17. William Shakespeare, other English authors

William Shakespeare was born on 23rd of April 1564 in Stratford upon Avon. He was the youngest son of a glove maker John and his wife Mary. He attended the local Grammar school. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway who was 8 years older. Ten years later he came to London and joined a group of actors called Lord Chamberlain’s men. First he only helped re-write older plays, but later he started to write his own plays. After his son’s death he returned to Stratford and lived a quiet life with family. He died on 23rd of April 1616. It is the same day he was born.

Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and beautiful sonnets. Mostly he wrote comedies, history plays and tragedies.
Some comedies are:
The comedy of Errors – it was inspired by the comedy of Plautus
The Merchant of Venice – it’s the first comedy, but it borders on tragedy
A Midsummer-Night’s Dream – the story is similar to Romeo Juliet, but it’s not a tragedy, it s a romantic comedy
Merry wives of Windsor’s – it’s a comedy containing the tricks or jokes of Windsor Ladies
Much ado about nothing etc.
History plays are:
Henry VI.
Henry V.
Richard III.
Richard II.
Julius Caesar
Tragedies are:
Romeo and Juliet
Macbeth
King Lear
Othello

ROMEO AND JULIET
Romeo and Juliet is about the unhappy love and death of Romeo and Juliet the only children of two powerful houses of Verona – the house of Montague and the house of Capulet. These two houses hate each other and Romeo Montague meets Juliet at the ball. He falls in love with her although he knows that she is Capulet. They love each other very much but their love has to be a secret. Romeo unfortunately kills Juliet’s cousin Tybalt and he is sent to exile outside Verona. Juliet doesn’t want marry a young man Paris but her parents want her to marry him. She asks Friar Laurence for help and he gives her magic drops after which she fells asleep for several hours and looks as she was dead. Romeo learns about Juliet’s death and because he doesn’t know that Juliet will wake up again he kills himself. Than Juliet wakes up and seeing Romeo she kills herself too. The Montague and Capulet finally reconcile.

HAMLET
Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle has killed Hamlet’s father and marries the Queen. The ghost of the dead King appears to Hamlet and tells him about his murder. Hamlet wants to revenge his father’s death. He tries to test the story of the murder with a theatre performance and the King Claudius by seeing the story betrays himself. He sands Hamlet to England to be killed. But Hamlet returns later and sees Ophelia’s funeral. Ophelia loves him but they cannot fulfill their love because of Hamlet’s plans and she got drowned. After that Hamlet kills only by mistake Polonius, the Ophelia’s father. Claudius sends Ophelia’s brother to fight with Hamlet. Hamlet is wounded by poisoned sword. He manages to stab Claudius and Ophelia’s brother is dying too. Hamlet’s mother drinks poisoned wine.
The Hamlet’s word “to be or not to be, that is the question” are very famous.

Shakespeare is considered to be the best dramatist in the world.

Robert Lewis Stevenson lived in the 19th century. Ho wrote romantic adventurous stories, e.g. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I love his book Treasure Island.

Agatha Christie is the most widely read contemporary author in the world. She is the Queen of the detective story and she wrote about 70 novels, 20 dramatis, 15 short-story books and poem collection. I also like her books very much. She wrote e.g. two books Ten Little Niggers or Sleeping Murder.
Arthur C. Clarke is world-known science-fiction writer. He was born in 1917. He wrote e.g. the books 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Fountains of Paradise.