莎士比亚 人物分析英文版

William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616)[a] was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.[1] He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard"). His surviving works consist of 38 plays,[b] 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language, and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.[2]

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of the playing company the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.[3]

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1590 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. Next he wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest examples in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime, and in 1623 two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's.

Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians hero-worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry".[4] In the twentieth century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are consistently performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

Early life
William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, a successful glover and alderman originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer.[5] He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised on 26 April 1564. His unknown birthday is traditionally observed on 23 April, St George's Day.[6] This date, which can be traced back to an eighteenth-century scholar's mistake, has proved appealing because Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616.[7] He was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son.[8]

Although no attendance records for the period survive, most biographers agree that Shakespeare was educated at the King's New School in Stratford,[9] a free school chartered in 1553,[10] about a quarter of a mile from his home. Grammar schools varied in quality during the Elizabethan era, but the curriculum was dictated by law throughout England,[11] and the school would have provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and the classics.[12] At the age of 18, Shakespeare married the 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. Two of Hathaway's neighbours posted bonds the next day as surety that there were no impediments to the marriage.[13] The couple may have arranged the ceremony in some haste, since the Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read once instead of the usual three times.[14] Anne's pregnancy could have been the reason for this. Six months after the marriage, she gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, who was baptised on 26 May 1583.[15] Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised on 2 February 1585.[16] Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried on 11 August 1596.[17]

After the birth of the twins, there are few historical traces of Shakespeare until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. Because of this gap, scholars refer to the years between 1585 and 1592 as Shakespeare's "lost years".[18] Biographers attempting to account for this period have reported many apocryphal stories. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare’s first biographer, recounted a Stratford legend that Shakespeare fled the town for London to escape prosecution for deer poaching.[19] Another eighteenth-century story has Shakespeare starting his theatrical career minding the horses of theatre patrons in London.[20] John Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had been a country schoolmaster.[21] Some twentieth-century scholars have suggested that Shakespeare may have been employed as a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who named a certain "William Shakeshafte" in his will.[22] No evidence substantiates such stories other than hearsay collected after his death.[23]

London and theatrical career
It is not known exactly when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of performances show that several of his plays were on the London stage by 1592.[24] He was well enough known in London by then to be attacked in print by the playwright Robert Greene:

...there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.[25]

Scholars differ on the exact meaning of these words,[26] but most agree that Greene is accusing Shakespeare of reaching above his rank in trying to match university-educated writers, such as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe and Greene himself.[27] The italicised phrase parodying the line "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide" from Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 3, along with the pun "Shake-scene", identifies Shakespeare as Greene’s target.

做过一个学期的麦克白，现在看到莎士比亚的名字就腿软。
不过个人还是很喜欢麦克白夫人这个矛盾的角色的。史上很多评论都觉得是她毁了麦克白这个“英雄”，是她的野心指示了麦克白。但是我更愿意相信是她对麦克白过于强烈的爱而使得她不择手段的做出血腥的事（当然，前提是麦克白自己也是个内心不坚定的人，或者他也太爱她了，不忍爱妻失望）。当时写的时候下面这段东西算是给我不少启发，你看看吧～

Lady Macbeth fulfills her role among the nobility and is well respected like Macbeth. King Duncan calls her "our honored hostess." She is loving to her husband but at the same time very ambitious, as shown by her immediate determination for Macbeth to be king. This outcome will benefit her and her husband equally. She immediately concludes that "the fastest way" for Macbeth to become king is by murdering King Duncan.

Lady Macbeth's immediate thoughts may make her appear as thoroughly irreligiously cold and ambitious, but this is not so. To prepare for what she feels must be done she calls on evil spirits to "stop up th' access and passage to remorse" in order to be relentless. Otherwise her conscience would not allow her to act.

Furthermore, Lady Macbeth knows her husband well. She thinks he may be too kind in order to murder King Duncan. This is why she represses her conscience so she can later usher Macbeth into commiting the deed. At first Macbeth agrees. But later Macbeth wavers in his decision. But Lady Macbeth is sure that being king is what Macbeth really wants and that this is the best for both of them. So, in response to Macbeth's uncertainty, Lady Macbeth manipulates him by questioning his manhood and his love for her. She is successful because regardless of his own conscience Macbeth carries out their plan of murder.

The almost superhuman strength Lady Macbeth rallies for the occasion and her artful and sly ability are shown through her meticulous attention to detail regarding the murder. When Macbeth returns to their chamber she goes back to the murder scene and cleverly smears the grooms with Duncan's blood. However, her morals had prevailed just a while before as revealed through her comment that she would have killed Duncan herself had he not "resembled [her] father as he slept."

Perhaps Lady Macbeth felt that suppressing her conscience for the deed was enough and that later the thought of the deed would just dissipate. The outcome is not this way, though, because Macbeth and Lady Macbeth often cannot go to sleep, and if they do, they experience terrifying dreams. But still, Lady Macbeth is able to maintain her sanity and composure during the day, even more than her husband. She urges him to be light hearted and merry. Once she practically rescues Macbeth from the frailty of his own conscience. When Macbeth sees Banquo's ghost she creates an excuse to explain his odd behavior. She attempts to chasten Macbeth by again questioning his manhood. When the situation grows worse though, she takes charge once more and promptly dismisses the lords from the feast.

Later, though, the burden of Lady Macbeth's conscience becomes too great for her and her mental and physical condition deteriorates. A gentlewoman observes her sleepwalking and consults a doctor. The doctor and the lady observe Lady Macbeth sleepwalking, madly trying to cleanse her hands of the blood of Duncan and Macduff's family. Still in her sleep, Lady Macbeth asks, "what, will these hands ne're be clean?" foreseeing that she will never have peace of mind. She also retells events of the day Duncan was murdered. The doctor tells the gentlewoman that what Lady Macbeth needs is spiritual and not physical help.

Lady Macbeth's condition worsens, and she goes in and out of sleep with delirious visions. Macbeth asks the doctor to cure her or give her a drug that will erase the troubles of the heart. The doctor responds that he cures physical not moral problems. Later, as the battle ensues outside of Dunsinane, by unspecified means Lady Macbeth commits suicide.

At the beginning Lady Macbeth finds strength to entice Macbeth to murder Duncan and to follow through with the murder herself. As time advances though, her pretended strength diminishes as she fights the torments of her conscience. Tending to her conscience engulfs and destabilizes her so that she can not support Macbeth against Malcolm. Lady Macbeth's attempts to suppress her conscience fail. At the end she chooses death because she can no longer bear the torments of her guilt.