William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616 Although there are many myths and mysteries surrounding William Shakespeare, a great deal is actually known about his life. He was born in Stratford-Upon-Avon, son of John Shakespeare, a prosperous merchant and local politician and Mary Arden, who had the wealth to send their oldest son to Stratford Grammar School. At 18, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, the 27-year-old daughter of a local farmer, and they had their first daughter six months later. He probably developed an interest in theatre by watching plays performed by traveling players in Stratford while still in his youth. Some time before 1592, he left his family to take up residence in London,… where he began acting and writing plays and poetry. By 1594 Shakespeare had become a member and part owner of an acting company called The Lord Chamberlain's Men, where he soon became the company's principal playwright. His plays enjoyed great popularity and high critical acclaim in the newly built Globe Theatre. It was through his popularity that the troupe gained the attention of the new king, James I, who appointed them the King's Players in 1603. Before retiring to Stratford in 1613, after the Globe burned down, he wrote more than three dozen plays (that we are sure of) and more than 150 sonnets. He was celebrated by Ben Jonson, one of the leading playwrights of the day, as a writer who would be "not for an age, but for all time," a prediction that has proved to be true. Today, Shakespeare towers over all other English writers and has few rivals in any language. His genius and creativity continue to astound scholars, and his plays continue to delight audiences. Many have served as the basis for operas, ballets, musical compositions, and films. While Jonson and other writers labored over their plays, Shakespeare seems to have had the ability to turn out work of exceptionally high caliber at an amazing speed. At the height of his career, he wrote an average of two plays a year as well as dozens of poems, songs, and possibly even verses for tombstones and heraldic shields, all while he continued to act in the plays performed by the Lord Chamberlain's Men. This staggering output is even more impressive when one considers its variety. Except for the English history plays, he never wrote the same kind of play twice. He seems to have had a good deal of fun in trying his hand at every kind of play. Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, all published on 1609, most of which were dedicated to his patron Henry Wriothsley, The Earl of Southhampton. He also wrote 13 comedies, 13 histories, 6 tragedies, and 4 tragecomedies. He died at Stratford-upon-Avon April 23, 1616, and was buried two days later on the grounds of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford. His cause of death was unknown, but it is surmised that he knew he was dying.
The Schlegel brothers pioneered the study of comparative literature in Germany and laid the theoretical foundations for the romantic movement. August, the elder brother, popularized Shakespeare (see Vol. 1) in Germany by producing a new translation of 17 plays (1797--1801) in collaboration with his wife, Caroline Schlegel, herself an important literary figure. This was to be, for much of the nineteenth century, regarded as the definitive translation, and many critics still consider it, despite some errors, the best version in German. In his A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art, delivered in Berlin and Vienna and published in 1809, August Schlegel explored the distinctions between the… "classical" art of ancient Greece and the "romantic" art of the European Middle Ages. Friedrich was a bit less scholarly but more imaginative than his brother. Prone to bursts of enthusiasm, he articulated many of his most important ideas in short, epigrammatic essays, many of which were published in the Journal Anthenaem (1798--1800), which he edited with brother August and Ludwig Tieck. In one of these, he defined romanticism as a "progressive, universal poetry" that would synthesize all previous literary forms, including not only lyric and narrative prose but also criticism and humor. Friedrich Schlegel attempted to produce such a work with his novel Lucinde (1799), written largely for his wife Dorothea Veit Schlegel, the daughter of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Though the novel did not meet with a favorable critical reception, the sort of art Friedrich prophesized was to be created about a century later by authors such as Thomas Mann. Toward the end of his life, Friedrich turned to the study of Indian culture, and his Uber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians, 1808), is sometimes cited as the beginning of comparative philology.