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William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is an excellent playwright、poet and also a representative of humanism literature during the Renaissance, who is still remembered by all the world.

Shakespeare was born in a relative rich family in central England on 2 April, 1564. His father is a successful businessman dealing with wool﹑grain and leather making. In his childhood, he studied in a Literature school, mainly teaching Latin, from where he mastered the basic skills of writing and some other literature knowledge. However, unfortunately, because of his father’s breaking down, he was forced to leave the uncompleted school and make a hard living by himself. At a certain time, he made himself as an apprentice of a butcher, working as a teacher in a village school and some other kinds of tough jobs, all of which largely increased his social experience and then laid a good foundation for his later creating.

When he was twenty, he came into London, working successively as a groom﹑a handyman in a theatre. However, his light can not be hidden, though in these regarded menial jobs. His role in the theatre began to change little by little, actor, director, screenwriter, and finally an important shareholder of the theatre.

His writing career was started around 1588. At first, he can only modify the plays written by other people, but after a period of time, he began to create independently. But at that time in London, the “dramatic world”was dominated by the people who has some relationship with Cambridge or Oxford. Not having the chance to enter the college in his early years, Shakespeare was ridiculed as a “vulgar civilian”. Though in this condition, he and his works won the popularity among the audiences, including the organizations of the college students, who has played some of his plays in college in their spare time, such as Hamlet and The Tragedy of Error. Mills once praised that “both Shakespeare’ comedies and tragedies are incomparable” in his The Wisdom of Treasure. What a pity, his works were not published until his death.

During 1590～1612, Shakespeare created 37 dramas, 2 long poems and 154 sonnets. On one hand, most of his dramas were based on the existing historical materials﹑novels﹑folk legends and the old dramas, on the other hand, these works also caught up with the development of society closely, advocating the humanitarian thought and reflecting the social reality that feudalism was transitioning into the capitalism. Basing on the two points, Shakespeare created many vivid images and describe colorful pictures of social life in his works.

Shakespeare’s creation of drama can be divided into three periods.

In the first period（1590～1600）, Shakespeare mainly wrote historical plays and comedies, including 9 historical plays and 10 comedies. King John﹑Henry VI﹑Richard III﹑Henry IV﹑Henry V are all the famous historical ones, all of which revealed the unrest of English in more than 100 years. In these plays, he created many images of monarchs, including the positive ones and negative ones, from which we can know that Shakespeare opposed feudal separation, supported centralization, hoping the monarch could carry out the top-down reform and then achieve the ideal of establishing a harmonious society.

The ten comedies—The Comedy of Errors﹑The Taming of the Shrew﹑The Two Gentlemen of Verona﹑love in vain﹑Midsummer night's dream﹑The merchant of Venice﹑The Merry Wives of Windsor﹑make trouble out of nothing﹑Everybody's happy and Twelfth night are mostly around the theme—love﹑friendship and marriage. Protagonists in these comedies are young people with the wisdom of humanism. By their pursing freedom and happiness, Shakespeare