Short Biography William Shakespeare

Short Biography William Shakespeare

Information about the life of William Shakespeare is often open to doubt. Some even doubt whether he wrote all plays ascribed to him. From the best available sources it seems William Shakespeare was born in Stratford on about April 23rd 1564. His father William was a successful local businessman and his mother Mary was the daughter of a landowner. Relatively prosperous, it is likely the family paid for Williams education, although there is no evidence he attended university.

In 1582 William, aged only 18, married an older woman named Anne Hathaway. Soon after they had their first daughter, Susanna. They had another two children but William’s only son Hamnet died aged only 11.

After his marriage, information about the life of Shakespeare is sketchy but it seems he spent most of his time in London writing and performing in his plays. It seemed he didn’t mind being absent from his family - only returning home during Lent when all theatres were closed. It is generally thought that during the 1590s he wrote the majority of his sonnets. This was a time of prolific writing and his plays developed a good deal of interest and controversy. Due to some well timed investments he was able to secure a firm financial background, leaving time for writing and acting. The best of these investments was buying some real estate near Stratford in 1605, which soon doubled in value.

Some academics known as the “Oxfords” claim that Shakespeare never actually wrote any plays they suggest names such as Edward de Vere. They contend Shakespeare was actually just a successful businessman. Nevertheless there is some evidence of Shakespeare in theatres as he received a variety of criticism from people such as Ben Johnson and Robert Greene.

Shakespeare the Poet

William Shakespeare wrote 154 Sonnets mostly in the 1590s. Fairly short poems, they deal with issues such as lost love. His sonnets have an enduring appeal due to his characteristic skill with language and words.

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:”

- Sonnet CXVI

The Plays of Shakespeare

The plays of Shakespeare have been studied more than any other writing in theEnglish language and have been translated into numerous languages. He was rare as a play-write for excelling in tragedies, comedies and histories. He deftly combined popular entertainment with a rare poetic capacity for expression which is almost mantric in quality.

"This above all: to thine ownself be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!"

-Lord Polonius, Hamlet Act I, Scene 3

During his lifetime, Shakespeare was not without controversy, but he also received lavish praise for his plays which were very popular and commercially successful.

Shakespeare died in 1664; it is not clear how he died although his vicar suggested it was from heavy drinking. His tombstone is marked with the following epitaph;

Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare

To digg the dust encloased heare

Blessed by y man y spares hes stones

And curst be he y moves my bones

It is true to say that each line of Shakespeare has been poured over by scholars and students - no idea or concept has been left unturned. Shakespeare has left a profound and lasting impact on literature, cinema and theatre.

Shakespeare's Birth

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon, the son of John Shakespeare, a glovemaker and dealer in wool, who became bailiff, justice of the peace and the Queen’s chief officer at Stratford-on-Avon, as evidenced in his application for a coat of arms in 1569 (5).

Education

Shakespeare probably attended Stratford Grammar School from 1571 (7), but was removed from school around 1577 (13), when his father’s fortunes apparently began to decline, probably as a result of the increasingly anti-Catholic policy of the government of Elizabeth I, a policy which provided for fiscal and other penalties for non-attendance at Church of England services (recusancy), and enforced the exclusion of Catholics from public office.

Roman Catholicism of father

That John Shakespeare continued a Roman Catholic is evidenced not only by his ceasing to attend Stratford council meetings (most likely in order to avoid the necessity of taking the Oath of Supremacy), but also by his inclusion in a list of recusants compiled in 1592, and by the survival of a five leaf spiritual testament signed by him. This testament was discovered by workmen at Shakespeare's Henley Street birthplace in 1757, and was transcribed and authenticated by the Shakespeare scholar Edmund Malone. It was subsequently branded a forgery, and the original lost, but the later discovery of almost identical texts, all conforming to a format recommended by Saint Charles Borromeo, has tended to confirm Malone's assessment. It also suggests that there was an association between Shakespeare and one or both of the two Jesuits, EdmundCampion and Robert Parsons, whose mission to England took place in the years 1580-81 (16-17), and by whose agency it is most likely that the document found its way to Warwickshire.

Marriage

He married Anne Hathaway in 1582, when he was 18 and she 26, and already three months pregnant. His daughter, Susanna, was baptised on May 26, 1583 (19).

Story about deer poaching

His early biographer, Nicholas Rowe, relates that he was soon afterwards caught deer poaching in the park of Sir Thomas Lucy, and felt that 'he was prosecuted by that Gentleman, as he thought somewhat too severely and in order to revenge that ill usage he made a ballad upon him.....' which 'redoubled the Prosecution against him to that degree that he was obliged to leave his businesse and Family in Warwickshire for some time and shelter himself in London.' Lucy was at this time aggressively availing himself of anti-Catholic legislation to take possession of the property of absent Catholic landowners in the neighbourhood of Stratford-on-Avon.

Justice Shallow

The poaching story is corroborated by the appearance in the Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV of a close parallel to Sir Thomas in the form of Justice Shallow. Shallow is Justice of the Peace, Custos Rotulorum and armigerous, with a 'dozen white Luces' in his coat of arms, and he is shown acting as Commissioner for the Musters. Sir Thomas was

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