WEBVTT

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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
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, 
full of sound and fury."

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"Signifying nothing."

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Despite being arguably
the most famous writer of all time,

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William Shakespeare is still a widely 
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
out of obligation rather than desire.

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And yet Shakespeare's plays

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

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they are full of humour, 
slapstick, and clever word play

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- and have a deep simpathy
for ordinary people

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and the heartache, beauty, 
joy, and pain of human life.

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They are also hugely popular
all over the world

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and have been translated
into more than 100 languages.

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Shakespeare has had more impact
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
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
so much of his work

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

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had never been published before,

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including Julia Caesar, 
The Tempest, and Macbeth.

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If it were not for this book,

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Shakespeare might be considered
just another Elizabethan writer.

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Many of his plays
are about Kings or nobility,

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but Shakespeare always wrote
about the human being beneath the crown.

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

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

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a person with feelings, flaws
and contradictions.

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

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"throw away respect, tradition,
form and ceremonious duty."

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"For you have but mistook me
all this while."

NOTE Paragraph

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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
and their entrances;

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"and one man in his time
plays many parts."

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William Shakespeare was born
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 
like Ovid and Plutarch,

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whose work he would later
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 
a farmer's daughter called Anne Hathaway.

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He was only 18 on his wedding day
while Anne was 26

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- she was also pregnant
with their first child.

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The couple had three children together,

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a daughter called Susanna,
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
to pursue his dreams.

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And by 1592 Shakespeare was
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
"The King's Men", in 1594,

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and began writing plays
for them to perform.

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At first he wrote 
history plays and comedies.

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The London audience
flocked to the history plays

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of which there are ten
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
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
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
most memorable characters,

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including the flamboyant, camp,
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,
I give away my crown.

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"With mine own tongue
deny my sacred state."

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The fiery and impetuous
young Knight Hotspur

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

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"and shed my dear blood
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
as this unthankful king."

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or the conniving 
machiavellian Richard III,

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a power hungry character

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whose hunchbacked form symbolised
his crooked morality:

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"Now is the winter of our discontent

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"made glorious summer
by this son of York."

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The histories are as much about people,
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
deviate from historical facts

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for the purpose of dramatic effect.

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

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but it suited Tudor propaganda

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- as did Shakespeare's version
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 
as his wife Isabella of Valois,

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

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After the early histories and comedies,

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Shakespeare started 
to move towards tragedies.

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The period follows the death
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 
on Shakespeare's mind

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when writing the late comedy
"Twelfth Night",

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a play about Viola and Sebastian,

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twins who were separated
during a wild storm

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but are eventually reunited.

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We can only imagine
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 
also passed away,

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and around this time we get
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
to walk the night."

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It begins with Hamlet's declaration

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that he is experiencing a grief
that he cannot express.

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The entire play sees Hamlet
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
as a a turning point

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

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and its themes such as
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
with modern audiences.

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This work was a revelation, 
and after Hamlet,

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Shakespeare entered 
a great middle period of his career,

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in which he wrote some of his
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
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
grandiose and musical poetry.

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The story tells of a racial outsider 
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 
"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
for killing Desdemona,

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and in his dying soliloquy recognizes

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

NOTE Paragraph

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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 
but, being wrought,

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"perplexed i the extreme..."

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At the start of the Elizabethan period,
theatres were not popular,

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and actors were seen
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, 
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
one of its biggest successes,

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earning more money from his work
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
of the actor's heads,

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they were able to hear
every word of the play

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above the noise of the audience.

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The galleries had wooden seats
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
to the action on stage.

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During the height of summer, 
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 
during the performances,

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and demanded the play
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 
and intellectual jokes

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with crude innuendos,
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
and to earn money.

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As he suggested in the epilogue
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
my sails must fill

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

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In this fast-paced marketplace,

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the trend was not for writing
new plays from scratch,

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instead the norm was for playwrights
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
identical to Hamlet,

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and one that was
actually called "King Leir",

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both of which were written
by Thomas Kidd.

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

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while Romeo and Juliet 
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
does with his sources

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that makes him Shakespeare.

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For example, in the earlier version
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
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
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 
Romeo's dwindling body heat.

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Many of Shakespeare's plays
have sources from classical history

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— like Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra,
and Coriolanus,

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"I come to bury Caesar, 
not to praise him" —

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while another major source for Shakespeare

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

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Whereas now we might feel

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

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most of Shakespeare's audiences knew
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 
exactly what will happen:

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

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Shakespeare asks you, as the audience,

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to submerge yourselves
in the "imagined world" fully,

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as in the Winter's Tale

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before a statue of Leontes' 
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
Shakespeare's plays into three categories:

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Comedies, Histories and Tragedies.

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But within those categories
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
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
the contradictory aspects of life.

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

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he creates scenes
of unbelievable tenderness and love

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as well as the darkest depths
of despair and rage.

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Or in Twelfth Night,
when a very funny prank

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which has the audience in stitches

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quickly turns
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
gore and black humour,

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as when the main character Titus
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,
both baked in this pie."

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"Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,

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"Eating the flesh
that she herself hath bred."

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"'tis true, 'tis true!

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"Witness my knife's sharp point."

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Indeed, the bounds
of the comic and tragic genre

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were being tested in Elizabethan theatre

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and Shakespeare was at the forefront
of this theatrical revolution.

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Pioneering, particularly
in his later plays,

00:15:02.383 --> 00:15:04.618
the genre of "tragi-comedy",

00:15:04.846 --> 00:15:08.078
Shakespeare's tragi- comic way
of looking at the world,

00:15:08.108 --> 00:15:10.899
is best demonstrated in the Winter's Tale,

00:15:11.309 --> 00:15:13.922
a play where
the good-hearted man Antigonus,

00:15:13.922 --> 00:15:16.161
is mauled to death by a bear,

00:15:17.191 --> 00:15:19.125
a fundamentally tragic event,

00:15:19.145 --> 00:15:21.267
which becomes simultaneously comic

00:15:21.267 --> 00:15:25.078
when a man in a bear costume 
chases Antigonus across the stage.

00:15:25.898 --> 00:15:30.091
It is also an opportunity for Shakespeare
to give us a rare stage Direction:

00:15:30.684 --> 00:15:33.017
"Exit pursued by a bear".

00:15:33.517 --> 00:15:36.240
This tragi-comic death
is followed immediately

00:15:36.303 --> 00:15:38.606
by the discovery of a newborn child.

00:15:39.126 --> 00:15:41.518
It is a classic Shakespearean moment,

00:15:41.558 --> 00:15:44.423
in which despair and hope rub shoulders,

00:15:44.484 --> 00:15:48.918
and tragedy switches suddenly
into the hopefulness of comedy.

00:15:49.358 --> 00:15:53.409
In a noisy open air theatre, 
with so many distractions,

00:15:53.420 --> 00:15:57.826
Shakespeare was a master
at keeping the audience engaged,

00:15:58.186 --> 00:16:01.739
and his plays show us the truth
again and again

00:16:01.834 --> 00:16:04.826
- that life can be
both silly and sorrowful,

00:16:04.896 --> 00:16:07.376
tragic and comic at the same time.

00:16:11.016 --> 00:16:14.894
On New Year's Eve in 1607, 
Shakespeare's brother Edmund died,

00:16:14.931 --> 00:16:18.319
followed by Shakespeare's nephew
only a few months later.

00:16:18.883 --> 00:16:22.902
Both deaths occurred during
a significant outbreak of he plague in London,

00:16:22.952 --> 00:16:26.436
when Shakespeare returned
to Stratford-upon-Avon to write.

00:16:26.486 --> 00:16:29.474
Shakespeare's daughter Susanna, 
married the same year,

00:16:29.538 --> 00:16:32.429
and was soon pregnant
with his first grandchild.

00:16:32.479 --> 00:16:36.590
This tumultuous year with its sad deaths
and happy announcements,

00:16:36.659 --> 00:16:40.117
precipitated a surprising change
in Shakespeare's career.

00:16:40.510 --> 00:16:43.983
It was around this time
he turned to magic.

00:16:45.075 --> 00:16:48.616
"If this be magic let it be an art.

00:16:48.616 --> 00:16:50.452
"Lawful as eating."

00:16:51.097 --> 00:16:52.668
His final four works:

00:16:52.718 --> 00:16:56.670
Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, 
Pericles, and the Tempest,

00:16:56.670 --> 00:16:58.508
all drew on magic.

00:16:59.468 --> 00:17:03.829
They are sentimental works with characters
looking for a way to return home,

00:17:03.948 --> 00:17:07.098
and be reunited with their loved ones.

00:17:07.383 --> 00:17:12.588
In much the same way, Shakespeare had, 
when he returned to Stratford-upon-Avon.

00:17:16.223 --> 00:17:19.303
Shakespeare died in 1616, aged 52.

00:17:19.470 --> 00:17:22.564
Despite the seeming suddenness
of the playwright's death,

00:17:22.624 --> 00:17:25.164
his later plays - written years earlier -

00:17:25.164 --> 00:17:27.127
appear to be the work of a writer

00:17:27.127 --> 00:17:30.911
oddly aware of the imminence 
of his own passing.

00:17:30.981 --> 00:17:34.309
In his final solo 
authored play, "The Tempest",

00:17:34.389 --> 00:17:37.819
the protagonist Prospero,
here played by a woman,

00:17:37.829 --> 00:17:40.799
is aware that he is approaching
the end of his life,

00:17:40.871 --> 00:17:43.406
and plans to return home to die.

00:17:43.686 --> 00:17:46.207
"And thence retire me to my Milan,

00:17:47.711 --> 00:17:49.752
"where every third thought

00:17:51.038 --> 00:17:52.854
"shall be my grave."

00:17:53.654 --> 00:17:55.462
And in "The Winter's Tale",

00:17:55.482 --> 00:17:59.626
a world weary Camillo also makes plans
to go home to die.

00:18:00.196 --> 00:18:02.868
"It is fifteen years 
since I saw my country.

00:18:02.968 --> 00:18:05.719
"Though I have for the most part
been aired abroad,

NOTE Paragraph

00:18:05.911 --> 00:18:08.306
"I desire to lay my bones there."

00:18:08.886 --> 00:18:11.464
And Shakespeare's bones were laid "there"

00:18:11.493 --> 00:18:13.887
- in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon,

00:18:13.987 --> 00:18:17.464
once a small, unremarkable town.

00:18:18.184 --> 00:18:19.917
Now, thanks to him,

00:18:20.007 --> 00:18:22.649
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