William Shakespeare biography and history with poem

by **Admin** Sun May 02, 2010 1:25 am

For all his fame and celebration, William Shakespeare remains a
mysterious figure with regards to personal history. There are just two
primary sources for information on the Bard: his works, and various
legal and church documents that have survived from Elizabethan times.
Naturally, there are many gaps in this body of information, which tells
us little about Shakespeare the man.

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, allegedly on
April 23, 1564. Church records from Holy Trinity Church indicate that
he was baptized there on April 26, 1564. Young William was born of John
Shakespeare, a glover and leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a landed
heiress. William, according to the church register, was the third of
eight children the Shakespeare household—three of whom died in
childhood. John Shakespeare had a remarkable run of success as a
merchant, and later as an alderman and high bailiff of Stratford,
during William's early childhood. His fortunes declined, however, in
the 1570s.

There is great conjecture about Shakespeare's childhood years,
especially regarding his education. It is surmised by scholars that
Shakespeare attended the free grammar school in Stratford, which at the
time had a reputation to rival Eton. While there are no records extant
to prove this claim, Shakespeare's knowledge of Latin and Classical
Greek would tend to support this theory. In addition, Shakespeare's
first biographer, Nicholas Rowe, wrote that John Shakespeare had placed
William "for some time in a free school." John Shakespeare, as a
Stratford official, would have been granted a waiver of tuition for his
son. As the records do not exist, we do not know how long William
attended the school, but certainly the literary quality of his works
suggest a solid education. What is certain is that William Shakespeare
never proceeded to university schooling, which has stirred some of the
debate concerning the authorship of his works.

The next documented event in Shakespeare's life is his marriage to
Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582. William was 18 at the time, and
Anne was 26—and pregnant. Their first daughter, Susanna, was born on
May 26, 1583. The couple later had twins, Hamnet and Judith, born
February 2, 1585 and christened at Holy Trinity. Hamnet died in
childhood at the age of 11, on August 11, 1596.

For seven years, William Shakespeare effectively disappears from
all records, turning up in London circa 1592. This has sparked as much
controversy about Shakepeare's life as any period. Rowe notes that
young Shakespeare was quite fond of poaching, and may have had to flee
Stratford after an incident with Sir Thomas Lucy, whose lands he
allegedly hunted. There is also rumor of Shakespeare working as an
assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire for a time, though this is
circumstantial at best. It is estimated that Shakespeare arrived in
London around 1588 and began to establish himself as an actor and
playwright. Evidently, Shakespeare garnered envy early on for his
talent, as related by the critical attack of Robert Greene, a London
playwright, in 1592: "...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 fac totum, is in his own conceit the only
Shake-scene in a country."

Greene's bombast notwithstanding, Shakespeare must have shown
considerable promise. By 1594, he was not only acting and writing for
the Lord Chamberlain's Men (called the King's Men after the ascension
of James I in 1603), but was a managing partner in the operation as
well. With Will Kempe, a master comedian, and Richard Burbage, a
leading tragic actor of the day, the Lord Chamberlain's Men became a
favorite London troupe, patronized by royalty and made popular by the
theatre-going public. When the plague forced theatre closings in the
mid-1590s, Shakespeare and his company made plans for the Globe Theatre
in the Bankside district, which was across the river from London
proper.

Shakespeare's success is apparent when studied against other
playwrights of this age. His company was the most successful in London
in his day. He had plays published and sold in octavo editions, or
"penny-copies" to the more literate of his audiences. It is noted that
never before had a playwright enjoyed sufficient acclaim to see his
works published and sold as popular literature in the midst of his
career. While Shakespeare could not be accounted wealthy, by London
standards, his success allowed him to purchase New House and retire in
comfort to Stratford in 1611.

William Shakespeare wrote his will in 1611, bequeathing his
properties to his daughter Susanna (married in 1607 to Dr. John Hall).
To his surviving daughter Judith, he left £300, and to his wife Anne
left "my second best bed." William Shakespeare allegedly died on his
birthday, April 23, 1616. This is probably more of a romantic myth than
reality, but Shakespeare was interred at Holy Trinity in Stratford on
April 25. In 1623, two working companions of Shakespeare from the Lord
Chamberlain's Men, John Heminges and Henry Condell, printed the First
Folio edition of the Collected Works, of which half the plays contained
therein were previously unpublished. The First Folio also contained
Shakespeare's sonnets.

William Shakespeare's legacy is a body of work that will never
again be equaled in Western civilization. His words have endured for
400 years, and still reach across the centuries as powerfully as ever.
Even in death, he leaves a final piece of verse as his epitaph: ..

by **Admin** Sun May 02, 2010 1:28 am

William Shakespeare biography and history with poem

William Shakespeare biography and history with poem

400 poem link of William Shakespeare