The history play Henry VIII (originally known as All Is True) was the last that Shakespeare wrote and was almost certainly completed in 1613 in collaboration with John Fletcher. Fletcher became the principal writer for the actors with whom Shakespeare worked (the Lord Chamberlain’s Men) and the two also worked together on The Two Noble Kinsmen.
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Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825) was a notable and wealthy English physician who had a second career as a writer and editor. He is best known for the publication of the book ‘The Family Shakespeare.’ This was first published in 1807 and contained 24 of Shakespeare’s plays and was successful enough to go through several editions.
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The French philosopher and literary theorist Jacques Derrida (b.1930) has emerged as one of the more important and interesting contemporary critics of Shakespeare, although his contribution is not always recognised. This is perhaps because it has only started to become apparent later in his life, after his seminal works were published (notably in 1967) when he defined the new field of deconstructionism.
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The Two Noble Kinsmen is now generally accepted by most Shakespearian scholars to have been jointly written by the Bard and another well-known Elizabethan dramatist, John Fletcher. The date of composition is not properly established but there is some evidence to suggest that it may have been around 1613-4, which would place it in the late stage of Shakespeare’s career.
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The only works of Shakespeare about which we can feel reasonably confident that we have the versions that the author intended are the poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. That is because, in the early part of his career, Shakespeare appeared to think of himself more of a poet than a playwright and he wrote the latter largely as a means of supporting himself in the role of the former.
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A Lover’s Complaint is one of Shakespeare’s least considered works – assuming that is, that the poem was actually written by him, in whole or in part. The poem was first published in 1609 as an addendum to the first published edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. In as much as the poem deals with a form of love triangle, it is reminiscent of the subject matter of a number of the sonnets and perhaps it is this which persuaded the publisher to include it.
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Although Marxist concepts in literary criticism are not as popular as they once were, they are still frequently used in trying to understand Shakespeare and his genius better and so it is worthwhile to try to understand what they are and what they mean.
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The Phoenix and the Turtle is one of Shakespeare’s more mysterious poems and it is usually considered to be an early example of metaphysical poetry – that is, a poem that is concerned with issues beyond the material world and concerning religious and spiritual ideas and concepts, together with other forms of ideology.
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The Tempest is one of the most magical of Shakespeare’s plays – quite literally, since the central character Prospero is a magician and the play is full of spells, charms and supernatural creatures. The play was first staged in 1611 and has been a favourite of audiences ever since, in part because it is the shortest of Shakespeare’s plays in terms of lines and it obeys the unity of time – that is, the action that the play describes takes place in exactly the amount of time it takes to stage it.
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The Winter’s Tale is one of Shakespeare’s late romance plays, probably written in or around 1610, when Shakespeare was secure in his reputation and presumably in the awareness of his talents. The play has been a favourite of directors and audiences alike and has been staged on many occasions since its first appearance and all audience members eagerly look forward to perhaps the most famous of Shakespeare’s stage directions: “Exit, pursued by a bear.”
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