Shakespeare’s Life

Shakespeare’s Life An Introduction

“We don’t know anything about Shakespeare’s life, right? I mean, he probably didn’t even really exist. Or if he did, most of what we know is apocryphal. Right? Right?”

Umm . . . No.

Much of the nonsense that has been written about William Shakespeare comes from ignorance of the Elizabethan age and its conditions. People tend to think we know hardly anything about Shakespeare, but in fact we know more about him than about any other dramatist of the time except Ben Jonson, who, again, lived later and longer.

To the extent that we really don’t know that much about Shakespeare, there’s a good reason:During the Elizabethan age, people were not much interested in the biographies of writers, especially mere dramatists, unless they were otherwise important.

Much of the confusion about Shakespeare is unnecessary -- even standard Victorian and Edwardian authorities left open questions that could have been settled and added to the confusion by superfluous conjectures. It is better to stick to known historical circumstance, and facts.

To understand Shakespeare, one must understand Elizabethan England -- much in the way that one must understand Victorian England in order to understand Dickens.

Shakespeare’s Life: The Facts

Shakespeare was born in Stratford-Upon-Avon, in county Warwickshire, in the heart of England, in 1564. The exact date of his birth is not known with certainty, but is generally assumed to be April 23 – he was baptized on April 26, and baptisms traditionally occurred three days after birth.He died on April 23 (likely his birthday) in 1616.

His father, John Shakespeare, was a burgess of the recently constituted corporation of Stratford and had already filled minor municipal offices. Shakespeare was, therefore, the son of a leading citizen of an important market town. His mother was Mary Arden -- they married in late 1556 or 1567.

The name Shakespeare is extremely widespread, and is spelled in a variety of ways. Shakespeare himself generally wrote "Shakspere."

William was not the first child. A Joan was baptized in 1558, and a Margaret in 1562. Margaret was buried in 1563, and Joan must have died young (though her death is not recorded) because a second Joan was baptized in 1569. Other children were Gilbert (1566-1612), Anne (1571-1579), Richard (1574-1613) and Edmund (1580-1607, became an actor).

In 1577, when Shakespeare was 13, his father's fortunes took a turn for the worse, and he went into debt. Consequently, it is likely that William's school days were curtailed, and he was apprenticed to some local trade.

At 18, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway of Shottery (a hamlet of Stratford), who was 8 years his senior. Their marriage bond was recorded on November 28, 1582.

Their first child, Susanna, was baptized on May 26, 1583 (yes, that does mean that Hathaway was pregnant at the wedding). Twins, Hamnet and Judith, were baptized February 2, 1585.

Shakespeare left Stratford in 1584 (before the twins were born). Some stories have him going on a drinking binge in a neighboring village; it's more likely he got into trouble through poaching on the estates of a Warwickshire magnate and left Stratford to avoid punishment. Shakespeare later satirized the magnate as Justice Shallow in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

From 1584 to 1592 (from the ages of 20-28), when he emerged as an actor and playwright, his history is a blank. Various stories have him working during those years as a scrivener, an apothecary, a dyer, a printer, a soldier, and the like. There isn't evidence to support these suppositions, though.

In 1592, when he was 28, he began to emerge as a playwright, evoking the jealousy of at least one scholar poet/dramatist, Robert Greene, who wrote scathing invective about the man and his work.From June 1592 through April 1594, the London theatres were closed due to riots and then plague.The earliest writings are assumed to be Venus and Adonis and Lucrece, 1593 and 1594.

After theatres reopened in summer 1594, Shakespeare's status is in many ways clearer. He became a leading member of the Chamberlain's Company of Actors, along with Richard Burbage (its principal actor) and his brother Cuthbert. Their company was housed at least for some time in the Theatre in Shoreditch, owned by the Burbages' father.

Shakespeare is reported to have been a good actor, but played supporting rather than leading roles (Hamlet's ghost, for example). As a writer, though, he was a mainstay of the company for at least 15 years. On average, he must have written about two plays per year for the Company.

It is true that he occasionally took plots from earlier plays, but theories that represent him as a "patcher" of the works of others have generally been abandoned.He apparently did enter into collaboration near the end of his career, with John Fletcher, for example.Around 1596 his career flourished and he became wealthy; but also that year his son Hamnet died.

He was highly praised for his work during his lifetime, from the very beginning.Around 1610, Shakespeare seems to have left London, and to have finally settled in his house at New Place, Stratford. There he lived the life of the retired gentleman, with his garden and his mulberry tree.Both daughters (Susanna and Judith) lived to adulthood and were married.

The last few plays may have been written during these days at Stratford, but it's likely that Shakespeare's connection with the King's company ended when the Globe was burned down during a performance of Henry VIII on June 29, 1613.

Shakespeare made his will on March 25, 1616, apparently in some haste, as it was riddled with erasures and corrections. He left legacies to his daughter Judith, his sister Joan Hart, and friends in Warwickshire and London; property was left to his daughter Susanna so that she might found a family. His wife was only mentioned in a correction, where it was added that she should receive his "second best bed". A month after his will was signed, Shakespeare died, and was buried in the chancel of the parish church.

Despite his hopes and wishes, Shakespeare had no direct descendants past the second generation. His granddaughter, Elizabeth Hall, made two childless marriages; daughter Judith had three sons, all of whom died unmarried. His sister, Joan Hart, had descendants who could be traced to 1864.

Shakespeare’s Works: The Facts

1585(?) - 1595 • Early comedies, typically Roman or Italian (The Taming of the Shrew, Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labour’s Lost) • Early histories (Henry VI parts I, II & III, Richard III)

1595-1599 • Early/apprentice tragedies (Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar) • Layered comedies (Midsummer Night’s Dream, Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing)

1600-1608 • The great tragedies: • Hamlet • Othello • King Lear • Macbeth

1608-1613 • Romances, tragicomedies (Winter’s Tale, The Tempest) • Collaborations with John Fletcher (Henry VIII, Two Noble Kinsmen)

Development of Form • The greatest early plays (Richard III, The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet) are almost exclusively written in verse, occasionally rhymed but often blank • The mid-period plays (Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V) begin to incorporate prose for comic passages (e.g. Dogberry, Pistol)

Mastery of Form The most profoundly artful texts (Hamlet, The Tempest) combine and layer verse and prose in ways that both heighten emotional effect and reveal ironies of character.

Context and Content Shakespeare lived and wrote in a time of great discovery. In the decades leading up to his birth: • Columbus arrives in the Americas • Copernicus asserts heliocentrism • The Italian High Renaissance flourishes • Magellan circumnavigates the globe

And during his lifetime… • Galileo fights the Church • Descartes proposes an age of reason • John Napier discovers logarithms • William Harvey discovers blood circulation

Shakespeare’s Life