vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
Hamlet
Hamlet is Shakespeare 's longest play , and is considered among the most powerful and influential works of world literature , with a story capable of `` seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others '' . It was probably one of Shakespeare 's most popular works during his lifetime , and still ranks among his most performed , topping the performance list of the Royal Shakespeare Company and its predecessors in Stratford - upon - Avon since 1879 . It has inspired many other writers -- from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Charles Dickens to James Joyce and Iris Murdoch -- and has been described as `` the world 's most filmed story after Cinderella '' .
Shakespeare's reputation
The only aspects of Shakespeare 's plays that were consistently disliked and singled out for criticism in the 18th century were the puns ( `` clenches '' ) and the `` low '' ( sexual ) allusions . While a few editors , notably Alexander Pope , attempted to gloss over or remove the puns and the double entendres , they were quickly reversed , and by mid-century the puns and sexual humour were ( with only a few exceptions , see Thomas Bowdler ) back in permanently .
Shakespeare's reputation
In the elaborate Restoration London playhouses , designed by Christopher Wren , Shakespeare 's plays were staged with music , dancing , thunder , lightning , wave machines , and fireworks . The texts were `` reformed '' and `` improved '' for the stage . A notorious example is Irish poet Nahum Tate 's happy - ending King Lear ( 1681 ) ( which held the stage until 1838 ) , while The Tempest was turned into an opera replete with special effects by William Davenant . In fact , as the director of the Duke 's Company , Davenant was legally obliged to reform and modernise Shakespeare 's plays before performing them , an ad hoc ruling by the Lord Chamberlain in the battle for performance rights which `` sheds an interesting light on the many 20th - century denunciations of Davenant for his adaptations '' . The modern view of the Restoration stage as the epitome of Shakespeare abuse and bad taste has been shown by Hume to be exaggerated , and both scenery and adaptation became more reckless in the 18th and 19th centuries .
Romeo and Juliet
Garrick 's altered version of the play was very popular , and ran for nearly a century . Not until 1845 did Shakespeare 's original return to the stage in the United States with the sisters Susan and Charlotte Cushman as Juliet and Romeo , respectively , and then in 1847 in Britain with Samuel Phelps at Sadler 's Wells Theatre . Cushman adhered to Shakespeare 's version , beginning a string of eighty - four performances . Her portrayal of Romeo was considered genius by many . The Times wrote : `` For a long time Romeo has been a convention . Miss Cushman 's Romeo is a creative , a living , breathing , animated , ardent human being . '' Queen Victoria wrote in her journal that `` no - one would ever have imagined she was a woman '' . Cushman 's success broke the Garrick tradition and paved the way for later performances to return to the original storyline .
Medieval theatre
At the end of the Late Middle Ages , professional actors began to appear in England and Europe . Richard III and Henry VII both maintained small companies of professional actors . Their plays were performed in the great hall of a nobleman 's residence , often with a raised platform at one end for the audience and a `` screen '' at the other for the actors . Also important were Mummers ' plays , performed during the Christmas season , and court masques . These masques were especially popular during the reign of Henry VIII who had a house of revels built and an office of revels established in 1545 .
Shakespeare's reputation
This claim that Shakespeare 's work breaks through all creative boundaries to reveal a chaotic , teeming , contradictory world became characteristic of Romantic criticism , later being expressed by Victor Hugo in the preface to his play Cromwell , in which he lauded Shakespeare as an artist of the grotesque , a genre in which the tragic , absurd , trivial and serious were inseparably intertwined . In 1995 , the American journalist Stephen Kinzer writing in The New York Times observed : `` Shakespeare is an all - but - guaranteed success in Germany , where his work has enjoyed immense popularity for more than 200 years . By some estimates , Shakespeare 's plays are performed more frequently in Germany than anywhere else in the world , not excluding his native England . The market for his work , both in English and in German translation , seems inexhaustible . '' The German critic Ernst Osterkamp wrote : `` Shakespeare 's importance to German literature can not be compared with that of any other writer of the post-antiquity period . Neither Dante or Cervantes , neither Moliere or Ibsen have even approached his influence here . With the passage of time , Shakespeare has virtually become one of Germany 's national authors . ''
Shakespeare's influence
Shakespeare 's earliest years were dominated by history plays and a few comedies that formed a link to the later written tragedies . Nine out of eighteen plays he produced in the first decade of his career were chronicles or histories . His histories were based on the prevailing Tudor political thought . They portrayed the follies and achievements of kings , their misgovernment , church and problems arising out of these . `` In shaping , compressing , and altering chronicles , Shakespeare gained the art of dramatic design ; and in the same way he developed his remarkable insight into character , its continuity and its variation '' . His characters were very near to reality .
Shakespeare's reputation
Weeks after Hitler took power in 1933 an official party publication appeared entitled Shakespeare -- a Germanic Writer , a counter to those who wanted to ban all foreign influences . At the Propaganda Ministry , Rainer Schlosser , given charge of German theatre by Goebbels , mused that Shakespeare was more German than English . After the outbreak of the war the performance of Shakespeare was banned , though it was quickly lifted by Hitler in person , a favour extended to no other . Not only did the regime appropriate the Bard but it also appropriated Elizabethan England itself . To the Nazi leaders , it was a young , vigorous nation , much like the Third Reich itself , quite unlike the decadent British Empire of the present day .
Shakespeare's reputation
Shakespeare performances reflected the tensions of the times , and early in the century , Barry Jackson of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre began the staging of modern - dress productions , thus starting a new trend in Shakesperian production . Performances of the plays could be highly interpretive . Thus , play directors would emphasise Marxist , feminist , or , perhaps most popularly , Freudian psychoanalytical interpretations of the plays , even as they retained letter - perfect scripts . The number of analytical approaches became more diverse by the latter part of the century , as critics applied theories such as structuralism , New Historicism , Cultural materialism , African American studies , queer studies , and literary semiotics to Shakespeare 's works .
Shakespeare's reputation
As performance playscripts diverged increasingly from their originals , the publication of texts intended for reading developed rapidly in the opposite direction , with the invention of textual criticism and an emphasis on fidelity to Shakespeare 's original words . The texts that we read and perform today were largely settled in the 18th century . Nahum Tate and Nathaniel Lee had already prepared editions and performed scene divisions in the late 17th century , and Nicholas Rowe 's edition of 1709 is considered the first truly scholarly text for the plays . It was followed by many good 18th - century editions , crowned by Edmund Malone 's landmark Variorum Edition , which was published posthumously in 1821 and remains the basis of modern editions . These collected editions were meant for reading , not staging ; Rowe 's 1709 edition was , compared to the old folios , a light pocketbook . Shakespeare criticism also increasingly spoke to readers , rather than to theatre audiences .
Actor
The development of the theatre and opportunities for acting ceased when Puritan opposition to the stage banned the performance of all plays within London . Puritans viewed the theatre as immoral . The re-opening of the theatres in 1660 signaled a renaissance of English drama . English comedies written and performed in the Restoration period from 1660 to 1710 are collectively called `` Restoration comedy '' . Restoration comedy is notorious for its sexual explicitness . At this point , women were allowed for the first time to appear on the English stage , exclusively in female roles . This period saw the introduction of the first professional actresses and the rise of the first celebrity actors .
Romeo and Juliet
Professional performances of Shakespeare in the mid-19th century had two particular features : firstly , they were generally star vehicles , with supporting roles cut or marginalised to give greater prominence to the central characters . Secondly , they were `` pictorial '' , placing the action on spectacular and elaborate sets ( requiring lengthy pauses for scene changes ) and with the frequent use of tableaux . Henry Irving 's 1882 production at the Lyceum Theatre ( with himself as Romeo and Ellen Terry as Juliet ) is considered an archetype of the pictorial style . In 1895 , Sir Johnston Forbes - Robertson took over from Irving and laid the groundwork for a more natural portrayal of Shakespeare that remains popular today . Forbes - Robertson avoided the showiness of Irving and instead portrayed a down - to - earth Romeo , expressing the poetic dialogue as realistic prose and avoiding melodramatic flourish .
Shakespeare's reputation
In 1934 the French government banned , in permanence , performances of Coriolanus because of its perceived unpatriotic qualities . In the international protests that followed came one from Germany , from none other than Joseph Goebbels . Although productions of Shakespeare 's plays in Germany itself were subject to ' streamlining ' , he continued to be favoured as a great classical dramatist , especially so as almost every new German play since the late 1890s onwards was portrayed by German government propaganda as the work of left - wingers , of Jews or of `` degenerates '' of one kind or another . Politically acceptable writers had simply been unable to fill the gap , or had only been able to do so with the worst kinds of agitprop . In 1935 Goebbels was to say `` We can build autobahns , revive the economy , create a new army , but we ... can not manufacture new dramatists . '' With Schiller suspect for his radicalism , Lessing for his humanism and even the great Goethe for his lack of patriotism , the legacy of the `` Aryan '' Shakespeare was reinterpreted for new purposes .
Prince Hamlet
Richard Burbage originated the role of Hamlet at the Globe Theatre . David Garrick made the role one of the centerpieces of his repertory in the 18th century . Master Betty played the role at the height of his popularity in 1805 , and the House of Commons once adjourned early so that members of Parliament could see him play it . Edwin Booth was famous for the role in New York City in the 1860s and 1870s . Sir Henry Irving , the first actor to be knighted , played Hamlet for an unprecedented 200 consecutive performances at the Lyceum Theatre in London in 1874 . Mrs Powell was the first woman to appear in the role in London in 1796 . Johnston Forbes - Robertson played the role in 1898 . John Barrymore created a sensation with his performance on Broadway in 1922 and again when he took it to London in 1925 . John Gielgud played Hamlet over 500 times between 1930 and 1945 . Gustav Gründgens played Hamlet in the Staatliches Schauspielhaus in Berlin in 1936 . Laurence Olivier first played Hamlet at the Old Vic in 1937 , later performing the production at Elsinore Castle . Maurice Evans first played the part at the Old Vic Theatre in 1935 and had a triumph on Broadway in 1938 and 1945 . Paul Scofield played Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1948 and again in 1955 , directed by Peter Brook . Richard Burton first played the role at the Old Vic Theatre in 1953 and returned to it in a 1964 Broadway production that became notorious when he married Elizabeth Taylor during its out - of - town tryout . David Warner starred in Peter Hall 's Hamlet in the RSC 's August 1965 production at Stratford - Upon - Avon . Richard Chamberlain was the first American actor to play the role in London since John Barrymore . This occurred in the late 1960s , immediately after the run of Dr. Kildare , the TV - series in which Chamberlain first made his name , ended . Vladimir Vysotsky played Hamlet in Moscow 's Taganka Theatre between 1971 and 1980 . Derek Jacobi played the role for the Prospect Theatre Company in 1977 . Christopher Walken played the role for the American Shakespeare Theatre in 1982 . Mark Rylance played the role for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1988 and for Shakespeare 's Globe in 2000 .
Hamlet
In 1598 , Francis Meres published his Palladis Tamia , a survey of English literature from Chaucer to its present day , within which twelve of Shakespeare 's plays are named . Hamlet is not among them , suggesting that it had not yet been written . As Hamlet was very popular , Bernard Lott , the series editor of New Swan , believes it `` unlikely that he ( Meres ) would have overlooked ... so significant a piece '' .
Shakespeare's reputation
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Shakespeare's reputation
That divergence between text and performance in Shakespeare continued into the new media of film . For instance , both Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet have been filmed in modern settings , sometimes with contemporary `` updated '' dialogue . Additionally , there were efforts ( notably by the BBC ) to ensure that there was a filmed or videotaped version of every Shakespeare play . The reasoning for this was educational , as many government educational initiatives recognised the need to get performative Shakespeare into the same classrooms as the read plays .
Romeo and Juliet
Thomas Otway 's The History and Fall of Caius Marius , one of the more extreme of the Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare , debuted in 1680 . The scene is shifted from Renaissance Verona to ancient Rome ; Romeo is Marius , Juliet is Lavinia , the feud is between patricians and plebeians ; Juliet / Lavinia wakes from her potion before Romeo / Marius dies . Otway 's version was a hit , and was acted for the next seventy years . His innovation in the closing scene was even more enduring , and was used in adaptations throughout the next 200 years : Theophilus Cibber 's adaptation of 1744 , and David Garrick 's of 1748 both used variations on it . These versions also eliminated elements deemed inappropriate at the time . For example , Garrick 's version transferred all language describing Rosaline to Juliet , to heighten the idea of faithfulness and downplay the love - at - first - sight theme . In 1750 , a `` Battle of the Romeos '' began , with Spranger Barry and Susannah Maria Arne ( Mrs. Theophilus Cibber ) at Covent Garden versus David Garrick and George Anne Bellamy at Drury Lane .
Hamlet
The best - known is Tom Stoppard 's 1966 play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead , which retells many of the events of the story from the point of view of the characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and gives them a backstory of their own . Several times since 1995 , the American Shakespeare Center has mounted repertories that included both Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern , with the same actors performing the same roles in each ; in their 2001 and 2009 seasons the two plays were `` directed , designed , and rehearsed together to make the most out of the shared scenes and situations '' .
Shakespeare's reputation
The growth of Shakespeare 's reputation is illustrated by a timeline of Shakespeare criticism , from John Dryden 's `` when he describes any thing , you more than see it , you feel it too '' ( 1668 ) to Thomas Carlyle 's estimation of Shakespeare as the `` strongest of rallying - signs '' ( 1841 ) for an English identity .
Shakespeare's reputation
Opinion of Shakespeare was briefly shaped in the 1790s by the `` discovery '' of the Shakespeare Papers by William Henry Ireland . Ireland claimed to have found in a trunk a goldmine of lost documents of Shakespeare 's including two plays , Vortigern and Rowena and Henry II . These documents appeared to demonstrate a number of unknown facts about Shakespeare that shaped opinion of his works , including a Profession of Faith demonstrating Shakespeare was a Protestant and that he had an illegitimate child . Although there were many believers in the provenance of the Papers they soon came under fierce attack from scholars who pointed out numerous inaccuracies . Vortigern had only one performance at the Drury Lane Theatre before Ireland admitted he had forged the documents and written the plays himself .
Richard III (play)
Colley Cibber produced the most successful of the Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare with his version of Richard III , at Drury Lane starting in 1700 . Cibber himself played the role till 1739 , and his version was on stage for the next century and a half . It contained the lines `` Off with his head ; so much for Buckingham '' -- possibly the most famous Shakespearean line that Shakespeare did not write -- and `` Richard 's himself again ! '' . The original Shakespearean version returned in a production at Sadler 's Wells Theatre in 1845 .
Yorick
It is suggested that Shakespeare may have intended his audience to connect Yorick with the Elizabethan comedian Richard Tarlton , a celebrated performer of the pre-Shakespearian stage , who had died a decade or so before Hamlet was first performed .
Musical theatre
The European Renaissance saw older forms evolve into two antecedents of musical theatre : commedia dell'arte , where raucous clowns improvised familiar stories , and later , opera buffa . In England , Elizabethan and Jacobean plays frequently included music , and short musical plays began to be included in an evenings ' dramatic entertainments . Court masques developed during the Tudor period that involved music , dancing , singing and acting , often with expensive costumes and a complex stage design . These developed into sung plays that are recognizable as English operas , the first usually being thought of as The Siege of Rhodes ( 1656 ) . In France , meanwhile , Molière turned several of his farcical comedies into musical entertainments with songs ( music provided by Jean Baptiste Lully ) and dance in the late 17th century . These influenced a brief period of English opera by composers such as John Blow and Henry Purcell .
Actor
In the Early Middle Ages , churches in Europe began staging dramatized versions of biblical events . By the middle of the 11th century , liturgical drama had spread from Russia to Scandinavia to Italy . The Feast of Fools encouraged the development of comedy . In the Late Middle Ages , plays were produced in 127 towns . These vernacular Mystery plays often contained comedy , with actors playing devils , villains , and clowns . The majority of actors in these plays were drawn from the local population . Amateur performers in England were exclusively male , but other countries had female performers .
Medieval theatre
Secular drama was also staged throughout the Middle Ages , the earliest of which is The Play of the Greenwood by Adam de la Halle in 1276 . It contains satirical scenes and folk material such as faeries and other supernatural occurrences . Farces also rose dramatically in popularity after the 13th century . The majority of these plays come from France and Germany and are similar in tone and form , emphasizing sex and bodily excretions . The best known playwright of farces is Hans Sachs ( 1494 -- 1576 ) who wrote 198 dramatic works . In England , The Second Shepherds ' Play of the Wakefield Cycle is the best known early farce . However , farce did not appear independently in England until the 16th century with the work of John Heywood ( 1497 -- 1580 ) .
Shakespeare's reputation
As a part of an effort to get the German public to take Shakespeare more seriously , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe organised a Shakespeare jubilee in Frankfurt in 1771 , stating in a speech on 14 October 1771 that the dramatist had shown that the Aristotelian unities were `` as oppressive as a prison '' and were `` burdensome fetters on our imagination '' . Goethe praised Shakespeare for liberating his mind from the rigid Aristoltelian rules , saying : `` I jumped into the free air , and suddenly felt I had hands and feet ... Shakespeare , my friend , if you were with us today , I could only live with you '' . Herder likewise proclaimed that reading Shakespeare 's work opens `` leaves from the book of events , of providence , of the world , blowing in the sands of time . ''
Romeo and Juliet
The earliest known production in North America was an amateur one : on 23 March 1730 , a physician named Joachimus Bertrand placed an advertisement in the Gazette newspaper in New York , promoting a production in which he would play the apothecary . The first professional performances of the play in North America were those of the Hallam Company .
Hamlet
In 1953 , actor Jack Manning performed the play in 15 - minute segments over two weeks in the short - lived late night DuMont series Monodrama Theater . New York Times TV critic Jack Gould praised Manning 's performance as Hamlet .
Actor
Renaissance theatre derived from several medieval theatre traditions , such as the mystery plays , `` morality plays '' , and the `` university drama '' that attempted to recreate Athenian tragedy . The Italian tradition of Commedia dell'arte , as well as the elaborate masques frequently presented at court , also contributed to the shaping of public theatre . Since before the reign of Elizabeth I , companies of players were attached to households of leading aristocrats and performed seasonally in various locations . These became the foundation for the professional players that performed on the Elizabethan stage .
Shakespeare's reputation
Shakespeare as far it can be established never went any further from Stratford - upon - Avon than London , but he make a reference to the visit of Russian diplomats from the court of Tsar Ivan the Terrible to the court of Elizabeth I in Love Labor Lost in which the French aristocrats dress up as Russians and make fools of themselves . '' Shakespeare was first translated into Russian by Alexander Sumarokov , who called Shakespeare an `` inspired barbarian '' , who wrote of the Bard of Avon that in his plays `` there is much that is bad and exceedingly good '' . In 1786 , Shakespeare 's reputation in Russia was greatly enhanced when the Empress Catherine the Great translated a French version of The Merry Wives of Windsor into Russian ( Catherine did not know English ) and had it staged in St. Petersburg . Shortly afterwards , Catherine translated Timon of Athens from French into Russian . The patronage of Catherine made Shakespeare an eminently respectable author in Russia , but his plays were rarely performed until the 19th century , and instead he was widely read ...
Hamlet
Benedict Cumberbatch played the role for a 12 - week run in a production at the Barbican Theatre , opening on 25 August 2015 . The play was produced by Sonia Friedman , and directed by Lyndsey Turner , with set design by Es Devlin . It was called the `` most in - demand theatre production of all time '' and sold out in seven hours after tickets went on sale 11 August 2014 , more than a year before the play opened .