Life of William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (National Portrait Gallery), in the famous Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity unconfirmed.

There are few hard facts about William Shakespeare's life. What is certain is that Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England, in April 1564, at age 18 married Anne Hathaway, had three children, and died on April 23 1616 at the age of 52. In addition to these facts, research into historical documents and analysis of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets have produced numerous speculations about the rest of his life, including his sexuality and whether or not Shakespeare was the author of his plays and poetry.

Early life

William Shakespeare (also spelled Shakspere, Shaksper, and Shake-speare, due to the fact that Elizabethan spelling was very erratic^[1]) was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England, in April 1564, the son of John Shakespeare, a successful tradesman and alderman and of Mary Arden, a daughter of the gentry. They lived on Henley Street. His baptismal record dates to April 26 of that year. Because baptisms were performed within a few days of birth, tradition has settled on April 23 as his birthday. It provides a convenient symmetry: he died on that day in 1616, and perhaps appropriately for a playwright commonly considered to be England's greatest, it is also the Feast Day of Saint George, the patron saint of England.

The house in Stratford known as 'Shakespeare's Birthplace' (although this status is uncertain). It is claimed that the poet was born in the room with the checked windows.

Shakespeare's father, prosperous at the time of William's birth, was prosecuted for participating in the black market in wool, and later lost his position as an alderman. Some evidence pointed to possible Roman Catholic sympathies on both sides of the family.

As the son of a prominent town official, William Shakespeare attended King Edward VI Grammar School in central Stratford, which may have provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and literature. The quality of Elizabethian-era grammar schools was uneven. It is presumed that the young Shakespeare attended this school, since he was entitled to, although this cannot be confirmed because the school's records have not survived. There is no evidence that his formal education extended beyond grammar school.

Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway (who was 26) at the age of 18, on November 28, 1582 at Temple Grafton, near Stratford. Two neighbours of Anne, Fulk Sandalls and John Richardson, posted bond that there were no impediments to the marriage. There appears to have been some haste in arranging the ceremony: Anne was three months pregnant. After his marriage, William Shakespeare left few traces in the historical record until he appeared on the London literary scene.

The late 1580s are known as Shakespeare's 'Lost Years' because no evidence has survived to show exactly where he was or why he left Stratford for London. One legend, long since thoroughly discredited, is that he was caught poaching deer on the park of Sir Thomas Lucy, the local Justice of the Peace, and had to flee. Another theory is that Shakespeare could have joined the Lord Chamberlain's Men when they travelled through Stratford while on tour. The seventeenth-century biographer John Aubrey recorded the testimony of the son of one of Shakespeare's fellow players that Shakespeare had spent some time as "a schoolmaster in the country".

On May 26, 1583 Shakespeare's first child, Susanna, was baptised at Stratford. A son, Hamnet, and a daughter, Judith, were baptised soon after on February 2, 1585.

London and theatrical career

By 1592 Shakespeare was a playwright in London and had enough of a reputation for Robert Greene to denounce him as "an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey." (The italicised line parodies the phrase, "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide" which Shakespeare wrote in Henry VI, part 3.)

In 1596 Hamnet died; he was buried on August 11, 1596. Some suspect that his death was part of the inspiration behind The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (c.1601), a reworking of an older, lost play (possibly Danish play Amleth or Thomas Kyd).

By 1598 Shakespeare had moved to the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, and appeared at the top of a list of actors in Every man in his Humour written by Ben Jonson.

Shakespeare's signature, from his will

Shakespeare became an actor, writer and finally part-owner of a playing company, known as The Lord Chamberlain's Men — the company took its name, like others of the period, from its aristocratic sponsor, the Lord Chamberlain. The group became popular enough that after the death of Elizabeth I and the coronation of James I (1603), the new monarch adopted the company and it became known as the King's Men.

In 1604, Shakespeare acted as a matchmaker for his landlord's daughter. Legal documents from 1612, when the case was brought to trial, show that in 1604, Shakespeare was a tenant of Christopher Mountjoy, a Huguenot tire-maker (a maker of ornamental headdresses) in the northwest of London. Mountjoy's apprentice Stephen Belott wanted to marry Mountjoy's daughter. Shakespeare was enlisted as a go-between, to help negotiate the details of the dowry. On Shakespeare's assurances, the couple married. Eight years later, Belott sued his father-in-law for delivering only part of the dowry. Shakespeare was called to testify, but remembered little of the circumstances.

New Place, Stratford-on-Avon, built on the site of Shakespeare's home

Various documents recording legal affairs and commercial transactions show that Shakespeare grew rich enough during his stay in London years to buy a property in Blackfriars, London and own the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place.

Later years

Shakespeare retired in about 1611. His retirement was not entirely without controversy. He was drawn into a legal quarrel regarding the enclosure of common lands. (Enclosure enabled land to be converted to pasture for sheep, but removed it as a resource for the poor.) Shakespeare had a financial interest in the land, and to the chagrin of some, he took a neutral position, making sure only that his own income from the land was protected.

In the last few weeks of Shakespeare's life, the man who was to marry his younger daughter Judith — a tavern-keeper named Thomas Quiney — was charged in the local church court with "fornication." A woman named Margaret Wheeler had given birth to a child and claimed it was Quiney's; she and the child both died soon after. Quiney was thereafter disgraced, and Shakespeare revised his will to ensure that Judith's interest in his estate was protected from possible malfeasance on Quiney's part.

Shakespeare died on April 23 1616 at the age of 52. He remained married to Anne until his death and was survived by his two daughters, Susannah and Judith. Susannah married Dr John Hall. Neither Susannah's nor Judith's children had any offspring and as such there are no direct descendants of the poet and playwright alive today. It was rumored, though, that Shakespeare was the actual father of his godson, William Davenant.

Shakespeare is buried in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. He was granted the honour of burial in the chancel not on account of his fame as a playwright, but for purchasing a share of the tithe of the church for £440 (a considerable sum of money at the time). A bust of him placed by his family on the wall nearest his grave shows him posed as writing. Each year on his claimed birthday, a new quill pen is placed in the writing hand of the bust.

It was common in his time for graves in the chancel of the church to later be emptied with the contents removed to a nearby charnel house as more room was needed. Possibly fearing that his body would be removed, he was considered to have written an epitaph on his tombstone:

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear,

To dig the dust enclosed here.

Blest be the man that spares these stones,

But cursed be he that moves my bones.

Popular legend claims that unpublished works by Shakespeare may lie inside his tomb, but no one has ever verified these claims, perhaps for fear of the curse included in the quoted epitaph.

See also

• William Shakespeare
• Elizabethan era
• Shakespeare's reputation
• Shakespearean authorship
• Sexuality of William Shakespeare
• Shakespeare's plays
• Shakespeare's sonnets
• Anne Hathaway (Shakespeare's wife)
• Shakespeare's Late Romances
• Chronology of Shakespeare plays
• Shakespeare's England
• Shakespeare's Globe Theater
• Shakespeare on screen

Notes

1. ^ The Spelling and Pronunciation of Shakespeare's Name by David Kathman. Accessed 10/22/05.
2. ^ Was Shakespeare gay? Sonnet 20 and the politics of pedagogy. Accessed 10-24-05.