The BIG Question
"All That Glitters Is Not Gold" - William Shakespeare
He wrote more plays than any other playwright in history. He changed life's with his writing, poems and plays. William Shakespeare was, and still is, one of the most influential writers of all time. Shakespeare wrote 38 plays and 150 poems. His writing is so amazing that it is known throughout all four corners of the globe. There is simply no reason why I should not be able to do this amazing specimen of a human being for Night Of The Notables.
William Shakespeare was born in Stanford, England in 1564. His parents had two kids already, but both of them had died before Shakespeare was born. Shakespeare adored his mother and once stated that he would follow her to the end of the world. His father however, he did not particularly enjoy being around. This was because John (Shakespeare's dad) was always in an angry mood, and most of the time blamed Shakespeare for it by beating him black and blue. This changed when Shakespeare showed his dad his piece of writing that he had worked on, and John was very impressed. At five, he had the talent to write like a thirty year old man. William Shakespeare married 26 year old Anne Hathaway when he was 18, and had Susana, his eldest daughter, on the 26th May 1583. He had twins born, Judith and Hamnet in 1585.
Shakespeare started writing poems when he was 29 years old and named his first one Venus and Adonis. Venus and Adonis is about Venus, who is the goddess of love, who meets a man called Adonis. Adonis is the most popular person in the village, and Venus wants to marry him off. But when Adonis says to Venus that he would rather go hunting, Venus sends a wild boar over to him to teach him a lesson. However, the wild boar ends up accidentally killing Adonis. Venus is enraged, but the village people end up stopping her from killing the boar. People believe that Shakespeare added this act of kindness to the poem because he was really interested in animals and believed that animals should not be killed for any purposes. Shakespeare also wrote many plays in his time, some of them turned into blockbuster movies such as Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar and quite a few more that we still enjoy watching today.
Late in the year 1585, shortly before Shakespeare's first play was published, he was invited to join the Lord Chamberlain's men, an acting group that performed all around England and sometimes even further. The Chamberlain's Men were in desperate needs for a playwright and on some terms, Shakespeare agreed. However, the Chamberlain's Men wanted him to join them on their acting as well, but Shakespeare said that he would rather write the plays, because he would do it better if he wasn't concentrating on acting as well. He soon produced his first play called Henry VI. The Chamberlain's Men were more than impressed, and soon after, he moved to the spot of CEO for the company, although they never performed his plays until 1599 he still worked with them until the end of his spectacular life.
In the year 1593, a bad plague (No, not the Black Death) swept through Europe. Because of that, all the theaters had to close and no-one was really allowed out of their house except for shopping and medical appointments. The ships that came in and brought supplies, had to be quarantined for 40 days, which is where the word quarantine comes from (Qua- meaning four). Everyone had to stay indoors (sound familiar?). As a result, Shakespeare stopped writing plays in the year 1600, and instead moved to poems because they could be read in books and didn't have to be performed.
Just because Shakespeare was a famous poet and playwright, it didn't mean that he had it all easy. Halfway through his writing career, Shakespeare's house almost burned down; twice! The problem was poor building design, but Shakespeare was not overloaded with money, so he did not have the money to fix the problem. Eventually he moved to a bigger and more spacious house. But fires were not his only problems. When Shakespeare started writing plays, he had lots of trouble finding good actors to perform his masterpieces. Even the actors that he found (Lord Chamberlain's Men) were still not the most ideal for him, but he had to settle with them.
As you may probably know, luck is something that relates to Shakespeare a lot. Or more like bad luck. But even more particularly, bad luck with his play called Macbeth. Many people believe that Macbeth was cursed to begin with. Apparently, a group of Witches (Yes, WITCHES!) put a curse on the play before the first performance, stating that it would never go to plan. There have been over 20 incidents where an actor has said the word "Macbeth" before the play backstage, and in those cases, the actors have either been injured or even killed. For example, one actor called Laurence Oliver in 1937, got crushed by a falling stage weight after mentioning the name Macbeth before the show. Other instances include actors falling off the stage and breaking a leg, dying mysteriously after the show and even on the first performance in 1606, the actor playing Lady Macbeth died on the stage mysteriously, so Shakespeare had to jump on and take her place. Some people think that it was just a coincidence, but others say that it was the Witches all along.
Shakespeare was no doubt an amazingly talented person who remained that way for his entire life. But even the most talented people have someone or something to look up to. For Shakespeare, that was his mother and history. When you take a closer look, you can see that almost all of Shakespeare's plays were based on history, such as Julius Caesar, Hamlet, The Tempest and King Henry VI. This was because Shakespeare liked to learn as much as he could about history, and sometimes, when there was not much known about that historical event, he would tweak and change it to suit his writing.
When Shakespeare was writing his plays, he was not as famous as he is today. That is because he was the first of his kind to write plays on history and various other subjects. Most other playwrights at the time stuck to one genre their entire life. But, in 1769, a famous British actor called David Garrick decided to show all of Britain Shakespeare's work, and so many people were amazed at what Shakespeare did, that they never stopped talking about him.
Shakespeare died in the year 1616 on the morning of his birthday, after drinking too much celebrating the night before. On that night, he was drinking with two other writers who were some of his friends that he had made recently. When he got home very early the next morning, he collapsed on the floor suddenly, like his body had given up. Some people think that he died from drunkenness, but others suspect something a lot more sinister. A portion of people has done more research into how Shakespeare died, and studies show that he died at the age of 52 ( a very young age for a healthy man like him), leading some people to believe that he had been poisoned by the very two people that he had been drinking with that night. More evidence is that the two writers that Shakespeare had been drinking had not been very successful at the time and many of Shakespeare's closer writer friends died at around the same time, while the two writers lived a very long life. Either way, Shakespeare's death will remain a mystery for a bit longer.
In my school and personal life, Shakespeare has inspired me in many various ways. When I read part Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' in year four, I was amazed on how one single person could have the ideas and brain capacity of 1000 men. It was right there and then, when I picked up that single play, I decided that I was going to do William Shakespeare for the Night Of The Notables. This year, I auditioned for Red. I was extremely nervous when I was waiting outside the studio, but I tried to calm myself down by reciting some lines from Hamlet. When the time came for the results to be posted, I had realized that I had gotten the lead role of Red! I was in awe, clearly Shakespeare had helped me through that. When the news got out that Red had been cancelled due to COVID-19, I was devastated. I reminded myself of one of my favorite Shakespeare quotes: "What's done cannot be undone, but we can pull through". I think that this quote fits in perfectly with my situation.
So Mrs. Marquez, as you can see, I must do Shakespeare for my notable because he was the first of his kind to write plays about history, he persevered through hard times and he wrote more plays than any other playwright in history. He is the most amazing and talented person to ever live.