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Shakespeare's work is also lauded for its insight into emotion. His themes regarding the human condition make him more acclaimed than any of his contemporaries. Humanism and contact with popular thinking gave vitality to his language. Shakespeare's plays borrowed ideas from popular sources, folk traditions, street pamphlets, and sermons.
Shakespeare's writing features extensive wordplay of double entendres and clever rhetorical flourishes. [27] Humour is a key element in all of Shakespeare's plays. His works have been considered controversial through the centuries for his use of bawdy punning, [ 28 ] to the extent that "virtually every play is shot through with sexual puns."
Little is known of Shakespeare's personal life, and some anti-Stratfordians take this as circumstantial evidence against his authorship. [37] Further, the lack of biographical information has sometimes been taken as an indication of an organised attempt by government officials to expunge all traces of Shakespeare, including perhaps his school records, to conceal the true author's identity.
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (December 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) The Chandos portrait, commonly assumed to depict William Shakespeare but authenticity unknown, "the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had ...
Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith.
Dryden's sentiments about Shakespeare's matchless genius were echoed without a break by unstinting praise from writers throughout the 18th century. Shakespeare was described as a genius who needed no learning, was deeply original, and unique in creating realistic and individual characters (see Timeline of Shakespeare criticism).
His thoughts on Shakespeare's plays as a whole (particularly the tragedies), his discussions of certain characters such as Shylock, Falstaff, Imogen, Caliban and Iago and his ideas about the nature of drama and poetry in general, such as expressed in the essay on Coriolanus, gained renewed appreciation and influenced other Shakespearean criticism.
The Plays of William Shakespeare was an 18th-century edition of the dramatic works of William Shakespeare, edited by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. Johnson announced his intention to edit Shakespeare's plays in his Miscellaneous Observations on Macbeth (1745), and a full Proposal for the edition was published in 1756.