113-794: Balsall Preceptory in Warwickshire was a manor that was given to the Knights Templars in recognition of their service in the Crusades . The donor , according to a survey of the Templars' possessions in England in 1185, was Roger de Mowbray , son of Nigel d'Aubigny . The preceptory also governed other Templar lands, similarly donated for services in the Holy Land . These included: Old Hall , though much restored, dates from
226-745: A funerary monument was erected in his memory on the north wall, with a half-effigy of him in the act of writing. Its plaque compares him to Nestor , Socrates , and Virgil . In 1623, in conjunction with the publication of the First Folio , the Droeshout engraving was published. Shakespeare has been commemorated in many statues and memorials around the world, including funeral monuments in Southwark Cathedral and Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey . Most playwrights of
339-598: A gatehouse in the former Blackfriars priory; and from November 1614, he was in London for several weeks with his son-in-law, John Hall . After 1610, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, and none are attributed to him after 1613. His last three plays were collaborations, probably with John Fletcher , who succeeded him as the house playwright of the King's Men. He retired in 1613, before the Globe Theatre burned down during
452-668: A playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men , later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI of Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance , his sexuality , his religious beliefs and even certain fringe theories as to whether
565-427: A Stratford legend that Shakespeare fled the town for London to escape prosecution for deer poaching in the estate of local squire Thomas Lucy . Shakespeare is also supposed to have taken his revenge on Lucy by writing a scurrilous ballad about him. Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare starting his theatrical career minding the horses of theatre patrons in London. John Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had been
678-402: A change from the traditional to the freer style. Shakespeare combined the two throughout his career, with Romeo and Juliet perhaps the best example of the mixing of the styles. By the time of Romeo and Juliet , Richard II , and A Midsummer Night's Dream in the mid-1590s, Shakespeare had begun to write a more natural poetry. He increasingly tuned his metaphors and images to the needs of
791-602: A country schoolmaster. Some 20th-century scholars suggested that Shakespeare may have been employed as a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire , a Catholic landowner who named a certain "William Shakeshafte" in his will. Little evidence substantiates such stories other than hearsay collected after his death, and Shakeshafte was a common name in the Lancashire area. It is not known definitively when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of performances show that several of his plays were on
904-483: A division of the kingdom of Mercia in the early 11th century. The first reference to Warwickshire was in 1001, as Wæringscīr, named after Warwick . The prefix wara- is the genitive plural of the Old English noun waru , which means "those that care for, watch, guard, protect, or defend". It was used as an endonym by both Goths and Jutes. The suffix -wick is an Old English cognate ( -wic ) for
1017-755: A major cycling destination has been bolstered in recent years having hosted a stage of the Women's Tour since 2016 and the Men's Tour of Britain in 2018 and 2019. In 2022, St Nicholas Park in Warwick hosted the Elite Men's and Women's Road Race as part of the Commonwealth Games that took place in Birmingham. Warwickshire has no Football League clubs. As of the 2022–23 season, the highest-placed team
1130-431: A merry meeting and, it seems, drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted", not an impossible scenario since Shakespeare knew Jonson and Drayton . Of the tributes from fellow authors, one refers to his relatively sudden death: "We wondered, Shakespeare, that thou went'st so soon / From the world's stage to the grave's tiring room." He was survived by his wife and two daughters. Susanna had married
1243-640: A mixture of verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning and non-verbal reasoning multiple-choice questions. Warwickshire contains four colleges of further education: North Warwickshire & Hinckley College , King Edward VI Sixth Form College (K.E.G.S) in Nuneaton, Stratford-upon-Avon College and the Warwickshire College Group an institution made up of six main separate colleges that have merged (Leamington Centre, Rugby Centre, Moreton Morrell Centre, Pershore College, Henley-in-Arden Centre and
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#17327985863831356-448: A more serene view of life on Shakespeare's part, but it may merely reflect the theatrical fashion of the day. Shakespeare collaborated on two further surviving plays, Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen , probably with John Fletcher . Shakespeare's works include the 36 plays printed in the First Folio of 1623, listed according to their folio classification as comedies , histories , and tragedies . Two plays not included in
1469-450: A naked new-born babe, Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd Upon the sightless couriers of the air." However, Shakespeare soon began to adapt the traditional styles to his own purposes. The opening soliloquy of Richard III has its roots in the self-declaration of Vice in medieval drama. At the same time, Richard's vivid self-awareness looks forward to the soliloquies of Shakespeare's mature plays. No single play marks
1582-814: A persuasive suitor, was printed in the first edition of the Sonnets in 1609. Most scholars now accept that Shakespeare wrote A Lover's Complaint . Critics consider that its fine qualities are marred by leaden effects. The Phoenix and the Turtle , printed in Robert Chester's 1601 Love's Martyr , mourns the deaths of the legendary phoenix and his lover, the faithful turtle dove . In 1599, two early drafts of sonnets 138 and 144 appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim , published under Shakespeare's name but without his permission. Published in 1609,
1695-475: A physician, John Hall, in 1607, and Judith had married Thomas Quiney , a vintner , two months before Shakespeare's death. Shakespeare signed his last will and testament on 25 March 1616; the following day, Thomas Quiney, his new son-in-law, was found guilty of fathering an illegitimate son by Margaret Wheeler, both of whom had died during childbirth. Thomas was ordered by the church court to do public penance, which would have caused much shame and embarrassment for
1808-588: A practical sense of the theatre. Like all playwrights of the time, he dramatised stories from sources such as Plutarch and Holinshed . He reshaped each plot to create several centres of interest and to show as many sides of a narrative to the audience as possible. This strength of design ensures that a Shakespeare play can survive translation, cutting, and wide interpretation without loss to its core drama. As Shakespeare's mastery grew, he gave his characters clearer and more varied motivations and distinctive patterns of speech. He preserved aspects of his earlier style in
1921-486: A selling point and began to appear on the title pages . Shakespeare continued to act in his own and other plays after his success as a playwright. The 1616 edition of Ben Jonson 's Works names him on the cast lists for Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Sejanus His Fall (1603). The absence of his name from the 1605 cast list for Jonson's Volpone is taken by some scholars as a sign that his acting career
2034-502: A single area and share a single Chamber of Commerce , Local Enterprise Partnership and BBC Local Radio Station ( BBC Coventry & Warwickshire ). Coventry was administered separately from the rest of Warwickshire between 1451 and 1842. It formed the County of the City of Coventry , a county corporate from 1451. In 1842 the county corporate of Coventry was abolished and remerged with
2147-555: A small campus near Wellesbourne which houses the Warwick Horticultural Research Centre and an Innovation Centre. Several major motorways run through Warwickshire; these are: Other major trunk routes in Warwickshire include: Two main railway lines pass through Warwickshire: Other railway lines in Warwickshire include: Between 1965 and 2018, the only major town in Warwickshire without
2260-554: A station was Kenilworth . The Leamington to Coventry line passes through the town, but the station was closed as part of the Beeching cuts . Kenilworth railway station was rebuilt and opened in April 2018, with an hourly service to Coventry and to Leamington provided by West Midlands Trains . The new High Speed 2 (HS2) line is a long-distance route that is being constructed through Warwickshire; however, there will be no stations in
2373-565: A strong and growing economy with the automotive industry being a major contributor. In the north, BMW's Hams Hall plant employs over 1,000 people, while Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin Lagonda have headquarters, including a giant advanced production creation centre, at Gaydon in the south. Warwickshire is also establishing a growing reputation as a global hub of the video game industry . One of Britain's oldest still-running game studios, Codemasters , has operated out of Southam for decades;
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#17327985863832486-461: A woman's hide" from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3 , along with the pun "Shake-scene", clearly identify Shakespeare as Greene's target. As used here, Johannes Factotum ("Jack of all trades") refers to a second-rate tinkerer with the work of others, rather than the more common "universal genius". Greene's attack is the earliest surviving mention of Shakespeare's work in the theatre. Biographers suggest that his career may have begun any time from
2599-470: A £130 million UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC) based in Coventry. Tourism is also a key area of employment with country parks, rural areas and historic towns across the county. It generates a total business turnover of over £1 billion to the local economy and supports almost 20,000 jobs. Main Warwickshire towns: Smaller towns and large villages include: Warwickshire came into being as
2712-754: Is Leamington , who play in the National League North , the sixth tier of English football. A level below, in the Southern Football League Premier Division Central, are Nuneaton Borough and Stratford Town . Other clubs include Rugby Town , Bedworth United , Southam United , Racing Club Warwick , Coleshill Town , Atherstone Town and Nuneaton Griff ; all of these are affiliated to the Birmingham FA . William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( c. 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616)
2825-528: Is a non-metropolitan county with five districts. The county historically included the city of Coventry and the area to its west, including Sutton Coldfield , Solihull and a significant part of Birmingham , including the city centre . Warwickshire is a flat, lowland county, but its far south contains part of the Cotswolds AONB . The River Avon , a major tributary of the Severn , flows through
2938-472: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Warwickshire Warwickshire ( / ˈ w ɒr ɪ k ʃ ər , - ʃ ɪər / ; abbreviated Warks ) is a ceremonial county in the West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Staffordshire and Leicestershire to the north, Northamptonshire to the east, Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire to the south, and Worcestershire and
3051-527: Is based in Edgbaston , in Birmingham, observe the historic county boundaries. The flag of the historic county was registered in October 2016. It is a design of a bear and ragged staff on a red field, which is long associated with the county. Coventry is effectively in the centre of the Warwickshire area, and still has strong ties with the county. Coventry and Warwickshire are sometimes treated as
3164-592: Is definitively classed as a tragedy. It is not clear for which companies Shakespeare wrote his early plays. The title page of the 1594 edition of Titus Andronicus reveals that the play had been acted by three different troupes. After the plagues of 1592–93, Shakespeare's plays were performed by his own company at The Theatre and the Curtain in Shoreditch , north of the Thames. Londoners flocked there to see
3277-417: Is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country. Scholars differ on the exact meaning of Greene's words, but most agree that Greene was accusing Shakespeare of reaching above his rank in trying to match such university-educated writers as Christopher Marlowe , Thomas Nashe , and Greene himself (the so-called " University Wits "). The italicised phrase parodying the line "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in
3390-448: Is made of 57 councillors, who decide upon the budget and appoints the council leader. The council leader selects 8 councillors and together they form the cabinet. The Leader assigns portfolios on which cabinet members make decisions. Key decisions are made by the whole cabinet while others are made only by the portfolio holders for relevant areas. In addition many small towns and villages have their own town council or parish council as
3503-541: Is mildly undulating countryside (rising to 178m / 581 ft near Hartshill ) and the northernmost village, No Man's Heath , is only 34 miles (55 km) south of the Peak District National Park 's southernmost point. The south of the county is largely rural and sparsely populated, and includes a very small area of the Cotswolds , at the border with northeast Gloucestershire. The plain between
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3616-525: Is often used. In 1896, Frederick S. Boas coined the term " problem plays " to describe four plays: All's Well That Ends Well , Measure for Measure , Troilus and Cressida , and Hamlet . "Dramas as singular in theme and temper cannot be strictly called comedies or tragedies", he wrote. "We may, therefore, borrow a convenient phrase from the theatre of today and class them together as Shakespeare's problem plays." The term, much debated and sometimes applied to other plays, remains in use, though Hamlet
3729-552: Is the headquarters of the North Warwickshire district, Nuneaton is headquarters of the Nuneaton and Bedworth District and Leamington Spa is the headquarters of the Warwick district. Warwickshire County Council , based in Warwick is elected every four years. The last election was the held on 6 May 2021 and resulted in a Conservative majority. The county council operates a cabinet-style council . The county council
3842-579: Is the likely school of William Shakespeare , Rugby School was founded in 1567 and Warwick School was founded c. 914 AD , which makes it the oldest surviving boys' school in the country. Rugby School is one of nine schools that were defined as the "great" English public schools by the Public Schools Act 1868 , and is a member of the Rugby Group . Rugby School , Princethorpe College and Warwick School are HMC schools, with
3955-425: Is the question ". Unlike the introverted Hamlet, whose fatal flaw is hesitation, Othello and Lear are undone by hasty errors of judgement. The plots of Shakespeare's tragedies often hinge on such fatal errors or flaws, which overturn order and destroy the hero and those he loves. In Othello , Iago stokes Othello's sexual jealousy to the point where he murders the innocent wife who loves him. In King Lear ,
4068-590: The Sonnets were the last of Shakespeare's non-dramatic works to be printed. Scholars are not certain when each of the 154 sonnets was composed, but evidence suggests that Shakespeare wrote sonnets throughout his career for a private readership. Even before the two unauthorised sonnets appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim in 1599, Francis Meres had referred in 1598 to Shakespeare's "sugred Sonnets among his private friends". Few analysts believe that
4181-553: The Blackfriars indoor theatre . Extant records of Shakespeare's property purchases and investments indicate that his association with the company made him a wealthy man, and in 1597, he bought the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place , and in 1605, invested in a share of the parish tithes in Stratford. Some of Shakespeare's plays were published in quarto editions, beginning in 1594, and by 1598, his name had become
4294-450: The First Folio , a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson , a former rival of Shakespeare, who hailed Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time". Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare , an alderman and a successful glover (glove-maker) originally from Snitterfield in Warwickshire , and Mary Arden ,
4407-568: The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was planned near Snitterfield . During the Industrial Revolution, the Warwickshire coalfield was exploited and Coventry and the west of the county became manufacturing centres; Leamington Spa developed as a tourist resort at the same time. The Victorian novelist Mary Ann Evans, better known as George Eliot , was born just outside Nuneaton in 1819. Warwickshire is bordered by Leicestershire to
4520-536: The King's Men . 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 ... — As You Like It , Act II, Scene 7, 139–142 In 1599, a partnership of members of the company built their own theatre on the south bank of the River Thames , which they named the Globe . In 1608, the partnership also took over
4633-805: The Latin word for village, vicus . Near Warwick are the villages of Long Itchington and Bishop's Itchington along the River Itchen . During the Middle Ages Warwickshire was dominated by Coventry , at the time one of the most important cities in England because of its prominence in the textiles trade. Warwickshire played a key part in the English Civil War , with the Battle of Edgehill and other skirmishes taking place in
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4746-512: The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government . In the state sector, children start school in the school year in which they turn five. They stay at primary school for seven years (although this varies even within the county, as some people have previously gone for four years and then spent another four years at a 'middle school') until they are eleven. Warwickshire is one of 36 local authorities in England to still maintain
4859-523: The Shrew ' s story of the taming of a woman's independent spirit by a man sometimes troubles modern critics, directors, and audiences. Shakespeare's early classical and Italianate comedies, containing tight double plots and precise comic sequences, give way in the mid-1590s to the romantic atmosphere of his most acclaimed comedies. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a witty mixture of romance, fairy magic, and comic lowlife scenes. Shakespeare's next comedy,
4972-694: The West Midlands County Council was abolished and Birmingham, Coventry, and Solihull became effective unitary authorities . However, the West Midlands county name has not been altogether abolished, and still exists for ceremonial purposes . Since 2016, it has been used as part of the West Midlands Combined Authority , with powers over transport, economic development and regeneration. Some organisations, such as Warwickshire County Cricket Club , which
5085-445: The West Midlands county to the west. The largest settlement is Nuneaton and the county town is Warwick . The county is largely rural; it has an area of 763 sq mi (1,980 km ) and a population of 571,010. After Nuneaton (88,813), the largest settlements are Rugby (78,125), Leamington Spa (50,923), Warwick (37,267), Bedworth (31,090) and Stratford-upon-Avon (30,495). For local government purposes, Warwickshire
5198-494: The end of lines , with the risk of monotony. Once Shakespeare mastered traditional blank verse, he began to interrupt and vary its flow. This technique releases the new power and flexibility of the poetry in plays such as Julius Caesar and Hamlet . Shakespeare uses it, for example, to convey the turmoil in Hamlet's mind: Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay Worse than
5311-549: The grammar school system in two districts: Stratford-on-Avon and Rugby. In the final year of primary school, children are given the opportunity of sitting the 11-plus exam to compete for a place at one of the 5 grammar schools: Stratford-upon-Avon Grammar School for Girls ; King Edward VI School , a boys' school from year 7–11 with a mixed Sixth-Form; Lawrence Sheriff Grammar School for Boys ; Rugby High School for Girls and Alcester Grammar School (mixed). The Warwickshire 11+ selection test consists of two papers, each containing
5424-596: The Chorus in Henry V , though scholars doubt the sources of that information. Throughout his career, Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford. In 1596, the year before he bought New Place as his family home in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in the parish of St Helen's , Bishopsgate , north of the River Thames. He moved across the river to Southwark by 1599, the same year his company constructed
5537-506: The First Folio, The Two Noble Kinsmen and Pericles, Prince of Tyre , are now accepted as part of the canon, with today's scholars agreeing that Shakespeare made major contributions to the writing of both. No Shakespearean poems were included in the First Folio. In the late 19th century, Edward Dowden classified four of the late comedies as romances , and though many scholars prefer to call them tragicomedies , Dowden's term
5650-496: The Globe Theatre there. By 1604, he had moved north of the river again, to an area north of St Paul's Cathedral with many fine houses. There, he rented rooms from a French Huguenot named Christopher Mountjoy, a maker of women's wigs and other headgear. Nicholas Rowe was the first biographer to record the tradition, repeated by Samuel Johnson , that Shakespeare retired to Stratford "some years before his death". He
5763-660: The Headmaster from each school attending the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference . There are no universities per se in Warwickshire, though the University of Warwick forms part of the border with Warwickshire on the southern edge of the city of Coventry. Some areas of the University of Warwick are within the boundaries of Warwickshire including Lakeside Village and Warwick Business School The university has
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#17327985863835876-448: The King's Men, published the First Folio , a collected edition of Shakespeare's plays. It contained 36 texts, including 18 printed for the first time. The others had already appeared in quarto versions—flimsy books made from sheets of paper folded twice to make four leaves. No evidence suggests that Shakespeare approved these editions, which the First Folio describes as "stol'n and surreptitious copies". Alfred Pollard termed some of
5989-750: The Lark Stoke or Sutton Coldfield TV transmitters. BBC Local Radio for the county is served by BBC CWR which broadcast from its studios in Coventry . However, the North Warwickshire area is served by BBC Radio WM . County-wide commercial radio stations are Capital Mid-Counties , Hits Radio Coventry & Warwickshire , Fresh (Coventry & Warwickshire) , Heart West Midlands and Greatest Hits Radio Midlands . Warwickshire's rural roads, canal towpaths and historic towns are increasingly popular with cycling enthusiasts. Its reputation as
6102-421: The London stage by 1592. By then, he was sufficiently known in London to be attacked in print by the playwright Robert Greene in his Groats-Worth of Wit from that year: ... there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide , supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum ,
6215-501: The Shakespeare family. Shakespeare bequeathed the bulk of his large estate to his elder daughter Susanna under stipulations that she pass it down intact to "the first son of her body". The Quineys had three children, all of whom died without marrying. The Halls had one child, Elizabeth, who married twice but died without children in 1670, ending Shakespeare's direct line. Shakespeare's will scarcely mentions his wife, Anne, who
6328-518: The Shrew , and The Two Gentlemen of Verona may also belong to Shakespeare's earliest period. His first histories , which draw heavily on the 1587 edition of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland , dramatise the destructive results of weak or corrupt rule and have been interpreted as a justification for the origins of the Tudor dynasty . The early plays were influenced by
6441-653: The Trident Centre in Warwick). There are also six independent senior schools within the county, namely: Rugby School , Warwick School , Princethorpe College , Kingsley School , Arnold Lodge School (both in Leamington Spa ), and the King's High School For Girls (in Warwick ). A number of the Warwickshire grammar and independent schools have historical significance. King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon still uses 13th century school buildings and
6554-438: The West Midlands county in 1974 and are now metropolitan authorities in themselves. According to the 2011 United Kingdom census , the largest towns (+20,000 pop.) in Warwickshire were: Nuneaton (pop. 81,900), Rugby (70,600), Leamington Spa (49,500), Bedworth (32,500), Warwick (30,100), Stratford (25,500) and Kenilworth (22,400) Much of western Warwickshire, including the area now forming part of Coventry, Solihull and Birmingham,
6667-499: The act of writing, began to infuse each other". In the early 17th century, Shakespeare wrote the so-called " problem plays " Measure for Measure , Troilus and Cressida , and All's Well That Ends Well and a number of his best known tragedies . Many critics believe that Shakespeare's tragedies represent the peak of his art. Hamlet has probably been analysed more than any other Shakespearean character, especially for his famous soliloquy which begins " To be or not to be; that
6780-646: The age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596. After the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in the "complaints bill" of a law case before the Queen's Bench court at Westminster dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9 October 1589. Scholars refer to the years between 1585 and 1592 as Shakespeare's "lost years". Biographers attempting to account for this period have reported many apocryphal stories. Nicholas Rowe , Shakespeare's first biographer, recounted
6893-476: The blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd/ Upon the sightless couriers of the air ..." (1.7.21–25). The listener is challenged to complete the sense. The late romances, with their shifts in time and surprising turns of plot, inspired a last poetic style in which long and short sentences are set against one another, clauses are piled up, subject and object are reversed, and words are omitted, creating an effect of spontaneity. Shakespeare combined poetic genius with
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#17327985863837006-672: The county. During the Industrial Revolution Warwickshire became one of Britain's foremost industrial counties, with the large industrial cities of Birmingham and Coventry within its boundaries. Like most English shire counties, Warwickshire has a two-tier local government of a county council , and five districts each having a district or borough council. These districts are: North Warwickshire , Nuneaton and Bedworth , Rugby , Stratford , and Warwick (see map). The county and district councils are responsible for providing different services. Atherstone
7119-477: The county. It will pass south of Southam , then between Kenilworth and Coventry, before running into the West Midlands towards Birmingham. Coventry Airport is located in the Warwickshire village of Baginton . Canals and navigable waterways in Warwickshire include: The county is covered by BBC West Midlands and ITV Central from its studios in Birmingham . Television signals are received from either
7232-496: The daughter of an affluent landowning family . He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon , where he was baptised on 26 April 1564. His date of birth is unknown but is traditionally observed on 23 April, Saint George's Day . This date, which can be traced to William Oldys and George Steevens , has proved appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on the same date in 1616. He was the third of eight children, and
7345-437: The district and borough councils who commissioned their own report, which argued in favour of Warwickshire being split into two unitary authorities, one for the north of the county, covering the current districts of North Warwickshire, Nuneaton and Bedworth and Rugby, and one for the south of the county, covering Warwick and Stratford districts. In September 2020, it was agreed that both proposals would be sent for consideration to
7458-415: The drama itself. Shakespeare's standard poetic form was blank verse , composed in iambic pentameter . In practice, this meant that his verse was usually unrhymed and consisted of ten syllables to a line, spoken with a stress on every second syllable. The blank verse of his early plays is quite different from that of his later ones. It is often beautiful, but its sentences tend to start, pause, and finish at
7571-470: The eldest surviving son. Although no attendance records for the period survive, most biographers agree that Shakespeare was probably educated at the King's New School in Stratford, a free school chartered in 1553, about a quarter-mile (400 m) from his home. Grammar schools varied in quality during the Elizabethan era, but grammar school curricula were largely similar: the basic Latin text
7684-415: The equally romantic The Merchant of Venice , contains a portrayal of the vengeful Jewish moneylender Shylock , which reflects dominant Elizabethan views but may appear derogatory to modern audiences. The wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing , the charming rural setting of As You Like It , and the lively merrymaking of Twelfth Night complete Shakespeare's sequence of great comedies. After
7797-686: The famous Richard Burbage , William Kempe , Henry Condell and John Heminges . Burbage played the leading role in the first performances of many of Shakespeare's plays, including Richard III , Hamlet , Othello , and King Lear . The popular comic actor Will Kempe played the servant Peter in Romeo and Juliet and Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing , among other characters. He was replaced around 1600 by Robert Armin , who played roles such as Touchstone in As You Like It and
7910-411: The famous romantic tragedy of sexually charged adolescence, love, and death; and Julius Caesar —based on Sir Thomas North 's 1579 translation of Plutarch 's Parallel Lives —which introduced a new kind of drama. According to Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro , in Julius Caesar , "the various strands of politics, character, inwardness, contemporary events, even Shakespeare's own reflections on
8023-456: The first part of Henry IV , Leonard Digges recording, "Let but Falstaff come, Hal, Poins, the rest ... and you scarce shall have a room". When the company found themselves in dispute with their landlord, they pulled The Theatre down and used the timbers to construct the Globe Theatre , the first playhouse built by actors for actors, on the south bank of the Thames at Southwark . The Globe opened in autumn 1599, with Julius Caesar one of
8136-646: The first plays staged. Most of Shakespeare's greatest post-1599 plays were written for the Globe, including Hamlet , Othello, and King Lear . After the Lord Chamberlain's Men were renamed the King's Men in 1603, they entered a special relationship with the new King James . Although the performance records are patchy, the King's Men performed seven of Shakespeare's plays at court between 1 November 1604, and 31 October 1605, including two performances of The Merchant of Venice . After 1608, they performed at
8249-477: The fool in King Lear . In 1613, Sir Henry Wotton recorded that Henry VIII "was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and ceremony". On 29 June, however, a cannon set fire to the thatch of the Globe and burned the theatre to the ground, an event which pinpoints the date of a Shakespeare play with rare precision. In 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell , two of Shakespeare's friends from
8362-433: The foot of the dedication page; nor is it known who Mr. W.H. was, despite numerous theories, or whether Shakespeare even authorised the publication. Critics praise the Sonnets as a profound meditation on the nature of love, sexual passion, procreation, death, and time. Shakespeare's first plays were written in the conventional style of the day. He wrote them in a stylised language that does not always spring naturally from
8475-466: The greater " Silicon Spa " area, including Southam, Royal Leamington Spa and Warwick , is now home to dozens of game studios which employ a combined total of over 2,000 highly skilled people, equating to more than 10% of the UK's games development workforce. Increasingly the region is establishing itself as one of the leading areas in battery technology with major developments announced in 2021 that include
8588-495: The indoor Blackfriars Theatre during the winter and the Globe during the summer. The indoor setting, combined with the Jacobean fashion for lavishly staged masques , allowed Shakespeare to introduce more elaborate stage devices. In Cymbeline , for example, Jupiter descends "in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle: he throws a thunderbolt. The ghosts fall on their knees." The actors in Shakespeare's company included
8701-424: The last phase of his career, Shakespeare adopted many techniques to achieve these effects. These included run-on lines , irregular pauses and stops, and extreme variations in sentence structure and length. In Macbeth , for example, the language darts from one unrelated metaphor or simile to another: "was the hope drunk/ Wherein you dressed yourself?" (1.7.35–38); "... pity, like a naked new-born babe/ Striding
8814-426: The last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances ) such as The Winter's Tale and The Tempest , and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell , two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more definitive text known as
8927-501: The lyrical Richard II , written almost entirely in verse, Shakespeare introduced prose comedy into the histories of the late 1590s, Henry IV, Part 1 and 2 , and Henry V . Henry IV features Falstaff , rogue, wit and friend of Prince Hal. His characters become more complex and tender as he switches deftly between comic and serious scenes, prose and poetry, and achieves the narrative variety of his mature work. This period begins and ends with two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet ,
9040-478: The marriage. The ceremony may have been arranged in some haste since the Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read once instead of the usual three times, and six months after the marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter, Susanna , baptised 26 May 1583. Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith , followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at
9153-426: The mid-1580s to just before Greene's remarks. After 1594, Shakespeare's plays were performed at The Theatre , in Shoreditch , only by the Lord Chamberlain's Men , a company owned by a group of players, including Shakespeare, that soon became the leading playing company in London. After the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, the company was awarded a royal patent by the new King James I , and changed its name to
9266-428: The most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon , Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway , with whom he had three children: Susanna , and twins Hamnet and Judith . Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of
9379-480: The most local tier of local government. Warwickshire is policed by the Warwickshire Police . The force is governed by the elected Warwickshire Police and Crime Commissioner . In August 2020 Warwickshire County Council put forward proposals for the five district and borough councils in the county to be abolished and replaced with a single county-wide unitary authority . This prompted a backlash from
9492-433: The mutines in the bilboes. Rashly— And prais'd be rashness for it—let us know Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well ... After Hamlet , Shakespeare varied his poetic style further, particularly in the more emotional passages of the late tragedies. The literary critic A. C. Bradley described this style as "more concentrated, rapid, varied, and, in construction, less regular, not seldom twisted or elliptical". In
9605-547: The needs of the characters or the drama. The poetry depends on extended, sometimes elaborate metaphors and conceits, and the language is often rhetorical—written for actors to declaim rather than speak. The grand speeches in Titus Andronicus , in the view of some critics, often hold up the action, for example; and the verse in The Two Gentlemen of Verona has been described as stilted. "And pity, like
9718-415: The north and centre of the county. The market towns of northern and eastern Warwickshire were industrialised in the 19th century, and include Atherstone , Bedworth , Coleshill , Nuneaton , and Rugby . Major industries included coal mining , textiles , engineering and cement production, but heavy industry is in decline, being replaced by distribution centres, light to medium industry and services. Of
9831-556: The northeast, Staffordshire to the northwest, Worcestershire and the West Midlands to the west, Northamptonshire to the east and southeast, Gloucestershire to the southwest and Oxfordshire to the south. The northern tip of the county is only 3 miles (5 km) from the Derbyshire border. An average-sized English county covering an area of 1,975 km (760 sq mi), it runs some 56 miles (90 km) north to south. The majority of Warwickshire's population live in
9944-443: The northern and eastern towns, Nuneaton and Rugby (as the birthplace of rugby football ) are best known outside of Warwickshire. The prosperous towns of central and western Warwickshire, including Leamington Spa , Warwick , Stratford-upon-Avon , Kenilworth , Alcester , Southam and Wellesbourne , harbour tourism, gaming and services as major employment sectors. The north of the county, bordering Staffordshire and Leicestershire,
10057-552: The old king commits the tragic error of giving up his powers, initiating the events which lead to the torture and blinding of the Earl of Gloucester and the murder of Lear's youngest daughter, Cordelia . According to the critic Frank Kermode , "the play...offers neither its good characters nor its audience any relief from its cruelty". In Macbeth , the shortest and most compressed of Shakespeare's tragedies, uncontrollable ambition incites Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth , to murder
10170-558: The outlying Cotswolds and the Edgehill escarpment is known as the Vale of Red Horse . The only town in the south of Warwickshire is Shipston-on-Stour . The highest point in the county, at 261 m (856 ft), is Ebrington Hill , again on the border with Gloucestershire, grid reference SP187426 at the county's southwest extremity. There are no cities in Warwickshire since both Coventry and Birmingham were incorporated into
10283-408: The performance of Henry VIII on 29 June. Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, at the age of 52. He died within a month of signing his will, a document which he begins by describing himself as being in "perfect health". No extant contemporary source explains how or why he died. Half a century later, John Ward , the vicar of Stratford, wrote in his notebook: "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had
10396-463: The period typically collaborated with others at some point, as critics agree Shakespeare did, mostly early and late in his career. The first recorded works of Shakespeare are Richard III and the three parts of Henry VI , written in the early 1590s during a vogue for historical drama . Shakespeare's plays are difficult to date precisely, however, and studies of the texts suggest that Titus Andronicus , The Comedy of Errors , The Taming of
10509-468: The plague (a total of over 60 months closure between May 1603 and February 1610), which meant there was often no acting work. Retirement from all work was uncommon at that time. Shakespeare continued to visit London during the years 1611–1614. In 1612, he was called as a witness in Bellott v Mountjoy , a court case concerning the marriage settlement of Mountjoy's daughter, Mary. In March 1613, he bought
10622-478: The pre-1623 versions as " bad quartos " because of their adapted, paraphrased or garbled texts, which may in places have been reconstructed from memory. Where several versions of a play survive, each differs from the others . The differences may stem from copying or printing errors, from notes by actors or audience members, or from Shakespeare's own papers . In some cases, for example, Hamlet , Troilus and Cressida, and Othello , Shakespeare could have revised
10735-452: The published collection follows Shakespeare's intended sequence. He seems to have planned two contrasting series: one about uncontrollable lust for a married woman of dark complexion (the "dark lady"), and one about conflicted love for a fair young man (the "fair youth"). It remains unclear if these figures represent real individuals, or if the authorial "I" who addresses them represents Shakespeare himself, though Wordsworth believed that with
10848-471: The rest of Warwickshire. The town of Tamworth was historically divided between Warwickshire and Staffordshire , but since 1888 has been fully in Staffordshire. Warwickshire contains a large expanse of green belt area, surrounding the West Midlands and Coventry conurbations, and was first drawn up from the 1950s. All the county's districts contain some portion of the belt. Warwickshire has
10961-466: The rightful king and usurp the throne until their own guilt destroys them in turn. In this play, Shakespeare adds a supernatural element to the tragic structure. His last major tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus , contain some of Shakespeare's finest poetry and were considered his most successful tragedies by the poet and critic T. S. Eliot . Eliot wrote, "Shakespeare acquired more essential history from Plutarch than most men could from
11074-541: The rivers Avon and Leam flow. Areas historically part of Warwickshire include Coventry , Solihull , Sutton Coldfield , and some of Birmingham including the city centre , Aston , Castle Bromwich , Digbeth , Edgbaston , Erdington , Hodge Hill , Ladywood , Nechells , Saltley , Shard End , Sheldon , Small Heath and Sparkbrook . These areas also became part of the metropolitan county of West Midlands (and Sutton Coldfield became part of Birmingham) following local government re-organisation in 1974 . In 1986
11187-480: The sexual advances of Venus ; while in The Rape of Lucrece , the virtuous wife Lucrece is raped by the lustful Tarquin . Influenced by Ovid 's Metamorphoses , the poems show the guilt and moral confusion that result from uncontrolled lust. Both proved popular and were often reprinted during Shakespeare's lifetime. A third narrative poem, A Lover's Complaint , in which a young woman laments her seduction by
11300-417: The sonnets "Shakespeare unlocked his heart". Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate ... —Opening lines from Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 . The 1609 edition was dedicated to a "Mr. W.H.", credited as "the only begetter" of the poems. It is not known whether this was written by Shakespeare himself or by the publisher, Thomas Thorpe , whose initials appear at
11413-693: The south of the county. The region was part of Roman Britain and later the Roman road called Watling Street became the boundary between the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia and the Danelaw . The county was relatively settled during the rest of the Middle Ages and Early Modern period; Coventry developed as a major centre of the textiles trade. The playwright William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, living much of his life there, and
11526-489: The stone slab covering his grave includes a curse against moving his bones, which was carefully avoided during restoration of the church in 2008: Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare, To digg the dvst encloased heare. Bleste be yͤ man yͭ spares thes stones, And cvrst be he yͭ moves my bones. Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear, To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones. Some time before 1623,
11639-662: The texts between the quarto and folio editions. In the case of King Lear , however, while most modern editions do conflate them, the 1623 folio version is so different from the 1608 quarto that the Oxford Shakespeare prints them both, arguing that they cannot be conflated without confusion. In 1593 and 1594, when the theatres were closed because of plague , Shakespeare published two narrative poems on sexual themes, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece . He dedicated them to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton . In Venus and Adonis , an innocent Adonis rejects
11752-475: The time of the Templars occupation. At the time of the suppression of the Order , eight Ballsall resident Templars were arrested, namely: 52°22′52.97″N 01°41′46.56″W / 52.3813806°N 1.6962667°W / 52.3813806; -1.6962667 This article about a Warwickshire building or structure is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Christianity -related article
11865-504: The whole British Museum ." In his final period, Shakespeare turned to romance or tragicomedy and completed three more major plays: Cymbeline , The Winter's Tale , and The Tempest , as well as the collaboration, Pericles, Prince of Tyre . Less bleak than the tragedies, these four plays are graver in tone than the comedies of the 1590s, but they end with reconciliation and the forgiveness of potentially tragic errors. Some commentators have seen this change in mood as evidence of
11978-429: The works attributed to him were written by others . Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet , Othello , King Lear and Macbeth , all considered to be among the finest works in English. In
12091-459: The works of other Elizabethan dramatists, especially Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe , by the traditions of medieval drama, and by the plays of Seneca . The Comedy of Errors was also based on classical models, but no source for The Taming of the Shrew has been found, though it has an identical plot but different wording as another play with a similar name. Like The Two Gentlemen of Verona , in which two friends appear to approve of rape,
12204-637: Was an English playwright , poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon " (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations , consist of some 39 plays , 154 sonnets , three long narrative poems and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably
12317-505: Was covered by the ancient Forest of Arden (most of which was cut down to provide fuel for industrialisation). Thus the names of a number of places in the central-western part of Warwickshire end with the phrase "-in-Arden", such as Henley-in-Arden , Hampton-in-Arden and Tanworth-in-Arden . The remaining area, not part of the forest, was called the Felden – from fielden - and is now an undulating and agricultural landscape, through which
12430-620: Was nearing its end. The First Folio of 1623, however, lists Shakespeare as one of "the Principal Actors in all these Plays", some of which were first staged after Volpone , although one cannot know for certain which roles he played. In 1610, John Davies of Hereford wrote that "good Will" played "kingly" roles. In 1709, Rowe passed down a tradition that Shakespeare played the ghost of Hamlet's father. Later traditions maintain that he also played Adam in As You Like It , and
12543-544: Was probably entitled to one-third of his estate automatically. He did make a point, however, of leaving her "my second best bed", a bequest that has led to much speculation. Some scholars see the bequest as an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that the second-best bed would have been the matrimonial bed and therefore rich in significance. Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church two days after his death. The epitaph carved into
12656-465: Was standardised by royal decree, and the school would have provided an intensive education in grammar based upon Latin classical authors. At the age of 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway . The consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next day, two of Hathaway's neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded
12769-553: Was still working as an actor in London in 1608; in an answer to the sharers' petition in 1635, Cuthbert Burbage stated that after purchasing the lease of the Blackfriars Theatre in 1608 from Henry Evans , the King's Men "placed men players" there, "which were Heminges , Condell , Shakespeare, etc.". However, it is perhaps relevant that the bubonic plague raged in London throughout 1609. The London public playhouses were repeatedly closed during extended outbreaks of
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