Bard in the context of "Shakespearean"

William Shakespeare (c. 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" or simply "the Bard". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI of Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613) he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs and even certain fringe theories as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others.

In Greek mythology, Orpheus (/ˈɔːrfiːəs, ˈɔːrfjuːs/ ; Ancient Greek: Ὀρφεύς, classical pronunciation: [or.pʰeú̯s]) was a bard, legendary musician and prophet. He was also a renowned poet and, according to legend, travelled with Jason and the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece, and descended into the underworld to recover his lost wife, Eurydice.

The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music (the usual scene in Orpheus mosaics), his attempt to retrieve his wife Eurydice from the underworld, and his death at the hands of the maenads of Dionysus, who got tired of his mourning for his late wife Eurydice. As an archetype of the inspired singer, Orpheus is one of the most significant figures in the reception of classical mythology in Western culture, portrayed or alluded to in countless forms of art and popular culture including poetry, film, opera, music, and painting.

A stock character is a dramatic or literary character representing a generic type in a conventional, simplified manner and recurring in many fictional works. The following list labels some of these stereotypes and provides examples. Some character archetypes, the more universal foundations of fictional characters, are also listed.

Some characters that were first introduced as fully fleshed-out characters become subsequently used as stock characters in other works — for example, the Ebenezer Scrooge character from A Christmas Carol, based upon whom the "miser" stereotype, whose name now has become a shorthand for this. Some stock characters incorporate more than one stock character; for example, a bard may also be a wisecracking jester.

Bardic poetry is the writings produced by a class of poets trained in the bardic schools of Ireland and the Gaelic parts of Scotland, as they existed down to about the middle of the 17th century or, in Scotland, the early 18th century. Most of the texts preserved are in Middle Irish or in early Modern Irish, however, even though the manuscripts were very plentiful, very few have been published. It is considered a period of great literary stability due to the formalised literary language that changed very little.

In modern English, the nouns vates (/ˈveɪtiːz/) and ovate (UK: /ˈɒvət, ˈoʊveɪt/, US: /ˈoʊveɪt/), are used as technical terms for ancient Celtic bards, prophets and philosophers. The terms correspond to a Proto-Celtic word which can be reconstructed as *wātis. They are sometimes also used as English equivalents to later Celtic terms such as Irish fáith "prophet, seer".

Rabindranath Thakur FRAS (Bengali: [roˈbindɾonatʰ ˈʈʰakuɾ]; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore /rəˈbɪndrənɑːt təˈɡɔːr/ ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), also known by his pseudonym Bhanusimha (Sun Lion) was a Bengali polymath (poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter) of the Bengal Renaissance period. In 1913, Tagore became the second non-European to win a Nobel Prize in any category, and also the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He has written the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.

He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was the author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; his elegant prose and magical poetry were widely popular in the Indian subcontinent. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore was known by the sobriquets Gurudev, Kobiguru, and Biswokobi.

A kobzar (Ukrainian: кобзар [kobˈzɑr] ; pl. кобзарі, kobzari) was an itinerant Ukrainian bard who sang to his own accompaniment. The professional kobzar tradition was established in Ukraine during the Cossack Era around the 16th century. Kobzari were often blind and became predominantly so by the 1800s. The word kobzar literally means 'player of kobza', a Ukrainian stringed instrument of the lute family. More broadly, the term is given for a performer of the musical material associated with the kobzar tradition.

Aneirin (Welsh pronunciation: [aˈnɛirɪn]), also rendered as Aneurin or Neirin and Aneurin Gwawdrydd, was an early Medieval Brythonic war poet who lived during the 6th century. He is believed to have been a bard or court poet in one of the Cumbric kingdoms of the Old North, probably that of Gododdin at Edinburgh, in modern Scotland. From the 17th century, he was usually known as Aneurin.