William Shakespeare - Hamlet (0)

Hamlet
Shakespeare , William
Published: 1599
Categorie(s):  Fiction , Drama
Source: Feedbooks
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About Shakespeare:
William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564 – died 23 April
1616) was an  English   poet  and playwright, widely regarded as
the  greatest   writer  in the English language and the world's
pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called  England 's national
poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard"). His surviv-
ing  works  consist of 38  plays , 154 sonnets, two long narrative
poems , and  several   other  poems. His plays have been trans-
lated into every  major   living  language, and are performed
more often  than  those of any other playwright. Shakespeare
was born and raised in Stratford- upon -Avon. At the age of 18
he  married  Anne  Hathaway , who  bore  him three  children :
Susanna , and twins Hamnet and  Judith .  Between  1585 and
1592  he began a successful  career  in London as an  actor ,
writer, and  part   owner  of the  playing  company the  Lord
Chamberlain's Men,  later   known  as the  King 's Men. He ap-
pears  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 sexuality,  religious   beliefs , and whether the
works attributed to him were written by  others . Shakespeare
produced most of his known  work  between 1590 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 sixteenth  century . Next he wrote mainly tragedies  until
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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new movements in scholarship and  performance . His plays re-
main  highly  popular  today  and are consistently performed and
reinterpreted in diverse  cultural  and  political  contexts
throughout the world. Source: Wikipedia
Also available on Feedbooks for Shakespeare:
•  Romeo and Juliet (1597)
• Macbeth (1606)
• A Midsummer Night 's Dream  (1596)
•  Julius Caesar  (1599)
•  Othello  ( 1603 )
• The Merchant of Venice ( 1598 )
• Much Ado About Nothing  (1600)
• King Lear (1606)
• The Taming of the Shrew (1594)
• The Comedy of Errors (1594)
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Act I
SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle .
FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO
BERNARDO
Who's there?
FRANCISCO
Nay, answer me: stand , and unfold yourself.
BERNARDO
Long live the king!
FRANCISCO
Bernardo?
BERNARDO
He.
FRANCISCO
You come most carefully upon your hour .