William Shakespeare Research Paper

As we all know,William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is one of the most famous European Renaissance writers.He had created a lot of great works that almost everyone in the world knew them,especially his tragedies. (施康强，《戏剧人生：莎士比亚的一生》）What I want to write starts from William Shakespeare’s whole splendid life and his great achievements as well,and then my key point is to introduce the tragic fate of heroes in Shakespearean tragedies，to find out the similarities of the four heroes,what lead them to the same tragic endings toward life, and the social background of European Renaissance.

I.Introduction

A. A brief introduction of William Shakespeare's life

William Shakespeare was born in a small town to the northwest of London in1954.His father was a

However,because Othello was black, they had to fight against the disagreement of Desdemona‘s family before they got married. A soldier under Othello told a lie and said that Desdemona was not honest to Othello.Othello believed the lie and killed his wife. In the end, the lie was broke, and Othello was so regret that he killed himself.(W.Shakespeare,Othello, Foreign languages Press,1999)Macbeth told us a story about Macbeth, the general of Scotland. He killed the king under the inspiration by the witch.However,after what he did,he felt more and more nervous and frightened .At last,the prince of Scotland called a war to fight with

Othello is a person who is credulous and careless.Because he was easily deceived by his soldier and killed his wife.When he knew the truth,he felt regret and killed himself.Macbeth is a person

who has the ambition.That is why he can be easily inspired by the witch and kill the king.Then he always had a bad dream and died of stress and fear.King Lear has affectionate love and soft ear.Because of his affectionate love, he divided his whole property to his two crafty daughters,but when his two daughter received his property,they treated him like a dog.He lived a very tough time.

B.The social background and relationships

At the beginning of 17th century, the last years of the reign of Elizabeth, all the contradictions of Britain are intense.The four tragedies of Shakespeare were written during this time when it is also the middle period of his career. So his works in this period were filled with sorrow and resentment.It shapes new era of the tragic heroes: they woke up from the medieval prison ,in modern times,they want to develop or improve themselves, but they can not overcome the limitations of time and themselves,so they finally failed in a tragic way.