Concetti Chiave
- Shakespeare's plays reflect an evolution in his thought and life experience, despite limited biographical information.
- He began his career influenced by Seneca and English medieval plays, transforming popular drama through his unique style.
- The apprenticeship phase (1590-1595) saw Shakespeare testing his abilities with chronicles, farces, and comedies, producing works like A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet.
- From 1596 to the century's end, Shakespeare mastered character development in chronicle plays while exploring the lives of commoners and creating iconic comic characters like Sir John Falstaff.
- During this period, Shakespeare wrote experimental comedies that fused various traditions, showcasing themes of love and disguise, and featuring a blend of dramatic and comic elements.
What is the evolution of thought and experience?
We don't know much about the man whose name is perhaps the greatest in the history of literature; no other biography is so of "seems", "probably", "must have", but it is commonly agreed that his plays reveal the evolution in his thought and life experience.
He started in the tradition of the popular drama, which took into account the influence of Seneca and of the English medieval plays, and he gave it back to the world transfigured.
The apprenticeship phase
The first, from around the year 1590 to 1595, is the phase of his apprenticeship, when he needed to test his powers. He experimented in the chronicle play, dealing with English history, the farce and the comedy. This phase includes the delightful A Midsummer Night's Dream and the first mature tragedy Romeo and Juliet where love, death and fate intermingle against the background is Renaissance Italy.
The second phase , covering the years between1596 and the end of the century, is dominated by the chronicle play and the comedy. The chronicle plays written in this period show great mastery in character delineation and at the same time the scope widens to the investigation of the variegated world of commoners which formed the nation itself. The great comic character of Sir John Falstaff appears in the two parts of King Henry IV.
The best of the comedies were written in this period. Each of them is a new experiment, as if Shakespeare wanted to touch different traditions from the Roman comedy to the pastoral, from the court comedy to the farce. The pains and pleasures of love, disguise (which becomes a kind of mask), the fooling of humourless and egoistical people, the blending of dramatic and comic episodes, together with the extraordinary verbal beauty, give these plays a sure hold of the stage and render them unsurpassed.
Domande da interrogazione
- What characterizes the first phase of Shakespeare's career?
- How did Shakespeare's focus shift in the second phase of his career?
The first phase, from 1590 to 1595, is marked by Shakespeare's apprenticeship, where he experimented with chronicle plays, farce, and comedy, producing works like "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Romeo and Juliet," which explore themes of love, death, and fate.
In the second phase, from 1596 to the end of the century, Shakespeare focused on chronicle plays and comedies, showcasing mastery in character development and exploring the diverse world of commoners, with notable works like the two parts of "King Henry IV" featuring Sir John Falstaff.
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