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William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford in 1564 and
died there
on 23rd April 1616 aged 52 . He was buried at Holy Trinity Church
beside the River Avon . He was baptised there on 26th April , and so it
is thought that he may have died on his birthday.
His father , John, was a glovemaker and farm produce
dealer, a
town councillor and was elected High Bailiff, or mayor, in
1568. His mother was Mary Arden, from the village of Wilmcote, where
her family owned land. Stratford at that
time was the third
largest town in the County of Warwichshire, after Coventry
and Warwick. William received his education at the local Grammar
school, which he attended free as a councillor’s son. Grammar
schools had been established in many towns to replace some of the
monastic schools which vanished with the Protestant Reformation
some 30
years before. Latin, Greek classics and biblical
knowledge were the main subjects of study for boys aged six or seven to
about fourteen years old, and discipline was harsh from about six
every morning.
Shakespeare’s
plays show his intimate
knowledge of Latin and Greek literature, possibly at least partly from
translations read after he left school, and the influence of English
translations of the Bible were also strong, especially the
Bishop’s and Geneva Bibles. He could also read French, and knew
some Italian and Spanish.
He married Anne Hathaway , a farmer’s daughter
from Shottery about a mile from Stratford, when he was eighteen and she
was twenty-six. Her family
house is still there and much visited. They
had three children, Susanna, and the twins Hamnet and Judith, born
1585.
He began to write the plays for which he is famous
around 1592, by which time he was already established as a playwright
in London, drawing audiences away from rival authors such as Robert
Greene . He became friends with the Earl of Southampton, and left
London for a while when the theatres closed in 1593 and 94 due to
an outbreak of plague. It is thought that he may have written Love’s
Labour’ s Lost as a Christmas entertainment during his stay at
the Earl’s house at Titchfield in Hampshire.
He wrote and produced about two plays a year
for the next six or seven years, acting in some of them as well. In
1596 his son Hamnet died, aged eleven, shortly after his father , Joihn
, had applied for a coat of arms from the College of Heralds., probably
with thought for the day when he ( Hamnet ) would be of age.This was
granted in 1599, partly due to the great-grandfather’s service in the
time of Henry the Seventh.
Shakespeare bought the largest house inStratford in 1597, and
acquired other properties around the town, also being a leading “sharer
“in the newly built Globe theatre in 1599.
The Earls of Essex and Southampton , both well known
to Shakespeare, were accused of treason in 1600, and he was upset by
this change in fortune, writing nothing for two years after the
completion of Hamlet. After this he wrote plays in which the bitter
sorrows of 1601 are evident, such as Mavbeth, Othello, King Lear and
others.His last play known ,The Tempest, was written in 1611, after
which he retired to Stratford, and died after a short illness five
years later.
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