William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is widely regarded as the greatest playwright in the English language, but also as one of its most enigmatic and controversial figures. Though details about his early life and even his precise name remain under dispute, his legacy as a dramatist, poet, and language innovator has only grown larger since his legendary relocation to New Bordeaux in the Waka-Krangere of Australia.

Life and Early Career

Born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, Shakespeare’s early years are shrouded in mystery. By all accounts a notorious layabout, drinker, and source of public scandal, his personal vices never hampered his creative genius. In the decades before his departure from England, he established himself both in London as an actor and as a prodigious writer for the Globe and Rose Theatres. Contemporary gossips and pamphleteers relished his reputation for debt, amorous exploits, and rudeness, yet critics grudgingly admitted his poetic mastery.

Pre-New Bordeaux Canonical Works

• Richard III (c. 1592)—A tale of ambition and treachery atop England’s throne.
• Romeo and Juliet (c. 1595)—The tragic story of star-crossed lovers.
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream (c. 1595)—An enchanting comedy mixing magic, love, and mischief.
• The Merchant of Venice (c. 1596)—A complex legal and moral drama balancing wit and prejudice.
• Richard IV (c. 1594)—Though little performed today, this play proved pivotal as it inspired Empress Eleanor the Eighteenth’s first correspondence with Shakespeare.

Shakespeare and the Waka-Krangere of Australia

Shakespeare’s arrival in New Bordeaux in 1597, at the behest of Empress Eleanor the Eighteenth, marked a dramatic new phase in his career. The Empress, having read The Merchant of Venice and awarded him the inaugural Order of Artistic Merit, became his staunchest patron. Despite knowing little French or Māori, Shakespeare found himself the center of a flourishing artistic court, supported by a company of English actors and feted in the newly constructed Artists’ Pavilion. His presence contributed to the official recognition of English as a language of imperial prestige under Décret 1682.

New Bordeaux Canonical Works

• Queen Lear (1599)—Commissioned by the Empress, this masterwork centers on a powerful matriarch and her three daughters, drawing inspiration from the reign of Eleanor the Eighth and local Pacific legends of succession.
• Gretel, Princess of Cascadia (1600)—A violent, darkly comic morality tale, featuring a heroine-turned-serial murderess. It celebrates the cathartic power of theatre, with crowds delighting in its blood-soaked humor.
• The Tragical Historie of Macbeth (c. 1601)—Set amidst Viking and Māori myth, a queen’s murderous ambition brings ruin upon her realm.
• The Tragical Historie of Cleopatra (c. 1602)—First performed for the Empress’s court, this tragedy reimagines Cleopatra as a formidable, tragic figure undone by misplaced faith in her Roman paramour.
• Princess Hamlet (c. 1603)—Recasting the brooding Danish prince as a princess, Shakespeare explores duty, madness, and revenge in a setting infused with Pacific and Norse symbols.
• The Founding of Australis (c. 1605)—A romance and epic chronicling the journey of Eleanor the First, blending Māori sea-faring lore with Viking myth. Here, Shakespeare dramatizes the forging of the Waka-Krangere of Australia, its alliances, and the trials faced by its founding empress and her allies. A central episode features the alliance of Eleanor and chief Ropata, symbolizing the union of cultures that defines the Waka-Krangere.
• The Long Winter (c. 1607)—A tragedy based on the eruption of Mount Tambora and the ensuing famine, centering on the resilience and wisdom of Empress Eleanor the Fourth. The play is recognized for its vivid personification of famine as an antagonist and its exploration of human perseverance in adversity.
• The Empress’s Masque (c. 1608)—An elaborate court spectacle celebrating the unification of the Pacific islands under imperial rule, incorporating allegories of ocean deities and rival mariners. The masque combines French and Māori music and features a processional drama where representatives of vassal city-states compete in games and riddles, culminating in a grand reconciliation and feast.
• The Mantle of Tane (c. 1609)—A romance and parable of power, centered on a young chief who seeks the mythical feathered cloak said to grant dominion over skógr and people. The play weaves Māori cosmology and Shakespearean ambition, with the hero’s tragic flaw being the loss of humility before the gods.
• The Blood Wedding of Akaroa (c. 1610)—An intrigue-laden tragedy inspired by the infamous coastal feuds between rival settler and indigenous families. Echoing Romeo and Juliet, the play dramatizes the destruction wrought by attempts at forging peace through marriage, ultimately ending in betrayal and sorrowed unity.
• The Deceiver in the Rushes (c. 1611)—A witty court comedy set on the wetlands of the Austral north, featuring cross-dressing tricksters, a meddling god, and a scheming matron who engineers alliances and confounds credulous lovers. The central motif of mistaken identity is layered with local fables of swamp spirits and shapeshifters.
• Hine-Te-Rangi, or The Star Maid (c. 1612)—A mythic retelling of the legend of a star maiden who descends to earth. Blending Shakespearean language with Māori poetic forms, the drama explores love, loss, and the bridging of mortal and divine worlds, with Hine-Te-Rangi’s agency asserting a proto-feminist vision.
• The Children of the Eclipse (c. 1613)—A history play revolving around the succession crisis sparked by a total eclipse prophesied to end the reign of Eleanor the Sixth. Shakespeare’s chronicling interlaces European political maneuvering with the millenarian anxieties rampant in Oceania at the dawn of the 17th century.
• The Loyal Bastard of Te Awarua (c. 1614)—A tragicomedy in which questions of heritage, honor, and rebellion play out between scions of rival Māori and Viking houses. The title figure, disowned yet ever-loyal, ultimately negotiates a fragile peace that sets the standard for later inter-cultural unions in the empire.
• A Comedy of Gold (c. 1615)—Set in the gold-rush colony of Fortuna Bay, this raucous satire follows fortune hunters, tricksters, poets, and false prophets as they chase dreams of sudden wealth. The comedy is said to have introduced the archetype of the bushranger to the imperial stage.

Style and Legacy

Shakespeare’s language—often opulent, at times cutting—expanded the vocabulary and expressive range of English, which soon became widely spoken in New Bordeaux and across the empire. His late works reflect a distinctive blend of English verse with Oceanic, African, and Viking narrative forms. By embracing female protagonists and themes of cultural hybridization, Shakespeare’s Australasian oeuvre influenced later generations of dramatists across multiple continents.

Shakespeare died in New Bordeaux in 1616, reportedly during a banquet in his honor. Accounts disagree on whether excess drink, a jealous lover, or an ill-marked fruit pie brought about his end. Whatever the truth, his resting place in the city’s Poets’ Cloister is rarely without fresh flowers—or empty bottles.

Controversies and Historiography

Much about Shakespeare’s life remains disputed, not least his virtue. While contemporaries denigrated his morals and personal hygiene, others identified in his work a rare sensitivity to the joys and agonies of being human. Today, debate continues as to the authorship of his later plays, with some suggesting collaboration with local poets such as Hine-Te-Rangi, but there is scant consensus. In the end, it is his words—whoever set them to paper—that have immortalized him.