179-514: Lady Macbeth is a leading character in William Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth ( c. 1603–1607 ). As the wife of the play's tragic hero, Macbeth (a Scottish nobleman), Lady Macbeth goads her husband into committing regicide , after which she becomes queen of Scotland . Some regard her as becoming more powerful than Macbeth when she does this, because she is able to manipulate him into doing what she wants. After Macbeth becomes
358-555: A comic relief figure in mystery plays . During the early modern period , Satan's significance greatly increased as beliefs such as demonic possession and witchcraft became more prevalent. During the Age of Enlightenment , belief in the existence of Satan was harshly criticized by thinkers such as Voltaire . Nonetheless, belief in Satan has persisted, particularly in the Americas . Although Satan
537-717: A funerary monument was erected in his memory on the north wall, with a half-effigy of him in the act of writing. Its plaque compares him to Nestor , Socrates , and Virgil . In 1623, in conjunction with the publication of the First Folio , the Droeshout engraving was published. Shakespeare has been commemorated in many statues and memorials around the world, including funeral monuments in Southwark Cathedral and Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey . Most playwrights of
716-583: A gatehouse in the former Blackfriars priory; and from November 1614, he was in London for several weeks with his son-in-law, John Hall . After 1610, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, and none are attributed to him after 1613. His last three plays were collaborations, probably with John Fletcher , who succeeded him as the house playwright of the King's Men. He retired in 1613, before the Globe Theatre burned down during
895-462: A prototypical form of the ransom theory, but Origen was the first to propose it in its fully developed form. The theory was later expanded by theologians such as Gregory of Nyssa and Rufinus of Aquileia . In the eleventh century, Anselm of Canterbury criticized the ransom theory, along with the associated Christus Victor theory, resulting in the theory's decline in western Europe. The theory has nonetheless retained some of its popularity in
1074-570: A "disgusting fantasy" and declared that belief in Hell and Satan were among the many lies propagated by the Catholic Church to keep humanity enslaved. By the eighteenth century, trials for witchcraft had ceased in most western countries, with the notable exceptions of Poland and Hungary , where they continued. Belief in the power of Satan, however, remained strong among traditional Christians. Mormonism developed its own views on Satan. According to
1253-418: A 'physical' entity is strengthened by numerous other rabbinical anecdotes: one tale describes two separate incidents where Satan appeared as a woman in order to tempt Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Akiva into sin, while another describes Satan taking the form of an ill-mannered, diseased beggar in order to tempt the sage Peleimu into breaking the mitzvah of hospitality. Another passage relates that Satan once kissed
1432-752: A 2013 poll conducted by YouGov , fifty-seven percent of people in the United States believe in a literal Devil, compared to eighteen percent of people in Britain. Fifty-one percent of Americans believe that Satan has the power to possess people. W. Scott Poole, author of Satan in America: The Devil We Know , has opined that "In the United States over the last forty to fifty years, a composite image of Satan has emerged that borrows from both popular culture and theological sources" and that most American Christians do not "separate what they know [about Satan] from
1611-427: A Stratford legend that Shakespeare fled the town for London to escape prosecution for deer poaching in the estate of local squire Thomas Lucy . Shakespeare is also supposed to have taken his revenge on Lucy by writing a scurrilous ballad about him. Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare starting his theatrical career minding the horses of theatre patrons in London. John Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had been
1790-443: A census without his approval. 1 Chronicles 21:1 repeats this story, but replaces the "Angel of Yahweh" with an entity referred to as "a satan". Some passages clearly refer to the satan, without using the word itself. 1 Samuel 2:12 describes the sons of Eli as "sons of Belial "; the later usage of this word makes it clearly a synonym for "satan". In 1 Samuel 16:14–2, Yahweh sends a "troubling spirit" to torment King Saul as
1969-402: A change from the traditional to the freer style. Shakespeare combined the two throughout his career, with Romeo and Juliet perhaps the best example of the mixing of the styles. By the time of Romeo and Juliet , Richard II , and A Midsummer Night's Dream in the mid-1590s, Shakespeare had begun to write a more natural poetry. He increasingly tuned his metaphors and images to the needs of
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#17328522784282148-596: A country schoolmaster. Some 20th-century scholars suggested that Shakespeare may have been employed as a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire , a Catholic landowner who named a certain "William Shakeshafte" in his will. Little evidence substantiates such stories other than hearsay collected after his death, and Shakeshafte was a common name in the Lancashire area. It is not known definitively when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of performances show that several of his plays were on
2327-501: A derivative of the Greek word diabolos . Muslims do not regard Satan as the cause of evil, but as a tempter, who takes advantage of humans' inclinations toward self-centeredness. Seven chapters in the Quran describe how God ordered all the angels and Iblis to bow before the newly created human, Adam . All the angels bowed, but Iblis refused, claiming to be superior to Adam because he
2506-473: A group of 200 angels known as the " Watchers ", who are assigned to supervise the earth, but instead abandon their duties and have sexual intercourse with human women. The leader of the Watchers is Semjâzâ and another member of the group, known as Azazel , spreads sin and corruption among humankind. The Watchers are ultimately sequestered in isolated caves across the earth and are condemned to face judgement at
2685-402: A group of evil jinn. According to a hadith from Ibn Abbas , Iblis was actually an angel whom God created out of fire. Ibn Abbas asserts that the word jinn could be applied to earthly jinn, but also to "fiery angels" like Satan. Hasan of Basra , an eminent Muslim theologian who lived in the seventh century AD, was quoted as saying: "Iblis was not an angel even for the time of an eye wink. He
2864-473: A man; / And to be more than what you were, you would / Be so much more the man." Thus Lady Macbeth enforces a masculine conception of power, yet only after pleading to be unsexed, or defeminised. In 2001, actress Maura Tierney portrayed a modernized version of Lady MacBeth in the satirical film Scotland, PA . In 2009, Pegasus Books published The Tragedy of Macbeth Part II , a play by American author and playwright Noah Lukeman , which endeavoured to offer
3043-514: A mechanism to ingratiate David with the king. In 1 Kings 22:19–25, the prophet Micaiah describes to King Ahab a vision of Yahweh sitting on his throne surrounded by the Host of Heaven . Yahweh asks the Host which of them will lead Ahab astray. A "spirit", whose name is not specified, but who is analogous to the satan, volunteers to be "a Lying Spirit in the mouth of all his Prophets". The satan appears in
3222-431: A merry meeting and, it seems, drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted", not an impossible scenario since Shakespeare knew Jonson and Drayton . Of the tributes from fellow authors, one refers to his relatively sudden death: "We wondered, Shakespeare, that thou went'st so soon / From the world's stage to the grave's tiring room." He was survived by his wife and two daughters. Susanna had married
3401-610: A metaphor for the yetzer hara , or 'evil inclination'. In Christianity and Islam , he is usually seen as a fallen angel or jinn who has rebelled against God , who nevertheless allows him temporary power over the fallen world and a host of demons . In the Quran , Iblis is an evil entity ( shaitan ) made of fire who was cast out of Heaven because he refused to bow before the newly created Adam and incites humans to sin by infecting their minds with waswās ('evil suggestions'). A figure known as ha-satan ("the satan") first appears in
3580-448: A more serene view of life on Shakespeare's part, but it may merely reflect the theatrical fashion of the day. Shakespeare collaborated on two further surviving plays, Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen , probably with John Fletcher . Shakespeare's works include the 36 plays printed in the First Folio of 1623, listed according to their folio classification as comedies , histories , and tragedies . Two plays not included in
3759-503: A move away from femininity; she is asking the spirits to eliminate the basic biological characteristics of womanhood. The main biological characteristic that La Belle focuses on is menstruation . La Belle argues that by asking to be "unsex[ed]" and crying out to spirits to "make thick [her] blood / Stop up th' access and passage to remorse", Lady Macbeth asks for her menstrual cycle to stop. By having her menstrual cycle stop, Lady Macbeth hopes to stop any feelings of sensitivity and caring that
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#17328522784283938-429: A murderous tyrant, she is driven to madness by guilt over their crimes and kills herself offstage. Lady Macbeth is a powerful presence in the play, most notably in the first two acts. Following the murder of King Duncan, however, her role in the plot diminishes. She becomes an uninvolved spectator to Macbeth's plotting and a nervous hostess at a banquet dominated by her husband's hallucinations. Her sleepwalking scene in
4117-450: A naked new-born babe, Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd Upon the sightless couriers of the air." However, Shakespeare soon began to adapt the traditional styles to his own purposes. The opening soliloquy of Richard III has its roots in the self-declaration of Vice in medieval drama. At the same time, Richard's vivid self-awareness looks forward to the soliloquies of Shakespeare's mature plays. No single play marks
4296-467: A narration, the sound of the shofar , which is primarily intended to remind Jews of the importance of teshuva , is also intended symbolically to "confuse the accuser" (Satan) and prevent him from rendering any litigation to God against the Jews. Kabbalah presents Satan as an agent of God whose function is to tempt humans into sinning so that he may accuse them in the heavenly court. The Hasidic Jews of
4475-788: A persuasive suitor, was printed in the first edition of the Sonnets in 1609. Most scholars now accept that Shakespeare wrote A Lover's Complaint . Critics consider that its fine qualities are marred by leaden effects. The Phoenix and the Turtle , printed in Robert Chester's 1601 Love's Martyr , mourns the deaths of the legendary phoenix and his lover, the faithful turtle dove . In 1599, two early drafts of sonnets 138 and 144 appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim , published under Shakespeare's name but without his permission. Published in 1609,
4654-475: A physician, John Hall, in 1607, and Judith had married Thomas Quiney , a vintner , two months before Shakespeare's death. Shakespeare signed his last will and testament on 25 March 1616; the following day, Thomas Quiney, his new son-in-law, was found guilty of fathering an illegitimate son by Margaret Wheeler, both of whom had died during childbirth. Thomas was ordered by the church court to do public penance, which would have caused much shame and embarrassment for
4833-588: A practical sense of the theatre. Like all playwrights of the time, he dramatised stories from sources such as Plutarch and Holinshed . He reshaped each plot to create several centres of interest and to show as many sides of a narrative to the audience as possible. This strength of design ensures that a Shakespeare play can survive translation, cutting, and wide interpretation without loss to its core drama. As Shakespeare's mastery grew, he gave his characters clearer and more varied motivations and distinctive patterns of speech. He preserved aspects of his earlier style in
5012-553: A safeguard against temptation, since the Devil "cannot endure gaiety ". John Calvin repeated a maxim from Saint Augustine that "Man is like a horse, with either God or the devil as rider." In the late fifteenth century, a series of witchcraft panics erupted in France and Germany. The German Inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger argued in their book Malleus Maleficarum , published in 1487, that all maleficia ("sorcery")
5191-480: A selling point and began to appear on the title pages . Shakespeare continued to act in his own and other plays after his success as a playwright. The 1616 edition of Ben Jonson 's Works names him on the cast lists for Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Sejanus His Fall (1603). The absence of his name from the 1605 cast list for Jonson's Volpone is taken by some scholars as a sign that his acting career
5370-423: A sequel to Macbeth and to resolve its many loose ends, particularly Lady Macbeth's reference to her having had a child (which, historically, she did - from a previous marriage, having remarried Macbeth after being widowed.) Written in blank verse, the play was published to critical acclaim. In 2010, Gloria Carreño's play "A Season Before The Tragedy of Macbeth" was produced by British Touring Shakespeare and received
5549-414: A specific type of anti-mother: the witch. Modern day critic Joanna Levin defines a witch as a woman who succumbs to Satanic force, a lust for the devil, and who, either for this reason or the desire to obtain supernatural powers, invokes (evil) spirits. Levin refers to Marianne Hester 's Lewd Women and Wicked Witches: A Study of Male Domination, in which Hester articulates a feminist interpretation of
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5728-603: A tail, often naked and holding a pitchfork. These are an amalgam of traits derived from various pagan deities, including Pan , Poseidon , and Bes . Satan appears frequently in Christian literature , most notably in Dante Alighieri 's Inferno , all variants of the classic Faust story, John Milton 's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained , and the poems of William Blake . He continues to appear in film, television, and music. The Hebrew term śāṭān ( Hebrew : שָׂטָן )
5907-530: A test and can be punished. Accordingly, Satan became a devil ( shaiṭān ) or jinn after he refused to obey. The Tarikh Khamis narrates that Satan was a jinn who was admitted into Paradise as a reward for his righteousness and, unlike the angels, was given the choice to obey or disobey God. When he was expelled from Paradise, Satan blamed humanity for his punishment. Concerning the fiery origin of Iblis, Zakariya al-Qazwini and Muhammad ibn Ahmad Ibshihi state that all supernatural creatures originated from fire but
6086-550: A vision of a Great Red Dragon with seven heads, ten horns, seven crowns, and a massive tail, an image which is likely inspired by the vision of the four beasts from the sea in the Book of Daniel and the Leviathan described in various Old Testament passages. The Great Red Dragon knocks "a third of the sun... a third of the moon, and a third of the stars" out the sky and pursues the Woman of
6265-556: A voice booms down from Heaven heralding the defeat of "the Accuser" ( ho Kantegor ), identifying the Satan of Revelation with the satan of the Old Testament. In Revelation 20:1–3 , Satan is bound with a chain and hurled into the Abyss , where he is imprisoned for one thousand years . In Revelation 20:7–10 , he is set free and gathers his armies along with Gog and Magog to wage war against
6444-465: A witch, and the act itself establishes a similarity in the way that both Lady Macbeth and the Weird Sisters from the play "use the metaphoric powers of language to call upon spiritual powers who in turn will influence physical events – in one case the workings of the state, in the other the workings of a woman's body." Like the witches, Lady Macbeth strives to make herself an instrument for bringing about
6623-461: A woman's hide" from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3 , along with the pun "Shake-scene", clearly identify Shakespeare as Greene's target. As used here, Johannes Factotum ("Jack of all trades") refers to a second-rate tinkerer with the work of others, rather than the more common "universal genius". Greene's attack is the earliest surviving mention of Shakespeare's work in the theatre. Biographers suggest that his career may have begun any time from
6802-579: A young fowl". Cotton Mather wrote that devils swarmed around Puritan settlements "like the frogs of Egypt ". The Puritans believed that the Native Americans were worshippers of Satan and described them as "children of the Devil". Some settlers claimed to have seen Satan himself appear in the flesh at native ceremonies. During the First Great Awakening , the " new light " preachers portrayed their "old light" critics as ministers of Satan. By
6981-534: Is " devil ", which descends from Middle English devel , from Old English dēofol, that in turn represents an early Germanic borrowing of Latin diabolus (also the source of "diabolical"). This in turn was borrowed from Greek diabolos " slanderer ", from diaballein "to slander": dia- "across, through" + ballein "to hurl". In the New Testament, the words Satan and diabolos are used interchangeably as synonyms. Beelzebub , meaning "Lord of Flies",
7160-409: Is a generic noun meaning "accuser" or "adversary", and is derived from a verb meaning primarily "to obstruct, oppose". In the earlier biblical books, e.g. 1 Samuel 29:4, it refers to human adversaries, but in the later books, especially Job 1–2 and Zechariah 3, to a supernatural entity. When used without the definite article (simply satan ), it can refer to any accuser, but when it is used with
7339-408: Is associated with females. She hopes to become like a man to stop any sense of remorse for the regicide. La Belle furthers her argument by connecting the stopping of the menstrual cycle with the persistent infanticide motifs in the play. La Belle gives examples of "the strangled babe" whose finger is thrown into the witches' cauldron (4.1.30); Macduff's babes who are "savagely slaughter’d" (4.3.235); and
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7518-567: Is blasphemy... to say that the greatest God... has an adversary who constrains his capacity to do good" and said that Christians "impiously divide the kingdom of God, creating a rebellion in it, as if there were opposing factions within the divine, including one that is hostile to God". The name Heylel , meaning "morning star" (or, in Latin, Lucifer ), was a name for Attar , the god of the planet Venus in Canaanite mythology , who attempted to scale
7697-577: Is definitively classed as a tragedy. It is not clear for which companies Shakespeare wrote his early plays. The title page of the 1594 edition of Titus Andronicus reveals that the play had been acted by three different troupes. After the plagues of 1592–93, Shakespeare's plays were performed by his own company at The Theatre and the Curtain in Shoreditch , north of the Thames. Londoners flocked there to see
7876-562: Is destined to be overthrown through Jesus's death and resurrection. John 16:7–8 promises that the Holy Spirit will "accuse the World concerning sin, justice, and judgement", a role resembling that of the Satan in the Old Testament. Jude 9 refers to a dispute between Michael the Archangel and the Devil over the body of Moses . Some interpreters understand this reference to be an allusion to
8055-466: Is generally viewed as evil, some groups have very different beliefs. In theistic Satanism , Satan is considered a deity who is either worshipped or revered. In LaVeyan Satanism , Satan is a symbol of virtuous characteristics and liberty. Satan's appearance is never described in the Bible, but, since the ninth century, he has often been shown in Christian art with horns, cloven hooves, unusually hairy legs, and
8234-417: Is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country. Scholars differ on the exact meaning of Greene's words, but most agree that Greene was accusing Shakespeare of reaching above his rank in trying to match such university-educated writers as Christopher Marlowe , Thomas Nashe , and Greene himself (the so-called " University Wits "). The italicised phrase parodying the line "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in
8413-618: Is left untranslated but transliterated in the Greek as satan , a neologism in Greek. The idea of Satan as an opponent of God and a purely evil figure seems to have taken root in Jewish pseudepigrapha during the Second Temple Period, particularly in the apocalypses . The Book of Enoch , which the Dead Sea Scrolls have revealed to have been nearly as popular as the Torah, describes
8592-502: Is mentioned explicitly in some daily prayers, including during Shacharit and certain post-meal benedictions, as described in the Talmud and the Jewish Code of Law . In Reform Judaism , Satan is generally seen in his Talmudic role as a metaphor for the yetzer hara and the symbolic representation of innate human qualities such as selfishness. The most common English synonym for "Satan"
8771-525: Is often used. In 1896, Frederick S. Boas coined the term " problem plays " to describe four plays: All's Well That Ends Well , Measure for Measure , Troilus and Cressida , and Hamlet . "Dramas as singular in theme and temper cannot be strictly called comedies or tragedies", he wrote. "We may, therefore, borrow a convenient phrase from the theatre of today and class them together as Shakespeare's problem plays." The term, much debated and sometimes applied to other plays, remains in use, though Hamlet
8950-558: Is the contemptuous name given in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament to a Philistine god whose original name has been reconstructed as most probably "Ba'al Zabul", meaning " Baal the Prince". The Synoptic Gospels identify Satan and Beelzebub as the same. The name Abaddon (meaning "place of destruction") is used six times in the Old Testament, mainly as a name for one of the regions of Sheol . Revelation 9:11 describes Abaddon, whose name
9129-455: Is the origin of Jinn as Adam is of Mankind." The medieval Persian scholar Abu al-Zamakhshari states that the words angels and jinn are synonyms. Another Persian scholar, al-Baydawi , instead argues that Satan hoped to be an angel, but that his actions made him a jinn. Abu Mansur al-Maturidi who is reverred as the founder of Maturidiyyah Sunni orthodoxy ( kalam ) argued that since angels can be blessed by God, they are also put to
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#17328522784289308-425: Is the question ". Unlike the introverted Hamlet, whose fatal flaw is hesitation, Othello and Lear are undone by hasty errors of judgement. The plots of Shakespeare's tragedies often hinge on such fatal errors or flaws, which overturn order and destroy the hero and those he loves. In Othello , Iago stokes Othello's sexual jealousy to the point where he murders the innocent wife who loves him. In King Lear ,
9487-414: Is translated into Greek as Apollyon , meaning "the destroyer", as an angel who rules the Abyss . In modern usage, Abaddon is sometimes equated with Satan. The three Synoptic Gospels all describe the temptation of Christ by Satan in the desert ( Matthew 4:1–11 , Mark 1:12–13 , and Luke 4:1–13 ). Satan first shows Jesus a stone and tells him to turn it into bread. He also takes him to the pinnacle of
9666-567: Is used in ten instances, of which two are translated diabolos in the Septuagint. It is generally translated in English Bibles as 'an accuser' (1x) or 'an adversary' (9x as in Book of Numbers , 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 Kings ). In some cases, it is translated as 'Satan': The word does not occur in the Book of Genesis , which mentions only a talking serpent and does not identify the serpent with any supernatural entity. The first occurrence of
9845-547: The Encyclopædia Britannica , liberal Christianity tends to view Satan "as a [figurative] mythological attempt to express the reality and extent of evil in the universe, existing outside and apart from humanity but profoundly influencing the human sphere". Bernard McGinn describes multiple traditions detailing the relationship between the Antichrist and Satan. In the dualist approach, Satan will become incarnate in
10024-575: The Sonnets were the last of Shakespeare's non-dramatic works to be printed. Scholars are not certain when each of the 154 sonnets was composed, but evidence suggests that Shakespeare wrote sonnets throughout his career for a private readership. Even before the two unauthorised sonnets appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim in 1599, Francis Meres had referred in 1598 to Shakespeare's "sugred Sonnets among his private friends". Few analysts believe that
10203-542: The Blackfriars indoor theatre . Extant records of Shakespeare's property purchases and investments indicate that his association with the company made him a wealthy man, and in 1597, he bought the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place , and in 1605, invested in a share of the parish tithes in Stratford. Some of Shakespeare's plays were published in quarto editions, beginning in 1594, and by 1598, his name had become
10382-460: The Book of Job , a poetic dialogue set within a prose framework, which may have been written around the time of the Babylonian captivity . In the text, Job is a righteous man favored by Yahweh. Job 1:6–8 describes the " sons of God " ( bənê hāʼĕlōhîm ) presenting themselves before Yahweh. Yahweh asks one of them, "the satan", where he has been, to which he replies that he has been roaming around
10561-457: The Book of Moses , the Devil offered to be the redeemer of mankind for the sake of his own glory. Conversely, Jesus offered to be the redeemer of mankind so that his father's will would be done. After his offer was rejected, Satan became rebellious and was subsequently cast out of heaven. In the Book of Moses, Cain is said to have "loved Satan more than God" and conspired with Satan to kill Abel . It
10740-554: The Eastern Orthodox Church . Most early Christians firmly believed that Satan and his demons had the power to possess humans, and exorcisms were widely practiced by Jews, Christians, and pagans alike. Belief in demonic possession continued through the Middle Ages into the early modern period . Exorcisms were seen as a display of God's power over Satan. The vast majority of people who thought they were possessed by
10919-647: The Epistle to the Hebrews describes the Devil as "him who holds the power of death" ( Hebrews 2:14 ). The author of Luke-Acts attributes more power to Satan than either Matthew and Mark. In Luke 22:31 , Jesus grants Satan the authority to test Peter and the other apostles . Luke 22:3–6 states that Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus because "Satan entered" him and, in Acts 5:3 , Peter describes Satan as "filling" Ananias 's heart and causing him to sin. The Gospel of John only uses
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#173285227842811098-504: The First Folio , a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson , a former rival of Shakespeare, who hailed Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time". Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare , an alderman and a successful glover (glove-maker) originally from Snitterfield in Warwickshire , and Mary Arden ,
11277-508: The Hebrew Bible as a heavenly prosecutor , subordinate to Yahweh (God), who prosecutes the nation of Judah in the heavenly court and tests the loyalty of Yahweh's followers. During the intertestamental period , possibly due to influence from the Zoroastrian figure of Angra Mainyu , the satan developed into a malevolent entity with abhorrent qualities in dualistic opposition to God. In
11456-572: The King's Men . All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts ... — As You Like It , Act II, Scene 7, 139–142 In 1599, a partnership of members of the company built their own theatre on the south bank of the River Thames , which they named the Globe . In 1608, the partnership also took over
11635-578: The Lord Chamberlain's Men , later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI of Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance , his sexuality , his religious beliefs and even certain fringe theories as to whether
11814-519: The Shrew ' s story of the taming of a woman's independent spirit by a man sometimes troubles modern critics, directors, and audiences. Shakespeare's early classical and Italianate comedies, containing tight double plots and precise comic sequences, give way in the mid-1590s to the romantic atmosphere of his most acclaimed comedies. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a witty mixture of romance, fairy magic, and comic lowlife scenes. Shakespeare's next comedy,
11993-598: The Temple in Jerusalem and commands Jesus to throw himself down so that the angels will catch him. Satan takes Jesus to the top of a tall mountain as well; there, he shows him the kingdoms of the earth and promises to give them all to him if he will bow down and worship him. Each time Jesus rebukes Satan and, after the third temptation, he is administered by the angels. Satan's promise in Matthew 4:8–9 and Luke 4:6–7 to give Jesus all
12172-509: The apocryphal Book of Jubilees , Yahweh grants the satan (referred to as Mastema ) authority over a group of fallen angels , or their offspring , to tempt humans to sin and punish them. Although the Book of Genesis does not mention him, Christians often identify the serpent in the Garden of Eden as Satan. In the Synoptic Gospels , Satan tempts Jesus in the desert and is identified as
12351-490: The end of lines , with the risk of monotony. Once Shakespeare mastered traditional blank verse, he began to interrupt and vary its flow. This technique releases the new power and flexibility of the poetry in plays such as Julius Caesar and Hamlet . Shakespeare uses it, for example, to convey the turmoil in Hamlet's mind: Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay Worse than
12530-443: The ransom theory of atonement , which was popular among early Christian theologians, Satan gained power over humanity through Adam and Eve 's sin and Christ's death on the cross was a ransom to Satan in exchange for humanity's liberation. This theory holds that Satan was tricked by God because Christ was not only free of sin, but also the incarnate Deity, whom Satan lacked the ability to enslave. Irenaeus of Lyons described
12709-459: The " Bard of Avon " (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations , consist of some 39 plays , 154 sonnets , three long narrative poems and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in
12888-718: The 1430s, the Catholic Church began to regard witchcraft as part of a vast conspiracy led by Satan himself. During the Early Modern Period , Christians gradually began to regard Satan as increasingly powerful and the fear of Satan's power became a dominant aspect of the worldview of Christians across Europe. During the Protestant Reformation , Martin Luther taught that, rather than trying to argue with Satan, Christians should avoid temptation altogether by seeking out pleasant company; Luther especially recommended music as
13067-611: The 1620s and continued until the end of the 1600s. Brian Levack estimates that around 60,000 people were executed for witchcraft during the entire span of the witchcraft hysteria. The early English settlers of North America, especially the Puritans of New England , believed that Satan "visibly and palpably" reigned in the New World . John Winthrop claimed that the Devil made rebellious Puritan women give birth to stillborn monsters with claws, sharp horns, and "on each foot three claws, like
13246-433: The 2022 Broadway revival of Macbeth , directed by Sam Gold , Ruth Negga played Lady Macbeth opposite Daniel Craig as Macbeth. William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( c. 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright , poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and
13425-551: The Anglican bishop John Bancroft , had begun to criticize the belief that demons still had the power to possess people. This skepticism was bolstered by the belief that miracles only occurred during the Apostolic Age , which had long since ended. Later, Enlightenment thinkers, such as David Hume , Denis Diderot , and Voltaire , attacked the notion of Satan's existence altogether. Voltaire labelled John Milton 's Paradise Lost
13604-568: The Antichrist, just as God became incarnate in Jesus . However, in Orthodox Christian thought, this view is problematic because it is too similar to Christ's incarnation. Instead, the "indwelling" view has become more accepted, which stipulates that the Antichrist is a human figure inhabited by Satan, since the latter's power is not to be seen as equivalent to God's. The Arabic equivalent of
13783-655: The Apocalypse . Revelation 12:7–9 declares: " And war broke out in Heaven . Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon. The Dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in Heaven. Dragon the Great was thrown down, that ancient serpent who is called Devil and Satan, the one deceiving the whole inhabited World – he was thrown down to earth, and his angels were thrown down with him." Then
13962-582: The Chorus in Henry V , though scholars doubt the sources of that information. Throughout his career, Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford. In 1596, the year before he bought New Place as his family home in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in the parish of St Helen's , Bishopsgate , north of the River Thames. He moved across the river to Southwark by 1599, the same year his company constructed
14141-447: The Devil did not suffer from hallucinations or other "spectacular symptoms", but "complained of anxiety, religious fears, and evil thoughts". Satan had minimal role in medieval Christian theology , but he frequently appeared as a recurring comedic stock character in late medieval mystery plays , in which he was portrayed as a comic relief figure who "frolicked, fell, and farted in the background". Jeffrey Burton Russell describes
14320-485: The English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon , Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway , with whom he had three children: Susanna , and twins Hamnet and Judith . Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called
14499-500: The First Folio, The Two Noble Kinsmen and Pericles, Prince of Tyre , are now accepted as part of the canon, with today's scholars agreeing that Shakespeare made major contributions to the writing of both. No Shakespearean poems were included in the First Folio. In the late 19th century, Edward Dowden classified four of the late comedies as romances , and though many scholars prefer to call them tragicomedies , Dowden's term
14678-489: The Globe Theatre there. By 1604, he had moved north of the river again, to an area north of St Paul's Cathedral with many fine houses. There, he rented rooms from a French Huguenot named Christopher Mountjoy, a maker of women's wigs and other headgear. Nicholas Rowe was the first biographer to record the tradition, repeated by Samuel Johnson , that Shakespeare retired to Stratford "some years before his death". He
14857-448: The King's Men, published the First Folio , a collected edition of Shakespeare's plays. It contained 36 texts, including 18 printed for the first time. The others had already appeared in quarto versions—flimsy books made from sheets of paper folded twice to make four leaves. No evidence suggests that Shakespeare approved these editions, which the First Folio describes as "stol'n and surreptitious copies". Alfred Pollard termed some of
15036-421: The London stage by 1592. By then, he was sufficiently known in London to be attacked in print by the playwright Robert Greene in his Groats-Worth of Wit from that year: ... there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide , supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum ,
15215-630: The Murdering Mother in Early Modern England" argues that though Lady Macbeth wants power, her power is "conditioned on maternity", which was a "conflicted status in early modern England". Chamberlain argues that the negative images of Lady Macbeth as a mother figure, such as when she discusses her ability to "dash the brains" of the babe that sucks her breast, reflect controversies concerning the image of motherhood in early modern England. In early modern England, mothers were often accused of hurting
15394-692: The Parable of the Sower, Satan "profoundly influences" those who fail to understand the gospel. The latter two parables say that Satan's followers will be punished on Judgement Day , with the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats stating that the Devil, his angels, and the people who follow him will be consigned to "eternal fire". When the Pharisees accused Jesus of exorcising demons through the power of Beelzebub, Jesus responds by telling
15573-484: The Parable of the Strong Man, saying: "how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house" ( Matthew 12:29 ). The strong man in this parable represents Satan. The Synoptic Gospels identify Satan and his demons as the causes of illness, including fever ( Luke 4:39 ), leprosy ( Luke 5:13 ), and arthritis ( Luke 13:11–16 ), while
15752-457: The Quranic retelling of the story of Job , Job knows that Satan is the one tormenting him. In the Quran, Satan is apparently an angel, while, in 18:50 , he is described as "from the jinns". This, combined with the fact that he describes himself as having been made from fire, posed a major problem for Muslim exegetes of the Quran , who disagree on whether Satan is a fallen angel or the leader of
15931-495: The Shakespeare family. Shakespeare bequeathed the bulk of his large estate to his elder daughter Susanna under stipulations that she pass it down intact to "the first son of her body". The Quineys had three children, all of whom died without marrying. The Halls had one child, Elizabeth, who married twice but died without children in 1670, ending Shakespeare's direct line. Shakespeare's will scarcely mentions his wife, Anne, who
16110-510: The Shrew , and The Two Gentlemen of Verona may also belong to Shakespeare's earliest period. His first histories , which draw heavily on the 1587 edition of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland , dramatise the destructive results of weak or corrupt rule and have been interpreted as a justification for the origins of the Tudor dynasty . The early plays were influenced by
16289-521: The Slavonic Book of Enoch, contains references to a Watcher called Satanael. It is a pseudepigraphic text of an uncertain date and unknown authorship. The text describes Satanael as being the prince of the Grigori who was cast out of heaven and an evil spirit who knew the difference between what was "righteous" and "sinful". In the Book of Wisdom , the devil is taken to be the being who brought death into
16468-480: The Tyrians", but was hurled down to Earth after he was found to be corrupt. In his apologetic treatise Contra Celsum , however, Origen interprets both Isaiah 14:12 and Ezekiel 28:12–15 as referring to Satan. According to Henry Ansgar Kelly, Origen seems to have adopted this new interpretation to refute unnamed persons who, perhaps under the influence of Zoroastrian radical dualism, believed "that Satan's original nature
16647-813: The Zoroastrian spirit of evil, darkness, and ignorance. In the Septuagint , the Hebrew ha-Satan in Job and Zechariah is translated by the Greek word diabolos (slanderer), the same word in the Greek New Testament from which the English word " devil " is derived. Where satan is used to refer to human enemies in the Hebrew Bible, such as Hadad the Edomite and Rezon the Syrian , the word
16826-499: The act of writing, began to infuse each other". In the early 17th century, Shakespeare wrote the so-called " problem plays " Measure for Measure , Troilus and Cressida , and All's Well That Ends Well and a number of his best known tragedies . Many critics believe that Shakespeare's tragedies represent the peak of his art. Hamlet has probably been analysed more than any other Shakespearean character, especially for his famous soliloquy which begins " To be or not to be; that
17005-642: The age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596. After the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in the "complaints bill" of a law case before the Queen's Bench court at Westminster dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9 October 1589. Scholars refer to the years between 1585 and 1592 as Shakespeare's "lost years". Biographers attempting to account for this period have reported many apocryphal stories. Nicholas Rowe , Shakespeare's first biographer, recounted
17184-412: The angels from its light and the jinn from its blaze, thus fire denotes a disembodiment origin of all spiritual entities. Abd al-Ghani al-Maqdisi argued that only the angels of mercy are created from light, but angels of punishment have been created from fire. The Muslim historian Al-Tabari , who died in around 923 AD, writes that, before Adam was created, earthly jinn made of smokeless fire roamed
17363-476: The blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd/ Upon the sightless couriers of the air ..." (1.7.21–25). The listener is challenged to complete the sense. The late romances, with their shifts in time and surprising turns of plot, inspired a last poetic style in which long and short sentences are set against one another, clauses are piled up, subject and object are reversed, and words are omitted, creating an effect of spontaneity. Shakespeare combined poetic genius with
17542-499: The cause of illness and temptation. In the Book of Revelation , Satan appears as a Great Red Dragon , who is defeated by Michael the Archangel and cast down from Heaven. He is later bound for one thousand years , but is briefly set free before being ultimately defeated and cast into the Lake of Fire . In the Middle Ages, Satan played a minimal role in Christian theology and was used as
17721-597: The content of the Epistle of Jude, but omits the specifics of the example regarding Michael and Satan, with 2 Peter 2:10–11 instead mentioning only an ambiguous dispute between "Angels" and "Glories". Throughout the New Testament, Satan is referred to as a "tempter" ( Matthew 4:3 ), "the ruler of the demons" ( Matthew 12:24 ), "the God of this Age" ( 2 Corinthians 4:4 ), "the evil one" ( 1 John 5:18 ), and "a roaring lion" ( 1 Peter 5:8 ). The Book of Revelation represents Satan as
17900-426: The daughter of an affluent landowning family . He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon , where he was baptised on 26 April 1564. His date of birth is unknown but is traditionally observed on 23 April, Saint George's Day . This date, which can be traced to William Oldys and George Steevens , has proved appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on the same date in 1616. He was the third of eight children, and
18079-535: The definite article ( ha-satan ), it usually refers specifically to the heavenly accuser, literally, the satan. The word with the definite article Ha-Satan ( Hebrew : הַשָּׂטָן hasSāṭān ) occurs 17 times in the Masoretic Text , in two books of the Hebrew Bible: Job ch. 1–2 (14×) and Zechariah 3:1–2 (3×). It is translated in English bibles mostly as 'Satan'. The word without the definite article
18258-415: The drama itself. Shakespeare's standard poetic form was blank verse , composed in iambic pentameter . In practice, this meant that his verse was usually unrhymed and consisted of ten syllables to a line, spoken with a stress on every second syllable. The blank verse of his early plays is quite different from that of his later ones. It is often beautiful, but its sentences tend to start, pause, and finish at
18437-558: The earth and spread corruption. He further relates that Iblis was originally an angel named Azazil or Al-Harith , from a group of angels, created from the fires of simoom , sent by God to confront the earthly jinn. Azazil defeated the jinn in battle and drove them into the mountains, but he became convinced that he was superior to humans and all the other angels, leading to his downfall. In this account, Azazil's group of angels were called jinn because they guarded Jannah (Paradise). In another tradition recorded by Al-Tabari, Satan
18616-459: The earth. Yahweh asks, "Have you considered My servant Job?" The satan replies by urging Yahweh to let him torture Job, promising that Job will abandon his faith at the first tribulation. Yahweh consents: the satan destroys Job's servants and flocks, yet Job refuses to condemn Yahweh. The first scene repeats itself, with the satan presenting himself to Yahweh alongside the other "sons of God". Yahweh points out Job's continued faithfulness, to which
18795-519: The eighteenth century associated ha-Satan with Baal Davar . Each modern sect of Judaism has its own interpretation of Satan's identity. Conservative Judaism generally rejects the Talmudic interpretation of Satan as a metaphor for the yetzer hara , and regards him as a literal agent of God. Orthodox Judaism , on the other hand, outwardly embraces Talmudic teachings on Satan, and involves Satan in religious life far more inclusively than other sects. Satan
18974-464: The eldest surviving son. Although no attendance records for the period survive, most biographers agree that Shakespeare was probably educated at the King's New School in Stratford, a free school chartered in 1553, about a quarter-mile (400 m) from his home. Grammar schools varied in quality during the Elizabethan era, but grammar school curricula were largely similar: the basic Latin text
19153-608: The end of time. The Book of Jubilees , written in around 150 BC, retells the story of the Watchers' defeat, but, in deviation from the Book of Enoch, Mastema , the "Chief of Spirits", intervenes before all of their demon offspring are sealed away, requesting for Yahweh to let him keep some of them to become his workers. Yahweh acquiesces to this request and Mastema uses them to tempt humans into committing more sins, so that he may punish them for their wickedness. Later, Mastema induces Yahweh to test Abraham by ordering him to sacrifice Isaac . The Second Book of Enoch , also called
19332-415: The equally romantic The Merchant of Venice , contains a portrayal of the vengeful Jewish moneylender Shylock , which reflects dominant Elizabethan views but may appear derogatory to modern audiences. The wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing , the charming rural setting of As You Like It , and the lively merrymaking of Twelfth Night complete Shakespeare's sequence of great comedies. After
19511-471: The events described in Zechariah 3:1–2 . The classical theologian Origen attributes this reference to the non-canonical Assumption of Moses . According to James H. Charlesworth , there is no evidence the surviving book of this name ever contained any such content. Others believe it to be in the lost ending of the book. The second chapter of the pseudepigraphical Second Epistle of Peter copies much of
19690-665: The famous Richard Burbage , William Kempe , Henry Condell and John Heminges . Burbage played the leading role in the first performances of many of Shakespeare's plays, including Richard III , Hamlet , Othello , and King Lear . The popular comic actor Will Kempe played the servant Peter in Romeo and Juliet and Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing , among other characters. He was replaced around 1600 by Robert Armin , who played roles such as Touchstone in As You Like It and
19869-466: The famous romantic tragedy of sexually charged adolescence, love, and death; and Julius Caesar —based on Sir Thomas North 's 1579 translation of Plutarch 's Parallel Lives —which introduced a new kind of drama. According to Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro , in Julius Caesar , "the various strands of politics, character, inwardness, contemporary events, even Shakespeare's own reflections on
20048-544: The feet of Aha bar Jacob for having taught his students that his objectionable actions are done only to serve the intents of God. Rabbinical scholarship on the Book of Job generally follows the Talmud and Maimonides in identifying "the satan" from the prologue as a metaphor for the yetzer hara and not an actual entity. Satan is rarely mentioned in Tannaitic literature, but is found in Babylonian aggadah . According to
20227-926: The fifth act is a turning point in the play, and her line "Out, damned spot!" has become a phrase familiar to many speakers of the English language . The report of her death late in the fifth act provides the inspiration for Macbeth's " Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow " speech. The role has attracted countless notable actresses over the centuries, including Sarah Siddons , Charlotte Melmoth , Helen Faucit , Ellen Terry , Jeanette Nolan , Vivien Leigh , Isuzu Yamada , Simone Signoret , Vivien Merchant , Glenda Jackson , Francesca Annis , Judith Anderson , Judi Dench , Renee O'Connor , Helen McCrory , Keeley Hawes , Alex Kingston , Reshmi Sen, Marion Cotillard , Hannah Taylor-Gordon , Frances McDormand , Tabu , Ruth Negga , Saoirse Ronan and Valene Kane . Stephanie Chamberlain in her article "Fantasizing Infanticide: Lady Macbeth and
20406-456: The first part of Henry IV , Leonard Digges recording, "Let but Falstaff come, Hal, Poins, the rest ... and you scarce shall have a room". When the company found themselves in dispute with their landlord, they pulled The Theatre down and used the timbers to construct the Globe Theatre , the first playhouse built by actors for actors, on the south bank of the Thames at Southwark . The Globe opened in autumn 1599, with Julius Caesar one of
20585-634: The first plays staged. Most of Shakespeare's greatest post-1599 plays were written for the Globe, including Hamlet , Othello, and King Lear . After the Lord Chamberlain's Men were renamed the King's Men in 1603, they entered a special relationship with the new King James . Although the performance records are patchy, the King's Men performed seven of Shakespeare's plays at court between 1 November 1604, and 31 October 1605, including two performances of The Merchant of Venice . After 1608, they performed at
20764-472: The fool in King Lear . In 1613, Sir Henry Wotton recorded that Henry VIII "was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and ceremony". On 29 June, however, a cannon set fire to the thatch of the Globe and burned the theatre to the ground, an event which pinpoints the date of a Shakespeare play with rare precision. In 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell , two of Shakespeare's friends from
20943-433: The foot of the dedication page; nor is it known who Mr. W.H. was, despite numerous theories, or whether Shakespeare even authorised the publication. Critics praise the Sonnets as a profound meditation on the nature of love, sexual passion, procreation, death, and time. Shakespeare's first plays were written in the conventional style of the day. He wrote them in a stylised language that does not always spring naturally from
21122-422: The future. She proves herself a defiant, empowered nonconformist, and an explicit threat to a patriarchal system of governance in that, through challenging his masculinity, she manipulates Macbeth into murdering King Duncan. Despite the fact that she calls him a coward, Macbeth remains reluctant, until she asks: "What beast was't, then, that made you break this enterprise to me? / When you durst do it, then you were
21301-490: The indoor Blackfriars Theatre during the winter and the Globe during the summer. The indoor setting, combined with the Jacobean fashion for lavishly staged masques , allowed Shakespeare to introduce more elaborate stage devices. In Cymbeline , for example, Jupiter descends "in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle: he throws a thunderbolt. The ghosts fall on their knees." The actors in Shakespeare's company included
21480-503: The kingdoms of the earth implies that all those kingdoms belong to him. The fact that Jesus does not dispute Satan's promise indicates that the authors of those gospels believed this to be true. Satan plays a role in some of the parables of Jesus , namely the Parable of the Sower , the Parable of the Weeds , Parable of the Sheep and the Goats , and the Parable of the Strong Man . According to
21659-424: The last phase of his career, Shakespeare adopted many techniques to achieve these effects. These included run-on lines , irregular pauses and stops, and extreme variations in sentence structure and length. In Macbeth , for example, the language darts from one unrelated metaphor or simile to another: "was the hope drunk/ Wherein you dressed yourself?" (1.7.35–38); "... pity, like a naked new-born babe/ Striding
21838-426: The last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances ) such as The Winter's Tale and The Tempest , and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell , two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more definitive text known as
22017-451: The later plays, however. In Shakespeare's late romances , he deliberately returned to a more artificial style, which emphasised the illusion of theatre. Satan Satan , also known as the Devil ( cf. a devil ), is an entity in Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin (or falsehood). In Judaism , Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God , typically regarded as
22196-544: The letter to the church of Pergamum , John warns that Satan lives among the members of the congregation and declares that "Satan's throne" is in their midst. Pergamum was the capital of the Roman Province of Asia and "Satan's throne" may be referring to the monumental Pergamon Altar in the city, which was dedicated to the Greek god Zeus , or to a temple dedicated to the Roman emperor Augustus . Revelation 12:3 describes
22375-516: The lot of Satan remains in question, those who followed him will be thrown into the fires of Jahannam. After his banishment from Paradise, Iblis, who thereafter became known as Al-Shaitan ("the Demon"), lured Adam and Eve into eating the forbidden fruit . The primary characteristic of Satan, aside from his hubris and despair , is his ability to cast evil suggestions ( waswās ) into men and women. 15:45 states that Satan has no influence over
22554-501: The lyrical Richard II , written almost entirely in verse, Shakespeare introduced prose comedy into the histories of the late 1590s, Henry IV, Part 1 and 2 , and Henry V . Henry IV features Falstaff , rogue, wit and friend of Prince Hal. His characters become more complex and tender as he switches deftly between comic and serious scenes, prose and poetry, and achieves the narrative variety of his mature work. This period begins and ends with two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet ,
22733-473: The marriage. The ceremony may have been arranged in some haste since the Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read once instead of the usual three times, and six months after the marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter, Susanna , baptised 26 May 1583. Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith , followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at
22912-485: The medieval conception of Satan as "more pathetic and repulsive than terrifying" and he was seen as little more than a nuisance to God's overarching plan. The Golden Legend , a collection of saints' lives compiled in around 1260 by the Dominican Friar Jacobus de Voragine , contains numerous stories about encounters between saints and Satan, in which Satan is constantly duped by the saints' cleverness and by
23091-426: The mid-1580s to just before Greene's remarks. After 1594, Shakespeare's plays were performed at The Theatre , in Shoreditch , only by the Lord Chamberlain's Men , a company owned by a group of players, including Shakespeare, that soon became the leading playing company in London. After the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, the company was awarded a royal patent by the new King James I , and changed its name to
23270-428: The movies from what they know from various ecclesiastical and theological traditions". The Catholic Church generally played down Satan and exorcism during late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, but Pope Francis brought renewed focus on the Devil in the early 2010s, stating, among many other pronouncements, that "The devil is intelligent, he knows more theology than all the theologians together." According to
23449-433: The mutines in the bilboes. Rashly— And prais'd be rashness for it—let us know Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well ... After Hamlet , Shakespeare varied his poetic style further, particularly in the more emotional passages of the late tragedies. The literary critic A. C. Bradley described this style as "more concentrated, rapid, varied, and, in construction, less regular, not seldom twisted or elliptical". In
23628-463: The name Satan three times. In John 8:44 , Jesus says that his Jewish or Judean enemies are the children of the Devil rather than the children of Abraham. The same verse describes the Devil as "a man-killer from the beginning" and "a liar and the father of lying." John 13:2 describes the Devil as inspiring Judas to betray Jesus and John 12:31–32 identifies Satan as "the Archon of this Cosmos", who
23807-651: The nation of Judah and its sins, on trial with Yahweh as the judge and the satan standing as the prosecutor . Yahweh rebukes the satan and orders for Joshua to be given clean clothes, representing Yahweh's forgiveness of Judah's sins. During the Second Temple Period , when Jews were living in the Achaemenid Empire , Judaism was heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism , the religion of the Achaemenids. Jewish conceptions of Satan were impacted by Angra Mainyu ,
23986-531: The needs of the characters or the drama. The poetry depends on extended, sometimes elaborate metaphors and conceits, and the language is often rhetorical—written for actors to declaim rather than speak. The grand speeches in Titus Andronicus , in the view of some critics, often hold up the action, for example; and the verse in The Two Gentlemen of Verona has been described as stilted. "And pity, like
24165-548: The old king commits the tragic error of giving up his powers, initiating the events which lead to the torture and blinding of the Earl of Gloucester and the murder of Lear's youngest daughter, Cordelia . According to the critic Frank Kermode , "the play...offers neither its good characters nor its audience any relief from its cruelty". In Macbeth , the shortest and most compressed of Shakespeare's tragedies, uncontrollable ambition incites Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth , to murder
24344-509: The original myths to which they refer, concluded in his treatise On the First Principles , which is preserved in a Latin translation by Tyrannius Rufinus , that neither of these verses could literally refer to a human being. He concluded that Isaiah 14:12 is an allegory for Satan and that Ezekiel 28:12–15 is an allusion to "a certain Angel who had received the office of governing the nation of
24523-526: The people that were placed in their hands. Lady Macbeth then personifies all mothers of early modern England who were condemned for Lady Macbeth's fantasy of infanticide . Lady Macbeth's fantasy, Chamberlain argues, is not struggling to be a man, but rather struggling with the condemnation of being a bad mother that was common during that time. Jenijoy La Belle takes a slightly different view in her article, "A Strange Infirmity: Lady Macbeth’s Amenorrhea ". La Belle states that Lady Macbeth does not wish for just
24702-408: The performance of Henry VIII on 29 June. Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, at the age of 52. He died within a month of signing his will, a document which he begins by describing himself as being in "perfect health". No extant contemporary source explains how or why he died. Half a century later, John Ward , the vicar of Stratford, wrote in his notebook: "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had
24881-463: The period typically collaborated with others at some point, as critics agree Shakespeare did, mostly early and late in his career. The first recorded works of Shakespeare are Richard III and the three parts of Henry VI , written in the early 1590s during a vogue for historical drama . Shakespeare's plays are difficult to date precisely, however, and studies of the texts suggest that Titus Andronicus , The Comedy of Errors , The Taming of
25060-463: The plague (a total of over 60 months closure between May 1603 and February 1610), which meant there was often no acting work. Retirement from all work was uncommon at that time. Shakespeare continued to visit London during the years 1611–1614. In 1612, he was called as a witness in Bellott v Mountjoy , a court case concerning the marriage settlement of Mountjoy's daughter, Mary. In March 1613, he bought
25239-434: The plaudits of critics for "its amazing grasp of language". It was deemed "a feat" and a must-see for fans of Shakespeare. The dramatist Gloria Carreño describes events from the murder of "Lord Gillecomgain", Gruoch Macduff's first husband, to the fateful letter in the first act of Shakespeare's tragedy. Alex Kingston starred as Lady Macbeth opposite Kenneth Branagh in his and Rob Ashford 's adaption of Macbeth . The play
25418-496: The power of God. Henry Ansgar Kelly remarks that Satan "comes across as the opposite of fearsome". The Golden Legend was the most popular book during the High and Late Middle Ages and more manuscripts of it have survived from the period than for any other book, including even the Bible itself. The Canon Episcopi , written in the eleventh century AD, condemns belief in witchcraft as heretical, but also documents that many people at
25597-478: The pre-1623 versions as " bad quartos " because of their adapted, paraphrased or garbled texts, which may in places have been reconstructed from memory. Where several versions of a play survive, each differs from the others . The differences may stem from copying or printing errors, from notes by actors or audience members, or from Shakespeare's own papers . In some cases, for example, Hamlet , Troilus and Cressida, and Othello , Shakespeare could have revised
25776-452: The published collection follows Shakespeare's intended sequence. He seems to have planned two contrasting series: one about uncontrollable lust for a married woman of dark complexion (the "dark lady"), and one about conflicted love for a fair young man (the "fair youth"). It remains unclear if these figures represent real individuals, or if the authorial "I" who addresses them represents Shakespeare himself, though Wordsworth believed that with
25955-689: The righteous, but is defeated with fire from Heaven, and cast into the lake of fire . Some Christians associate Satan with the number 666 , which Revelation 13:18 describes as the Number of the Beast . However, the beast mentioned in Revelation 13 is not Satan, and the use of 666 in the Book of Revelation has been interpreted as a reference to the Roman Emperor Nero , as 666 is the numeric value of his name in Hebrew. Christians have traditionally interpreted
26134-408: The righteous, but that those who fall in error are under his power. 7:156 implies that those who obey God's laws are immune to the temptations of Satan. 56:79 warns that Satan tries to keep Muslims from reading the Quran and 16:98–100 recommends reciting the Quran as an antidote against Satan. 35:6 refers to Satan as the enemy of humanity and 36:60 forbids humans from worshipping him. In
26313-466: The rightful king and usurp the throne until their own guilt destroys them in turn. In this play, Shakespeare adds a supernatural element to the tragic structure. His last major tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus , contain some of Shakespeare's finest poetry and were considered his most successful tragedies by the poet and critic T. S. Eliot . Eliot wrote, "Shakespeare acquired more essential history from Plutarch than most men could from
26492-420: The sages' teachings, he is generally identified as an entity with divine agency. For instance, the sages considered Satan to be an angel of death (later given the name " Samael "), as God prohibiting Satan from killing Job would imply he would otherwise be able to do so, yet despite this syncretization with a known heavenly body, Satan is identified as the yetzer hara in the very same passage. Satan's status as
26671-471: The satan insists that more testing is necessary; Yahweh once again gives him permission to test Job. In the end, Job remains faithful and righteous, and it is implied that the satan is shamed in his defeat. Zechariah 3:1–7 contains a description of a vision dated to the middle of February of 519 BC, in which an angel shows Zechariah a scene of Joshua the High Priest dressed in filthy rags, representing
26850-475: The sexual advances of Venus ; while in The Rape of Lucrece , the virtuous wife Lucrece is raped by the lustful Tarquin . Influenced by Ovid 's Metamorphoses , the poems show the guilt and moral confusion that result from uncontrolled lust. Both proved popular and were often reprinted during Shakespeare's lifetime. A third narrative poem, A Lover's Complaint , in which a young woman laments her seduction by
27029-417: The sonnets "Shakespeare unlocked his heart". Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate ... —Opening lines from Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 . The 1609 edition was dedicated to a "Mr. W.H.", credited as "the only begetter" of the poems. It is not known whether this was written by Shakespeare himself or by the publisher, Thomas Thorpe , whose initials appear at
27208-489: The stone slab covering his grave includes a curse against moving his bones, which was carefully avoided during restoration of the church in 2008: Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare, To digg the dvst encloased heare. Bleste be yͤ man yͭ spares thes stones, And cvrst be he yͭ moves my bones. Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear, To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones. Some time before 1623,
27387-411: The suckling babe with boneless gums whose brains Lady Macbeth would dash out (1.7.57–58) to argue that Lady Macbeth represents the ultimate anti-mother: not only would she smash in a baby's brains but she would go even further to stop her means of procreation altogether. Some literary critics and historians argue that not only does Lady Macbeth represent an anti-mother figure in general, she also embodies
27566-461: The supernatural ruler of the Roman Empire and the ultimate cause of all evil in the world. In Revelation 2:9–10 , as part of the letter to the church at Smyrna , John of Patmos refers to the Jews of Smyrna as "a synagogue of Satan " and warns that "the Devil is about to cast some of you into prison as a test [ peirasmos ], and for ten days you will have affliction." In Revelation 2:13–14 , in
27745-654: The texts between the quarto and folio editions. In the case of King Lear , however, while most modern editions do conflate them, the 1623 folio version is so different from the 1608 quarto that the Oxford Shakespeare prints them both, arguing that they cannot be conflated without confusion. In 1593 and 1594, when the theatres were closed because of plague , Shakespeare published two narrative poems on sexual themes, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece . He dedicated them to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton . In Venus and Adonis , an innocent Adonis rejects
27924-733: The third day of the Hajj , Muslim pilgrims to Mecca throw seven stones at a pillar known as the Jamrah al-’Aqabah , symbolizing the stoning of the Devil . This ritual is based on the Islamic tradition that, when God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael , Satan tempted him three times not to do it, and, each time, Abraham responded by throwing seven stones at him. The hadith teach that newborn babies cry because Satan touches them while they are being born, and that this touch causes people to have an aptitude for sin. This doctrine bears some similarities to
28103-435: The time apparently believed in it. Witches were believed to fly through the air on broomsticks , consort with demons, perform in " lurid sexual rituals " in the forests, murder human infants and eat them as part of Satanic rites, and engage in conjugal relations with demons. In 1326, Pope John XXII issued the papal bull Super illius Specula , which condemned folk divination practices as consultation with Satan. By
28282-565: The time of the Second Great Awakening , Satan's primary role in American evangelicalism was as the opponent of the evangelical movement itself, who spent most of his time trying to hinder the ministries of evangelical preachers, a role he has largely retained among present-day American fundamentalists . By the early 1600s, skeptics in Europe, including the English author Reginald Scot and
28461-460: The traditional story known as the Satanic Verses as true. According to this narrative, Muhammad was told by Satan to add words to the Quran which would allow Muslims to pray for the intercession of pagan goddesses. He mistook the words of Satan for divine inspiration . Modern Muslims almost universally reject this story as heretical, as it calls the integrity of the Quran into question. On
28640-890: The unnamed serpent in the Garden of Eden as Satan due to Revelation 12:7 , which calls Satan "that ancient serpent". This verse, however, is probably intended to identify Satan with the Leviathan , a monstrous sea-serpent whose destruction by Yahweh is prophesied in Isaiah 27:1 . The first recorded individual to identify Satan with the serpent from the Garden of Eden was the second-century AD Christian apologist Justin Martyr , in chapters 45 and 79 of his Dialogue with Trypho . Other early church fathers to mention this identification include Theophilus and Tertullian . The early Christian Church, however, encountered opposition from pagans such as Celsus , who claimed in his treatise The True Word that "it
28819-415: The walls of the heavenly city, but was vanquished by the god of the sun . The name is used in Isaiah 14:12 in metaphorical reference to the king of Babylon. Ezekiel 28:12–15 uses a description of a cherub in Eden as a polemic against Ithobaal II , the king of Tyre. The Church Father Origen of Alexandria ( c. 184 – c. 253), who was only aware of the actual text of these passages and not
28998-504: The whole British Museum ." In his final period, Shakespeare turned to romance or tragicomedy and completed three more major plays: Cymbeline , The Winter's Tale , and The Tempest , as well as the collaboration, Pericles, Prince of Tyre . Less bleak than the tragedies, these four plays are graver in tone than the comedies of the 1590s, but they end with reconciliation and the forgiveness of potentially tragic errors. Some commentators have seen this change in mood as evidence of
29177-615: The witch as an empowered woman. Levin summarises the claim of feminist historians like Hester: the witch should be a figure celebrated for her nonconformity, defiance, and general sense of empowerment; witches challenged patriarchal authority and hierarchy, specifically "threatening hegemonic sex/gender systems". This view associates witchcraft – and by extension, Lady Macbeth – not with villainy and evil, but with heroism. Literary scholar Jenijoy La Belle assesses Lady Macbeth's femininity and sexuality as they relate to motherhood as well as witchhood. The fact that she conjures spirits likens her to
29356-410: The word Satan is Shaitan (شيطان, from the triliteral root š-ṭ-n شطن). The word itself is an adjective (meaning "astray" or "distant", sometimes translated as "devil") that can be applied to both man ("al-ins", الإنس) and al-jinn (الجن), but it is also used in reference to Satan in particular. In the Quran , Satan's name is Iblis ( Arabic pronunciation: [ˈibliːs] ), probably
29535-445: The word satan lacking the article ha- as it is used in the Tanakh as referring strictly to human adversaries. Nonetheless, the word satan has occasionally been metaphorically applied to evil influences, such as the Jewish exegesis of the yetzer hara ("evil inclination") mentioned in Genesis 6:5. The Talmudic image of Satan is contradictory. While Satan's identification with the abstract yetzer hara remains uniform over
29714-462: The word "satan" in the Hebrew Bible in reference to a supernatural figure comes from Numbers 22:22, which describes the Angel of Yahweh confronting Balaam on his donkey: "Balaam's departure aroused the wrath of Elohim , and the Angel of Yahweh stood in the road as a satan against him." In 2 Samuel 24, Yahweh sends the "Angel of Yahweh" to inflict a plague against Israel for three days, killing 70,000 people as punishment for David having taken
29893-429: The works attributed to him were written by others . Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet , Othello , King Lear and Macbeth , all considered to be among the finest works in English. In
30072-459: The works of other Elizabethan dramatists, especially Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe , by the traditions of medieval drama, and by the plays of Seneca . The Comedy of Errors was also based on classical models, but no source for The Taming of the Shrew has been found, though it has an identical plot but different wording as another play with a similar name. Like The Two Gentlemen of Verona , in which two friends appear to approve of rape,
30251-500: The world, but originally the culprit was recognized as Cain. The name Samael , which is used in reference to one of the fallen angels , later became a common name for Satan in Jewish Midrash and Kabbalah . Most Jews do not believe in the existence of a supernatural omnimalevolent figure. Traditionalists and philosophers in medieval Judaism adhered to rational theology , rejecting any belief in rebel or fallen angels, and viewing evil as abstract. The rabbis usually interpreted
30430-455: Was Darkness." The later Church Father Jerome ( c. 347 – 420), translator of the Latin Vulgate , accepted Origen's theory of Satan as a fallen angel and wrote about it in his commentary on the Book of Isaiah. In Christian tradition ever since, both Isaiah 14:12 and Ezekiel 28:12–15 have been understood as allegorically referring to Satan. For most Christians, Satan has been regarded as an angel who rebelled against God . According to
30609-458: Was first performed at the Manchester Festival in 2013 and then transferred to New York for a limited engagement in 2014. Marion Cotillard played the character in Justin Kurzel 's film adaptation opposite Michael Fassbender as Macbeth. Frances McDormand played the character in The Tragedy of Macbeth opposite Denzel Washington as Macbeth directed by her husband Joel Coen , the first film directed without his brother Ethan Coen . In
30788-424: Was made from fire, whereas Adam was made from clay ( 7:12 ). Consequently, God expelled him from Paradise and condemned him to Jahannam . Iblis thereafter became a kafir , "an ungrateful disbeliever", whose sole mission is to lead humanity astray. (Q 17:62 ) God allows Iblis to do this, because he knows that the righteous will be able to resist Iblis's attempts to misguide them. On Judgement Day , while
30967-491: Was nearing its end. The First Folio of 1623, however, lists Shakespeare as one of "the Principal Actors in all these Plays", some of which were first staged after Volpone , although one cannot know for certain which roles he played. In 1610, John Davies of Hereford wrote that "good Will" played "kingly" roles. In 1709, Rowe passed down a tradition that Shakespeare played the ghost of Hamlet's father. Later traditions maintain that he also played Adam in As You Like It , and
31146-429: Was one of the earthly jinn, who was taken captive by the angels and brought to Heaven as a prisoner. God appointed him as judge over the other jinn and he became known as Al-Hakam . He fulfilled his duty for a thousand years before growing negligent, but was rehabilitated again and resumed his position until his refusal to bow before Adam. During the first two centuries of Islam, Muslims almost unanimously accepted
31325-474: Was probably entitled to one-third of his estate automatically. He did make a point, however, of leaving her "my second best bed", a bequest that has led to much speculation. Some scholars see the bequest as an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that the second-best bed would have been the matrimonial bed and therefore rich in significance. Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church two days after his death. The epitaph carved into
31504-476: Was rooted in the work of Satan. In the mid-sixteenth century, the panic spread to England and Switzerland. Both Protestants and Catholics alike firmly believed in witchcraft as a real phenomenon and supported its prosecution. In the late 1500s, the Dutch demonologist Johann Weyer argued in his treatise De praestigiis daemonum that witchcraft did not exist, but that Satan promoted belief in it to lead Christians astray. The panic over witchcraft intensified in
31683-411: Was standardised by royal decree, and the school would have provided an intensive education in grammar based upon Latin classical authors. At the age of 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway . The consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next day, two of Hathaway's neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded
31862-483: Was still working as an actor in London in 1608; in an answer to the sharers' petition in 1635, Cuthbert Burbage stated that after purchasing the lease of the Blackfriars Theatre in 1608 from Henry Evans , the King's Men "placed men players" there, "which were Heminges , Condell , Shakespeare, etc.". However, it is perhaps relevant that the bubonic plague raged in London throughout 1609. The London public playhouses were repeatedly closed during extended outbreaks of
32041-426: Was through this pact that Cain became a Master Mahan . The Book of Moses also says that Moses was tempted by Satan before calling upon the name of the " Only Begotten ", which caused Satan to depart. Douglas Davies asserts that this text "reflects" the temptation of Jesus in the Bible. Belief in Satan and demonic possession remains strong among Christians in the United States and Latin America . According to
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