Page 217 - DENG405_BRITISH_POETRY

British Poetry

Notes 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a
playing company called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, later known as the King’s Men. He appears
to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare’s
private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical
appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by
others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly
comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the
16th century. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, Othello,
and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he
wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights.

Many of Shakespeare plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy
during his lifetime. In 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First
Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays
now recognised as Shakespeare’s.
Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to
its present heights until the 19th century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare’s
genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw
called “bardolatry”. In the 20th century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new
movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are
constantly studied, performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout
the world.

23.1 Shakespeare as a Poet

Shakespeare’s Sonnets have fascinated and puzzled readers for 400 years. They contain some of the
most beautiful love poetry in English, but there is also much about them that is dark, hard-edged
and harsh. There is innocence and delight in many of the poems, but there is also illusion and self-
delusion, along with the ever-present awareness of time and mortality. The Sonnets present a world
of glittering, punning language, but this is also a world of flesh and death.
William Shakespeare is referred to as a Literary Genius and much of this praise is due to the
wonderful words of his short sonnet poems and his extended poems. He is the most widely read
author in the whole of the Western World - his poems and quotes from poems are familiar to everyone.
And yet when we think about Shakespeare, we immediately think of his famous plays and not his
less famous poems. During the Bard’s lifetime dramatists were not considered ‘serious’ authors
with ‘serious’ talent - but it was highly fashionable to write poems. Plays were for entertainment
poems were for the elite! There was not even such a thing as a custom built theatre until 1576!
Actors were common folk. Poets of the era such as Christopher Marlowe, Sir Philip Sydney, Sir
Walter Raleigh were of the nobility and there poems are still enjoyed today. These poets had
credibility and so did their poetry. William Shakespeare came from Yeoman stock - he lacked
credibility - his poems would have helped with this problem! The Bard did not give permission for
one of his plays or his sonnets to be published. He was, however, happy to have his poems published.
William Shakespeare has been attributed with the following poems:

23.1.1 A Lover’s Complaint

A Lover’s Complaint is the most neglected of the Poems of William Shakespeare, assuming that it is
his. It was first published in 1609, by Thomas Thorpe, under the same cover as the Sonnets; but has

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