William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer.[9] He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26 April 1564. His actual date of birth remains unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23 April, Saint Georges Day.[10] This date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholars mistake, has proved appealing to biographers, since Shakespeare died 23 April 1616.[11] He was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son.[12] Although no attendance records for the period survive, most biographers agree that Shakespeare was probably educated at the Kings New School in Stratford,[13] a free school chartered in 1553,[14] about a quarter-mile from his home. Grammar schools varied in quality during the Elizabethan era, but grammar school curricula were largely similar, the basic Latin text was standardised by royal decree,[15] and the school would have provided an intensive education in grammar based upon Latin classical authors.[16] John Shakespeares house, believed to be Shakespeares birthplace, in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, Shakespeare married the 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next day, two of Hathaways neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage.[17] The ceremony may have been arranged in some haste, since the Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read once instead of the usual three times,[18] and six months after the marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, baptised 26 May 1583.[19] Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585.[20] Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596.[21] After the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in the complaints bill of a law case before the Queens Bench court at Westminster dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9 October 1589.[22] Scholars refer to the years between 1585 and 1592 as Shakespeares lost years.[23] Biographers attempting to account for this period have reported many apocryphal stories. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeares first biographer, recounted a Stratford legend that Shakespeare fled the town for London to escape prosecution for deer poaching in the estate of local squire Thomas Lucy. Shakespeare is also supposed to have taken his revenge on Lucy by writing a scurrilous ballad about him.[24] Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare starting his theatrical career minding the horses of theatre patrons in London.[25] John Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had been a country schoolmaster.[26] Some 20th-century scholars have suggested that Shakespeare may have been employed as a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who named a certain William Shakeshafte in his will.[27] Little evidence substantiates such stories other than hearsay collected after his death, and Shakeshafte was a common name in the Lancashire area.[28] London and theatrical career All the worlds a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts... —As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7, 139–42[29] It is not known exactly when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of performances show that several of his plays were on the London stage by 1592.[30] By then, he was sufficiently well known in London to be attacked in print by the playwright Robert Greene in his Groats-Worth of Wit: ...there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tigers heart wrapped in a Players hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.[31] Scholars differ on the exact meaning of these words,[32] but most agree that Greene is accusing Shakespeare of reaching above his rank in trying to match university-educated writers such as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe and Greene himself (the university wits).[33] The italicised phrase parodying the line Oh, tigers heart wrapped in a womans hide from Shakespeares Henry VI, Part 3, along with the pun Shake-scene, identifies Shakespeare as Greenes target. Here Johannes Factotum—Jack of all trades— means a second-rate tinkerer with the work of others, rather than the more common universal genius.[32][34] Greenes attack is the earliest surviving mention of Shakespeares career in the theatre. Biographers suggest that his career may have begun any time from the mid-1580s to just before Greenes remarks.[35] From 1594, Shakespeares plays were performed by only the Lord Chamberlains Men, a company owned by a group of players, including Shakespeare, that soon became the leading playing company in London.[36] After the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, the company was awarded a royal patent by the new king, James I, and changed its name to the Kings Men.[37] In 1599, a partnership of company members built their own theatre on the south bank of the River Thames, which they called the Globe. In 1608, the partnership also took over the Blackfriars indoor theatre. Records of Shakespeares property purchases and investments indicate that the company made him a wealthy man.[38] In 1597, he bought the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place, and in 1605, he invested in a share of the parish tithes in Stratford.[39] Some of Shakespeares plays were published in quarto editions from 1594. By 1598, his name had become a selling point and began to appear on the title pages.[40] Shakespeare continued to act in his own and other plays after his success as a playwright. The 1616 edition of Ben Jonsons Works names him on the cast lists for Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Sejanus His Fall (1603).[41] The absence of his name from the 1605 cast list for Jonsons Volpone is taken by some scholars as a sign that his acting career was nearing its end.[42] The First Folio of 1623, however, lists Shakespeare as one of the Principal Actors in all these Plays, some of which were first staged after Volpone, although we cannot know for certain which roles he played.[43] In 1610, John Davies of Hereford wrote that good Will played kingly roles.[44] In 1709, Rowe passed down a tradition that Shakespeare played the ghost of Hamlets father.[45] Later traditions maintain that he also played Adam in As You Like It and the Chorus in Henry V,[46] though scholars doubt the sources of the information.[47] Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford during his career. In 1596, the year before he bought New Place as his family home in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in the parish of St. Helens, Bishopsgate, north of the River Thames.[48][49] He moved across the river to Southwark by 1599, the year his company constructed the Globe Theatre there.[48][50] By 1604, he had moved north of the river again, to an area north of St Pauls Cathedral with many fine houses. There he rented rooms from a French Huguenot named Christopher Mountjoy, a maker of ladies wigs and other headgear.[51] Later years and death Rowe was the first biographer to record the tradition, repeated by Johnson, that Shakespeare retired to Stratford some years before his death.[52][53] He was still working as an actor in London in 1608; in an answer to the sharers petition in 1635 Cuthbert Burbage stated that after purchasing the lease of the Blackfriars Theatre in 1608 from Henry Evans, the Kings Men placed men players there, which were Heminges, Condell, Shakespeare, etc..[54] However it is perhaps relevant that the bubonic plague raged in London throughout 1609.[55][56] The London public playhouses were repeatedly closed during extended outbreaks of the plague (a total of over 60 months closure between May 1603 and February 1610),[57] which meant there was often no acting work. Retirement from all work was uncommon at that time.[58] Shakespeare continued to visit London during the years 1611–1614.[52] In 1612, he was called as a witness in Bellott v. Mountjoy, a court case concerning the marriage settlement of Mountjoys daughter, Mary.[59] In March 1613 he bought a gatehouse in the former Blackfriars priory;[60] and from November 1614 he was in London for several weeks with his son-in-law, John Hall.[61] After 1610, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, and none are attributed to him after 1613.[62] His last three plays were collaborations, probably with John Fletcher,[63] who succeeded him as the house playwright for the Kings Men.[64] Shakespeares funerary monument in Stratford-upon-Avon. Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, at the age of 52.[65] He died within a month of signing his will, a document which he begins by describing himself as being in “perfect health”. There is no extant contemporary source that explains how or why he died. After half a century had passed, John Ward, the vicar of Stratford, wrote in his notebook: “Shakespeare, Drayton and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting and, it seems, drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted.”[66][67] This is not impossible, for Shakespeare knew Jonson and Drayton. Of the tributes that started to come from fellow authors, one refers to his relatively early death: “We wondered, Shakespeare, that thou went’st so soon/From the world’s stage to the grave’s tiring room.”[68] He was survived by his wife and two daughters. Susanna had married a physician, John Hall, in 1607,[69] and Judith had married Thomas Quiney, a vintner, two months before Shakespeares death.[70] Shakespeare signed his last will and testament on 25 March 1616; the following day his new son-in-law, Thomas Quiney was found guilty of fathering an illegitimate son by Margaret Wheeler, who had died during childbirth. Thomas was ordered by the church court to do public penance which would have caused much shame and embarrassment for the Shakespeare family.[71] In his will, Shakespeare left the bulk of his large estate to his elder daughter Susanna.[72] The terms instructed that she pass it down intact to the first son of her body.[73] The Quineys had three children, all of whom died without marrying.[74] The Halls had one child, Elizabeth, who married twice but died without children in 1670, ending Shakespeares direct line.[75] Shakespeares will scarcely mentions his wife, Anne, who was probably entitled to one third of his estate automatically.[76] He did make a point, however, of leaving her my second best bed, a bequest that has led to much speculation.[77] Some scholars see the bequest as an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that the second-best bed would have been the matrimonial bed and therefore rich in significance.[78] Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church two days after his death.[79] The epitaph carved into the stone slab covering his grave includes a curse against moving his bones, which was carefully avoided during restoration of the church in 2008:[80] Shakespeares grave Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare, To digg the dvst encloased heare. Bleste be Middle English the.svg man Middle English that.svg spares thes stones, And cvrst be he Middle English that.svg moves my bones.[81][nb 5] (Modern spelling: Good friend, for Jesus sake forbear, | To dig the dust enclosed here. | Blessed be the man that spares these stones, | And cursed be he that moves my bones.) Sometime before 1623, a funerary monument was erected in his memory on the north wall, with a half-effigy of him in the act of writing. Its plaque compares him to Nestor, Socrates, and Virgil.[82] In 1623, in conjunction with the publication of the First Folio, the Droeshout engraving was published.[83] Shakespeare has been commemorated in many statues and memorials around the world, including funeral monuments in Southwark Cathedral and Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 09:40:55 +0000