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Life of William Shakespeare
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Life of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an actor, playwright, poet, and theatre entrepreneur in London during the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean eras. He was baptised on 26 April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England, in the Holy Trinity Church. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children. He died in his home town of Stratford on 23 April 1616, aged 52.
Though more is known about Shakespeare's life than those of most other Elizabethan and Jacobean writers, few personal biographical facts survive, which is unsurprising in the light of his social status as a commoner, the low esteem in which his profession was held, and the general lack of interest of the time in the personal lives of writers. Information about his life derives from public rather than private documents: vital records, real estate and tax records, lawsuits, records of payments, and references to Shakespeare and his works in printed and hand-written texts. Nevertheless, hundreds of biographies have been written and more continue to be, most of which rely on inferences and the historical context of the 70 or so hard facts recorded about Shakespeare the man, a technique that sometimes leads to embellishment or unwarranted interpretation of the documented record.
Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon. His exact date of birth is not known – the baptismal record was dated 26 April 1564 – but has been traditionally taken to be 23 April 1564, which is also the Feast Day of Saint George, the patron saint of England. He was the first son and the first surviving child in the family; two earlier children, Joan and Margaret, had died early. Then a market town of about 2,000 residents approximately 100 miles (160 km) northwest of London, Stratford was a centre for the marketing, distribution, and slaughter of sheep; for hide tanning and wool trading; and for supplying malt to brewers of ale and beer.[citation needed]
His parents were John Shakespeare, a successful glover originally from Snitterfield in Warwickshire, and Mary Arden, the youngest daughter of John's father's landlord, a member of the local gentry. The couple married around 1557 and lived on Henley Street when Shakespeare was born, purportedly in a house now known as Shakespeare's Birthplace. They had eight children: Joan (baptised 15 September 1558, died in infancy), Margaret (baptised 2 December 1562 – buried 30 April 1563), William, Gilbert (baptised 13 October 1566 – buried 2 February 1612), Joan (baptised 15 April 1569 – buried 4 November 1646), Anne (baptised 28 September 1571 – buried 4 April 1579), Richard (baptised 11 March 1574 – buried 4 February 1613) and Edmund (baptised 3 May 1580 – buried London, 31 December 1607).
Shakespeare's family was above average materially during his childhood. His father's business was thriving at the time of William's birth. John Shakespeare owned several properties in Stratford and had a profitable – though illegal – sideline of dealing in wool. He was appointed to several municipal offices and served as an alderman in 1565, culminating in a term as bailiff, the chief magistrate of the town council, in 1568. For reasons unclear to history he fell upon hard times, beginning in 1576, when William was 12. He was prosecuted for unlicensed dealing in wool and for usury, and he mortgaged and subsequently lost some lands he had obtained through his wife's inheritance that would have been inherited by his eldest son. After four years of non-attendance at council meetings, he was finally replaced as burgess in 1586.[citation needed]
A close analysis of Shakespeare's works compared with the standard curriculum of the time confirms that Shakespeare had received a grammar school education. The King's New School at Stratford was on Church Street, less than a quarter of a mile from Shakespeare's home and within a few yards from where his father sat on the town council. It was free to all male children, and though there is no direct evidence of which grammar school Shakespeare attended, there is hardly a possibility that it was any other than the school in Stratford. Shakespeare would have been enrolled when he was 7, in 1571, having already learned to read English in a separate "petty school." The grammar school was a single-room schoolhouse under one "master," assisted by an "usher" who taught the rudiments of Latin grammar to the younger students. Classes were held every day except on Sundays, with a half-day off on Thursdays, year-round. The school day typically ran from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. (from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. in winter) with a two-hour break for lunch.[citation needed] Most of the day was spent in the study of Latin literature, much of which was to be committed to memory.
Direct evidence of the curriculum at Shakespeare's particular school or the paedagogical methods of his schoolteachers is lacking, but William Lily's Latin grammar was required to be used throughout England by royal decree, and the curriculum was essentially uniform with slight variations. For his first three or four years, Shakespeare would have been under the tutelage of the usher. He would have studied Lily's grammar in English, and then in Latin, exercising the rules of Latin syntax by translation into Latin of sentences dictated by the usher, drawn from the Distichs of Cato or other collections of Latin aphorisms, followed by memorisation of the approved Latin and English forms of the sentence. Aesop's Fables were almost universally studied in the second or third form as the next subject for construction after Cato.
After Aesop, Shakespeare would have had his first introduction to dramatic structure by studying the comedies of Terence, and perhaps some of Plautus as well. It is possible that Shakespeare was also called upon to act in these plays, either by reciting sections of them in class or by taking part in a full performance of one or more of them, but there is nothing to suggest that plays were performed at Shakespeare's school. Shakespeare would also have been set to parse and construe at least parts of the eclogues of Mantuan in the lower grammar school, and may have been given his first lessons in prosody on that work. Shakespeare probably also acquired much of his knowledge of the Old Testament in the lower grammar school through being assigned biblical texts to translate into Latin. While Shakespeare was learning to read and compose Latin, he would also have been taught to speak it in conversation, with dialogues such as those composed by Corderius, Juan Luis Vives, Erasmus, and Sebastian Castellio studied as models.
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Life of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an actor, playwright, poet, and theatre entrepreneur in London during the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean eras. He was baptised on 26 April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England, in the Holy Trinity Church. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children. He died in his home town of Stratford on 23 April 1616, aged 52.
Though more is known about Shakespeare's life than those of most other Elizabethan and Jacobean writers, few personal biographical facts survive, which is unsurprising in the light of his social status as a commoner, the low esteem in which his profession was held, and the general lack of interest of the time in the personal lives of writers. Information about his life derives from public rather than private documents: vital records, real estate and tax records, lawsuits, records of payments, and references to Shakespeare and his works in printed and hand-written texts. Nevertheless, hundreds of biographies have been written and more continue to be, most of which rely on inferences and the historical context of the 70 or so hard facts recorded about Shakespeare the man, a technique that sometimes leads to embellishment or unwarranted interpretation of the documented record.
Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon. His exact date of birth is not known – the baptismal record was dated 26 April 1564 – but has been traditionally taken to be 23 April 1564, which is also the Feast Day of Saint George, the patron saint of England. He was the first son and the first surviving child in the family; two earlier children, Joan and Margaret, had died early. Then a market town of about 2,000 residents approximately 100 miles (160 km) northwest of London, Stratford was a centre for the marketing, distribution, and slaughter of sheep; for hide tanning and wool trading; and for supplying malt to brewers of ale and beer.[citation needed]
His parents were John Shakespeare, a successful glover originally from Snitterfield in Warwickshire, and Mary Arden, the youngest daughter of John's father's landlord, a member of the local gentry. The couple married around 1557 and lived on Henley Street when Shakespeare was born, purportedly in a house now known as Shakespeare's Birthplace. They had eight children: Joan (baptised 15 September 1558, died in infancy), Margaret (baptised 2 December 1562 – buried 30 April 1563), William, Gilbert (baptised 13 October 1566 – buried 2 February 1612), Joan (baptised 15 April 1569 – buried 4 November 1646), Anne (baptised 28 September 1571 – buried 4 April 1579), Richard (baptised 11 March 1574 – buried 4 February 1613) and Edmund (baptised 3 May 1580 – buried London, 31 December 1607).
Shakespeare's family was above average materially during his childhood. His father's business was thriving at the time of William's birth. John Shakespeare owned several properties in Stratford and had a profitable – though illegal – sideline of dealing in wool. He was appointed to several municipal offices and served as an alderman in 1565, culminating in a term as bailiff, the chief magistrate of the town council, in 1568. For reasons unclear to history he fell upon hard times, beginning in 1576, when William was 12. He was prosecuted for unlicensed dealing in wool and for usury, and he mortgaged and subsequently lost some lands he had obtained through his wife's inheritance that would have been inherited by his eldest son. After four years of non-attendance at council meetings, he was finally replaced as burgess in 1586.[citation needed]
A close analysis of Shakespeare's works compared with the standard curriculum of the time confirms that Shakespeare had received a grammar school education. The King's New School at Stratford was on Church Street, less than a quarter of a mile from Shakespeare's home and within a few yards from where his father sat on the town council. It was free to all male children, and though there is no direct evidence of which grammar school Shakespeare attended, there is hardly a possibility that it was any other than the school in Stratford. Shakespeare would have been enrolled when he was 7, in 1571, having already learned to read English in a separate "petty school." The grammar school was a single-room schoolhouse under one "master," assisted by an "usher" who taught the rudiments of Latin grammar to the younger students. Classes were held every day except on Sundays, with a half-day off on Thursdays, year-round. The school day typically ran from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. (from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. in winter) with a two-hour break for lunch.[citation needed] Most of the day was spent in the study of Latin literature, much of which was to be committed to memory.
Direct evidence of the curriculum at Shakespeare's particular school or the paedagogical methods of his schoolteachers is lacking, but William Lily's Latin grammar was required to be used throughout England by royal decree, and the curriculum was essentially uniform with slight variations. For his first three or four years, Shakespeare would have been under the tutelage of the usher. He would have studied Lily's grammar in English, and then in Latin, exercising the rules of Latin syntax by translation into Latin of sentences dictated by the usher, drawn from the Distichs of Cato or other collections of Latin aphorisms, followed by memorisation of the approved Latin and English forms of the sentence. Aesop's Fables were almost universally studied in the second or third form as the next subject for construction after Cato.
After Aesop, Shakespeare would have had his first introduction to dramatic structure by studying the comedies of Terence, and perhaps some of Plautus as well. It is possible that Shakespeare was also called upon to act in these plays, either by reciting sections of them in class or by taking part in a full performance of one or more of them, but there is nothing to suggest that plays were performed at Shakespeare's school. Shakespeare would also have been set to parse and construe at least parts of the eclogues of Mantuan in the lower grammar school, and may have been given his first lessons in prosody on that work. Shakespeare probably also acquired much of his knowledge of the Old Testament in the lower grammar school through being assigned biblical texts to translate into Latin. While Shakespeare was learning to read and compose Latin, he would also have been taught to speak it in conversation, with dialogues such as those composed by Corderius, Juan Luis Vives, Erasmus, and Sebastian Castellio studied as models.
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