William Shakespeare - Hamlet
about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, con-
sidered some of the finest examples in the English language. In
his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as ro-
mances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his
plays were published in editions of varying quality and accur-
acy during his lifetime, and 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 re-
cognised 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 nineteenth century. The Ro-
mantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and
the Victorians hero-worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence
that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry". In the twentieth
century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by
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