William Shakespeare

Playwright, Poet (c. 1564-1616)

• William Shakespeare, also known as the "Bard of Avon," is
often called England's national poet and considered the
greatest dramatist of all time. Shakespeare's works are
known throughout the world, but his personal life is
shrouded in mystery.
• Who Was William Shakespeare?
• William Shakespeare (baptized on April 26, 1564 to April 23,
1616) was an English playwright, actor and poet also known as
the “Bard of Avon” and often called England’s national poet.
Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, he was an important
member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men company of theatrical
players from roughly 1594 onward. Written records give little
indication of the way in which Shakespeare’s professional life
molded his artistry. All that can be deduced is that, in his 20
years as a playwright, Shakespeare wrote plays that capture the
complete range of human emotion and conflict.
• William Shakespeare’s Plays
• While it’s difficult to determine the exact chronology of
William Shakespeare’s plays, over the course of two decades,
from about 1590 to 1613, he wrote a total of 37 plays
revolving around several main themes: histories, tragedies,
comedies and tragicomedies.
• Early Works: Histories and Comedies
• With the exception of the tragic love story Romeo and Juliet,
William Shakespeare's first plays were mostly
histories. Henry VI (Parts I, II and III), Richard II and Henry
V dramatize the destructive results of weak or corrupt rulers,
and have been interpreted by drama historians as
Shakespeare's way of justifying the origins of the Tudor
Dynasty. Julius Caesar portrays upheaval in Roman politics
that may have resonated with viewers at a time when
England’s aging monarch, Queen Elizabeth I, had no
legitimate heir, thus creating the potential for future power
struggles.
• Shakespeare also wrote several comedies during his early
period: the witty romance A Midsummer Night's Dream, the
romantic Merchant of Venice, the wit and wordplay of Much
Ado About Nothing, the charming As You Like It and Twelfth
Night.
• Other plays written before 1600 include Titus Andronicus, The
Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of
the Shrew, Love’s Labour’s Lost, King John, The Merry Wives of
Windsor and Henry V
• Works after 1600: Tragedies and Tragicomedies
• It was in William Shakespeare's later period, after 1600, that
he wrote the tragedies Hamlet, Othello, King
Lear and Macbeth. In these, Shakespeare's characters
present vivid impressions of human temperament that are
timeless and universal. Possibly the best known of these
plays is Hamlet, which explores betrayal, retribution, incest
and moral failure. These moral failures often drive the twists
and turns of Shakespeare's plots, destroying the hero and
those he loves.
• In William Shakespeare's final period, he wrote several
tragicomedies. Among these are Cymbeline, The Winter's
Tale and The Tempest. Though graver in tone than the
comedies, they are not the dark tragedies of King
Lear or Macbethbecause they end with reconciliation and
forgiveness.
• Other plays written during this period include All’s Well That
Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Timon of
Athens, Coriolanus, Pericles and Henry VIII.
• When and Where Was William Shakespeare Born?
• Though no birth records exist, church records indicate that a
William Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in
Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564. From this, it is
believed he was born on or near April 23, 1564, and this is
the date scholars acknowledge as William Shakespeare's
birthday. Located 103 miles west of London, during
Shakespeare's time Stratford-upon-Avon was a market town
bisected with a country road and the River Avon.
• Family
• William was the third child of John Shakespeare, a leather
merchant, and Mary Arden, a local landed heiress. William
had two older sisters, Joan and Judith, and three younger
brothers, Gilbert, Richard and Edmund. Before William's
birth, his father became a successful merchant and held
official positions as alderman and bailiff, an office
resembling a mayor. However, records indicate John's
fortunes declined sometime in the late 1570s.
• Childhood and Education
• Scant records exist of William's childhood, and virtually none
regarding his education. Scholars have surmised that he
most likely attended the King's New School, in Stratford,
which taught reading, writing and the classics. Being a public
official's child, William would have undoubtedly qualified for
free tuition. But this uncertainty regarding his education has
led some to raise questions about the authorship of his work
and even about whether or not William Shakespeare ever
existed.
• William Shakespeare’s Wife and Kids
• William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway on November
28, 1582, in Worcester, in Canterbury Province. Hathaway
was from Shottery, a small village a mile west of Stratford.
William was 18 and Anne was 26, and, as it turns out,
pregnant. Their first child, a daughter they named Susanna,
was born on May 26, 1583. Two years later, on February 2,
1585, twins Hamnet and Judith were born. Hamnet later died
of unknown causes at age 11.
• Shakespeare’s Lost Years
• There are seven years of William Shakespeare's life where no
records exist after the birth of his twins in 1585. Scholars call this
period the "lost years," and there is wide speculation on what he
was doing during this period. One theory is that he might have gone
into hiding for poaching game from the local landlord, Sir Thomas
Lucy. Another possibility is that he might have been working as an
assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire. It is generally believed he
arrived in London in the mid- to late 1580s and may have found
work as a horse attendant at some of London's finer theaters, a
scenario updated centuries later by the countless aspiring actors
and playwrights in Hollywood and Broadway.
• Lord Chamberlain's Men
• By the early 1590s, documents show William Shakespeare
was a managing partner in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, an
acting company in London with which he was connected for
most of his career. Considered the most important troupe of
its time, the company changed its name to the King's Men
following the crowning of King James I, in 1603.
• From all accounts, the King's Men company was very
popular. Records show that Shakespeare had works
published and sold as popular literature. Although the
theater culture in 16th century England was not highly
admired by people of high rank, many of the nobility were
good patrons of the performing arts and friends of the
actors.
• William Shakespeare the Actor and Playwright
• By 1592, there is evidence William Shakespeare earned a living as an
actor and a playwright in London and possibly had several plays
produced. The September 20, 1592 edition of the Stationers'
Register (a guild publication) includes an article by London playwright
Robert Greene that takes a few jabs at William Shakespeare:
"...There is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with
his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's 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," Greene wrote of Shakespeare.
• Scholars differ on the interpretation of this criticism, but
most agree that it was Greene's way of saying Shakespeare
was reaching above his rank, trying to match better known
and educated playwrights like Christopher Marlowe, Thomas
Nashe or Greene himself.
• Early in his career, Shakespeare was able to attract the
attention of Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, to
whom he dedicated his first- and second-published poems:
"Venus and Adonis" (1593) and "The Rape of Lucrece" (1594).
• By 1597, Shakespeare had already written and published 15
of his 37 plays. Civil records show that at this time he
purchased the second largest house in Stratford, called New
House, for his family. It was a four-day ride by horse from
Stratford to London, so it is believed that Shakespeare spent
most of his time in the city writing and acting and came
home once a year during the 40-day Lenten period, when
the theaters were closed.
• Shakespeare’s Globe Theater
• By 1599, William Shakespeare and his business partners
built their own theater on the south bank of the Thames
River, which they called the Globe. In 1605, Shakespeare
purchased leases of real estate near Stratford for 440
pounds, which doubled in value and earned him 60 pounds
a year. This made him an entrepreneur as well as an artist,
and scholars believe these investments gave him the time to
write his plays uninterrupted.
• Shakespeare’s Writing Style
• William Shakespeare's early plays were written in the conventional
style of the day, with elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases
that didn't always align naturally with the story's plot or characters.
However, Shakespeare was very innovative, adapting the
traditional style to his own purposes and creating a freer flow of
words. With only small degrees of variation, Shakespeare primarily
used a metrical pattern consisting of lines of unrhymed iambic
pentameter, or blank verse, to compose his plays. At the same
time, there are passages in all the plays that deviate from this and
use forms of poetry or simple prose.
• Shakespeare’s Death
• Tradition has it that William Shakespeare died on his 52nd birthday, April
23, 1616, though many scholars believe this is a myth. Church records
show he was interred at Trinity Church on April 25, 1616.
• In his will, he left the bulk of his possessions to his eldest daughter,
Susanna. Though entitled to a third of his estate, little seems to have
gone to his wife, Anne, whom he bequeathed his "second-best bed." This
has drawn speculation that she had fallen out of favor, or that the couple
was not close. However, there is very little evidence the two had a difficult
marriage. Other scholars note that the term "second-best bed" often
refers to the bed belonging to the household's master and mistress —
the marital bed — and the "first-best bed" was reserved for guests.
• Literary Legacy
• What seems to be true is that William Shakespeare was a respected man of the
dramatic arts who wrote plays and acted in some in the late 16th and early 17th
centuries. But his reputation as a dramatic genius wasn't recognized until the 19th
century. Beginning with the Romantic period of the early 1800s and continuing
through the Victorian period, acclaim and reverence for William Shakespeare and
his work reached its height. In the 20th century, new movements in scholarship
and performance have rediscovered and adopted his works.
• Today, his plays are highly popular and constantly studied and reinterpreted in
performances with diverse cultural and political contexts. The genius of
Shakespeare's characters and plots are that they present real human beings in a
wide range of emotions and conflicts that transcend their origins in Elizabethan
England.