“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,

His acts being seven ages.”

• As You Like It, William Shakespeare, 1599

Imagine this. The date is 1564. The great poet and playwright William Shakespeare has just been born in Stratford-upon-Avon. Flashforward 18 years: Shakespeare, now a young man, has just married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway who is 8 years older than him. He has started to write his plays but is not yet famous. Evidence shows that Shakespeare’s plays started to become popular in 1592. It is believed that he arrived in London in the late 1580s. 

There is no doubt that Shakespeare wrote some great plays and poems but those who study them can no doubt agree that Shakespeare is a man of great controversy. Some suspect that he may not have been the writer of these plays at all. They believe this because he was known to be a very private person.

Shakespeare’s sonnets often feature themes of love, aging, beauty, time, lust, practical obligations and feelings of incompetence as well as the struggle between what collective society is willing to accept and an individual's desires. However, when it comes to his plays, the ideas he focuses on are appearance and reality, ambition, betrayal, conflict, good vs. evil, hatred, order, and disorder, revenge, suffering, and transformation. 

While Shakespeare's play Macbeth is about greed and deception, he has other plays like King Lear which is about about possession and identity. Another contrast can be made with his sonnets to the Dark Lady versus his sonnets to the Fair Youth. Sonnets 18 - 77, and sonnets 87 - 126 were written for the Fair Youth while sonnets 127-154 were written for the Dark Lady. In his sonnets to the Fair Youth, he describes a relationship that is almost like a loving friendship whereas, in his sonnets to the Dark Lady, he describes a dark-haired woman, who would seem to readers he’s almost ashamed to love. 

Here, the author states that he only wants this mistress because she appeals to his primal wants and earthly desires.

Many people after comparing these sonnets question the playwright’s sexuality. Although he did have three children with his wife Anne Hathaway, readers of his sonnets often believe that there was a romantic relationship between him and the young aristocratic man he describes in his “Fair Youth” sonnets. Nonetheless, readers can agree that Shakespeare truly did write some of the world’s greatest love sonnets.

Links

https://jcpatriot.com/perspectives/2013/06/07/con-shakespearean-plays-do-not-teach-students-any-important-skills-and-are-a-waste-of-time-to-read/

• https://evolution-institute.org/what-did-shakespeare-understand-about-the-human-mind/

• http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/onshakespearesmind.html

• http://archives.dailynews.lk/2013/02/13/fea29.asp

• https://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-most-common-shakespearean-sonnet-themes.htm

• https://www.quora.com/How-did-Shakespeares-writing-style-in-plays-differ-from-his-style-in-poems

• https://shakespeare.yoexpert.com/shakespeare-general/who-is-shakespeare-s-dark-lady-and-why-is-she-impo-37443.html

Carissa Fortin

She is a massive Harry Potter Nerd. She loves mac and cheese. She would love to travel the world some day as a career. Her favorite place to be is in my library.