Shakespeare continued to work with his company of men at the Globe Theatre until around 1610, the year that he retired from working on the stage. He, however, continued to support the Globe Theatre, including buying apartments for playwrights and actors to live in, all of which were near to the theatre.

Retirement and Death

This act was unusual for the time, but he was by no means less active. In fact, the playwright continued to make frequent trips to London to collaborate with other playwrights, such as John Fletcher http://hookupdate.net/de/womens-choice-dating-de/, and to spend time with his son-in-law John Hall, who married his elder daughter Susanna in 1607.

The playwright was an active dramatist and writer up until 1613 when the last of his great works was finished. From then on, Shakespeare spent most of his time in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he had purchased the second-largest home in town for his family.

William Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616, and was buried at the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford two days later, with a curse written on his tombstone to ward off those who would disturb his bones. He was 52 years old at the time of his death and was survived by his wife, Anna, and their two daughters. There are no direct descendants from Shakespeare’s line, as both daughters had children who did not make it to adulthood.

The Shakespeare Canon

Shakespeare was noted both for poetry and plays, with both mediums serving different needs; the plays were related to the theatrical fashion that was on trend while his poetry served to provide storytelling in erotic or romantic ways, culminating in a canon of work that is as diverse in language as the issues of human nature that the works portray.

Plays

William Shakespeare wrote at least 37 plays that scholars know of, with most of them labeled is comedies, histories, or tragedies. The earliest play that is directly attributed to Shakespeare is the trilogy of “King Henry VI,” with Richard III also being written around the same time, between 1589 and 1591. The last play was a collaboration, assumed to be with John Fletcher, known as “The Two Noble Kinsmen.”

Shakespeare often wrote play in a genre that was in vogue at the time, with his plays beginning with the histories, including the above-mentioned works as well as “Pericles,” “King John,” the dual volumes of both “Henry IV” and Henry V, which were written at later dates.

From histories written in the late 1580s to the early 1590s, Shakespeare moved into comedies, which were described as such for their comic sequences and pairs of plots that intertwined with each other. Among the most well known are A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night. Interestingly, two tragedies bookend Shakespeare’s comedic era – Romeo and Juliet were written at the beginning of the 1590s, and Julius Caesar was written at the end of the era.

For the last portion of his writing career, Shakespeare focused his work on tragedies and “problem” plays. In this era, which is acknowledged as the playwright’s best era, he wrote the works called Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Coriolanus, and Macbeth, among others. These are the works that are most in production today, both on stage and in film.

When looking at a chronology of Shakespeare’s plays, it is clear that Shakespeare changed the subjects of his plays as he grew in prominence and then returned to a more serene life. Moving from historical subjects to a more playful side and then, finally, into plays where plots would result in a sense of forgiveness and serenity, Shakespeare’s evolution as both a man and a writer is evident. In fact, the playwright’s devotion to the English language and his rebellion against it has led to fascinating studies done by leading literature scholars.