NARRATIVE FOUR ON SHAKESPEARE'S LIFE - FROM MY FATHERS COLLECTION: MACBETH 1902

 

LIFE IN LONDON.

There are various reports of the manner in which Shakespeare first tried to make a living on his arrival in London,but he soon drifted into the profession of an actor,in which he made his earlier reputation.

He is said to have begun his career as a writer by adapting and re-writing plays by other authors,which,after being bought by an acting company,passed entirely out of the hands of the original playwright.

It was not unusual for the manager to invite thorough revision before producing a new or revived play upon the stage.

Love's Labour's Lost ,which is commonly supposed to be the first of his dramatic productions,and which may have been composed in 1591,was revised in 1597,and published the following year,when the name of Shakespeare first appeared in print as its author.Its plot,unlike those of most of his plays,does not seem to have been borrowed from any earlier story or romance.

Romeo & Juliet (1591-3),his first tragedy,on the contrary,had gone through many adaptations since the Greek romance of " Anthia and Abrocomas" was written in the second century.The story had been told both in prose and verse,and was popular throughout Europe.

For the plot of The Merchant of Venice (1594 ?) he was indebted to a variety of sources,including a collection of Italian novels written in the fourteenth century.

Most of Shakespeare's dramatic work was probably done in twenty years, between his twenty-seventh and forty seventh year,at the rate of an average of two plays per year.


( Next-His Patrons and His Return to Stratford)