What did Shakespeare wirte about as he got older?

Answer 1

At around 1600, at about the time his father died, Shakespeare began to write much darker plays, including the great tragedies and the darker "problem play" comedies. Eight or ten years later his plays became less dark as he entered the phase of the "romances": plays like The Tempest and Cymbeline.

Answer 2

In his own lifetime, Shakespeare was a part of a shift in drama toward more complex characterization, and more natural dialogue. There is a difference between the plays of Kyd and Marlowe as opposed to those of Jonson and Webster, but these are subtle differences, a part of the ebb and flow of taste in theatre over time. All of the works of these playwrights are much more like each others' than they are like the works of Beckett or Ibsen or even Sheridan.

Shakespeare's open-ended characterization and dialogue which is both easy to say and very powerful has set a high standard for playwrights since and his plays have, like all literary masterpieces, had a pervasive influence on culture of all kinds. Whether this influence is a change is difficult to say.

Answer 3

The answer is yes, yes, yes and yes.

1. Yes. Shakespeare almost certainly altered and revised his plays himself over time. This would account for the differences between the Quarto and Folio versions of such plays as Hamlet and King Lear.

2. Yes. Other authors have altered and changed Shakespeare's plays continuously since the time they were written. From Thomas Middleton adding song-and-dance numbers to Macbeth, to Davenant's conflation of Much Ado and Measure for Measure, to Nahum Tate's happy-ending King Lear, to Laurence Olivier's Rosencrantz-and-Guildensternless Hamlet, to Branagh's Love's Labour's Lost including Cole Porter songs and newsreel voiceovers.

3. Yes. Editors have been changing the spelling and punctuation of the plays constantly over the years. Where the First Folio had Tybalt say "What art thou drawne, among these heartlesse hindes? Turne theeBenuolio, looke vpon thy death." a modern edition reads "What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds? Turn thee Benvolio! Look upon thy death." A recent editor of Cymbeline decided that the heroine of the story has been called by the wrong name for the last 400 years, and altered it to Innogen throughout.

4. Yes. The plays, like all performance art, do not really exist unless someone performs them, when they are a sort of collaboration between the author and the performers. In this way, every production, even every performance of the plays changes them and makes them new again.

Answer 4

i don't know! i need an answer, please reply to this! xx

Answer 5

For the second phase in his career William Shakespeare was a shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain's Men. This acting company was based in London.

Answer 6

He went bald. All authentic portraits of him show him with severe male-pattern baldness.

Answer 7

It's kind of obvious...