莎士比亚评价英文

There has been a great variety of critical approach to Shakespeare's work since his death. During the 17th and 18th cent., Shakespeare was both admired and condemned. Since then, much of the adverse criticism has not been considered relevant, although certain issues have continued to interest critics throughout the years. For instance, charges against his moral propriety were made by Samuel Johnson in the 18th cent. and by George Bernard Shaw in the 20th.Early criticism was directed primarily at questions of form. Shakespeare was criticized for mixing comedy and tragedy and failing to observe the unities of time and place prescribed by the rules of classical drama. Dryden and Johnson were among the critics claiming that he had corrupted the language with false wit, puns, and ambiguity. While some of his early plays might justly be charged with a frivolous use of such devices, 20th-century criticism has tended to praise their use in later plays as adding depth and resonance of meaning.Generally critics of the 17th and 18th cent. accused Shakespeare of a want of artistic restraint while praising him for a fecund imagination. Samuel Johnson, while agreeing with many earlier criticisms, defended Shakespeare on the question of classical rules. On the issue of unity of time and place he argued that no one considers the stage play to be real life anyway. Johnson inaugurated the criticism of Shakespeare's characters that reached its culmination in the late 19th cent. with the work of A. C. Bradley. The German critics Gotthold Lessing and Augustus Wilhelm von Schlegel saw Shakespeare as a romantic, different in type from the classical poets, but on equal footing. Schlegel first elucidated the structural unity of Shakespeare's plays, a concept of unity that is developed much more completely by the English poet and critic Samuel Coleridge.While Schlegel and Coleridge were establishing Shakespeare's plays as artistic, organic unities, such 19th-century critics as the German Georg Gervinus and the Irishman Edward Dowden were trying to see positive moral tendencies in the plays. The 19th-century English critic William Hazlitt, who continued the development of character analysis begun by Johnson, considered each Shakespearean character to be unique, but found a unity through analogy and gradation of characterization. While A. C. Bradley marks the culmination of romantic 19th-century character study, he also suggested that the plays had unifying imagistic atmospheres, an idea that was further developed in the 20th cent.The tendency in 20th-century criticism was to abandon both the study of character as independent personality and the assumption that moral considerations can be separated from their dramatic and aesthetic context. The plays were increasingly viewed in terms of the unity of image, metaphor, and tone. Caroline Spurgeon began the careful classification of Shakespeare's imagery, and although her attempts were later felt to be somewhat naive and morally biased, her work is a landmark in Shakespearean criticism. Other important trends in 20th-century criticism included the Freudian approach, such as Ernest Jones's Oedipal interpretation of Hamlet; the study of Shakespeare in terms of the Elizabethan world view and Elizabethan stage conventions; and the study of the plays in mythic terms.

In 1593 and 1594, he published two narrative poems(叙事诗), Venus and Adonis(维纳斯和安东尼斯) and The Rape of Lucrece(鲁克丽斯受辱记). Four period: First: The first period of Shakespeare's dramatic career was one of apprenticeship(学徒期). He wrote five history plays: Henry VI, Parts I, II, and III (亨利六世上，中，下), Richard III(理查三世), and Titus Andronicus(泰托斯.安东尼); and four comedies: The Comedy of Errors(错误的喜剧), The Two Gentlemen of Verona(维洛那二绅士), The Taming of the Shrew(训悍记), and Love's Labour's Lost(爱的徒劳). Second: In the second period, Shakespeare's style and approach became highly individualized. By constructing a complex pattern between different characters and between appearance and reality, Shakespeare made subtle comments on a variety of human foibles. In this period he wrote five histories: Richard II(理查二世), King John(约翰王), Henry IV, Parts I and II(亨利四世 上部和下部), and Henry V(亨利五世); six comedies: A Midsummer Night's Dream(仲夏夜之梦), The Merchant of Venice(威尼斯商人), Much Ado About Nothing(无事生非), As You Like It(皆大欢喜), Twelfth Night(第十二夜), and The Merry Wives of Windsor(温莎的风流娘们儿); and two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet(罗密欧与朱丽叶) and Julis Caesar(裘里斯.凯撒). Third: Shakespeare's third period includes his greatest tragedies and his so-called dark comedies. The tragedies of this period are Hamlet(哈姆雷特), Othello(奥赛罗), King Lear(李尔王), Macbeth(麦克白), Angony and Cleopatra(安东尼与克利奥佩特拉), Troilus and Cressida(克利奥拉纳斯), and Coriolanus(). The two comedies are All's Well That Ends Wells(终成眷属) and Measure for Measure(一报还一报). Last: The last period of Shakespeare's work includes his principal romantic tragicomedies(浪漫悲喜剧): Pericles(伯利克里), Cymbeline(辛白林), The Winter's Tale(冬天的故事) and The Tempest(暴风雨); and his two final plays: Henry VIII(亨利八世) and The Two Noble Kinsmen(两位贵族亲戚). Shakespeare's authentic non-dramatic poetry consist of two long narrative poems: Venus and Adonis(维纳斯和安东尼斯) and The Rape of Lucrece(鲁克丽斯受辱记), and his sequence of 154 sonnets. Shakespeare's sonnets are the only direct expression of the poet's own feelings. With three exceptions (99,126,154) Shakespeare writes his sonnets in the popular English form, first fully developed by Surrey, of three quatrains and a couplet(三节四行诗加一节偶句). Shakespeare's history plays are mainly written under the principle that national unity under a mighty and just sovereign is a necessity(在一个强大英明的君主统治下的国家，统一是非常必要的).The three history plays on the reign of Henry VI are the beginning of Shakespeare's epic treatment.The first and second parts of Henry IV are undoubtedly the most widely read among his history plays. It reveals a troubled reign in the 15th century. Shakespeare presents the patriotic spirit when mourning over the loss of English territories in France. He also dramatizes the class struggle between the oppressors and the oppressored during Jack Cade's rising of 1450. Furthermore, he condemns the War of the Roses waged by the feudal barons in which innocent people were killed. Here Shakespeare has liberated himself from any imitations of the contempory example . In his romantic comedies, Shakespeare takes an optimistic attitude toward love and youth, and the romantic elements are brought into full play.(在他的浪漫喜剧中，莎士比亚以乐观的态度对待爱情与青春，并将流浪色彩渲染到极致。)The most important play among the comedies is The Merchant of Venice, in which Shakespeare has created tension, ambiguity, a self-conscious and self-delighting artifice that is at once intellectually exciting and emotionally engaging. The sophistication derives in part from the play between high, outgoing romance and dark forces of negativity and hate. The traditional theme of the play is to praise the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio, to idealize Portia as a heroine of great beauty, wit and loyalty, and to expose the insatiable greed and brutality of the Jew. Many people today tend to regard the play as a satire of the Christians' hypocrisy and their false standards of friendship and love, their cunning ways of pursuing worldliness and their unreasoning prejudice against Jews. Compared with the idealism of other plays, The Merchant of Venice takes a step forward in its realistic presentation of human nature and human conflict. Though there is a ridiculous touch on the part of the characters restrained by their limitations, Shakespeare's youthful Renaissance spirit of jollity can be fully seen in contrast to the medieval emphasis on future life in the next world. The successful romantic tragedy is Romeo and Juliet, which eulogizes the faithfulness of love and the spirit of pursuing happiness. The play, though a tragedy, is permeated with optimistic spirit. Shakespeare's greatest tragedies are : Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. They have some characteristics in common. Each portrays some noble hero, who faces the injustice of human life and is caught in a difficult situation and whose fate is closely connected with the fate of the whole nation. Each hero has his weakness of nature. In the plays of Shakespeare's last period, there is a prevalent Christian teaching of atonement. Shakespeare seems to have entered an imagined pastoral world. Thus, he could achieve what he failed to in the real world, i.e. to right the wrongs and to realize his ideals. The Tempest, an elaborate and fantastic story, is known as the best of his final romances. The characters are rather allegorical and the subject full of suggestion. The humanly impossible events can be seen occurring everywhere in the play. The wild storm becomes magic, answering Prospero's every signal. The playwright resorts to the supernatural atmosphere and to the dreams to solve the conflict. The Tempest is a typical example of his pessimistic view towards human life and society in his late years. Shakespeare, as a humanist of the time, was shocked by the feudal tyranny and disunity and internal struggle for power at the court which led to civil wars. In his plays, he does not hesitate to describe the cruelty and anti-natural character of the civel wars, but he did not go all the way against the feudal rule. In his dramatic creation, especially in his histories or tragedies, he affirms the importance of the feudal system in order to uphold social order. "The King's government must be carried on" ---- but carried on for the good of the nation, not for the pleasure of the King. Shakespeare is against religious persecution and racial discrimination, against social inequality and the corrupting influence of gold and money. In King Lear, Shakespear has not only made a profound analysis of the social crisis in which the evils can be seen everywhere, but also criticized the bourgeois egoism. He has shown to us the two-fold effects, exerted by the feudalist corruption and the tourgeois egoism, which have gradually corroded the ordered society. On the other hand , there is also a limit to his sympathy for the downtrodden. He fears anarchy, hates rebellion and despises democracy. Thus, he finds no way to solve the social problems. In the end, the only thing he can do as a humanist is to escape from the reality to seek comfort in his dreams. Shakespeare has accepted the Renaissance views on literature. He holds that literature should be a combination of beauty, kindness and truth, and should reflect nature and reality. Based on this consideration, he has claimed through the mouth of Hamlet that the "end" of dramatic creation is to give faithful reflection of the social realities of the time. Shakespeare also states that literary works which have truly reflected nature and reality can reach immortality. From his sonnets, we can find quite a few examples in which Shakespeare sings the immortality of poetry. Shakespeare's major characters are neither merely individual ones nor type ones; they are individuals representing certain types. Each character has his or her own personalities; meanwhile, they may share features with others. By applying a psycho-analytical approach, Shakespeare succeeds in exploring the characters' inner mind.The soliloquies in his plays fully reveal the inner conflict of his charaters. Shakespeare also portrays his characters in pairs.Contrasts are frequently used to bring vividness to his characters. Shakespeare's plays are well-known for their adroit plot construction. Shakespeare seldom invents his own plots; instead, he borrows them from some old plays or storybooks, or from ancient Greek and Roman sources. In order to make the play more lively and compact, he would shorten the time and intensify the story. There are usually several threads running through the play, thus providing the story with suspense and apprehension. Irony is a good means of dramatic prsentation. It makes the characters who are ignorant of the truth do certain ridiculous things.There is so much fun that the audience are immediately amused. Disguise is also an important device to create dramatic irony, usually with woman disguised as man. Lastly, to understand Shakespeare, it is necessary to study the subtlest of his instruments----the language. Shakespeare can wirite skillfully in different poetic forms, like the sonnet, the blank verse, and the rhymed couplet. His blank verse is especially beautiful and mighty. He has an amazing wealth of vocabulary and idiom. He is known to have used 16,000 different words. His coinage of new words and distortion of the meaning of the old ones also create striking effects on the reader. Shakespeare is above all writers in the past and in the present time. by Williams Shakespear