And since you know you cannot see yourself
So well as by reflection, I, your glass,
Will modestly discover to yourself
That of yourself which you yet know not of.*

Shakespeare was the most famous author in the history of Western civilization.He wrote a huge amount of plays: some tragic, some comic and some biographical. He was known as a great lyrical poet. His canon includes 38 plays, 154 sonnets, and two epic narrative poems. The First Folio was published in 1623 by John Henninges and Henry Condell, two cooperators of Shakespeare´s acting company. Since then, Shakespeare´s works have been studied, analysed and enjoyed by many people up to now. His masterful use of language makes him the most studied English writer.

In his plays he offers a deep insight into human behavior through his characterizations. Shakespeare´s occupation expresses the deepest level of human motivation in relation to individual, social and universal situations. It has been reputed as one of the most astounding accomplishments of the human intellect.

Shakespeare´s plays generally fall into four categories:

(1) Pre -1594 ( Richard III, The Comedy of Errors )
(2) 1594 - 1600 ( Henry IV, Midsummer Night´s Dream )
(3) 1600 - 1608 ( Macbeth, King Lear )
(4) Post - 1608 ( Cymbeline, The Tempest )

The first period has its roots in Roman and medieval drama. The construction of the plays shows the author´s talent more than in later works. Christopher Marlowe had an influential effect on the earliest Shakespeare. His writing inspired Shakespeare in the beginning of his career.

The second period shows more growth in style, the constructions become less elaborated. The histories of this period are Shakespeare´s best, portraying the lives of kings and royalty in most human terms. He also begins to combine comedy and tragedy which becomes part of his stylistic signature. His comedies ripen in this period as well, displaying more character in their subjects than in previous works.

The third period marks the great tragedies, and the principal works from which Shakespeare was to earn his fame in later centuries. His tragic figures resemble those of Sophocles, and might well have walked off the Greek stage straight onto the Elizabethan. Shakespeare talent was at his best in these tragedies. The comedies of this period show Shakespeare moody and without the clear comic resolution of previous comedies ( "problem plays" ).

The fourth period includes romantic tragicomedy. Shakespeare´s writing is more serious yet more lyrical, and the plays show him at his most symbolic. It is argued between scholars whether this period owed more to Shakespeare´s maturity as a playwright or merely signified a changing trend in Elizabethan theatre at the time.

Four plays dramatize the English civil strife of the 15th century. These are probably Shakespeare´s earliest dramatic works.Chronicle history plays were a popular genre of the time. These plays, Henry VI, Parts I, II, III (1590? - 1592?) and Richard III (1593?), deal with the death of Richard III and the ascent to the throne of Henry III, the founder of the Tudor dynasty, to which Elizabeth belonged.

In style and structure, these plays applied partly to medieval drama and partly to the works of earlier Elizabethan dramatists, especially Christopher Marlowe. The influence of the classical Roman dramatist Seneca is also reflected in the structure of these four plays, in the bloodiness of many scenes, and in their highly coloured, bombastic language. Senecan influence, exerted by the earlier English dramatist Thomas Kyd, is particularly striking in "Titus Andronicus" (1594?), a tragedy of righteous revenge for detestable and bloody acts, which are shown in detail.

Shakespeare´s comedies of the first period represent a wide range. "The Comedy of Errors" (1592?), a hilarious farce in imitation of classical Roman comedy, depends for its appeal on mistakes in identifying two sets of twins involved in romance and war. Farce is not so strongly emphasized in "The Taming of the Shrew" (1593?), a comedy of character. "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" (1594?) depends on the appeal of romantic love. In contrast, "Love´s Labour´s Lost" (1594?) satirizes the loves of its main male characters as well as the fashionable devotion to studious pursuits by which these men had first tried to avoid romantic and worldly ensnarement.

Shakespeare´s second period contains his most important plays concerned with English history, his so-called "joyous comedies", and two major tragedies. In this period, his style and method became individualized. The second-period historical plays include "Richard II" (1595?), "Henry IV", Parts I, II, III (1597?) and "Henry V" (1598?). They cover the space of time right before that of the Henry IV plays.

"Richard II" is a study of a weak, sensitive, self-dramatizing, but sympathetic monarch who loses his kingdom to his powerful successor Henry IV. In the two parts of "Henry IV", Henry recognizes his own guilt. His fears for his own son, later Henry V, prove unfounded, as the young prince demonstrates an essentially responsible attitude toward the obligations of monarchy. In a change of masterful comic and serious scenes, the fat knight Falstaff and the rebel Hotspur show contrasting excesses between which the prince finds his proper position. The mixture of the tragic and the comic to suggest a broad range of humanity became one of Shakespeare´s favourite devices.

Superior among the comedies of the second period is "A Midsummer Night´s Dream" (1595?). Its fantasy-filled light-heartedness is achieved by the connection of several plots involving two pairs of noble lovers, a group of confusing and unconsciously comic townspeople and members of the fairy kingdom, notably Puck, King Oberon and Queen Titania. Subtle evocation of atmosphere, of the sort that characterizes this play, is found also in the tragicomedy "The Merchant of Venice" (1596?). The Renaissance motifs of masculine friendship and romantic love in this play are portrayed in opposition to the bitter inhumanity of a usurer named Shylock, whose own misfortunes are nevertheless presented in a way that arouses understanding and sympathy.

The witty comedy "Much Ado About Nothing" (1599?) is damaged, in the opinion of some critics, by an insensitive treatment of its female characters. Shakespeare´s most mature comedies, "As You Like It" (1599?) and "Twelfth Night" (1600?), are characterized by lyricism, ambiguity and the attraction of beautiful, charming and strong-minded heroines like Beatrice. In "As You Like It", the contrast between the behaviour of  people at the Elizabethan court and those present in the English countryside is drawn in a rich, sweet and different style. Shakespeare constructed a complex pattern between different characters and between appearance and reality. He used this pattern to comment on a variety of human weaknesses. In that respect, "As You Like It" is similar to "Twelfth Night", in which the comical side of love is illustrated by the misadventures of two pairs of romantic lovers and of a number of realistically conceived and clowning characters in the subplot. Another comedy of the second period is "The Merry Wives of Windsor" (1599?); this play is a farce about middle-class life in which Falstaff reappears as the comic victim.

Two major tragedies, differing in nature, mark the beginning and the end of the second period. "Romeo and Juliet" (1595?), famous for its poetic treatment of the ecstasy of youthful love, dramatizes the fate of two lovers victimized by the feuds and misunderstandings of their parents and by their own hasty temperaments. On the other hand, "Julius Caesar" (1599?) is a serious tragedy of political rivalries, less intense in style than the tragic dramas that followed.

Shakespeare´s third period includes his greatest tragedies and his so-called dark comedies. The tragedies of this period are the most deep of his works and those in which his poetic rhetoric became an extremely supple dramatic instrument capable of recording the passage of human thought and the many dimensions of dramatic situations. "Hamlet" (1601?), his most famous play, pictures the mixed misery and glory of the human condition. Hamlet feels that he is living in a world of horror; confirmed in this feeling by the murder of his father and the sensuality of his mother, he presents a pattern of indecision and hasty action. The interpretation of his motivation and ambivalence continues to be the subject of considerable controversy.

"Othello" (1604?) portrays the growth of unjustified jealousy in the protagonist, Othello, a Moor serving as a general in the Venetian army. The innocent object of his jealousy is his wife, Desdemona. In this tragedy, Othello´s evil lieutenant Iago draws him into mistaken jealousy in order to ruin him.

"King Lear" (1605?), conceived on a more epic scale, deals with the consequences of the irresponsibility and misjudgment of Lear, a ruler of early Britain, and of his councillor, the duke of Gloucester. The tragic outcome is a result of giving power to their evil offspring, rather than to their good offspring. Lear´s daughter, Cordelia, dies in a tragic conclusion. This conclusion is intensified by the description of evil as self-defeating, exemplified by the fates of Cordelia´s sisters and of the duke´s opportunistic son.
"Antony and Cleopatra" (1606?) is concerned with a different type of love, the middle-aged passion of the Roman general Mark Antony for the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. Their love is glorified by some of the most sensuous poetry written by Shakespeare.

In "Macbeth" (1606?), Shakespeare describes the tragedy of a great and basically good man who, led on by others and because of a defect in his own nature, loses to ambition. In getting and keeping the Scottish throne, Macbeth weakens his humanity to the point where he becomes capable of any amoral act.

Three other plays of this period suggest a bitterness lacking in these tragedies because the protagonists do not seem to possess greatness or tragic stature. In "Troilus and Cressida" (1602?), the most intellectual one of Shakespeare´s plays, the distance between the ideal and the real, both individually and politically, is evoked in a clever way. In "Coriolanus" (1608?), another tragedy taking place in antiquity, the legendary Roman hero Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus is portrayed as unable to bring himself to either court the Roman masses or to crush them by force.

"Timon of Athens" (1608?) is a similarly bitter play about a character reduced to misanthropy by the ungratefulness of people for his flattery. Because of the uneven quality of this writing, this tragedy is considered a collaboration, quite possibly with Thomas Middleton.

The two comedies of this period are also dark in mood. These plays are sometimes called "problem plays" because they do not fit into clear categories or present easy outcomes. "All´s Well That Ends Well" (1602?) and "Measure for Measure" (1604?) are both plays that do not offer the comfort of solutions.

The forth period of Shakespeare´s work includes his romantic tragicomedies. Toward the end of his career, Shakespeare created several plays that are written with a grave quality differing considerably from his earlier comedies, but they end happily with a reunion or final reconciliation. The tragicomedies seem more obviously symbolic than most of his earlier works.

The romantic tragicomedy "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" (1608?) concerns the title character´s painful loss of his wife and the persecution of his daughter. After many exotic adventures, Pericles is reunited with his loved ones. In "Cymbeline" (1610?) and "The Winter´s Tale" (1610?), characters suffer great loss and pain but are reunited. Perhaps the most successful product of this particular style of creativity, is what may be Shakespeare´s last complete play, "The Tempest" (1611?), in which the resolution suggests the beneficial effects of the union of wisdom and power. In this play, a duke, banished to an island, throws his usurping brother into confusion by employing magical powers and furthering a love match between his daughter and the usurper´s son. Shakespeare´s poetic power reached great heights in this beautiful, lyrical play. Two final plays are the products of collaboration. A historical drama, "Henry VIII" (1613?) was probably written with the English dramatist John Fletcher, as was "The Two Noble Kinsmen" (1613?; published 1634), a story of the love of two noble friends for one woman.

The publication of Shakespeare´s two fashionably erotic narrative poems "Venus" and "Adonius" (1593) and "The Rape of Lucrece" (1594) and of his "Sonnets" (published 1609, but already circulated before in manuscript) diffused his reputation as a talented and popular Renaissance poet. The sonnets describe the devotion of a character, often identified as the poet himself, to a young man whose beauty and virtue he praises and to a mysterious and faithless dark lady with whom the poet is infatuated. The following triangular situation, resulting in parts from the attraction of the poet´s friend to the dark lady, is treated with passionate intensity and psychological insight.

Shakespeare´s modern reputation is based mainly on the 38 plays that he apparently wrote, modified, or collaborated on. Although generally popular in his days, these plays were frequently little respected by his educated contemporaries, who considered English plays of their own day to be only vulgar entertainment. In 1623, Shakespeare´s first folio was published. The folio included 154 sonnets, 37 plays and two long poems. His friends collected all of his works into this folio before anyone could reproduce his plays and claim them as their own. An engraving of Shakespeare appears on the title page of the First Folio Edition of his complete dramatic works, published near the end of 1623. It is commonly known as the Droeshout Engraving, named for Martin Droeshout, the artist. This poem appears on the page facing the engraving:

To the Reader.
This Figure, that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the Graver had a strife
With Nature, to out-do the life:

O, could he but have drawne his wit
As well in brass, as he hath hit
His face, the Print would then surpass
All, that was ever writ in brass.

But, since he cannot, Reader, look
Not on his Picture, but his Book.

The following is a chronological listing of Shakespeare´s canon of plays and poetry

1588-93 - The Comedy of Errors
1588-92 - Henry VI (three parts)
1592-93 - Richard III
1592-94 - Titus Andronicus
1593-94 - The Taming of the Shrew
1593-94 - The two Gentlemen of Verona
1593-94 - " The Rape of Lucrece"
1593-1600 - "Sonnets"
1588-95 - Love´s Labor´s Lost
1594-96 - Romeo and Juliette
1595 - Richard II
1594-96 - A Midsummer Night´s Dream
1590-97 - King John
1592 - "Venus and Adonis"
1596-97 - The Merchant of Venice
1597 - Henry IV ( Part I )
1597-98 - Henry IV ( Part II )
1598-1600 - Much Ado About Nothing
1598-99 - Henry V
1599 - Julius Caesar
1599-1600 - As You Like It
1600-02 - Twelfth Night
1600-01 - Hamlet
1597-1601 - The Merry Wives Of Windsor
1600-01 - " The Phoenix and the Turtle "
1601-02 - Troilus and Cressida
1602-04 - All´s Well That Ends Well
1603-04 - Othello
1604 - Measure for Measure
1604-09 - Timon of Athens
1605-06 - King Lear
1605-06 - Macbeth
1606-07 - Antony and Cleopatra
1607-09 - Coriolanus
1608-09 - Pericles
1609-10 - Cymbeline
1610-11 - The Winter´s Tale
1611 - The Tempest
1612-13 - Henry VII
1613 - The Two Noble Kinsmen