英国人的整个戏剧传统，从最初的宗教剧到莎士比亚同代人的戏剧，都对莎士比亚戏剧创作产生过影响。我们在莎士比亚的戏剧中屡次发现喜剧和悲剧奇妙的混合，特别是在他几大悲剧，如《李尔王》和《哈姆莱特》中就很显着，那是诗人学习神秘剧或圣迹剧的产物，与罗马悲剧作家塞内加的古典悲剧严格排除喜剧成分相反。莎士比亚采用无韵诗作为他写作悲剧的诗歌文体，那是仿效他同代诗人诺顿和与萨克维尔合写的悲剧《高布达克》始用并经马洛改进了的文体形式。他任何剧作的任何情节都不是他创造的，他总是从一些古典的叙事诗、戏剧或故事书中，从古希腊或古罗马时代和法国、意大利的各种资料源到最近期的前辈中去提取。秘密就在于他有把从那些资料源中提取来的情节打造成最优秀作品的能力。经常有三或四条线索贯穿于剧情的始终，但他总是把主要注意力用在主线上，并使其具有娱乐性和启发性。
The whole dramatic tradition of the English people， from the earliest church dramas to the plays of hiscontemporaries， had its impact on Shakespeare’s dramatic creations. The curious mixture of the comic withthe tragic which we find again and again in Shakespeare’s plays， especially in his great tragedies (notably inKing Lear and Hamlet)， is something the poet learned from the mystery or miracle plays， as contrary to theclassical drama of Seneca according to which comic elements should be strictly excluded from tragedies.
In the adoption of the bland verse as the poetic medium for his tragedies， Shakespeare was following thetradition begun in Gorboduc and improved upon by Marlowe. He didn’t invent any plot for any of his plays，but he always took the stories from some old narrative poems， dramas or storybooks， from the ancient Greekor Roman times and French and Italian sources down to his immediate English predecessors. The secret liesin his ability to mould these source-materials to the best advantage. Quite often there would be three or fourthreads of story running through the play but there is always the main stream to which he would devote chieflyhis attention and make it entertaining and instructive.
莎士比亚经常采用为人熟知的故事，然后用新的方法来表现，通过加入挑战性的曲折情节，以求更好的效果。他知道怎样使人皆大欢喜——不论观众是绅士还是学徒。他给出的角色和情景通常都不是陌生的，而是可以理解的。这种做法使他的许多作品具备了永恒的普遍的特性。这就是为什么他的作品总是人人喜闻乐见的原因。这也是广大观众花钱要看到的东西。像《罗密欧与朱丽叶》这样的虚构戏剧，莎士比亚轻松地从已有的资料中提炼出情节，然后用自己的巧妙方式来重新安排。可能更令人惊奇的是，莎士比亚也以历史人物和历史事件为基础，来构思非虚构戏剧的情节，然后时常重新安排，并创作出全新的片段。这样要么使情节对观众而言更激动人心，要么向观众传达某种特定的信息——例如关于权力和王位的本质等。因此，就这一意义来说，他的部分历史剧并不完全是历史性的。这些作品常在现代的装扮下被搬上舞台，或是剧情改为在莎士比亚之后很久的时代。这种普遍的吸引力使这些作品至今仍像首次上演时一样熟悉而贴切。在他去世后的近四个世纪里，莎剧的魔力依然未减，并且不限于英语，莎剧在各种译本里都光芒四射。每年世界各地都会把他的戏剧重新搬上舞台表演。他的创作一直影响深远。正如莎士比亚本人大量利用他人作品一样，无数后来的诗人、剧作家、作家、画家、作曲家和电影制片人又把他的作品作为灵感来源——把自己的故事加到莎士比亚作品的情节和人物上。例如，德国的勃拉姆斯、奥地利的舒伯特、俄国的柴可夫斯基、美国的伯恩斯坦和意大利的威尔地——为莎士比亚戏剧作品繁衍出的歌曲、交响乐、音乐喜剧、芭蕾舞剧和歌剧创作了绝妙的音乐。在为莎士比亚作品演出创作的音乐里，最着名的可能是由费利克斯·门德尔松（1809—1847）完成的。他为《仲夏夜之梦》创作的配乐的一部分，现在仍作为《婚礼进行曲》被广为演奏。
Shakespeare often took already familiar stories， then told them in new ways， adding provocative twistsfor greater effect. He knew how to keep all the customers satisfied—whether they happened to be noblemenor apprentice boys. He normally presented characters and situations that were not alien， but accessible.
This gives many of his plays a timeless， universal quality. This is why his plays have always been pleasingall the people. This is what the public are prepared to pay to see. For fictional plays like Romeo and Juliet，Shakespeare happily lifted his plots from exciting sources， then re-arranged them in his own masterlyway. Maybe more surprisingly， he also based the plots of his non-fictional plays on people and events fromhistory—then sometimes re-arranged the facts and invented whole new episodes. This was either to makethe plots more exciting for his audience， or to put across a particular message to them—for example， aboutthe nature of power and kingship. So in this sense， some of his history plays are not entirely historical. Theseplays are often staged in modern dress， or set in periods long after Shakespeare himself lived. This universalappeal makes them seem as familiar and relevant now as when they were first performed. And for almostfour centuries since his death， the magic has continued to work， not just in the English language but also intranslation. New performances of his plays are staged every year all over the world. His creative influenceextends further still. Just as Shakespeare himself drew heavily on the work of others， countless later poets，playwrights， authors， painters， composers and film-makers have used his work as an inspiration—puttingtheir own spin on his plots and characters. For instance， the German Brahms， the Austrian Schubert， theRussian Tchaikovsky， the American Bernstein and the Italian Verdi—wrote marvelous music for songs，symphonic poems， musicals， ballets and operas inspired by Shakespeare’s theatrical works. Possibly themost famous piece composed for a Shakespeare performance was written by Felix Mendelssohn (1809—1847). Part of his incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream is still played today as“The WeddingMarch”.
由于莎士比亚的多才多艺和精湛技巧，他创作了很多伟大的悲剧、大量轻松浪漫的喜剧和悲喜剧、一些严肃而有启发性的历史剧和其他一些家庭剧、传奇剧等等。他可以在同一部戏的两幕场景中把笔调从“沉重”转为“轻快”。莎士比亚的喜剧通常也绝不仅仅是一串精彩的笑话。例如《威尼斯商人》，可以使观众笑声不断，但是也探讨了极为严肃的题材，诸如“公正”以及基督教徒和犹太教徒之间的关系。在瘟疫蔓延期间，剧院被迫关闭，莎士比亚转而写非戏剧的诗，以此谋生。他这一转行，证明了天才是可以在不止一个行业里成为大师的。他能用不同诗的格调，不同诗的形式，如十四行诗、无韵诗、押韵诗等写作好多种诗歌，他还是一个各种散文的写作大师。他把同时代作家约翰·黎里的夸饰文体变为实用有力的散文文体。在他伟大的喜剧《威尼斯商人》《温莎的快乐娘儿们》《无事生非》《皆大欢喜》和《第十二夜》中，这种散文体就写得特别生动、感人。在这些喜剧中有一些非常漂亮的歌词，用抒情风格歌颂了骑士精神或文艺复兴时期的精神状态，去取代非现实世界和中世纪宗教的禁欲主义。莎士比亚不仅是他所在时代最伟大的诗人，也是最伟大的散文作家。
Thanks to Shakespeare’s great versatility and virtuosity， he wrote many great tragedies， a lot of lightand romantic comedies and tragicomedies， some serious and instructive histories and other domestic dramasand melodramas， etc.. Shakespeare’s tone could shift from“dark”to“light”within two scenes of a singleplay. A Shakespearean comedy was usually far more than a string of good jokes. The Merchant of Venice，for example， would have made audiences laugh a lot， yet it also explores the deeply serious matters of justiceand the way that Christians and Jews relate to each other. During the period of a severe outbreak of plague，the theatres had to close and Shakespeare turned to writing non-dramatic poetry to earn his living. In doingso， he proved that a genius can be a master of more than one“trade”. He not only could write poetry wellin different styles， and in different poetic forms， like sonnets， blank verse， rhymed couplets， etc.， but he wasalso a master of prose， of various styles of prose. He turned his contemporary writer John Lyly’s euphuisticstyle into very effective and powerful prose. His great comedies The Merchant of Venice， The Merry Wivesof Windsor， Much Ado about Nothing， As You Like It and Twelfth Night written in the prose are particularlyvivid and moving. In these comedies there are some very beautiful songs whose lyricism sings of the cavalierspirit or the Renaissance mood to replace the otherworldliness and asceticism of the medieval church.
Shakespeare was not only the greatest poet but also the greatest prose-writer of his time.
莎士比亚作为戏剧家和诗人的成功，以及他的戏剧从伊丽莎白时代的英国舞台到当今世界的各国舞台都获成功，不仅因为上述原因，还取决于他有进步意义的主题和深刻的洞察力以及他孜孜不倦地终生追求真、善、美的精神。当我们考虑莎士比亚全部作品时，我们总体印象是他与同时代作家不同，他对周围的社会现实有敏锐的观察，并不断谴责他所生活的封建—资产阶级社会的很多邪恶做法。他反对为获取政权或个人利益而不讲道德和不择手段的人，反对宗教迫害和种族歧视，反对社会不平等，有时也反对男女不平等，反对金钱的腐败影响，但在这些反封建—资产阶级社会邪恶做法的过程中，诗人是不彻底的，因为莎士比亚生活在许多封建的和资产阶级的做法都被认为是正确的东西的时代，并且在大人物的庇护下，他自己已上升为上层社会的人——着名演员和剧作家，剧院股东，拥有大宅和很多私产，不可能真正希望任何政治上或社会上的根本改变。事实是他能认识并谴责他所生活的时代在英国的一些突出的邪恶就足够让我们为他戏剧的进步意义叫好了，并且还应称赞他，因为有时他的正义感和对压迫的强烈自然反感使他站到了穷人和受压迫者一边，有时他甚至不顾自己的社会地位。莎士比亚的诗作以非凡的技巧和神韵表达了繁复细腻的感情，因为他的诗集被称为诗人自己的“精神传记”。在他十四行诗第105首中，诗人写道：“真、善、美，构成我全部的题材，我将真、善、美以不同词句表现；我的创造力因这变化而充分施展，三个论题完美统一，题材空间自然无限。”
Shakespeare’s success as a playwright and poet and the success of his plays upon the stage fromElizabethan England to the present-day world depend on not only what is mentioned above， but also upon histhemes of progressive significance and penetrating insight and his assiduous pursuit of the true， the good andthe beautiful with untiring vigour through his life. When we take into account Shakespeare’s complete works，our overall impression is that he distinguished himself from most of his contemporaries in his keen observationof the social realities around him and his unfailing condemnation of many of the social evil practices of hisfeudal-bourgeois world. He was against unscrupulous Machiavellianism either for political power or personalgains， against religious persecution and racial discrimination， against social inequality， sometimes alsoagainst inequality between men and women， and against the corrupting influence of gold or money， yet in allthese objections to the evil ways of the feudal-bourgeois society the poet never went the whole hog， becauseShakespeare was living in an age when many feudal and bourgeois practices were considered the rightfulthings to do， and being himself an up and rising man of the world under the patronage of the great—a wellknown actor and playwright， a shareholder of some playhouse and an owner of a big house and much privateproperty， could not really wish for any fundamental change politically or socially. The fact that he could seeand condemn some of the outstanding evils in the England of his time sufficiently calls for our applause on theprogressive significance of his dramas， and the more so because sometimes his sense of justice and his strongnatural antipathy against oppression make him stand on the side of the poor and the oppressed， sometimeseven in spite of his own social station. Shakespeare’s poems express so many shades of passion with such skilland verve that his volume of verse has been called the poet’s own“spiritual biography”. In his Sonnet 105，the poet wrote：“Fair， kind， and true， is all my argument， \/ Fair， kind， and true， varying to other words； \/ Andin this change is my invention spent， \/ Three themes in one， which wondrous scope affords.”
莎士比亚的戏剧生涯持续了20多年，根据他的思想和艺术发展，可分为三个时期。第一时期或叫早期，从大约1588年到1600年，包括最初与人合作或模仿别的戏剧家的剧作。他10部历史剧中（除《亨利八世》外）的9部，都是讲述历史故事，揭露王宫中残忍的杀戮、无耻的背叛和阴谋诡计，尖锐地谴责了英国封建贵族的野心导致了内战和政治不稳；探察了在资本主义世界处于上升时期对新的人际关系中起支配作用的要素是商品，也可解释为“自身利益”或利益（或者甚至就叫“现金交易关系”）；颂扬了为整个国家幸福而工作的“理想”
君主。莎士比亚的这种态度与当时正处于上升阶段的资产阶级利益一致，从而有其历史进步意义。三部悲剧（《泰特斯·安德洛尼克斯》《罗密欧与朱丽叶》和《裘力斯·恺撒》）歌颂了伟大的人文主义主人公，因为他们代表了有崇高民主理想、为人民利益而无私地工作、反对危害自由的英雄。三部学徒初期实验性喜剧（《爱的徒劳》《维洛那二绅士》和《错误的喜剧》）和三部荒诞或滑稽喜剧（《仲夏夜之梦》《驯悍记》和《温莎的快乐娘儿们》）及四部成熟的浪漫喜剧（《威尼斯商人》《无事生非》《皆大欢喜》和《第十二夜》又名《各遂所愿》）清楚地展现了莎士比亚对被压迫者一贯的极大的同情，对任何压迫几乎是生性厌恶。第二时期或叫成熟时期，大致从1601年到1608年，包括了他所有的伟大悲剧（《哈姆莱特》《奥赛罗》《李尔王》《麦克白》等）和一些他较早期的悲喜剧（《特洛伊罗斯与克瑞西达》《终成眷属》《一报还一报》）。这一时期的作品与他早期作品不同，不仅是因为他更成熟了，而且因为英国社会经历了根本的变化，从16世纪末的伊丽莎白时代过渡到了17世纪初詹姆斯一世的新政权。莎士比亚的伟大悲喜剧和他“阴郁的”悲喜剧自然地反映了那个社会和政治都动乱的时代。那些尖锐的矛盾在政治和社会的舞台上都通过邪恶势力（如《哈姆莱特》中的克劳狄斯、《奥赛罗》的伊阿古等）与剧中理想主义的男女主人公（如哈姆莱特、奥赛罗等）之间的生死斗争反映了出来，结果，后者都在与暴政、伪善和背信弃义的冲突中变成了牺牲者。但是，莎士比亚把那些牺牲者在最后都表现为在道义上胜利了，因为诗人怀有所谓“诗的公正”的幻想，相信坏人可能暂时获胜但不会长久，而正义的人可能死亡但终会获得死后应得的名声。第三时期或叫最后时期，从1609到1613年，主要包括了他的最后三个悲喜剧（《辛白林》《冬天的故事》和《暴风雨》和其他几部与约翰·弗莱彻合作的剧本。成熟的剧作家莎士比亚在17世纪头十年已经表达了他强烈地意识到当时社会的很多可怕的邪恶，虽已对此进行了揭露和批判，但他终于认识到要纠正错误或为公益尽力都无能为力，不得不从写惨痛的悲剧和“阴郁”的喜剧改变为非现实妥协和想象。所以，在他最后三个悲喜剧中我们都目睹了一种痴心妄想与直截了当的逃避现实的奇妙混合。
Shakespeare’s dramatic career lasted for more than twenty years. It may be divided into three periodsaccording to the development of his thinking and art. The first or the early period is dated from around 1588to about 1600， including his earliest plays， either in collaboration with or in imitation of other playwrights.
The nine of his ten history plays (except Henry VIII) tell the historical stories， expose the brutal bloodshedand unscrupulous treachery and intrigue at the court， censure sharply the ambitions of the feudal barons inEngland that led to civil wars and political instability， detect in the new human relations in the rising capitalistworld the dominant element of“Commodity”which may be interpreted as“self-interest”or“profit”(oreven“cash nexus”)， and eulogize an“ideal”monarch who worked for the welfare of the whole nation.
Such an attitude of Shakespeare’s in the plays coincided with the interests of the rising bourgeoisie at thetime and so has its historical progressive significance. The three tragedies (Titus Andronicus， Romeo andJuliet and Julius Caesar) extol the great humanist heroes because they are represented as men of highdemocratic ideals working selflessly in the interests of the people against enemies of freedom. The threeexperimental comedies of early apprenticeship (Love’s Labour’s Lost， The Two Gentlemen of Verona andThe Comedy of Errors) and one fantasy and two farces (A Midsummer Night’s Dream， The Taming ofthe Shrew and The Merry Wives of Windsor and his four mature“Romantic”comedies (The Merchantof Venice， Much Ado about Nothing， As You Like It and Twelfth Night or What You Will) reveal clearlyShakespeare’s ever-present， strong sympathy for the oppressed， and his almost instinctive antipathy againstoppression of any kind. The second or mature period stretched roughly from 1601 to 1608， including all hisgreat tragedies (Hamlet， Othello， King Lear， Macbeth， etc.) and some of his earlier tragi-comedies (Troilusand Cressida， All’s Well that Ends Well， Measure for Measure) which were quite different from those of thepoet’s early period， not only because he had grown more mature but also because the English society hadundergone much fundamental change in the transition from Elizabethan England in the last decades of the16th century to the new regime of James I in the early years of the 17thcentury. Shakespeare’s great tragediesand his“dark”tragi-comedies naturally reflect that age of social and political unrest. The sharpenedcontradictions in the political and social arena are reflected through the life-and-death struggles between theevil forces (e.g. Claudius in Hamlet， Iago in Othello， etc.) and the idealist heroes or heroines (e.g. Hamlet，Othello， etc.)， with the latter all becoming victims in their conflict with tyranny and hypocrisy and treachery，but those victims are shown by Shakespeare to be morally victorious in the end because the poet cherishedthe illusion of the so-called“poetic justice”， believing that villains may triumph for a time but not for longwhile the righteous ones may die but will eventually earn their deserved after-fame. The third or last perioddated from 1609 to 1613， including chiefly his three last tragicomedies (Cymbeline， The Winter’s Taleand The Tempest) and several other plays cooperated in writing with John Fletcher. The mature playwrightShakespeare in the first decade of the 17thcentury had expressed his keen awareness of many horrible evils ofthe society of his day， though exposed and criticized， he must have come to the realization that nothing couldreally be done to right the wrongs or to work for the common good. He had to turn from his harrowing tragediesand his“dark”comedies to his plays of unrealistic compromises and fantasy. That’s why we witness acurious mixture of wishful thinking and downright escapism in his three last tragicomedies.
莎士比亚戏剧的主要艺术成就之一就是他轻松自如地使用英语，几乎所有的言语都适合对应的人物，不仅不同的人物说不同的话，甚至同一个人物在不同的场合或时刻，当其心情不同或说话的目的不同或说话的对象不同，所说的话也不同。因此，这需要很大的词汇量。
根据某部词汇索引的统计，莎士比亚一共使用过43，566个不同的词汇。也有其他的词语索引得出2万左右的数字。但是，不管怎样，公论就是他的词汇量超过了《圣经》的词汇量。并且，他善于把普通词汇组成新的鲜明的表达法。他的剧作就像是一部警句、成语、格言、谚语的合集。我们今天使用的好多表达法可溯源到莎士比亚。他的大多剧作是用无韵诗或素体诗写成的。他诗歌的最高成就就在于他巧妙地使用素体诗，从写早期悲剧《罗密欧与朱丽叶》开始，到写历史剧、伟大的喜剧，又通过写伟大的悲剧到写最后的悲喜剧《暴风雨》。他使素体诗适合各种人物在各种场合使用，这常成就了伟大诗人才智焕发而写出辉煌的段落。总而言之，莎士比亚的语言非常丰富多彩，生动活泼，特别富有表现力，充满了隐喻或明喻、双关语和俏皮话，他的讽刺尖锐而富有诗意。莎士比亚的另一个主要艺术成就是他作品情节的生动性和丰富性的完美融合。他突破了古希腊、古罗马戏剧的“三一律”的框框和悲喜剧的界限，通常借鉴前人作品用以构建剧情。他总是古为今用，推陈出新。他从英国人的长期戏剧传统中学会了自由而充分地描绘他所处时代环境中生活着的英国人，并把当时重大的社会问题和矛盾戏剧化。我们在莎氏剧作中发现最有效也是最常用的戏剧技巧就是“戏剧性讽刺”，它是保持观众兴趣并引起观众发笑的主要东西。《亨利四世》上下篇中极受英国观众喜爱的人物福斯塔夫所在的场景，就是戏剧性讽刺最成功的典范，也是莎士比亚剧情构造技巧最值得我们学习的杰出剧幕。莎士比亚的第三个主要艺术成就是他在人物塑造上获得了伟大的成功。莎氏戏剧如此真实地反映了他所处时代的社会矛盾，其重大主题表现出来有如此大的感染力，主要是通过他对戏剧人物的逼真描绘。在他戏剧生涯的不同时期的各种戏剧中，各种精心描绘的丰富多彩的人物可以布满一整个画廊。从国王、王后、王公、重臣、贵族、主教、将军和其他一些高层人物到底层人物，像工人、农民、士兵和雇佣兵、演员和小丑、商人和高利贷者，名单可延长到包括莎氏精心刻画的多至上百位的男女主人公，并且他们都可与从英国大学才子派剧作家到1925年获诺贝尔文学奖的戏剧家乔治·萧伯纳塑造的杰出人物相比，在生动性和强烈性、情感深度和心理深度上，都受到好评。莎士比亚的主要人物和若干次要人物都不代表某些人或剧作家本人的看法，也不是任何人要他或她说什么或做什么都行的，而是因为情节需要才说或做什么的。他的主要人物通常不但具有典型性而且具有鲜明的个性。他还常用对照的方法使其人物更生动、更敏锐。莎士比亚描写人物的一个引人注目的现象就是他强调每个主要人物的心理建构，心理分析常常是莎士比亚提高人物个性化的特征。在莎翁戏剧中，特别是悲剧中，很多独白和对话写得精彩至极，大大增加了人物的思想和感情的深度和广度。
One of Shakespeare’s chief artistic achievements in his dramas is that he used the English languagewith the greatest freedom and ease， so that almost all the speeches fit all the characters who speak them，not only different characters speak differently， even the same character speaks differently on differentoccasions when he is in different moods or speaks for different purposes to different persons. For this a verylarge vocabulary is necessary. Some concordance puts Shakespeare’s vocabulary at 43，566 words. Thereare other concordances that put his vocabulary at a much fewer 20，000 or so. But anyway the consensus isShakespeare’s vocabulary outnumbers the entire vocabulary of the Authorized Version of the Holy Bible.
Also he was skilful in forming very new and striking expressions out of rather common words. His plays，all combined， are like a book of epigrams， idioms， mottos， familiar sayings. A lot of things， which we stillsay today， are attributable to Shakespeare. Most of his plays were written in blank verse. His height ofachievement in poetry lies in his expertly wielding of the blank verse， beginning from the early tragedy ofRomeo and Juliet to the history plays and the great comedies， through the great tragedies to the final tragi-comedy of The Tempest. His ability to make the blank verse suit all different characters on different occasionsoften leads to brilliant passages of great poetic flights. In a word， Shakespeare’s language is very rich andcolorful， vivid and lively， especially very expressive， full of metaphors or similes， puns and witty repartee.
His irony is very sharp and poetic. Shakespeare’s another chief artistic achievement is the perfect integrationof the vividness and richness of his stories. He broke through the restriction of the“three unities”of theclassical Greek and Roman drama and the demarcation between the tragedy and comedy. He often drew onhis predecessors for the stories of his plays. He always made the past serve the present and brought forth thenew through the old. He learned from the long dramatic tradition of the English people the portraiture of livinghuman beings in the English environment of his time and the dramatization of the important social problemsand contradictions of the day， freely and fully. The most effective as well as the most frequently employedtheatrical device that we find in Shakespeare’s plays is what has often been termed“dramatic irony”， whichis the main thing to sustain interest and to provoke laughter from the audience. Dramatic irony at its height ofsuccess in some scenes of Henry IV in two parts， which were staged the character Falstaff who is most lovedby the English audience， is certainly one very outstanding feature in Shakespeare’s skill in plot constructionworth our emulation. The third Shakespeare’s chief artistic achievements is his great success in character-creations. The important themes in Shakespeare’s dramas that reflect so truthfully the social contradictions ofhis age are presented with so much power by Shakespeare chiefly through the vivid portraits of his dramaticcharacters. In his different types of dramas through the different periods of his dramatic career there is awhole gallery of well-known characters in all their variety. From kings， queens， princes and princesses， highminister， nobles， bishops， generals and others on the higher rungs of the ladder to the lower ones like workers，farmers， soldiers and mercenaries， actors and clowns， merchants and usurers， the list may be lengthened toinclude as many as a hundred and more of Shakespeare’s carefully-etched heroes and heroines， and all ofthem could compare very favourably in vividness and intensity， in emotional and psychological depth， withthe outstanding character-creations by other English dramatists from the University Wits to Dramatist GeorgeBernard Shaw who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1925. Shakespeare’s major characters and even anumber of his minor figures do not stand for the persons or the views of the dramatist himself， nor is any ofthem made to say or do things because the story requires it of him or her. His major characters are usually notsimply type characters but they are individuals representing certain types. He also frequently used contraststo give his characters greater vividness and more sharply etched profiles. One very striking phenomenon inconnection with Shakespeare’s character-portrayal is his emphasis on the psychological make-up of each ofhis major characters. And psychological analysis is frequently Shakespeare’s distinction in characterizationthat lifts his characters. The many soliloquies in his plays， especially in his tragedies， are very admirablymanaged by the poet to give greater depth and breadth to the thoughts and feelings of his characters.
从上面有关莎士比亚人生的原始记录——从洗礼到葬礼，还有在这期间的一些其他法律文书，他曾居住过而现在仍存在的建筑物和与他同时代人的作品中的一些参考资料中，不难看出莎士比亚作为剧作家和诗人，他以无与伦比的作品赢得了万古盛名，他虽逝世将近400年了，却一直活在他不朽作品的受众心中。但作为凡夫俗子，他和世上所有普通人一样，都有性善性恶两面人性。他性善的一面表现在他一贯憎恨压迫者而总是同情受压者。斯特拉福德镇1598年开始的记录表明，他囤积了10夸特（合2.5吨）玉米和麦芽用来酿酒。这是在连年歉收、镇上很多穷人遭受饥荒时的事情。他滥用财富，没有公众精神。他投资土地及更多的资产，还可能对有急需之人曾放贷过。这些表明他性恶的一面。所以我们说莎士比亚既伟大又平凡。他寿命不太长，却生活得非常充实。他虽死了多年，却仍一直活在世人的心里。
From the above introduction based on the original records relating to Shakespeare’s life—from hisbaptism to his burial， with certain other legal documents in between， some of the buildings where he oncelived and now are still standing and some references to him in the writings of his contemporaries， it is notdifficult to see that Shakespeare’s unparalleled body of work as a playwright and poet has established hisreputation for all time. He has been living in the hearts of his audiences who read or watch or listen to hisimmortal masterpieces although it has been almost four hundred years since he died. But， as an ordinary man，just like all common people on earth， he had the same human nature with both kind side and evil side. Hisconsistent hatred for the oppressors and ever-present sympathy for the oppressed demonstrated his kind sideof human nature. A Stratford record from 1598 showed him hoarding ten quarters (2.5 tons) of corn and malt，for brewing. This was after a succession of bad harvests， and many of the poorer townspeople were starving.
He misused his wealth and showed little public spirit. He invested in land and more property， and may alsohave made loans to those in need. These showed his evil side of human nature. Therefore， we would like tosay that Shakespeare was both great and ordinary. He lived a not very long yet very busy and full life. He hasbeen still living in the hearts of the peoples all over the world though he has been dead for many years.
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