Shakespeare and his plays

Text/Ma Jiajun

I. The Life of Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born on 23 April 1564 in stratford-upon-Ayhan, England. His father, John, abandoned farming and business 12 years before the birth of the future writer, settled in the town, and became mayor five years later. His mother, Mary, was the daughter of a small landowner and had 10 children, William was the third, and the first two sisters died prematurely. Shakespeare attended grammar school at the age of 7, majoring in Latin, but he was always not proficient in ancient languages, preferring to read books on history, geography, literature, and science. When he was 13 years old, his family fell into bankruptcy, his father went bankrupt, and he dropped out of school. At the age of 18, Shakespeare had no choice but to marry the daughter of a rich peasant two miles away from the town. His wife, Anne Hathaway, was 8 years older than him, married at the end of the year, and six months later had a daughter, Suzanne. Two more years later, he gave birth to twin daughter Judith and son Hamnet. At the age of 21, Shakespeare went to London to make ends meet for his family.

In London, he worked in a troupe run by the nobility, worked as an actor, and at the age of 26 wrote Henry VI, which was very successful. Green, a playwright of the "college boys", alludes to the satire of Shakespeare as "an upstart crow decorated with our feathers." But Shakespeare worked tenaciously and became famous in the London theatre scene at the age of 28. After the age of 30 he had been working in the Bobezi Theatre Company, sheltered by the court ministers, and became a shareholder of the troupe, and his financial conditions were getting better and better. In 1597 he bought the largest stone building in stratford. In 1596 his father was awarded the title of nobleman, and both father and son became gentlemen. It was also the year that his father and 11-year-old son Hamnet died. In 1599, with his patronage, the Bobezi Theatre was built into the Globe Theatre, and Shakespeare wrote one or two new works almost every year. The Globe Theatre was burned clean in 1612 while performing Shakespeare's last play, Henry VIII.

Shakespeare loved a dark-skinned woman in London, and the second half of his sonnets were mostly dedicated to this woman, but who was she? No one has ever figured it out.

In 1610, he returned to his hometown. In his later years, he was in poor health and made a will. On 23 April 1616, on his 52nd birthday, Shakespeare died. The United Kingdom designated April 23 as "Shakespeare's Day", on which Shakespeare's works were performed. Shakespeare has become the world's literary hero. China has published "Shakespeare Plays" and "Shakespeare Complete Works", established the "Chinese Shakespeare Research Society", held Shakespeare memorial activities in Beijing and Shanghai in 1986, and staged many Shakespeare plays.

2. Shakespeare's theatrical creation

(1) The chronology and periodization of Shakespeare's plays

Shakespeare wrote thirty-nine plays in his lifetime. During his lifetime, without his consent, several "pirated copies" of the script were published. It wasn't until seven years after his death that it was played by both actors and Ben. Jonson and others compiled a relatively complete script, and in 1623 36 plays were officially printed, and later "Pericles, Prince of Thiel", which constituted his long-recognized entire play. In 1930, the British Shakespeare scholar Chambers arranged the chronology of Shakespeare, which was compiled by later generations as:

1590 – Henry VI, parts ii and iii.

1591 – Henry VI, part I.

1592 – Richard III, Titus Andronix.

1593 – The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Taming.

1594 – The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Futility of Love.

1595 – Romeo and Juliet, Richard II.

1596 – A Midsummer Night's Dream, King John.

1597 – Merchant of Venice, on Henry IV).

1598 – Henry IV (Part 2), The Merry Wives of Windsor.

1599 – Henry V, Nothing Happens.

1600 - "Everybody Rejoices", "Twelfth Night".

1601 – Julius Caesar, Hamlet.

1602 – Troy Ross and Cresida.

1603 - "Finally Become a Family", "One Newspaper and One Newspaper".

1604 – Othello.

1605 – Timon of Athens.

1606 – King Lear, Macbeth.

1607 – Antony and Cleopatra, Corriolaus.

1608 – "Prince pericles of Thiel".

1609 - "Simbailin".

1610 – The Story of Winter.

1611 – The Tempest.

1612 – Henry VIII.

In addition, Shakespeare was involved in the writing of several plays. Recent researchers have confirmed that Two Noble Relatives (published in 1634) and Edward VI, in collaboration with Fletcher, belong to Shakespeare's 38th and 39th plays.

Shakespeare's plays are usually divided into three periods:

1590-1600, the first period. At the end of the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth reigned, implemented a mercantilist policy, defeated the Spanish Armada, became the overlord of the sea, and the British economy and culture flourished. Shakespeare wrote many comedies full of joyful atmosphere during this period. Even in the tragedy "Romeo and Juliet", there is no misery and coldness, and the ending is also a just victory. Many historical dramas were written during this period, focusing on criticizing tyrants and praising enlightened monarchs, which were also related to reality.

1601-1607, the second period. In 1603, Elizabeth died, james I succeeded to the throne, perverse, supporting the old feudal forces, the social rise of the English Renaissance was blocked, and social contradictions intensified. Shakespeare could not see the light and joy and wrote numerous tragedies. Although a little comedy was also written during this period, it was a "dark comedy" without joyful joy.

1608-1612 was the third period, the last period of Shakespeare's playwriting. Although there was a historical drama "Henry VIII" in this period, there were more legendary dramas and fairy tale dramas. They are divorced from reality and ultimately reconcile the contradictions between good and evil. This is related to the limitations of Life and Thought in The Late Shakespeare Period.

(ii) Shakespeare's comedy

Shakespeare wrote 13 comedies, 10 of which were written in the first period. Comedy is one of the most poetic and evocative of his theatrical creations. His comedies, mostly based on love and friendship, are imbued with the spirit of humanism. In feudal society, women were oppressed and discriminated against, but Shakespeare prominently praised women in his comedies. Shakespeare wrote many beautiful, gentle, intelligent, and intelligent maidens, such as Julia, Sylvia (The Two Gentlemen of Verona), Viola (The Twelfth Night), Portia (The Merchant of Venice), Rosserine (Everyone rejoices), and so on. These women can break through all kinds of obstacles and achieve the success of love. Love makes those who are not close to women also fall into an inextricable situation, and love shows the charm of women. These clever women can resolve major social conflicts (Portia's lawsuit of breaking a pound of flesh) and expose the ugly faces of the lustful knights (The Merry Ladies of Windsor). Shakespeare's comedies mostly end with the final victory of love and the eventual formation of lovers.

Among the characters in Shakespeare's comedies are negative characters such as Sherlock (The Merchant of Venice) and Marvolio (The Twelfth Night), which the author satirizes and achieves comedic effects with comical ridicule; but more often depicts positive characters. He did not use the villain as the protagonist like the later Comedy of Molière, but expressed the joy of life, and he achieved comedic effect with humor and laughter.

In connection with this, Shakespeare wrote not satirical comedy, but joyful comedy, stylistically, including slapstick (The Taming of the Taming), romantic drama (The Two Gentlemen of Verona), poetic fantasy dramas (A Midsummer Night's Dream), elegant comedies (The Futility of Love), and dark tragicomedies (Finally Becoming Dependents). For this reason, in terms of techniques, the method of coincidence and misunderstanding of chance is often used to make yin and yang wrong. Writing about twins ("The Comedy of Errors", "Twelfth Night>) is the most likely to cause the comedic effect of Zhang Guanli Dai. Women dressed as men, which is also a plot often written in Shakespeare's comedies, not only shows the intelligence of women, resulting in strange and interesting stories, but also has a great artistic interest. At that time, there were no actresses, and the women who played the drama often looked for teenagers to play. Tong Ling is not tall, has not yet grown a throat knot, fine skin and tender flesh, and the child's voice is similar to a woman's voice. Boys play women, and women disguise themselves as men, so that the audience can see that this man is dressed as a woman, but can not see that women are played by men, which naturally has artistic interest and causes the audience's joy.

Shakespeare's comedies mostly wrote about the Italians of the early Renaissance, but of course about ancient Rome (The Comedy of Errors) and England (The Merry Wives of Windsor). Although it is an ancient or foreign story, the characters and personalities are realistic British, but the real people live in an idealized world, the background of the story has exotic scenery, the situation is poetic with the writer's fiction, the content is full of lyrical colors, and the mood has a strong romantic atmosphere.

(iii) Shakespeare's historical drama

Shakespeare wrote 11 historical plays, all but one of which were written in the late period and the rest in the first period. The first play That Shakespeare began to write, Henry VI, was a historical play, and the last "Henry VIII" before he stopped writing was also a historical play, which shows that his plays attach importance to national events. He raised social and political issues such as political power, class relations, and the church, which are in line with the spirit of the times. Historical dramas are not as tragic as Romeo and Juliet. As soon as the tragic protagonist dies, the whole play is over. Historical dramas focus on national history and national destiny, and the protagonist's encounter does not end the plot and history at the same time.

Shakespeare's historical plays are not as good as Renaissance plays based on Greco-Romans. Originally, the banner of the Renaissance was to regenerate ancient culture. Drawing on patriotic fervor and the demands of the times, Shakespeare wrote the history of England for 350 years from King John (1199) to Henry VIII (1547). Although Shakespeare's historical dramas are named after emperors, emperors are only a sign of historical times, and their focus is still to reflect the conflict of history.

Shakespeare's historical plays are known for their vast and profound historical authenticity. He shows the historical picture of British feudal society from prosperity to decline, and includes the political, economic, military, religious, moral, cultural and other aspects of the historical issues that need to be learned from the development of the new era, which is nothing more than an encyclopedia. Shakespeare's historical drama criticizes the evil forces of feudalism, exposing the struggle for power and profit at the top, sexual immorality, and exploitation and oppression of the people; criticizes the harm of extreme individualism and egoism, exposes the despicableness of deceit and mutual framing; depicts the poverty and oppression of the people, shows the colorful civilian society, and even depicts the anti-feudal struggle of the masses of the people such as the Cade Uprising. Shakespeare's historical drama, with its magnificent scenes, grandeur and many characters, had a great influence on the creation of historical dramas of the 18th century German Rush Movement and the 19th century European Romanticism. However, at that time, limited by conditions, when performing, the use of four soldiers symbolized a thousand troops and horses.

Shakespeare's historical drama is not an image map of history, it is art, the author highlights the characters in the magnificent historical background, not only writes what they are doing, but also analyzes how and why they do it, reveals the profound and vivid psychological character of the characters, shaping the cruel and cowardly King John, the weak and domineering Richard II, the worried and guilty Henry IV, the ideal wise monarch Henry V, the extremely egoistic and bloodthirsty Richard III, and so on. In particular, the image of Forstav, an optimistic and humorous, braggarted, lying, and indulgent knight, is very comedic and typical. In the shaping of the character, Shakespeare criticizes the tyrant while not departing from the bourgeoisie's dependence on the king's power and sings the praises of the wise king; while criticizing the bourgeois selfish Machiavellianism of the capitalist primitive capital accumulation period, he also establishes the characters of the old tradition as the ideal positive characters, which are the manifestations of the needs of the era and the limitations of the bourgeoisie in the English Renaissance.

(iv) The Tragedy of Shakespeare

Shakespeare wrote 10 tragedies, except for 3 written in the first period, the remaining 7 were completed in the second period. Shakespeare's tragedy is a model of English tragedy, a reflection of the alternating periods of the old and new eras and the end times of feudal society. In all of Shakespeare's creations, he is the most accomplished and representative of his four major tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Hamlet, in particular, is known as the diamond in the crown of Shakespeare's tragedy.

Shakespeare's tragedy shows a deep and broad socio-political content, which shows the great problems related to the fate of nations and nations, the great problems related to the suffering of peoples and the destiny of mankind. Claudius killed his brother Hamlet the Elder, stripped his nephew of the throne he deserved, and created Denmark into a large dark prison. King Lear was ousted from the throne by his daughter and son-in-law, and the country was plunged into deep suffering. Macbeth usurped the throne, plunging Scotland into a dark, chaotic situation. The whole era is out of touch, and it needs to be rectified. Shakespeare's tragedy also shows the destruction of the family, the betrayal of the daughter to the father, and the betrayal of friendships. Shakespeare forcefully criticized the evil forces of darkness. Although the writer draws on ancient Rome, medieval Danish court, Scotland, early Renaissance Italy, etc., his tragedies are clearly reminiscent of England at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries. Isn't King Lear's wandering brigade the unemployed army caused by the British enclosure movement? Isn't the extravagance of those emperors and generals and the struggle for power between them a portrayal of the corruption of the British upper echelons? The tragedy of Shakespeare is the tragedy of society.

At the same time, Shakespeare's tragedy is also a character tragedy. He focuses on the contradiction between the ideals of the humanists and the dark reality of feudalism, as well as the contradictions of humanism itself. Shakespeare's Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth are not ordinary people, but the characters of some giants, whose love, hatred and joy and sorrow are so deep and intense, they are in the vortex of struggle, full of contradictions. Hamlet's hesitation and melancholy, Othello's credulity and recklessness, King Lear's rigidity and paranoia, Macbeth's ambition and weakness make his character contradictory. Complex personalities are in a chaotic society, and the characters have strong inner conflicts and all die tragically. These tragedies, or the inevitable requirements of history, cannot be realized in practice, or the deliberate destruction of beautiful things for people to see, or the moral cultivation or purification of the audience through fear and pity.

Shakespeare's tragedies are serious and tense, and ghosts and witches often appear, full of mystery. The characters have hallucinatory or sleepwalking movements, which both express their complex hearts and attract serious attention from the audience. But it often breaks the norms of classical drama, adding comedy elements to tragedies to buffer contradictions or to counteract and pave the way for the tension of the next step.

(v) Shakespeare's theatrical art

Shakespeare was a master and a role model for future generations in the art of screenwriting, providing future playwrights with artistic principles, forms, techniques and techniques that can be used as references. Shakespeare's plays, with the exception of a very few such as "The Merry Ladies of Windsor", are mostly adapted works, or have been described in detail in history by predecessors, or have been written by other playwrights. However, Shakespeare's adaptation only borrows the existing story synopsis and the lines of the main characters, and the completion of the work is completely a new creation of independence. The story of the revenge of the Danish prince, in the previous plays, was all about feudal infighting about court murder, but Shakespeare created a complex image of the humanist fighter Hamlet. The creation of new images is entirely the crystallization of Shakespeare's art. Shakespeare's theatrical art is best known for the following points:

1. Falstaff-like background. Falstaff is a character in the historical drama Henry IV and the comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor. This lustful, brazen and fallen knight served as Prince Hal's subordinate, and he went everywhere from the court to the city. As he follows, the author depicts a vast social context. In Henry IV, Shakespeare presents a colorful civilian society with Falstaff as the protagonist, who is a peddler, a pawn, a prostitute, a farmer, a boss, a domestic servant, and an adventurer who both reveals the life and destiny of the commoner and provides the basis for political life at the top. In a play, not only with the conflict of emperors as the main content, but also with a Faustav-like background, showing the torrent of the times, the broad social background, the people's lives and trends, such a play has breadth and depth, and such a historical drama has a historical content of awareness.

2. Shakespeareization. This is aimed at the "Schillerization" of character building. Schiller was the great German dramatist of the 18th century, and he created many exquisite plays. However, some of the characters he wrote in some plays (such as "Don Carlos" and "Wallenstein") did not have objective and vivid personalities, and the characters became "the voice of the zeitgeist". Shakespeare, on the other hand, whose characters also melted into the zeitgeist, but "their motives ... It is derived from the historical current in which they live." The many characters he writes are flesh and blood, full of flesh and life, and have both the commonality of representing the essence and the unrepeatable and unique "this one". The typical characters he creates are complex and diverse, full of development and change, and the dominant qualities are distinct and prominent. The characters are fully characterized in the external conflicts and inner conflicts of the self. The positive and negative models created by Shakespeare, such as Romeo, Juliet, Sherlock, Falstaff, Égou, Othello, Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, etc., are all ancient, popular and eternal models, and their names have even become common nouns and allusions, which are used by later generations in life.

3. The vividness and richness of the plot. The plot of Shakespeare's plays is mostly rearranged from existing ready-made stories, but it has been cut, supplemented and modified to achieve a high degree of vividness. Its plot has ups and downs, ups and downs, often unexpected, wave after wave, wave after wave. Shakespeare's plays are generally multi-threaded and multi-layered, and they either develop in parallel, stagger and contrast, or complement each other and intertwine. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" has four plots and three levels; "The Merchant of Venice" contains three stories of a pound of meat, three boxes of son-in-law, and the love of men and women of different religions; Henry IV has three plots, three sets of characters, and three worlds, each with a protagonist; Hamlet is intertwined with three stories of revenge for his father. Of course, in the rich and diverse plot, the clues are clearly divided and integrated, showing the writer's high artistic skills.

4. Diversity of methods, forms and techniques. Shakespeare's plays are based on reality, reflecting the true face of life, and basically adopting a realistic approach. But its realism is not yet as good as the 19th-century realism is completely consistent with nature, that is, with life, and even has "errors of the times" (such as the 12th-century Danish prince who read the 16th-century humanist university). His realism does not copy life, but artistically summarizes life according to his humanistic ideals and the standards of good, evil, beauty and ugliness, thus reflecting the essence of life. Shakespeare was also a romantic, his imagination was rich, and his ideal characters and ideal realms were beautiful and poetic. Shakespeare's immortals, ghosts, magic, witchcraft and nature's spirituality, the confusion of the night, the combination of desert islands and wilderness and ethereal bizarre, set off the story of love, the conflict between good and evil, a pure romantic atmosphere. Many of the plays combine realism and romanticism, integrating ideals and reality. The artistic interests of Shakespeare's plays are rich and colorful: tragic, cruel, eerie, joyful, ironic, playful, funny, fantasy, sad, magical, lyrical... It's often dazzling and admirable. Shakespeare's theatrical styles include various types of comedies, tragedies, historical dramas, legendary dramas, and its artistic techniques such as "play within a play", clown gags, etc. are inexhaustible, which is really inexhaustible to Shakespeare's everything, and it is not enough to say his artistic skills. Shakespeare's plays are poetic, using mainly pentatonic steps to suppress Young's primitive poems (rhythmic but without rhyming feet), and sometimes quoting folk songs, ballads, rhyming poems, and some dialogue prose. The dramatic language is diverse, and elegant ancient words, written words, slang folk language, and ordinary homely words create a variety of characters with different personalities. According to statistics, Shakespeare's vocabulary is about 15,000, and the English Bible is only 6,500 words, which shows the richness of Shakespeare's language.

(Excerpt from Ma Jiajun and Ma Xiaoyi's "History of Western Drama", Shaanxi Normal University Publishing House, September 1998)

The fifth section, "Shakespeare's Theatrical Art," was published in Contemporary Theatre, No. 2, 2016

(Note: The author of this article has authorized this headline)

(Ma Jiajun, a native of Qingyuan, Hebei, born on October 5, 1929, is currently a professor at the College of Literature of Shaanxi Normal University, a member of the Chinese Writers Association, a member of the Chinese Dramatists Association, a member of the Chinese Filmmakers Association, an honorary president (former president) of the Shaanxi Foreign Literature Society, a principle of the Chinese Foreign Literature Society, a principle of the Chinese Russian Literature Research Society, a former president of the Shaanxi Provincial Higher Education Drama Research Society, a former consultant of the Shaanxi Poetry Society, and a former executive director of the Shaanxi Provincial Federation of Social Science Societies. Shaanxi Province to build socialist spiritual civilization advanced individuals, Shaanxi Province to teach and educate advanced teachers, etc., enjoy special allowances from the State Council.

He is the author of 12 kinds of "Nineteenth Century Russian Literature", "The New Stage of Aesthetic History", "Poetry Exploration", "Exploration of World Literature", etc.; 4 kinds of "The Essence of World Literature" and "History of Western Drama" co-authored with his daughter Ma Xiaoyi; 9 kinds of "History of World Literature" (3 volumes) and "Research on Gorky's Creation"; edited 4 kinds of "30 Lectures on European and American Modernist Literature"; co-edited and co-authored "100 Topics of Marxism-Leninism", "Cultural Research Methods", "50 Lectures on Oriental Literature", "Western Literature in the Twentieth Century", etc. and more than 40 kinds.

It has been listed in more than 40 kinds, such as the Dictionary of Chinese Writers, the Dictionary of Chinese Poets, the Dictionary of Chinese Social Science Scholars, the Cambridge Dictionary of International Biographies (27th Edition in English), the Directory of Experts in Russian Studies Abroad (Russian Edition) of the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Classics of Shaanxi Century of Literature and Art. ）