Balti state university a. Russo chair of english philology

“To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare, and What He Hath 
Left Us”:
Triumph, my Britain; thou hast one to show 
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe. 
He was not of an age, but for all time! 
And all the muses still were in their prime 
When like Apollo he came forth to warm 
Out ears, or like a Mercury to char…. 
_________________________________________________________________________ 
1. Norton Anthology of English Literature 5
th
ed. Major Authors, W.W Norton &Company 
New York, London 1986 p.866 

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…Yet must I not give Nature all the praise; thou Art, 
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part. 
William Shakespeare left a rich heritage to the generations to come, creating a new epoch in 
world literature. His works combine all forms that existed before him, developing them to great 
heights. His works emerge from Renaissance and become the forerunners for the literature of the 
following centuries. The dramatist created a rich gallery or characters of great depth and unusual 
intellects. Shakespeare is attracted by the intellect of man, revealing man from a different 
perspective as compared to the attempts made in the previous centuries. W. Shakespeare presents 
man as a creature able to love and fight for his own destiny, against social injustice and prejudices. 
His characters are new people, dynamic creatures, who change alongside the development of the 
events. Shakespeare wants to see man free from prejudices, ready to act and change the world. Each 
play is presenting man from a different perspective, showing man as strong and week, honest and 
deceitful, noble and mean, loving and hateful, white and dark-skinned, creating a rich gallery of 
characters that continue to inspire. The themes and the characters that he revealed in his plays have 
stirred many nations along centuries and remain actual today. Shakespeare touched upon such 
themes as: love, relations among people, relations between children and parents, friendship, 
devotion, jealousy, race discrimination, role of money and glory in life, role of man and woman in 
society, marriage, victory and honour, etc.
In spite of all these great evidences of Shakespeare‟s talents, at different times in history 
there have been made attempts to deny W. Shakespeare‟s existence as a writer. Some consider that 
a man could not have created such an amount of great works within such a small period of time (25 
years), others considered that Shakespeare‟s insignificant education could prevent him from 
creating such great masterpieces, others thought that it was a group of people who wrote all the 
plays and used the nickname Shakespeare to sign them. Some of these dissidents consider that the 
works have been produced by a woman, namely Queen Elizabeth. Others assert that the authorship 
belongs to Francis Bacon, the well-known philosopher and writer, others give preference to the idea 
that it was Ben Jonson who wrote the plays. Though judging by the poem quoted before, this idea 
sounds as an absurdity. Still all these are just suppositions that probably come from people who do 
not trust talent and genius, which the great Bard, William Shakespeare, was undoubtedly endowed 
with by God. 

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