William Shakespeare was born at Stratford - upon - Avon in April 1564. His father had a large family, 8 children in all, and William was the eldest son. He had attended the local grammar school where he had learnt a little Latin. In 1584 he went to London. He was received into one of the companies then in being, at first in a very mean rank; but his admirable wit soon distinguished him, if not as a great actor, as an excellent writer.
In 1599 his company built the Globe theatre, where most of his were performed. The latter part of his life was spent in retirement at Stratford. He died when he was 52.

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Shakespeare's sonnets were published in 1609. The collection includes a hundred and fifty-four sonnets in decasyllables made up of three quatrains and a rhyming couplet. Shakespeare didn't use the Italian or French form, he employed three quatrains and a final couplet.
The sonnets can be divided into two section:
Sonnets I to XVIII that are devoted to the theme of "increase"
Sonnets XVIII to CXXXVI that deal with different topics among which the poet's warnings about the destructive power of time and moral weakness. This section is addressed to a "dark lady" or "Black woman" who, though physically unattractive, is irresistible desirable.
The style of sonnets is characterised by a rich and vivid descriptive language, the effective use of rhyme , the adaptation of stress to the movement of emotion, and the multitude of cultural reference implied.

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When Shakespeare began to rite for stage in early 1509, the standard of plays was set by Marlowe, Greene and Kid, and prose was only beginning to be used in drama. At first Shakespeare followed the current fashions. He was at his best in "comedy" and preferred "rhyme". Comedy give him the opportunity to choose words and phrases with an ease and subtlety which no one else had ever come close to.
Shakespeare's earliest style is quite distinguishable. His rhymes are common , often used in couplets. Occasionally he even insert a sonnet into the dialogue.
The best and the worst traits of his immature style are to be seen in the finest of his earliest plays: "Romeo and Juliet".

By 1601, when he wrote Hamlet, Shakespeare technique had developed. The power of expression can be seen at its best in some of the "soliloquies" in Hamlet. Soliloquy was an old device , which appears artificial in modern stage condition but was common and appropriate ti the intimacy of the Elizabethans playhouses.
Othello, written some months later, is the most perfectly constructed of Shakespeare's tragedies and may be used to illustrate the four different kind of dramatic speech: lyric, poetry, rhyme, blank verse, prose.
A few years later, he wrote King Lear and Macbeth. These plays were in some ways a new departure since he was more concerned with analysing human action than telling dramatic story.
In The tempest he achieved what the critics regard as his final and greatest play.

The original story of Hamlet can be traced back to the early Middle ages in Northern Europe, in the Historiae Danicae, written by Saxo Grammaticus, who written about Amlethus, the fgrim avenger of his father murder.
Another version of Hamlet's story was written by François de Belleforest in his Histoires tragiques in 1576.
However Shakespeare's original source was a play written by Thomas Kid, who had introduced elements of Senecan tradition such as the gost.

Hamlet's father, the king of Denmark, had been dead only two month but his mother, queen Gertrude, has married her brother - in - law Claudius. The ghost of the late king of Denmark has appeared to the entries at the castle of Elsinore, which is armed in case of attack from Fortimbras, prince of Norway. Hamlet and his friend Horatio arrange to meet at night to seen weather the ghost will appear. He tells Hamlet he has been murdered by Claudius. He asks Hamlet to revenge it.
Hamlet pretends that he is mad so that he can carry out his plans more easily. Polonius thins Hamlet's madness is caused by his love for his daughter Ophelia. Hamlet arranges for a troupe of actors to perform The murther of Gonzago, an play whosw story is similar to the one revealed by the ghost.
The play is presented and the king rises and rushed away.
While going to his mother's room, Hamlet sees the king , at prayer, but he doesn't kill him, so that he will not be saved because in a state of grace. During an argument with his mother, Hamlet kills Polonius. So Claudius decides to send Hamlet in England to get rid of him.
Hamlet is sent to England to be killed. Ophelia goes mad and drowns her self. Her brother Laertes wants revenge an the king plots his death in a duel with Laertes.
The duel follows. The queen drinks a poisoned wine. Laertes wounds Hamlet with a poisoned tip of his sword, than the words are exchanged and Hamlet wounds Laertes. So Laertes and the queen die and after that also the king dies. Hamlet asked to Oratio to tell his story, recommended that Fortimbras be elected king and he dies.
Fortimbras enters and takes possession of the kingdom after having given military homours to Hamlet.

Hamlet is not only a tragedy of revenge, it is a play of life and death and of a man's ambiguos relation to them both. It is also about melancholy and doubt.
A major question for man is the relation between "appearance and reality"; how does one separate what appears to be real or absolute from what actually is so?
In Hamlet the way in which appearance is taken for reality is underscored by the acting of Polonius and Hamlet, and by the "play within the play" and the discussion on plays and action. Truth seems to reside in the "existential idea": all that individual man knows is that he exist.
Another important theme is "Homour" and honourable action.
Finally in Hamlet, the theme of love is developed as charity or brotherly love.

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