|
|
Scotland,
England, Ireland and Wales
William Shakespeare
1564-1616
|
|
Shakespeare's
narrative poems were among the first of his texts
to appear in print, with Venus and Adonis
being published in 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece
appearing in the following year. Both text were
dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, who would
become Shakespeare's patron.
|
|
The earliest
plays to be printed did not include Shakespeare's
name on the title page, but, by the beginning
of the seventeenth century, he would become sufficiently
successful as a writer for his name to receive
a prominent place on the page. His reputation
had declined somewhat by the time of the Restoration
and, for several decades, his plays were only
performed in adapted and modified versions. In
the eighteenth century, however, his reputation
was restored, in large measure through the efforts
of David Garrick, whose Jubilee celebration at
Stratford-upon-Avon in 1769 initiated the era
of what has been termed 'bardolatry'. The nineteenth
century saw an explosion of Shakespeare publishing,
fuelled in part by the gradual incorporation of
Shakespeare's works into an increasingly formalised
educational system. This process of proliferation
has shown no sign of abating, with new editions
of the works appearing with dizzying regularity
to this day.
The poems (as opposed to the verse dramas) have
had a varied reception history. Francis Meres
praised Shakespeare's 'sugred sonnets' in Palladis
Tamia in 1598, but, by 1793, the editor George
Steevens observed that 'the strongest act of Parliament
that could be framed, would fail to compel readers
into their service'. It is the sonnets in particular,
however, that have compelled critical attention
from the end of the nineteenth century forward,
inspiring Oscar Wilde's remarkable short story
'The Portrait of Mr. W. H.' and many critical
(and pseudo-biographical) studies.
Shakespeare has, of course, provided inspiration
for many other poets and writers, most notably,
perhaps, in recent times in the case of Ted Hughes,
who published Shakespeare and the Goddess
of Complete Being in 1992, in addition to
editing A Choice of Shakespeare's Verse.
Andrew Murphy is Reader in English Literature
at the University of St. Andrews. He is the author
of Shakespeare in Print: A History and Chronology
of Shakespeare Publishing (2003), Seamus
Heaney (2000) and But the Irish Sea Betwixt
Us: Ireland, Colonialism, and Renaissance Literature
(1999). He has edited The Renaissance
Text: Theory, Editing, Textuality (2000)
and co-edited Shakespeare and Scotland (forthcoming).
His current research interests include Shakespeare
reception in the nineteenth century (with a particular
emphasis on Shakespeare, reform and radicalism);
bibliography, publishing history and the history
of the book; Irish literature and politics, with
a particular interest in postcolonialism.
|
If you would
like to study the Poetry of Shakeaspeare
further at university undergraduate or
postgraduate level, click
here.
|
The best gateway site for Shakespeare
materials is Terry Gray's 'Mr. William Shakespeare
and the Internet'
http://shakespeare.palomar.edu/
The complete works are available at
various locations, including
http://classics.mit.edu/shakespeare/
An electronic facsimile the first edition
of Shakespeare's Poems (1640) is available
at
http://www.octavo.com/collections/projects/shapms/index.html
Facsimiles of the first edition of the sonnets
and the first collected edition of the plays
are also available at this site.
An extremely interesting multimedia
Shakespeare site is provided by MIT at
http://shea.mit.edu/ramparts/welcome.htm
|
|
|
|
