The couple had three children together,

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a daughter called Susanna,[br]and then twins Judith and Hamnet.

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His family would remain in Stratford

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while he moved to London[br]to pursue his dreams.

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And by 1592 Shakespeare was[br]a well-known actor on the London stage.

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Shakespeare co-founded his Theatre Company

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"The Lord Chamberlain's men"

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which would later be called[br]"The King's Men", in 1594,

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and began writing plays[br]for them to perform.

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At first he wrote [br]history plays and comedies.

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The London audience[br]flocked to the history plays

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of which there are ten[br]that cover English history

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from the 12th to the 16th century.

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In the same way Shakespeare's comedies

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have some dark themes[br]and tragic situations,

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and the tragedies have some comic moments,

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the Shakespeare history plays

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are not just about history[br]with a capital H.

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"Is this a dagger which I see before me?"

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They are first and foremost human dramas.

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In fact they are the source

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of some of Shakespeare's[br]most memorable characters,

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including the flamboyant, camp,[br]verbose, and vain Richard II.

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"With mine own tears I wash away my balm."

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"With mine own hands,[br]I give away my crown.

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"With mine own tongue[br]deny my sacred state."

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The fiery and impetuous[br]young Knight Hotspur

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"Yea, on his part I'll empty[br]all these veins,

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"and shed my dear blood[br]drop by drop on the dust."

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"But I will lift the downtrodden Mortimer

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"as high in the air[br]as this unthankful king."

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or the conniving [br]machiavellian Richard III,

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a power hungry character

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whose hunchbacked form symbolised[br]his crooked morality:

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"Now is the winter of our discontent

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"made glorious summer[br]by this son of York."

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The histories are as much about people,[br]their lives, relationships, and feelings,

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than they are about the story of a nation.

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Shakespeare was primarily a storyteller

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and like popular entertainment today,

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the plays sometimes[br]deviate from historical facts

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for the purpose of dramatic effect.

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Richard III was not the villain[br]Shakespeare made him out to be,

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but it suited Tudor propaganda

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- as did Shakespeare's version[br]of "The War of the Roses",

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and in Richard II he has the King

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the same age [br]as his wife Isabella of Valois,

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whereas the real Richard II was 29[br]when he married the 7-year-old Isabella.

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After the early histories and comedies,

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Shakespeare started [br]to move towards tragedies.

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The period follows the death[br]of Shakespeare's 11-year-old son Hamnet,

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(the twin of Judith) who died in 1596,

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which must have been [br]on Shakespeare's mind

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when writing the late comedy[br]"Twelfth Night",

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a play about Viola and Sebastian,

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twins who were separated[br]during a wild storm

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but are eventually reunited.

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We can only imagine[br]how Shakespeare desperately wished

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his own twins could also be reunited.

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Then five years later in 1601,

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his beloved father John Shakespeare [br]also passed away,

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and around this time we get[br]one of his greatest tragedies, Hamlet,

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about a son grieving for his father.

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"I am thy father's spirit,

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"doomed for a certain term[br]to walk the night."

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It begins with Hamlet's declaration

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that he is experiencing a grief[br]that he cannot express.

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The entire play sees Hamlet[br]trying to verbalise

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what is going on inside his head,

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or,as he says,

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"he must unpack his heart with words".

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As a character, Hamlet is seen[br]as a a turning point

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towards a new level of psychological[br]and emotional realism in theatre,

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and its themes such as[br]indecision and inaction,

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the corrupting influence of power,

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and the complexities of the human psyche,

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continue to resonate[br]with modern audiences.

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This work was a revelation, [br]and after Hamlet,

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Shakespeare entered [br]a great middle period of his career,

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in which he wrote some of his[br]most monumental and powerful tragic plays,

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including King Lear and Othello.

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Othello has been described

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as "the most painfully exciting[br]and most terrible of these tragedies".

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It has an explosive and melodramatic plot,

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as well as a particularly[br]grandiose and musical poetry.

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The story tells of a racial outsider [br]turned military hero,

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who is tricked by the evil Iago,

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and ends up being eaten alive

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by what is referred to as [br]"the green-eyed monster of jealousy",

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and killing his wife Desdemona.

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The tragic Othello kills himself,

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in order to take responsibility[br]for killing Desdemona,

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and in his dying soliloquy recognizes

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that it is his pursuit of love[br]that has led to his undoing.

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"Then must you speak of one

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"that loved not wisely but too well,

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"Of one not easily jealous [br]but, being wrought,

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"perplexed i the extreme..."

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At the start of the Elizabethan period,[br]theatres were not popular,

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and actors were seen[br]as little more than beggars

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and writers earned even less than actors.

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But by the end of it, [br]theatre was thriving,

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as was Shakespeare.

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It became mass market entertainment:

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a fast-moving money-making business,

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and Shakespeare was[br]one of its biggest successes,

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earning more money from his work[br]than virtually all of his contemporaries.

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Theatre was popular with all classes.

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The "Lord's rooms" were the best seats,

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and despite seeing the back[br]of the actor's heads,

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they were able to hear[br]every word of the play

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above the noise of the audience.

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The galleries had wooden seats[br]but were covered in case it rained.

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The poor known as the "Groundlings",

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paid a penny to stand very close[br]to the action on stage.

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During the height of summer, [br]the Groundlings were also referred to

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as "the stinkards" for obvious reasons.

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They ate, drank, cheered and booed [br]during the performances,

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and demanded the play[br]had to entertain them

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- and Shakespeare did entertain them,

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using themes that had broad appeal

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- love, death, ambition, power, and fate.

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Mixing clever word play [br]and intellectual jokes

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with crude innuendos,[br]low humour and slapstick.

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"This is old Ninny's tomb?"

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Contrary to what many people think,

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Shakespeare had a very commercial side.

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He was a theatreowning businessman,

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and he wrote to entertain audiences[br]and to earn money.

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As he suggested in the epilogue[br]of his late play The Tempest,

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he wanted to give audiences a good time

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he wanted to please people.

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"Gentle breath of yours[br]my sails must fill

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"or else my project fails,[br]which was to please."

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In this fast-paced marketplace,

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the trend was not for writing[br]new plays from scratch,

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instead the norm was for playwrights[br]to adapt stories

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that were already well known.

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Before Shakespeare wrote his plays,

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there already existed a play[br]identical to Hamlet,

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and one that was[br]actually called "King Leir",

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both of which were written[br]by Thomas Kidd.

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The "Winters Tale" takes its plot[br]from a popular book at the time Pandosto,

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while Romeo and Juliet [br]was already well known in England

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from Arthur Brook's poem,

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which tells the exact same story.

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But it is what Shakespeare[br]does with his sources

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that makes him Shakespeare.

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For example, in the earlier version[br]of the Romeo and Juliet story,

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whenJuliet kisses Romeo after he has died,

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his mouth is described[br]as being "cold as stone",

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whereas in Shakespeare's play,

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Juliet kisses the mouth of Romeo and says:

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"Thy lips are warm."

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This ingenious, but tiny change,

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emphasises that Romeo has just died[br]seconds before Juliet wakes up,

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making the kiss both more tragic,

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as well as more intimate and sensual,

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as Juliet feels with her lips [br]Romeo's dwindling body heat.

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Many of Shakespeare's plays[br]have sources from classical history

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— like Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra,[br]and Coriolanus,

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"I come to bury Caesar, [br]not to praise him" —

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while another major source for Shakespeare

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was a volume of English History[br]called "Holinshead's Chronicles".

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Whereas now we might feel

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that we don't want[br]the plot "spoiled" for us,

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most of Shakespeare's audiences knew[br]how the story would end up.

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In the case of Romeo and Juliet,

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we are told in the prologue [br]exactly what will happen:

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"A pair of star-cross'd lovers[br]take their life."

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Shakespeare asks you, as the audience,

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to submerge yourselves[br]in the "imagined world" fully,

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as in the Winter's Tale

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before a statue of Leontes' [br]dead wife Hermione comes to life,

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Shakespeare says to his audiences:

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"It is required you do awake your faith".

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In other words, suspend your disbelief.

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The first folio organised[br]Shakespeare's plays into three categories:

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Comedies, Histories and Tragedies.

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But within those categories[br]there is always a cross fertilisation

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of seriousness and triviality,

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darkness and light.

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It is the breadth of feelings[br]expressed in Shakespeare's plays

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that is so astonishing,

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and in his works we can always see

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his willingness to embrace[br]the contradictory aspects of life.

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In some of Shakespeare's greatest works[br]such as King Lear

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he creates scenes[br]of unbelievable tenderness and love

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as well as the darkest depths[br]of despair and rage.

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Or in Twelfth Night,[br]when a very funny prank

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which has the audience in stitches

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quickly turns[br]to intense psychological manipulation,

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ending with a dark promise from Malvolio:

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"I'l be revenged..."

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"on the whole pack of you."

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In Titus Andronicus,

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Shakespeare expertly weaves[br]gore and black humour,

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as when the main character Titus[br]serves Tamora,

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her own dead sons baked into a pie!

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It is so gory and violent,

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that it almost becomes perversely comic

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through the use of insane melodrama.

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"Why, there they are,[br]both baked in this pie."

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"Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,

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"Eating the flesh[br]that she herself hath bred."

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"'tis true, 'tis true!

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"Witness my knife's sharp point."

0:14:49.589,0:14:52.552
Indeed, the bounds[br]of the comic and tragic genre

0:14:52.562,0:14:55.253
were being tested in Elizabethan theatre

0:14:55.263,0:14:59.266
and Shakespeare was at the forefront[br]of this theatrical revolution.

0:14:59.639,0:15:02.307
Pioneering, particularly[br]in his later plays,

0:15:02.383,0:15:04.618
the genre of "tragi-comedy",

0:15:04.846,0:15:08.078
Shakespeare's tragi- comic way[br]of looking at the world,

0:15:08.108,0:15:10.899
is best demonstrated in the Winter's Tale,

0:15:11.309,0:15:13.922
a play where[br]the good-hearted man Antigonus,

0:15:13.922,0:15:16.161
is mauled to death by a bear,

0:15:17.191,0:15:19.125
a fundamentally tragic event,

0:15:19.145,0:15:21.267
which becomes simultaneously comic

0:15:21.267,0:15:25.078
when a man in a bear costume [br]chases Antigonus across the stage.

0:15:25.898,0:15:30.091
It is also an opportunity for Shakespeare[br]to give us a rare stage Direction:

0:15:30.684,0:15:33.017
"Exit pursued by a bear".

0:15:33.517,0:15:36.240
This tragi-comic death[br]is followed immediately

0:15:36.303,0:15:38.606
by the discovery of a newborn child.

0:15:39.126,0:15:41.518
It is a classic Shakespearean moment,

0:15:41.558,0:15:44.423
in which despair and hope rub shoulders,

0:15:44.484,0:15:48.918
and tragedy switches suddenly[br]into the hopefulness of comedy.

0:15:49.358,0:15:53.409
In a noisy open air theatre, [br]with so many distractions,

0:15:53.420,0:15:57.826
Shakespeare was a master[br]at keeping the audience engaged,

0:15:58.186,0:16:01.739
and his plays show us the truth[br]again and again

0:16:01.834,0:16:04.826
- that life can be[br]both silly and sorrowful,

0:16:04.896,0:16:07.376
tragic and comic at the same time.

0:16:11.016,0:16:14.894
On New Year's Eve in 1607, [br]Shakespeare's brother Edmund died,

0:16:14.931,0:16:18.319
followed by Shakespeare's nephew[br]only a few months later.

0:16:18.883,0:16:22.902
Both deaths occurred during[br]a significant outbreak of he plague in London,

0:16:22.952,0:16:26.436
when Shakespeare returned[br]to Stratford-upon-Avon to write.

0:16:26.486,0:16:29.474
Shakespeare's daughter Susanna, [br]married the same year,

0:16:29.538,0:16:32.429
and was soon pregnant[br]with his first grandchild.

0:16:32.479,0:16:36.590
This tumultuous year with its sad deaths[br]and happy announcements,

0:16:36.659,0:16:40.117
precipitated a surprising change[br]in Shakespeare's career.

0:16:40.510,0:16:43.983
It was around this time[br]he turned to magic.

0:16:45.075,0:16:48.616
"If this be magic let it be an art.

0:16:48.616,0:16:50.452
"Lawful as eating."

0:16:51.097,0:16:52.668
His final four works:

0:16:52.718,0:16:56.670
Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, [br]Pericles, and the Tempest,

0:16:56.670,0:16:58.508
all drew on magic.

0:16:59.468,0:17:03.829
They are sentimental works with characters[br]looking for a way to return home,

0:17:03.948,0:17:07.098
and be reunited with their loved ones.

0:17:07.383,0:17:12.588
In much the same way, Shakespeare had, [br]when he returned to Stratford-upon-Avon.

0:17:16.223,0:17:19.303
Shakespeare died in 1616, aged 52.

0:17:19.470,0:17:22.564
Despite the seeming suddenness[br]of the playwright's death,

0:17:22.624,0:17:25.164
his later plays - written years earlier -

0:17:25.164,0:17:27.127
appear to be the work of a writer

0:17:27.127,0:17:30.911
oddly aware of the imminence [br]of his own passing.

0:17:30.981,0:17:34.309
In his final solo [br]authored play, "The Tempest",

0:17:34.389,0:17:37.819
the protagonist Prospero,[br]here played by a woman,

0:17:37.829,0:17:40.799
is aware that he is approaching[br]the end of his life,

0:17:40.871,0:17:43.406
and plans to return home to die.

0:17:43.686,0:17:46.207
"And thence retire me to my Milan,

0:17:47.711,0:17:49.752
"where every third thought

0:17:51.038,0:17:52.854
"shall be my grave."

0:17:53.654,0:17:55.462
And in "The Winter's Tale",

0:17:55.482,0:17:59.626
a world weary Camillo also makes plans[br]to go home to die.

0:18:00.196,0:18:02.868
"It is fifteen years [br]since I saw my country.

0:18:02.968,0:18:05.719
"Though I have for the most part[br]been aired abroad,

0:18:05.911,0:18:08.306
"I desire to lay my bones there."

0:18:08.886,0:18:11.464
And Shakespeare's bones were laid "there"

0:18:11.493,0:18:13.887
- in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon,

0:18:13.987,0:18:17.464
once a small, unremarkable town.

0:18:18.184,0:18:19.917
Now, thanks to him,

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one of the most visited places on the planet.

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