William Shakespeare Biography

William Shakespeare, who was born in 1564 and died in 1616, was an extraordinary man of his time. He was born to a distinguished, middle-class merchant in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he attended school. There, he met Anne Hathaway, who was older than him. In 1582 they were married and, together, they shared three children. He had established himself as a dramatist in London and he soon became a primary member of Lord Chamberlain’s Men by 1589, perhaps after working as a modest regional schoolmaster (Fletcher, 54). “His long and evidently very profitable association with this theatrical company as both actor (he played the ghost, for example, in Hamlet) and playwright, saw him working at the Globe Theatre, in which he held a share, from 1599, and the Blackfriars Theatre, of which he was a leaseholder, from 1608” (Fletcher, 54). After composing countless plays such as Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Lady Macbeth, Hamlet, Titus Andronis, and The Tempest, Shakespeare retired to Stratford-upon-Avon. He died on April 23rd, 1616, and lies buried, peacefully, in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon.

William Shakespeare was important to the history of civilization because of the revolutionary affect that he had on the world of English literature. No English writer can measure up to his accomplishments, literature-wise. The vast amount of literature that he composed in his short lifetime is simply mind blowing! Lyrics, Sonnets, Narrative Poems, and Allegories are just a few of the genres of plays that he wrote. Shakespeare was a genius of his time. The timeless, tragic tale of Romeo and Juliet, one of his most beloved plays, has been rewritten and “paraphrased” for many modern-day movies and novels including Romeo and Juliet (Directed by Franco Zeffireli and released in 1968), Romeo and Juliet (Directed by Baz Luhrmann and released in 1996), as well as the trendy Twilight movie (Directed by Catherine Hardwicke and released in 2008) and the Twilight novel (Written by Stephanie Meyer) which loosely follow the storyline of Romeo and Juliet too. These are only a few of the many reproductions of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The comedy, Twelfth Night, was recently attributed to by the movie She’s The Man (directed by Andy Fickman and released in 2006). She’s the Man followed the entire story line that Twelfth Night is based on, and it includes most (if not all) of the characters too. Other movies about Shakespeare, such as Shakespeare In Love (directed by John Madden and released in 1999), are evident testimonies of Shakespeare’s influence on society. People, in society today, are clearly still interested in the life of William Shakespeare. Up to nearly half a century after Shakespeare’s death, almost every play that William Shakespeare wrote is still being acted out in countless theatres around the world. This is simply astounding! William Shakespeare’s aptitude, agility, and prose must have had (and still does have) a very big affect on the world. Why else would film producers, playwrights, and writers go to so much effort to produce movies, organise skits and plays, and write books about him today?

Important historical events during this era include the life of Galileo (1564-1642), the French founding Fort Caroline, FL, in 1564 (Fort Caroline was the first European colony on the mainland), English defeated Spanish armada of King Philip II in 1588, Virginia colony was founded in 1607, the King James Bible was published in 1611, The English Civil War was fought in 1651, the Great Plague in London took place in 1666, and the Great Fire in London occurred in 1666.

If I were discussing William Shakespeare with someone who is not sure that the Bible is God’s truth, I would tell them that the Bible inspired the greatest art and literature in all of history. William Shakespeare’s writing was saturated with literature! I would tell them that the greatest book ever written was the Bible. History proves it! There is no other book in all of the world that has been translated as many times as the Bible has. There is no other book that has remained so insanely popular since it was first printed in the 1450s. The Bible was also the very first major book ever printed from a printing press. The Lord speaks to us through the Bible! Evidently, words, letters, and literature are a key part of God’s way to communicate with us. Shakespeare served his purpose here in life well by conveying thoughts, truths, tales, and teachings in his literature. The poet's fundamental Christianity is marvelously articulated in Measure for Measure, where the authentically saintly Isabella reminds Angelo, the sanctimonious “Pillar of Society,” of the divine plan of redemption and of the ethical consequences which ought to flow from its acceptance as an entity of faith-ought to flow but, regrettably, generally do not flow:
“Alas, alas!
Why, all the souls that were forfeit once;
And He that might the vantage best have took
Found out the remedy. How would you be,
If He, which is the top of judgement, should
But judge you as you are? O, think on that;
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new-made.”
These lines, I have to say, convey very clearly the heart of Shakespeare's Christianity. But the essence of Christianity can imagine a wide range of denominational forms (Huxley). “There is… every reason to suppose that Shakespeare lived a member of the Church of England. However, the theology which finds expression in his plays is by no means consistently Protestant” (Huxley). Purgatory has no cause to be in the Protestant “world-picture,” but in Hamlet and in Measure for Measure the existence of Purgatory is pretty evident:
“I am thy father’s spirit, says the Ghost to Hamlet,
Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confin’d to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purg’d away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could tell a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul;
freeze thy young blood;
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start
from their spheres…”
In Measure for Measure, Claudio offers utterance to the same fears. Death is appalling, not only in its physical aspects, but also and above all because of the grim peril of Purgatory:
“Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison’d in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts
Imagine howling! ‘tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death.”
Lastly, I would like to share one, final quote from the drama of Henry IV. Hotspur, as he is dying, sums up the human dilemma with a few remarkable words:
“But thought’s the slave of life, and time’s fool;
And time, that takes survey of all the world,
Must have a stop.”
We need to learn to come to grips with reality without the “enchanter’s wand and his book of the words.” Each person must find a way of being in this world while not being of this world. A way of existing in time without being swallowed up in time (Huxley). There is no clear proof as to which specific “category of Christianity” Shakespeare would fall under, but his writings make it clear that He believed in God, he believed in Heaven, and he believed in Hell.

William Shakespeare is one of the key influences in my life that has inspired me to, someday, become a writer, a journalist. His evident passion for English Literature gave me a passion for English Literature. I was fifteen years old when I knew that writing, professionally, was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I want the world to know what goes on in Africa. I want the world to know the truth, and not what the extraordinarily biased Media tries to brainwash humanity to believe, not the lies that they shamelessly convey. William Shakespeare has made an enormous impact on me, on my life. Sonnet 116, which is, I believe, one of the most beautiful works of literature ever composed in world history:
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.”
Isn’t it powerful? It’s just so potent, compelling, and intoxicating. Every time I read this I want to just dive into the 16th and 17th century and just soak up the rich, sumptuous words that used to be a part of every day speech, but today is no more. I so wish that I could have just simply sat in his presence and watch him compose his genius tales, plays, lyrics, and poems while he was still living on this earth. William Shakespeare was a genius in his time, and, I believe, is still considered a genius in ours too. There is no other author of English literature who has accomplished and contributed as much as Shakespeare has (had) in the world of literature. His writings will live on forever! His charming prose shall eternally be imprinted on my heart.

Terminating the “(T)issue” (Definition Essay)

Approximately 42 million unborn babies are aborted worldwide each year. About 1.37 million of those babies are aborted in the United States. Roughly 3,700 of those innocent lives are terminated every day. Fifty-two percent of the women having these abortions in the States are under twenty-five years of age (The Centre for Bio-ethical Reform). The situation seems to get worse every year, and it will not stop going in this downward spiral if society doesn’t do something about it. Abortion is the murder of innocent, unborn babies, and the practice of abortion should be put to an abrupt end.

There are two types of abortion, and the procedure varies depending on the stage of pregnancy. The first is the surgical type, and the second is the medical type. Most of all abortions are carried out in an outpatient office setting (such as a doctor's office or in an ambulatory clinic) “under local anesthesia with or without sedation” (eMedicine Health). Abortions that are carried out within the first seven weeks after conception (or nine weeks from the last menstrual period) can be performed either surgically, by means of a procedure, or medically, with the use of drugs. From nine weeks up to fourteen weeks, the abortions are achieved by a dilatation and suction curettage (scraping) procedure. A dilatation is an enlargement made in a body opening or canal for surgical or medical treatment, and a suction curettage is a method involving the removal of the fetus through a suction tube. This procedure is also known as a “D&C.” After fourteen weeks, surgical abortions are carried out by a dilatation and evacuation procedure. This procedure involves surgical evacuation of the “contents” of the uterus. After twenty weeks of pregnancy, the abortions can be performed by “labor induction” (the use medicines to make a woman's labor start, so she can deliver her baby), “prostaglandin” (contraction and relaxation of smooth muscle) labor induction, “saline infusion” (the injecting of salt into one’s vein), “hysterotomy” (a surgical incision of the uterus), or “dilatation and extraction” in which the fetus is removed through the enlarged cervix, the cranial contents being evacuated by suction (eMedicine Health). All of these options would generally be the surgical type of abortion. Medical abortion, however, is generally a lot simpler.
“Medical abortion is a term applied to an abortion brought about by medication taken to induce it. This can be accomplished with a variety of medications given either as a single pill or a series of pills. Medical abortion has a success rate that ranges from 75-95%, with about 2-4% of failed abortions requiring surgical abortion and about 5-10% of incomplete abortions (not all tissue is expelled and it must be taken out by surgery), depending on the stage of gestation and the medical products used” (eMedicine Health).
Most women who have medical abortions express an elevated sense of “satisfaction” with that “route” than with the surgical “route.”

There are two main groups that have strong viewpoints on the topic of abortion, and the first is Pro-life. We, who are Pro-life, believe that the unborn child is, in fact, a human and that life really begins at conception. We do not view abortions as safe procedures at all. We do not believe that the government, in any given situation, should fund abortions and neither should Planned Parenthood (the biggest national provider of abortions) be supported by them. We believe that unborn babies have just as much right to life as we do. We believe that abortion should be made illegal (I am Pro-Life). No matter what the situation may be, no matter how much a pregnant woman may not want her baby, we do not believe that the mother should ever consider denying her unborn child the right to life.

The second group with a strong opinion on abortion is Pro-choice. Contrary to the beliefs held by the “pro-lifers”, however, those who take the Pro-choice outlook on abortion believe that the unborn baby is not human, but a “mass of tissue.” They think that abortion is “safer than childbirth” and that the number of abortions is comparatively minute. “Every child should be a wanted child,” and no one should ever impose his or her values on those who believe in pro-choice. “Planned Parenthood is a group that focuses on contraception” (I am Pro-Choice) and should continue to be financed by the government, is another thing they say. They believe that a woman has the right to her own body and should be able to decide what she does with it, no matter what the consequences are. It apparently doesn’t matter that the women claiming the “right” to their bodies are killing millions of babies in the process.

The abortion genocide needs to stop. We are destroying the future generations by allowing these abortions to take place! The women, who have abortions performed on them, seem to become progressively younger and younger each year. The concept of responsibility has gone right out of the proverbial window! As the Reformer, John Calvin, states in his commentary on Exodus 21:22, which deals with an inadvertently induced premature birth:
“This passage of first sight is ambiguous, for if the word death only applies to the pregnant woman, it would not have been a capital crime to put an end to the foetus, which would be a great absurdity; for the foetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, and it is almost a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man's house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a foetus in the womb before it has come to light” (Davis, 5).
We need to step up and take action against this heinous corruption that runs rampant in society today and opt for the cessation of the legality of abortion.