After the epidemic of plague dwindled, a number of actors who had previously belonged to different companies amalgamated to form the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. In the first official account that survives, Shakespeare is named, along with the famous comic actor Will Kemp and the tragedian Richard Burbage, as payee for performances in court during the previous Christmas season. ibid.
Shakespeare came upon the theatrical scene at an auspicious time. English drama and theatre had developed only slowly during the earlier part of the sixteenth century; during Shakespeare’s youth they exploded into vigorous life. ibid.
Permanent theatres were of two kinds, known now as public and private. Most important to Shakespeare were public theatres such as The Theatre, The Curtain, and The Globe. ibid.
The accomplished elegance of the lyrical verse in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, as well as the skilful, theatrically effective prose of Lance’s monologues, demonstrates that Shakespeare had already developed his writing skills when he composed this play. ibid.
The Taming of the Shrew: The Induction, finely written, establishes a fundamentally serious concern with the powers of persuasion to change not merely appearance but reality, and this theme is acted out at different levels in both strands of the subsequent action. ibid.
The First Part of the Contention II Henry VI: the play draws extensively on English chronicle history for its portrayal of the troubled state of England under Henry VI (1421-71). It dramatizes the touchingly weak King’s powerlessness against the machinations of his nobles, especially Richard, Duke of York. ibid.
The final scenes of The First Part of the Contention briefly introduce two of York’s sons, Edward (the eldest) and Richard ... They, along with their brothers Edmund, Earl of Rutland, and George (later Duke of Clarence), figure more prominently in Richard Duke of York. ibid.
Titus Andronicus: In its time Titus Andronicus was popular perhaps because it combines sensational incident with high-flown rhetoric of a kind that was fashionable around 1590. It tells a story of double revenge. ibid.
Henry VI Part One: A mass of material, some derived from ‘English chronicles’, some invented, is packed into this play. It opens impressively with the funeral of Henry V ... The rivalry displayed here between Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester – Protector of the infant Henry VI – and Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Westminster ... weakens England’s military strength. ibid.
Richard III: In this play, Shakespeare demonstrates a more complete artistic control of his historical material than in its predecessors: Richard himself is a more dominating central figure than is to be found in any of the earlier plays, historical events are freely manipulated in the interests of an overriding design, and the play’s language is more highly patterned and rhetorically unified. ibid.
Venus and Adonis is a mythological poem whose landscape is inhabited by none but the lovers and those members of the animal kingdom ... In Shakespeare’s own time, Venus and Adonis was his most frequently reprinted work. ibid.
The Rape of Lucrece: Shakespeare concentrates on the private side of the story; Tarquin is lusting after Lucrece in the poem’s opening lines, and the ending devotes only a few lines to the consequence of her suicide. ibid.
The Comedy of Errors is a kind of diploma piece, as if Shakespeare were displaying his ability to outshine both his classical progenitors and their English imitators. Along with The Tempest, it is his most classically constructed play: all the action takes places within a few hours and in a single place. ibid.
Love’s Labours Lost was for long regarded as a play of excessive verbal sophistication, of interest mainly because of a series of supposed topical allusions; but a number of distinguished twentieth-century productions have revealed its theatrical mastery. ibid.
Romeo and Juliet: On its first appearance in print, in 1597, Romeo and Juliet was described as ‘An excellent conceited tragedy’ ... its popularity is witnessed by the fact that this is a pirated version, put together from actors’ memories as a way of cashing in on its success. ibid.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Shakespeare built his own plot from diverse elements of literature, drama, legend, and folklore, supplemented by his own imagination and observation ... A Midsummer Night’s Dream offers a glorious celebration of the powers of the human imagination while also making comic capital out of its limitations. ibid.
Richard II: Our early impressions of Richard are unsympathetic. Having banished Mowbray and Bolingbroke, he behaves callously to Bolingbroke’s father, John of Gaunt, a stern upholder of the old order ... Bolingbroke returns to England and gains support in his efforts to claim his inheritance. Gradually, as the power shifts, Richard makes deeper claims on his audience’s sympathy. ibid.
King John: Twentieth-century revivals of King John have been infrequent, but is was popular in the nineteenth century ... A production in 1823 at Covent Garden inaugurated a trend for historically accurate settings and costumes which led to a number of spectacular revivals. ibid.
The Merchant of Venice: Though the play grew out of fairytales, its moral scheme is not entirely clear cut: the Christians are open to criticism, the Jew is true of his own code of conduct. The response of twentieth-century audiences has been complicated by racial issues. ibid.
I Henry IV is the first of Shakespeare’s history plays to make extensive use of the techniques of control. On a national level, the play shows the continuing problems of Henry Bolingbroke, insecure in his hold on the throne, and the victim of rebellions ... These scenes are counterpointed by others, written mainly in prose, which, in the manner of a comic sub-plot, provide humorous diversion while also reflecting and extending the concerns of the main plot. ibid.
The Merry Wives of Windsor ... at first it was not particularly popular, but since 1720 it has consistently pleased audiences. ibid.
II Henry IV draws on the techniques of comedy but its overall tone is more sombre ... Shakespeare never excelled the bitter-sweet comedy of the passages involving Falstaff and his old comrade Justice Shallow. The play ends in a counterpointing of major and minor keys as the newly crowned Henry V rejects Sir John and all that he has stood for. ibid.
Much Ado About Nothing: The action is set in Sicily, where Don Pedro, Prince of Aragon, has recently defeated his half-brother, the bastard Don Juan, in a military engagement. Apparently reconciled, they return to the capital, Messina, as guests of the Governor, Leonato. There Count Claudio, a young nobleman serving in Don Pedro’s army, falls in love with Hero, Leonato’s daughter. ibid.
Henry V: Each act is prefaced by a Chorus, speaking some of the play’s finest poetry, and giving it an epic quality. Henry V, ‘star of England’, is Shakespeare’s most heroic warrior king, but (like his predecessors) has an introspective side, and is aware of the crime by which his father came to the throne. ibid.
Julius Caesar: Although Shakespeare wrote the play at a point in his career at which he was tending to use a high proportion of prose, Julius Caesar is written mainly in verse; as if to suit the subject matter; the style is classical in its lucidity and eloquence, reaching a climax of rhetorical effectiveness in the speeches of Caesar’s body. ibid.
As You Like It: The first performance of Shakespeare’s text after his own time were given in 1740. It rapidly established itself in the theatrical repertoire, and has also been appreciated for its literary qualities. It has usually been played in picturesque settings, often since the late nineteenth century in the open air. ibid.
Hamlet: The plot of Hamlet originates in a Scandinavian folk-tale told in the twelfth century Danish History. ibid.
Twelfth Night is the consummation of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy, a play of wide emotional range, extending from the robust, brilliantly orchestrated humour of the scene of midnight revelry (2.2) to the rapt wonder of the antiphon of recognition (V.i.224-56) between the reunited twins. ibid.
Troilus and Cressida is a demanding play, Shakespeare’s third longest, highly philosophical in tone and with an exceptionally learned vocabulary. Possibly (as has often been conjectured) he wrote it for a private audience. ibid.
Sir Thomas More: The theory that Shakespeare was a contributor, first mooted in 1871, has led to extensive study of the manuscript ... What happened next is not clear. The alterations and additions to the basic play do not meet Tilney’s (Master of the Rolls) objections. ibid.
Measure for Measure: Although Measure for Measure ... is much concerned with justice and mercy, its more explicit concern with sex and death along with the intense emotional reality, at least in the earlier part of the play ... creates a deeper seriousness of tone which takes it out of the world of romantic comedy into that of tragicomedy. ibid.
Othello: It first appeared in print in a quarto of 1622; the version printed in the 1623 Folio is about 160 lines longer, and has over a thousand differences in wording ... Othello, a great success in Shakespeare’s time was one of the first plays to be acted after the reopening of the theatres in 1660, and since that time has remained one of the most popular plays on the English stage. ibid.
All’s Well That Ends Well: versions of the play performed in the eighteenth and nineteenth century ... had little success; but some twentieth-century productions have shown it in a more favourable light. ibid.
Timon of Athens: We know no more of Timon of Athens than we can deduce from the text printed in the 1623 Folio ... Timon of Athens is an exceptionally schematic play falling into two sharply contrasting parts. ibid.
The History of King Lear: The story of a king who, angry with the failure of his virtuous youngest daughter (Cordelia) to respond as he desires in a love-test, divides his kingdom between two malevolent sisters (Gonoril and Regan) has been often told. ibid.
Macbeth can be enjoyed at many levels. It is an exciting story of witchcraft, murder, and retribution that can only be seen as a study in the philosophy and psychology of evil. ibid.