During which period did Shakespeare became famous?

Answer 1

Shakespeare was a well-known playwright during his lifetime, and his plays have only gained more fame since his death. He is still one of the most renowned playwrights in the English language.

Answer 2

Shakespeare has become more and more well-known as the centuries have passed. During his lifetime, he was acknowledged both as an author and as an actor. Francis Meres listed him in his book Palladis Tamia (1598) both as a playwright and as a poet (and also as a quite different person from Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford). Knowledge about him at that time would have been limited to London's theatrical and literary circles. From there knowledge would have spread to the whole of England, and from there to other English-speaking parts of the world. By the 1800s Shakespeare's writings were known world-wide.

Answer 3

Shakespeare became well-known in the London theatrical community when his plays began to be produced. Had he not been, Robert Greene would not have written about him in 1592. Clearly at about that time he was a "famous person", although he was not yet a "world-famous person" and would not be until about 200 years later.

Answer 4

It has been a slow process. He was as well-known as any Elizabethan playwright of his time. In the Restoration era his plays were thought to be old hat, but only two companies were allowed to play them, which gave them a special cachet. They were boosted to greater prominence by the efforts of David Garrick who organized a celebration of Shakespeare's bicentennial in 1764. As a result of Garrick's efforts, Shakespeare was considered to be a playwright of unusual distinction in England. About fifty years later, the Romantics idolized Shakespeare; Europeans like Goethe in particular found his complete disdain for the strictures of "Classical" drama refreshing and natural. The Romantics spread love of Shakespeare across Europe, and from there it has gradually spread across the entire planet.

Timing was a key factor in Shakespeare's lasting fame as well. He wrote for the stage at a time when the public theatres were successfully establishing themselves and the types of plays written, performed, and appreciated were of a different nature than those that had come before - allowing for more creativity and expression. His partial ownership of the Globe Theatre would not have been possible even 20 years earlier. Also Shakespeare wrote at a time when the printing press was first becoming an economically viable (though just barely) means of reproducing written work. Timing, as they say, is everything. Shakespeare was only the second English playwright to have a collection of his plays published in folio form, after only Ben Jonson (who included some of his loftier poems). None of the original manuscripts written by Shakespeare survive today, so if his plays weren't put into print, they would likely have gone extinct. We would never have known about many of Shakespeare's plays if they had not been printed in the 1623 folio.

Answer 5

Shakespeare has become increasingly famous since the early part of his career. At the time of his death he was well-known in London among playgoers and those in the theatre business. A hundred and fifty years later, he was famous all over Britain and well-known in other parts of Europe. By three hundred years after his death, he was famous all over the world, and among all sorts of people. At just what point did he become "famous" for the purpose of your question?

Answer 6

He's famous everywhere. His plays have been translated into almost all languages. To give you some idea, the Globe theatre is putting on a festival where all thirty-seven plays will be performed, each in a different translation by a different theatrical company from around the world.

Answer 7

It depends, of course, how much fame you want to talk about. Shakespeare had a certain amount of notoriety as a writer and actor in his own time. He was a well-known and respected author of plays after his death, although there were many who wanted to adapt his plays to make them more modern sounding (that particular desire has not faded away). But his reputation really began to soar after David Garrick made a big thing of celebrating the 200th anniversary of his birth in 1764.