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113-521: The Lipnice Bible is written on parchment and contains 431 folios. The codex is not a mere Bible but contains a number of added texts. The decoration of the manuscript was carried out in three different phases as the codex was forced to change its location. Thus, it is a precious witness to a restless period of the Hussite Wars . The only figural illumination in the Lipnice Bible shows God as

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

904-713: A cross-linked material with high density, stability and heat resistance and low surface tension which imparts good anti-stick or release properties. Chromium salts can also be used to impart moderate anti-stick properties. Historians believe that parchment craft originated as an art form in Europe during the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries. Parchment craft at that time occurred principally in Catholic communities, where crafts persons created lace-like items such as devotional pictures and communion cards. The craft developed over time, with new techniques and refinements being added. Until

1017-413: A day to ensure the solution's deep and uniform penetration. Replacing the lime water bath also sped the process up. However, if the skins were soaked in the liquor too long, they would be weakened and not able to stand the stretching required for parchment. After soaking in water to make the skins workable, the skins were placed on a stretching frame. A simple frame with nails would work well in stretching

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

1243-448: 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

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1356-450: 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

1469-452: A natural non-porous cement, that gives to the vegetable parchment paper its resistance to grease and its semi-translucency. Other processes can be used to obtain grease-resistant paper, such as waxing the paper or using fluorine -based chemicals. Highly beating the fibers gives an even more translucent paper with the same grease resistance. Silicone and other coatings may also be applied to the parchment. A silicone -coating treatment produces

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

1921-646: A primary choice for artists' supports by the end of the 15th century Renaissance . This was partly due to its expense and partly due to its unusual working properties. Parchment consists mostly of collagen . When the water in paint media touches the parchment's surface, the collagen melts slightly, forming a raised bed for the paint, a quality highly prized by some artists. Parchment is also extremely affected by its environment and changes in humidity, which can cause buckling. Books with parchment pages were bound with strong wooden boards and clamped tightly shut by metal (often brass) clasps or leather straps; this acted to keep

2034-406: A raised effect, stippling, perforating, coloring and cutting. Parchment craft appears in hand made cards, as scrapbook embellishments, as bookmarks, lampshades, decorative small boxes, wall hangings and more. The radiocarbon dating techniques that are used on papyrus can be applied to parchment as well. They do not date the age of the writing but the preparation of the parchment itself. While it

2147-486: 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

2260-431: A small DNA sample to a size sufficiently large for testing. The article discusses the use of DNA testing to estimate the age of the calf at the creation of the vellum parchment. A 2006 study revealed the genetic signature of several Greek manuscripts to have "goat-related sequences". Utilizing these techniques we may be able to determine whether related library materials were made from genetically related animals (perhaps from

2373-650: A town owned by the Archbishops of Prague where an important Augustinian monastery was located. Nevertheless, no evidence for the connection between the Lipnice Bible and the Augustinian Canons in Roudnice can be found. At the end of the book of Revelation , there is a unique colophon calling the Bible “the shield of faith, with which the sons of God fight, the eye of the righteous, a stumbling block to

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2486-399: A waterleaf (an unsized paper like blotters) made of pulp fibers into sulfuric acid . The sulfuric acid hydrolyses and solubilises the main natural organic polymer, cellulose, present in the pulp wood fibers. The paper web is then washed in water, which stops the hydrolysis of the cellulose and causes a kind of cellulose coating to form on the waterleaf. The final paper is dried. This coating is

2599-461: 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

2712-481: A wooden frame known as a stretching frame. After a carcass is skinned , the hide is soaked in water for about a day. This removes blood and grime and prepares the skin for a dehairing liquor. The dehairing liquor was originally made of rotted, or fermented, vegetable matter, like beer or other liquors, but by the Middle Ages a dehairing bath included lime . Today, the lime solution is occasionally sharpened by

2825-453: Is also underway. Hand-prepared skins are usually preferred by artists because they are more uniform in surface and have fewer oily spots – which can cause long-term cracking of paint – than mass-produced parchment, which is usually made for lamp shades, furniture, or other interior design purposes. Parchment is prepared from pelt – i.e. wet, unhaired, and limed skin – by drying at ordinary temperatures under tension, most commonly on

2938-592: 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

3051-505: Is feasibly possible also to radiocarbon date certain kinds of ink, it is extremely difficult to do due to the fact that they are generally present on the text only in trace amounts, and it is hard to get a carbon sample of them without the carbon in the parchment contaminating it. An article published in 2009 considered the possibilities of tracing the origin of medieval parchment manuscripts and codices through DNA analysis. The methodology would employ polymerase chain reaction to replicate

3164-579: Is for these reasons that many modern conservators , librarians and archivists prefer to use either the broader term parchment , or the neutral term animal membrane . The word parchment evolved (via the Latin pergamenum and the French parchemin ) from the name of the city of Pergamon , which was a thriving center of parchment production during the Hellenistic period . The city so dominated

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

3390-525: 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

3503-453: Is produced by large companies in Israel . This usage is Sinaitic in origin, with special designations for different types of parchment such as gevil and klaf . For those uses, only hides of kosher animals are permitted. Since there are many requirements for it being fit for the religious use, the liming is usually processed under supervision of a qualified Rabbi . In some universities,

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3616-635: Is sometimes used by libraries and museums that wish to avoid distinguishing between parchment and vellum. The word is derived from the Koinē Greek city name, Pergamum in Anatolia , where parchment was supposedly first developed around the second century BCE, probably as a substitute for papyrus . Today the term parchment is often used in non-technical contexts to refer to any animal skin, particularly goat , sheep or cow , that has been scraped or dried under tension. The term originally referred only to

3729-425: 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 ,

3842-590: 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

3955-547: The Assyrians and the Babylonians most commonly impressed their cuneiform on clay tablets, but they also wrote on parchment from the 6th century BC onward. By the fourth century AD, in cultures that traditionally used papyrus for writing, parchment began to become the new standard for use in manufacturing important books, and most works which wished to be preserved were eventually moved from papyrus to parchment. In

4068-553: 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

4181-510: 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 ,

4294-817: The Fourth Dynasty (c. 2550–2450 BC), but the earliest of such documents extant are: a fragmentary roll of leather of the Sixth Dynasty (c. 24th century BC), unrolled by Dr. H. Ibscher, and preserved in the Cairo Museum ; a roll of the Twelfth Dynasty (c. 1990–1777 BC) now in Berlin; the mathematical text now in the British Museum (MS. 10250); and a document of the reign of Ramses II (early thirteenth century BC)." Civilizations such as

4407-536: 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

4520-581: The Museum of the Bible . During the summer of 2021, the Lipnice Bible was exhibited in the Czech Republic . Parchment Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins of young animals such as lambs and young calves. The generic term animal membrane

4633-523: 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,

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4746-540: The Vienna Genesis , which at least at one time are believed to have been reserved for Imperial commissions. Many techniques for parchment repair exist, to restore creased, torn, or incomplete parchments. Between the seventh and the ninth centuries, many earlier parchment manuscripts were scrubbed and scoured to be ready for rewriting, and often the earlier writing can still be read. These recycled parchments are known as palimpsests . The way in which parchment

4859-494: 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

4972-539: The 5th century BC; and in his Histories (v.58) he states that the Ionians of Asia Minor had been accustomed to give the name of skins ( diphtherai ) to books; this word was adapted by Hellenized Jews to describe scrolls. Writing on prepared animal skins had a long history in other cultures outside of the Greeks as well. David Diringer noted that "the first mention of Egyptian documents written on leather goes back to

5085-596: 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

5198-572: The Creator at the beginning of the book of Genesis . Nothing is known about the first owner of the Lipnice Bible. Only his name, Mathias of Roudnice ( Mathias de Rudnicze), is mentioned in the codex. Very likely he was a wealthy priest or a member of a religious community or a university who was interested in the religious disputes of his time (see the Bohemian Reformation ). The place of his origin could have been Roudnice nad Labem ,

5311-506: 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

5424-496: 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

5537-448: 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

5650-421: 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 ,

5763-501: 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

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5876-518: 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

5989-499: 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

6102-646: 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

6215-476: 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

6328-496: 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

6441-505: The demands of printers. There was a short period during the introduction of printing where parchment and paper were used at the same time, with parchment (in fact vellum) the more expensive luxury option, preferred by rich and conservative customers. Although most copies of the Gutenberg Bible are on paper, some were printed on parchment; 12 of the 48 surviving copies, with most incomplete. In 1490, Johannes Trithemius preferred

6554-415: 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

6667-438: The eighteenth century, people were regaining interest in detailed handwork. Parchment cards became larger in size and crafters began adding wavy borders and perforations. In the nineteenth century, influenced by French romanticism, parchment crafters began adding floral themes and cherubs and hand embossing. Parchment craft today involves various techniques, including tracing a pattern with white or colored ink, embossing to create

6780-470: 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

6893-415: 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

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7006-686: 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

7119-473: 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

7232-456: 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

7345-646: 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

7458-440: The following exchange occurs: Hamlet. Is not parchment made of sheepskins? Horatio. Ay, my lord, and of calves' skins too. Lee Ustick, writing in 1936, commented: To-day the distinction, among collectors of manuscripts, is that vellum is a highly refined form of skin, parchment a cruder form, usually thick, harsh, less highly polished than vellum, but with no distinction between skin of calf, or sheep, or of goat. It

7571-477: 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

7684-433: 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

7797-426: The frame they would keep their form. The stretching aligned the fibres to be more nearly parallel to the surface. To make the parchment more aesthetically pleasing or more suitable for the scribes , special treatments were used. According to Reed there were a variety of these treatments. Rubbing pumice powder into the flesh side of parchment while it was still wet on the frame was used to make it smooth and to modify

7910-495: 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

8023-519: The institution of employing parchment made of animal hides for the writing of ritual objects, as detailed below. In the United Kingdom, Acts of Parliament are still printed on vellum. The heyday of parchment use was during the medieval period, but there has been a growing revival of its use among artists since the late 20th century. Although parchment never stopped being used (primarily for governmental documents and diplomas) it had ceased to be

8136-424: 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

8249-426: 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

8362-439: The later Middle Ages , especially the 15th century, parchment was largely replaced by paper for most uses except luxury manuscripts, some of which were also on paper. New techniques in paper milling allowed it to be much cheaper than parchment; it was made of textile rags and of very high quality. Following the arrival of printing in the later fifteenth century AD, the supply of animal skins for parchment could not keep up with

8475-501: 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 ,

8588-478: 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

8701-426: 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

8814-428: 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

8927-433: 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

9040-547: 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

9153-552: 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

9266-482: The older methods, because "handwriting placed on parchment will be able to endure a thousand years. But how long will printing last, which is dependent on paper? For if ... it lasts for two hundred years that is a long time." In fact, high-quality paper from this period has survived 500 years or more very well, if kept in reasonable library conditions. Parchment (or vellum) continues to be use for ritual or legal reasons. Rabbinic literature traditionally maintains that

9379-433: The pages pressed flat despite humidity changes. Such metal fittings continued to be found on books as decorative features even after the use of paper made them unnecessary. Some contemporary artists prize the changeability of parchment, noting that the material seems alive and like an active participant in making artwork. To support the needs of the revival of use by artists, a revival in the art of preparing individual skins

9492-399: The pelts. The skins could be attached by wrapping small, smooth rocks in the skins with rope or leather strips. Both sides would be left open to the air so they could be scraped with a sharp, semi-lunar knife to remove the last of the hair and get the skin to the right thickness. The skins, which were made almost entirely of collagen , would form a natural glue while drying and once taken off

9605-408: 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

9718-463: 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

9831-468: 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

9944-478: 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

10057-471: The precise animal origin of a skin, either in terms of its species or in terms of the animal's age. In practice, therefore, there has long been considerable blurring of the boundaries between the different terms. In 1519, William Horman wrote in his Vulgaria : "That stouffe that we wrytte upon, and is made of beestis skynnes, is somtyme called parchement, somtyme velem, somtyme abortyve, somtyme membraan." In Shakespeare 's Hamlet (written c. 1599–1602)

10170-452: 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

10283-466: 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

10396-510: The same herd) and locate the vellum's origination. In 2020, it was reported that the species of several of the animals used to provide parchment for the Dead Sea Scrolls could be identified, and the relationship between skins obtained from the same animal inferred. The breakthrough was made possible by the use of whole genome sequencing . William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( c. 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616)

10509-480: 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

10622-438: The sixteenth century, parchment craft was a European art form. However, missionaries and other settlers relocated to South America, taking parchment craft with them. As before, the craft appeared largely among the Catholic communities. Often, young girls receiving their first communion received gifts of handmade parchment crafts. Although the invention of the printing press led to a reduced interest in hand made cards and items, by

10735-754: The skin of sheep and, occasionally, goats. The equivalent material made from calfskin, which was of finer quality, was known as vellum (from the Old French velin or vellin , and ultimately from the Latin vitulus , meaning a calf); while the finest of all was uterine vellum , taken from a calf foetus or stillborn calf. Some authorities have sought to observe these distinctions strictly: for example, lexicographer Samuel Johnson in 1755, and master calligrapher Edward Johnston in 1906. However, when old books and documents are encountered it may be difficult, without scientific analysis, to determine

10848-417: 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

10961-489: 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,

11074-406: The surface to enable inks to penetrate more deeply. Powders and pastes of calcium compounds were also used to help remove grease so the ink would not run. To make the parchment smooth and white, thin pastes (starchgrain or staunchgrain) of lime, flour, egg whites and milk were rubbed into the skins. Meliora di Curci in her paper, "The History and Technology of Parchment Making", notes that parchment

11187-662: 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

11300-587: The trade that a legend later arose which said that parchment had been invented in Pergamon to replace the use of papyrus which had become monopolized by the rival city of Alexandria . This account, originating in the writings of Pliny the Elder ( Natural History , Book XIII, 69–70), is almost assuredly false because parchment had been in use in Anatolia and elsewhere long before the rise of Pergamon. Herodotus mentions writing on skins as common in his time,

11413-408: The unbelievers”. This sentence points to a special authority that the owner attributed to the Bible. The further history of the codex is not clear. It reappears in the 20th century in the collection of Charles William Dyson Perrins , who acquired it before 1920, but it is not known where. It changed owners several times before entering the private Green Collection in 2011, from where it was given to

11526-412: The use of sodium sulfide. The liquor bath would have been in wooden or stone vats and the hides stirred with a long wooden pole to avoid human contact with the alkaline solution. Sometimes the skins would stay in the dehairing bath for eight or more days depending how concentrated and how warm the solution was kept – dehairing could take up to twice as long in winter. The vat was stirred two or three times

11639-504: 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

11752-408: The word parchment is still used to refer to the certificate (scroll) presented at graduation ceremonies, even though the modern document is printed on paper or thin card; although doctoral graduates may be given the option of having their scroll written by a calligrapher on vellum. Heriot-Watt University still uses goatskin parchment for their degrees. Vegetable (paper) parchment is made by passing

11865-429: 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

11978-459: 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,

12091-637: 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

12204-620: 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

12317-642: Was not always white. " Cennini , a 15th-century craftsman provides recipes to tint parchment a variety of colours including purple, indigo, green, red and peach." The Early medieval Codex Argenteus and Codex Vercellensis , the Stockholm Codex Aureus and the Codex Brixianus give a range of luxuriously produced manuscripts all on purple vellum , in imitation of Byzantine examples, like the Rossano Gospels , Sinope Gospels and

12430-544: 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

12543-533: Was processed (from hide to parchment) has undergone a tremendous evolution based on time and location. Parchment and vellum are not the sole methods of preparing animal skins for writing. In the Babylonian Talmud ( Bava Batra 14B), Moses is described as having written the first Torah Scroll on the unsplit cow-hide called gevil . Parchment is still the only medium used by traditional religious Jews for Torah scrolls or tefilin and mezuzahs , and

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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