Shakespeare lived in a time of strive and many hardships, but some of the most amazing and well known pieces of literature came out of it. Shakespeare was born on April 23,1616 on Stratford upon Avon in Great Britain and as he grew up showed a great interest in the english language. The Renaissance was a time of re-birth for England and for many people it was a spiritual re-birth. There were some bright moments in the Rennaisance, but it was also a very dark time due to the bubonic plague going around in Europe, and many deaths occurred because of it.
This made the writing of the time a lot darker and almost more realistic in some ways. The printing press had also just been invented so this caused many more people to choose writing as a hobby or even as a professional career. It helped writing become more widespread among everyone because the price declined, therefore making it extremely popular. Seeing plays also became a lot more desired because theaters were popping up around the world and they were open to all classes. The upper class, specifically the royal family, had a very large influence in the arts and paid for many of plays to be produced during Shakespeare’s time.
The renaissance was a huge time for scientific and religious exploration. Even in Shakespeare’s writing, there is occasionally a focus on religion. Writers wanted to learn about how things worked and also really wanted to bring things to life through there words. Writers were breaking boundaries and making huge strides in there creativity. Writers were also heavily influenced by the western civilization. People started embracing the “modern” world, which started the beginning of the Renassaiance. Shakespeare was very curious and wanted to look into the human mind and explore psychology.
He was also very creative in the way he went about his writing and how it was really like an art. The renaissance was a very big transition from the romantic period which was very personal writing and almost fairy tale, while the renaissance was more realistic and also much more dramatic. Shakespeare did seem to include these characteristics in his writing and this time period influenced him heavily. Even though he was born at the end of this period he made the Renaissance come to life on stage during his plays. One way that he was like many writers during the Renaissance were the themes he used in his plays.
He would use themes such as “good vs. evil”, “appearance vs. reality”, and “what it means to be a man”. Shakespeare was also known for using different symbols in his writing, such as the weather or the stars in the sky, to represent other things. Shakespeare wrote many of his pieces based on ancient greek and roman writings, bec cause the characters were so amazing, including powerful heroes and gods that made the tales more fun to read or watch. He also really loved writing tragic romances which is evident in most of his writings.
One of his most famous works was “Romeo and Juliet” which was a great love story with a devastating ending that was very new for this time period. Shakespeare had all the elements of a tragedy in his plays and stories which made his works that more appealing. He wrote anything from dramas to comedies and had a very large focus on the sonnet. Shakespeare has a very different type of humor that was extremely funny back then and very unique for his day an age. Shakespeare wrote many of his earlier pieces following the outline of the typical Renaissance works, but as he grew older his works became bolder and much more advanced for his time.
Shakespeare has many traits of the renaissance present in his writing, but he was also very original in many aspects. He used blank space and iambic parameter, a type of writing with stressed and unstressed syllables. He also developed many new words that were used in his sonnets and plays. He coined many phrases such as “wild goose chase” or “in a pickle”. He introduced over 3000 words to the english language. Shakespeare was constantly coming up with new ways to say things and it made his plays and sonnets much more fascinating. With these words, he wrote about romance often, but in a very new way.
Shakespeare made many plays for the royal family, and they were extremely picky about what words were used, and what matters were discussed, so Shakespeare came up with double meanings for his words, this way he could still write about what he wanted, but not offend anyone. Shakespeare even performed for Queen Elizabeth I numerous of times and was very well liked by her and most all of the royal family. Shakespeare had a very nice life and as he grew up got more and more successful. Shakespeare did so much for the literary world and even the english language. He is known as one of the premiere writers in the middle ages.
When actors were short, he would even fill in and act out many of the plays he wrote, such as hamlet. When reading his works you can see that his writings were very advanced for his time, and that he was born a decade or two too early. Shakespeare is known across the world and his works are read in classrooms even to this day. In his lifetime he wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets. He was extremely original in his works, but still holds an undercurrent of the quintessential Renaissance image. His writings are still relative to today and it is amazing how universal they are.