Dr Saheb Sahu
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) stands as one of the most celebrated and influential figure in world literature. Known as the “Bard of Avon”, Shakespeare’s works have transcended time, culture, and language. His mastery of language, exploration of human nature, and timeless themes has cemented his place as the preeminent playwright and poet of the English speaking world.
Shakespeare was born in Strafford upon Avon, to John Shakespeare and Mary Arden. His father was a glove maker. While little is known about his early education, it is believed that he attended the local grammar school, where he would have studied Latin, rhetoric, and classical literature. By the late 1580s, he moved to London to pursue a career in theater. He became an actor and playwright in a prominent acting company. Over the course of his career, he wrote 39 plays, 154 sonnets, and two long narrative poems establishing himself as a central figure in the Elizabethan and Jacobean Theater.
His Works and Theme
Shakespeare’s plays are traditionally categorized into three genres: tragedies, comedies, and histories though some defy neat classification. His popular tragedies, such as Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear, delve into complex characters and themes like ambition, jealousy, power, and human condition. His comedies, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfths Night, are characterized by wit, mistaken identities, and the folly of human behavior. Meanwhile his historical plays such as Henry V and Richard 111 reflect on leadership, politics, and the challenge of nationhood.
While opinion on the ‘top’ five plays can vary, his most acclaimed plays are Hamlet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, and King Lear.
Language and Legacy
Shakespeare is credited with coining or popularizing over 1,700 words and phrases still in use today, such as “break the ice”, “wild-goose chase”, and “all that glitters is not gold”. He has influenced countless writers and poets. His plays have been adapted into countless films, operas, ballets, and other art forms. Performance of his works spans the globe, demonstrating their universality. His exploration of human psyche has also influenced disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, and political science. He is considered one of the greatest writers in English.
Here Are Some Quotes from His Works
King Henry the Sixth (1590-1591
Blessed are the peacemakers on earth.
The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.
Having nothing, nothing he can lose.
For every cloud engenders not a storm.
Men never spend their fury on a child.
King Richard The Third (1592- 1593)
Now is the winter of our discontent.
Talkers are no good doers.
There is something in the wind.
King Richard The Second (1595)
‘The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation”.
The ripest fruit first falls.
The worst is death, and death will have his day.
A Midsummer-Night’s Dream (1595-1596)
Lord, what fools these mortal be!
The course of true love never did run smooth.
A pair of star-crossed lovers.
She speaks, yet she says nothing.
These violent delights have violent ends.
A word and a blow.
Tempt not a desperate man.
Past hope, past cures, past help.
Parting is such sweet sorrow.
King Henry The Fourth (1596-1597)
You tread upon my patience.
Or sink or swim.
Greatness knows itself.
The better part of valor is discretion.
Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying.
I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
There is history in all men’s lives.
Death as the Psalmist saith is certain to all, all shall die.
A man can die but once, we owe God a death.
We are in God’s hand.
The Merchant of Venice (1596-1597)
The devil can cite the Scripture for his purpose.
An honest, exceeding poor man.
It is a wise father that knows his child.
“But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit”.
Young in limbs, in judgment old.
All that glitters is not gold.
If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
I never knew so young a body with so old a head.
King Henry The Fifth (1598-1599)
Men of few words are the best men.
We are in God’s hand.
Julius Caesar (1599)
“Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste death but once”.
“Of all the wonders that I have yet have heard, it seems to me more strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.”
‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
Et tu, Brute?
As he was valiant, I honor him; but, as he was ambitious, I slew him.
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones.”
“We must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.”
This was the noblest Roman of them all.
As You Like It (1599-1600)
My pride fell with my fortune.
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.”
Sir, I am a true laborer; I earn that I eat, get that I wear; owe no man hate, envy no man’s happiness; glad of other men’s good, content with my harm.
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
Hamlet (1600- 1601)
Not mouse stirring.
Thou know’st‘tis common, all that lives must die,
“All is not well;
I doubt some foul play.”
‘Neither a borrower, nor lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry”.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
They say an old man is twice a child.
“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them”
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
I must be cruel only to be kind.
“We go to gain a little bit of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.”
We know, what we are, but know not what we may be.
“When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions”.
A politician… one that would circumvent God.
‘Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away”
The rest is silence.
“O proud death!
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell?”
All’s Well That Ends Well (1601-1605)
“Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none.”
My friends were poor, but honest.
“Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises.”
The web of our life is of mingled yarn, good and ill together.
All’s well that ends well.
I am a man whom Fortune hath cruelly scratched.
Measure For Measure (1604)
Good counselors lack no clients.
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.
The law has not been dead, though it hath slept.
“The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope.”
Be absolute for death.
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where.
The news is old enough, yet it is every day’s news.
“O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side.”
What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.
Othello (1604-1605)
We cannot all be masters.
“But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at.”
Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners.
For I am nothing, if not critical.
Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.
“Take note, take note, O world!
To be direct and honest is not safe.”
King Lear (1605)
“My love’s
More richer than my tongue.”
Nothing will come of nothing.
“Mind your speech a little,
Least you may mar your fortune”.
The infirmity of his age.
“Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than though knowest,
Lend less than thou owest.”
“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child.”
A poor, infirm, weak and despised old man.
“I am a man
More sinn’d against than sinning”.
“Whenwe are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools.”
“I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more or less;
And to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.”
Pray you now, forget and forgive.
Timon of Athens (1605-1608)
Every man has his fault, and honesty is his.
We have seen better days.
Life’s uncertain voyage.
Macbeth (1606)
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air”.
“Who can be wise, amaz’d, temperate and furious,
Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man.”
What is done cannot be undone.
We have scotched the snake, not killed it.
All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.
Antony And Cleopatra (1606- 1607)
I love long life better than figs.
“My salad days,
When I was green in judgment.”
No worse a husband than the best of men.
Coriolanus (1607-1608)
What is the city but the people.
They’ll give him death by inches.
Sonnet (1609)
“Roses have thorns, and silver fountain mud,
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults”.
Sonnet- 35
“Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds”
-Sonnet 116.
“When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies”.
- Sonnet-138
Tempest (1611-1612)
What is past is prologue.
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
I shall laugh myself to death.
Keep a good tongue in your head.
He that dies pays all debts.
Conclusion
Shakespeare’s works are foundational to Western literature and theater. His plays have influenced countless writers, artists, and filmmakers over centuries. As an educated person you should be familiar with some of his works. I will conclude this article with my favorite Shakespeare’s quote:
“Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow,
a poor player that struts and frets
his hour upon the stage,
and then is heard no more:
It is a tale told by an idiot,
full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.”
-Macbeth, Act 5. Scene5
Sources:
1- William Shakespeare, The Complete works. Editors. Stanley Wells et al, Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1988
2-John Bartlett. Bartlett’s Shakespeare Quotations. Little Brown and Company: New York: 2005
3- Chat GPT
4- Wikipedia.org
