威廉.莎士比亚一生创作了38个剧本，154首十四行诗及两首长诗，由于莎士比亚作品的发表时间还有争议，评论家们对其戏剧创作生涯的时期分段持不同意见，一般我们把其创作生涯分为四个阶段：

William Shakespeare(1564-1616)is one of the most remarkable playwrights and poets the world has ever known.With his 38 plays,154sonnets and 2 long poems,he has established his giant position in world literature.He has also been given the highest praises by various scholars and critics the world over.In the past four hundred years or so,books and eassays on Shakespeare and his works have kept coming out in large quantities

Shakekspeare went to a London which afforded a wonderful enviroment for the development of drama.Shakespeare worked both as actor and playwright.He acted with and wrote for the Lord Chamberlain's Men,which was later renamed the King's Men.Shakespeare established himself so well as a playwright that Robert Greene,one of the “University Wits”,resentfully declared him to be"an upstart crow".
From about 1591 to about 1611,Shakespeare was in the prime of his dramatic career and his plays came out one after another.Shakespeare did not confine his genius merely to the theater.In 1593 and 1594,he published two narative poems,Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece,both of which were dedicated to the Earl of Southampton.He also wrote sonnets,which were published IN  1609.By 1597,Shakespeare was so prosperous that he bought the largest house in Stratford,known as New Place.About 1610 Shakespeare left London and retired to Stratford,though he coninued to write for some time.He died on April 23,1616.

As the precise dates of many of Shakespeare's plays are still in doubt,critics hold different views to the division of his dramatic career.But generally his dramatic career is divided into four periods.

The first period of shakespeare's dramatic career was one of apprenticeship.He wrote five history plays:Henry VI,Parts I,II,and III,Richard III,and Titus Andronicus;and four comedies:The comedy of Errors,The Two Gentlemen of Verona,The Taming of the Shrew,and Love's Labour's Lost.

In the second period,Shakespeare's style and approach became highly individualized.By constructing a complex pattern between diferent 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,King John,Henry IV,Parts I and II,and Henry V;six comedies:A Midsummer Night's Dream,The Merchant of Venice,Much Ado About Nothing,As You Like It,Twelfth Night,and The Merry Wives of Windsor;and Two tragedies:Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar.

Shakespeare's third period includes his greatest tragedies and his so-called dark comedies.The tragedies of this period are Hamlet,Othello,King Lear,Macbeth,Antony and Cleopatra,Troilus and Cressida,and Coriolanus.The two comedies are All's Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure.

The last period of shakespeare's work includes his principle romantic tragicomedies:Pericles,Cymbeline,The Winter's Tale and The Tempest;and his two final plays:Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen.

Shakespeare's greatest tragedies are :Hamlet,Othello,King Lear,and Macbeth.（You have to have special permission to reprint this article,reproduction of material without witten permission is strictly prohibited.Contact me for permission to copy this article.This article or section may be inaccurate ,hope more experts can make comments on it.Thanks.Source:

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