Claire Yang
Miss Lori Porter
English 9
27 August 2009
Shakespeare’s Work Essay
With my finale work, The Tempest, I festoon my acclaimed days of theatrical art. I
desire it was not so, but I consider this will be the last days of my career. Upon my
work’s cease, I reminisce upon my life and its interrelation to the words of my hands,
the writings. As I look upon the works born from the fledging skills of mine in the
initial years of my career, I witness the “labor of my structure” and great influence
from the common and thus monotonous Roman and medieval drama (Shakespeare
resource center). As my skill aged, the products came to reflect a masterful and witty
soul of my improved brevity. The tragedies and comedies of my life soon became
noteworthy tragedies and comedies of the theatre, and the creation of such plays and
its dramatic changes in disposition and motifs were dependent upon the personal
affairs of my life and the society of my era.
At the genesis of my theatrical art, though promised signs of artistry and talent was in
nameless shadow. After long years of my steadfast bond with Agnes, the birth of my
children, Susanna, the twins, and the baptisms of my children, I came to apprehend
the proclivity love, and the true strengths and rewards of loyalty. Such predominant
values of my life during the time showed its trails in my words; in play those as
Love’s Labour’s Lost, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Comedy of Errors I have dealt
with love both steadfast and questionable, and the fruits of persistent, undying loyalty.
It is in Love’s Labour’s Lost and Two Gentlemen of Verona that love “does not strike
like lighting” (shake sphere) but is prudent, progressing like “a rose germinating from
seed to full bloom” (shake sphere). I have in the Comedy of Errors and again Two
Gentlemen of Verona disseminated the fruits of perpetual loyalty.
The sonnets such those of Venus and Adonis, and The Rape of Lucrece have been in
my callow years as a playwright faithful words that appeased the hunger of my wallet
and fame. And such plaudits and acknowledgment by the noblemen had led me into
life of prosperity and eminence where my own theatre was established, and pennycopies of my plays were published which was a rare privilege to be relished by
playwrights who were degraded as “a rustic interloper” of art (Shakespeare resource
center). My triumph eclipsed the withering love for my wife, the rough road of
marriage, and cease of my son, Hamnet in 1596 and all was, but an illusion. And such
truth, I’ve seen in my words (Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Twelfth
Night, and Midsummer Night’s Dream) delivered in the year 1594 through 1600: the
misleading, distorted truth, and disguise of the subjects resulting in irony.
Sonnets, I have written to assuage my stomach and wallet, and fame, did I relish in
extent, but was still ravenous for it. Such nature of humankind was no exception for
me. My sins of earthly ambition and voracious lust for fame were punished indeed by
the cessation of my parents in the year of 1601 and 1608. With such desolation and
apprehension of the consequences did I write the greatest tragedies of all times:
Macbeth, King Lear, and Hamlet. Through my grotesque art did I see that “humans
are fallen creatures” (shake sphere) allure to the “pretty cloak of the evil”.
The values and motifs of my life’s play were those of the play. My subjects of play
were merely players of my life’s stage, and so close were the two in their stories that
they were interchangeable reflections of each other.