---
title: "Shakespeare | British Literature II"
description: "Shakespeare shaped English drama with vivid language, complex characters, and themes that later British Literature II units trace into modernism and beyond."
canonical: "https://fiveable.me/british-literature-ii/key-terms/shakespeare"
type: "key-term"
subject: "British Literature II"
unit: "Unit 11"
---

# Shakespeare | British Literature II

## Definition

Shakespeare is the English playwright and poet whose plays and sonnets shape British Literature II. In this course, he matters as a major source for drama, language, and later writers like Eliot.

## What It Is

Shakespeare is the major Elizabethan writer you keep returning to when British Literature II talks about drama, language, and literary inheritance. He wrote tragedies, comedies, histories, and sonnets, and his work became a standard reference point for later British writers who both admired him and tried to revise him.

In this course, Shakespeare is not just a name from the Renaissance. He is part of the background that modern and post-Renaissance writers assume you recognize. T.S. Eliot, for example, builds The Waste Land out of fragments of earlier writing, and Shakespeare is one of the voices that sits inside that larger literary memory. When later texts echo or quote Shakespeare, they are often borrowing his authority, his imagery, or his way of staging human conflict.

One reason Shakespeare stays so visible is that his language is dense but flexible. He can write in iambic pentameter, break that rhythm for emotional effect, and switch between elevated speech and plain dialogue. That mix shows up in classroom analysis when you look at how a character sounds different from a servant, a ruler, or a soliloquy speaker. The language is part of the meaning, not just decoration.

Shakespeare also gives British Literature II a model of character psychology. His figures are rarely flat, even when they are comic or villainous. A character can be ambitious, fearful, funny, and self-deceiving all at once, which is one reason later literature keeps circling back to him when exploring identity, power, gender, or moral conflict.

His lasting presence in the course is partly historical and partly literary. He belongs to the Elizabethan Era, but he does not stay trapped there. You read him as a source text, a stylistic influence, and a benchmark for how English drama and poetry could sound, move, and think.

## Why It Matters

Shakespeare matters in British Literature II because so much later writing is in conversation with him, even when the text is trying to move beyond him. Romantic, Victorian, Modernist, and later authors often borrow his diction, quote his lines, or react against the cultural authority attached to his name.

He also gives you a way to track how literary form evolves. If a modern poem feels fractured, allusive, or self-conscious about language, it can still be read against earlier traditions of lyric and drama that Shakespeare helped define. When Eliot layers voices and references in The Waste Land, part of the effect comes from the sense that old literary language is still haunting the present.

Shakespeare is also useful for close reading because his texts reward attention to imagery, meter, wordplay, and dramatic structure. A single line can reveal social rank, emotional pressure, or a shift in power. That makes him a strong training ground for the kind of analysis British Literature II asks for across the whole course.

Finally, Shakespeare matters because he sits inside debates about canon, authority, and whose literature gets centered. Even when the course moves into modern writers, his influence helps explain what later authors inherit, revise, or resist.

## Connections

### Elizabethan Era

Shakespeare is the writer most closely tied to this period, so the era gives you the historical frame for his language, stage conditions, and themes. In British Literature II, the Elizabethan context helps explain why his drama mixes public spectacle, politics, and poetry so easily.

### [Iambic Pentameter](/british-literature-ii/key-terms/iambic-pentameter)

Shakespeare often writes in this meter, and recognizing it helps you hear where a line follows expectation or breaks from it. That break can signal emotional stress, power shifts, or a character losing control of the speech pattern.

### The Globe Theatre

Shakespeare’s plays were written for performance, not silent reading, and the Globe helps explain their speed, audience awareness, and flexible staging. When you read a scene, the theater setting reminds you that entrances, exits, soliloquies, and crowd scenes are built for live effect.

### [Dante](/british-literature-ii/key-terms/dante)

Dante and Shakespeare both become major reference points for later writers who build meaning through allusion. In British Literature II, they can appear together as examples of how authors borrow from earlier literary authorities while reshaping them for new audiences and new historical moments.

## On the AP Exam

A passage analysis question may ask you to identify Shakespearean features in a later text, such as elevated diction, dramatic monologue, or allusion to a famous play. On essays and discussion prompts, you might use Shakespeare as a reference point for character psychology, tragic structure, or the English literary canon. If a modernist poem quotes or echoes him, explain why that reference matters instead of just naming it. In timed writing, a quick, accurate connection to Shakespeare can support a stronger claim about influence, conflict, or style.

## Shakespeare vs Elizabethan Era

Shakespeare is a writer, while the Elizabethan Era is the historical period associated with Queen Elizabeth I. They overlap, but they are not the same thing. Use Shakespeare when you mean the author or his works, and use Elizabethan Era when you mean the broader cultural and historical setting.

## Key Takeaways

- Shakespeare is the central Elizabethan playwright and poet that British Literature II keeps using as a reference point for later writing.
- His work matters not only for plot and character, but for language, meter, staging, and the emotional range of dramatic speech.
- Later authors often quote, echo, or react against Shakespeare, so he shows up in Modernist and later British literature as a source of allusion.
- When you analyze Shakespeare, pay attention to how the line sounds, how the scene is staged, and how power shifts between characters.
- If a text mentions Shakespeare, it is often signaling canon, authority, or literary inheritance rather than just naming a famous author.

## FAQs

### What is Shakespeare in British Literature II?

Shakespeare is the English playwright and poet whose work anchors a lot of British Literature II. You study him as a source of dramatic form, poetic language, and lasting themes like power, love, jealousy, and moral conflict.

### Why does Shakespeare matter in British Literature II?

He matters because later British writers keep building on, quoting, and revising him. His plays and sonnets also give you a model for close reading, especially when you need to track imagery, meter, or character psychology.

### Is Shakespeare part of the Elizabethan Era?

Yes, Shakespeare is strongly associated with the Elizabethan Era because he wrote during that period. The era is the historical context, while Shakespeare is the writer whose work reflects and shapes that context.

### How do you identify Shakespearean influence in a later text?

Look for allusion, elevated speech, dramatic structure, or characters who sound like they are wrestling with ambition, fate, or divided identity. In British Literature II, a later writer may borrow Shakespeare to gain prestige or to question older literary authority.

## Related Study Guides

- [11.2 Eliot's fragmentation and allusion in The Waste Land](/british-literature-ii/unit-11/eliots-fragmentation-allusion-waste-land/study-guide/RudISXNPBLGR8aLj)

## About This Document

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