莎士比亚成就总结

Summing up of Shakespeare’s achievements:

1) Shakespeare represented the trend of history in giving voice to the desires and aspirations of the people. After long years of domestic and foreign wars, both the people and the newly risen bourgeoisie were longing for peace under a strong monarch who would unite the whole country. In the first two periods, Shakespeare wrote a number of plays of England as their background. The whole length of the historical period from Richard II, who was the last medieval king and was displaced by Henry IV, to the defeat of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth by Henry VII, was covered by Shakespeare in his plays. So his plays include the whole transitional period of England from medieval time to modern time. The Elizabethans saw in these plays the deposition of Richard II, the military virtues of Henry V, the War of the Roses and the rising of the Tudor family, i.e., a whole period of historical transition. It is also true that in the gallery of kings Shakespeare directly or indirectly indicates his view of an ideal king in Henry V who in his youth mixed among the common people and who in a crucial moment won fame by defeating the French army. In the victory of Henry V we see the victory of the new age over the feudal age. The education of Prince Hal, his acquaintance with all strata of life, and his refusal of the extremes of riot (Falstaff) and vain glory (Percy) shows the growth of an ideal king. Shakespeare’s history plays, therefore, are permeated with patriotism and a feeling of national grandeur.

2) Shakespeare ’s humanism: More important than his historical sense of his time, Shakespeare in his plays reflects the spirit of his age. The sudden awakening of national glory was inseparable with the sudden discovery of the glory that man found in himself. This humanist outlook prevails in his comedies as well as in his late tragedies. And we can trace the change in his humanism. In his early stage, his plays were permeated with optimistic spirit, no matter whether in comedies or tragedies. He had firm belief in the nobility of human nature and in the power of love. People were innocent and were looking at the world with a wonderful eye as if their eyes were newly open to the wonder of the world. Man, who had been debased in the Medieval Age, was now master of himself, and could overcome evils and wickedness in this world. Even in the tragedy this is clear in the dialogue between Romeo and Juliet in the garden when Romeo compares Juliet to the Sun and her eyes to the two “fairest stars in all the heaven”. But as the years went on Shakespeare became more mature and his knowledge of human nature grew in depth. The more he knew about human nature, the more he was depressed at the ugliness and baseness of human nature. This pessimistic outlook appears in his tragedies. However, the human dramatist at last overcome spiritual crisis and recovered his faith in human nature and wrote the beautiful romances which ended his career.

3) Shakespeare ’s characters are “round ”, in the sense that they have many aspects or dimensions. In his characters, vice and virtue commingle and that is true of the common sense of humanity. They are different from the wooden puppets that the stock-in-trade of the inferior dramatists. For example, Richard III is, in a way, a hero as well as a villain, his psychology being far from simple. Shylock in The merchant of Venice, is not simply a villain, an alien devil, who is bad because he does not accept the religious and social standard of the gentiles,

but also a figure of power and dignity whose speech and behavior , for all his conventional villainy, almost redeems him as a tragic hero.

4) Shakespeare ’s originality: Shakespeare drew most of his materials from sources that were known to his audience; some from Roman dramas, some from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and some from other writers’ plays. But his plays are original because he instilled into the old materials a new spirit that gives new life to his plays. The best example is Hamlet , which bears many resemblances to Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy.

5) Shakespeare as a great poet: Shakespeare was not only a great dramatist, but also a great poet. Apart from his sonnets and long poems, his dramas are poetry. They are rich in images, conceit, metaphors and symbols. He was well versed in writing lyrical verse as well as poetry of great passion and agony. His style varies with the different moods he expressed. It can be lyrical, poetical, ecstatic, pathetic, cynical, sarcastic, and ironic.

6) Shakespeare as master of the English language: Shakespeare was the master of the English language. It is estimated that he had a command of about 15,000 words. Many of his quotations and phrases have been absorbed into the English language. He was especially successful in handling the different meanings of the same word, or words having the same sound but different meanings.