Biography

William Shakespeare was baptized 26th April 1564 in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford. There is no record of his date of birth but, at the time, it was tradition to be baptized three days after birth. Therefore, it is believed that he was born 23rd April 1564 (St. George's Day).

The next record in Shakespeare's life was 28th November 1592 when, at the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years his senior. On the 26th May 1583, six months later, their first child was baptized: 'Susanna Shakespeare' in Holy Trinity Church. They also baptized their twins: 'Judith and Hamnet Shakespeare', in the same church on 2nd February 1585.



William Shakespeare's Family Tree

Shakespeare's father, John Shakespeare, was raised in a village called Smitterfield. In 1550, at the age of roughly 20, he moved to Stratford and started a glove-making business. In 1556, he bought a house on Henley Street; a house where Shakespeare was born. The next year, John married the daughter of a wealthy local landowner, Mary Arden and had eight kids. William's older two siblings died when they were babies but his other siblings survived: three brothers and two sisters. In 1557, John Shakespeare joined the town council and rose to the position of High Bailiff in 1568.

1585 to 1592 are known as the 'lost years' in William Shakespeare's life as there is no documented record of his late teens. It was also a mystery as to what Shakespeare did in the few years before. He could have been fighting the Spanish population of the Low Countries like many other young men to working as a lawyer clerk. There is, however, a legend that he was caught stealing a wealthy squire's deer and fleeing the town.

Some biographers have argued that, although the country was under Protestant power, John Shakespeare was secretly catholic as were a few of the grammar school teachers. It is suggested that William Shakespeare was sent to the home of Alexander Hoghton as a tutor since Hoghton's will dated 3rd April 1581, asked Sir Thomas Hesketh, his neighbour to be friendly to a 'William Shakeshafte'.

There are hints of Shakespeare's childhood in his plays and writings. For example, in 1571, a pageant event was hosted by the Earl of Leicester at Kenilworth Castle, near Stratford, celebrating the Queen's birthday. The three week event included a water pageant in the castle lake where Arion rode on the back of a dolphin. A line in 'Twelfth Night' suggested that Shakespeare was present at the celebration: 'like Arion on the dolphin's back'.


Shakespeare was first documented in London in 1592. It showed that he was clearly making his success as a playwright. This implies that he had been working as an actor recently before or during his 'lost years'. By 1592 it was thought that he had completed his series of four dramas of the Wars of the Roses as well as 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona'. During the early 1590's, Shakespeare's early plays were presented at 'The Rose', London's most popular theatre at the time. The summer of 1592 met the plaque outbreak and many theatre companies fled the city to tour other districts and get away from the plague. Shockingly, Shakespeare didn't follow and he tried his hand at poetry. He seemingly found his talent in poetry as his two poems 'Venus and Adonis' and 'The Rape of Lucrece' were quickly published soon after they were written. For the next few years Shakespeare worked as an actor and playwright for the 'Queen's Men' (it changed to the 'King's Men' when James I of England succeeded Elizabeth I). Seeing as Shakespeare wasn't an amazing actor, he decided for the best that he focused on his playwriting career.


Shakespeare dedicated himself to writing histories and comedies but not much is known about his private life. He apparently returned to Stratford when his son, Hamnet, died in 1596.

Shakespeare, the greatest playwright of Literature, died ten weeks after his sister's wedding. He was said to have drank too much and it eventually caught up with him and he died 23rd April 1616 (on his birthday). He was buried under Holy Trinity Church's stone floor where he was baptized 52 years earlier.

Elizabethan and Jacobean Theatre

Elizabethan Theatre

Elizabethan theatre stemmed from the Middle Ages where churches staged plays about their saints. Mid-16th century, morality plays showing the battle between good and evil were very popular in England. Travelling actors often performed morality plays in courtyards and taverns in London. From the 1560's some acting groups were formed by wealthy nobles and even the monarch, for example, 'The Queen's Men' and 'The Earl of Derby's Players'.

In 1576, Elizabethan drama progressed dramatically. James Burbage built an amphitheatre styled theatre and called it 'The Theatre'. This set off a chain reaction with 'The Fortune' being built in 1600 and 'The Red Bull' in 1605, both in the north of London. However, south of the Thames, another theatre district opened much earlier with 'The Rose' in 1587, 'The Swan' in 1595, Shakespeare's 'The Globe in 1599 and 'The Hope' in1605. In Elizabethan theatre, not only were morality plays performed but also comedies, histories and melodramatics.

Towards the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, she had actors play for her in her palace. The theatre districts were in danger from the Puritans, who thought that all fun was sinful and wanted the theatres destroyed. Theatre staff, actors and the public were all anxious that the next monarch would be Protestant or worse: Puritan.

Jacobean Theatre

England’s next monarch, after Elizabeth, was James I of England (James VI of Scotland). His first act as King in 1603 was to declare patronage to the 'Lord Chamberlain's Men', who soon became the 'King's Men' or the 'King's Majesty's Men'. The bid change in Jacobean theatre was not the acting groups' names but the types of plays that were on show. Elizabethan theatre plays were very optimistic with lots of comedies and farces where Jacobean theatre plays were much more serious and realistic. This theme may have influenced Shakespeare's later comedies which all consisted strongly of dark, twisted humour. Shakespeare also wrote his greatest tragedies such as 'Hamlet' under James I's reign although it is thought that the death of Shakespeare's only son, Hamnet, deeply inspired 'Hamlet' and his other tragedies. Other playwrights also wrote darker plays with violence, evil and lust overpowering love, beauty and hope.

The Globe Theatre

With the end of a lease on the Blackfriars Theatre in 1597, The Lord Chamberlain’s Men (Shakespeare, J & R Burbage, G Byran, John Hemminges, Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope and Will Sly) had no where to perform their plays. This acting troupe desperately needed a new playhouse and fast as their rivals, The Admiral’s Men already had ‘The Rose’ to perform their plays. Clearly the Lord Chamberlain’s Men would need a theatre to compete. In 1598 came the decision to build a brand new theatre: ‘The Globe’.

Sure enough the playhouse was completed, opening in 1599. Not only could the theatre hold up to 3000 patrons but it turned out to be a good earner, earning Shakespeare and his troupe both money from hiring out the theatre and from ticket sales for their own performances there.

Located near the river Thames, Shakespeare’s theatre was not actually in central London but in an outlining district called Southwark. Southwark had a "colourful" reputation of certainly not being the place to find respectable etiquette. Yet the famous theatre, by attracting commoners and upper classes alike, brought all the people of London together in a region renowned for bear-baiting and other less than respectable activities. But still class divisions remained; commoners were in the courtyard with England’s gentry and nobility seated in the galleries or the balconies.

‘The Globe’ was a large circular structure, three stories high. A small straw hatched roof only partially covered the circular structure, giving it an appearance very much like a modern day football stadium where the centre is uncovered. In the centre, the 5 feet high main stage extended out. At the back of this stage, there were two doors and a main entrance with a central curtain. Behind this were changing rooms for the actors. To get back on stage, there were two side doors and a curtain at the back of the stage that was used as a backdrop. Above this stage was a balcony. A balcony famously used in Romeo and Juliet when Romeo hears Juliet cry "Romeo, Romeo wherefore art thou Romeo". Also the backdrop would have been pulled aside in The Tempest to reveal the innocent scene of Miranda playing chess with Ferdinand and was again used for Hamlet’s stabbing of Polonius in Hamlet. In the middle of two other balconies acting as theatre boxes. On the third level was a small house like structure supported by columns from the stage where announcements were made and the theatre's flag would often fly, advertising plays being performed.

Tragedy struck the theatre when, during a performance of Henry VIII on 29^th June 1613, a cannon was fired lighting the thatched roof and burning the structure to the ground. Rebuilt just one year later, the famous ‘Globe Theatre’ opened its doors again for business but on the opposite side of the Thames river, with the original's straw thatched roof now replaced with tiles.

Shakespeare's Work

Comedies (White Flag)

·         All’s Well That Ends Well

·         As You Like It

·         The Comedy Of Errors

·         Cymbeline

·         Love’s Labours Lost

·         Measure For Measure

·         The Merry Wives Of Windsor

·         The Merchant Of Venice

·         A Midsummer Night’s Dream

·         Much Ado About Nothing

·         Pericles, Prince Of Tyre

·         Taming Of The Shrew

·         The Tempest

·         Troilus And Cressida

·         Twelfth Night

·         Two Gentlemen Of Verona

·         Winter’s Tale

Histories (Red Flag)

·         Henry IV, Part 1

·         Henry IV, Part 2

·         Henry V

·         Henry VI, Part 1

·         Henry VI, Part 2

·         Henry VI, Part 3

·         Henry VIII

·         King John

·         Richard II

·         Richard III

Tragedies (Black Flag)

·         Anthony and Cleopatra

·         Coriolanus

·         Hamlet

·         Julius Caesar

·         King Lear

·         Macbeth

·         Othello

·         Romeo and Juliet

·         Titus of Athens

·         Titus Andronicus

Poems

·         A Lover’s Complaint

·         The Passionate Pilgrim

·         The Phoenix and the Turtle

·         The Rape of Lucrece

·         Venus and Adonis

Sonnets

·         I- XXV (1- 25)

·         XXVI- L (26- 50)

·         LI- LXXV (51- 75)

·         LXXVI- C (76- 100)

·         CI- CXXV (101- 125)

·         CXXVI- CLIV (126- 154)

Shakespeare's Language

Shakespeare played a major role in changing English theatre, drama and also English language. He was writing at a time when early ‘modern’ English was less than 100 years old and most documents were still written in Latin. English language rules were unsteady and the vocabulary was limited. The future of the new language was unclear.

When the Renaissance playwrights and especially Shakespeare wrote their popular plays they helped to settle ‘modern’ English as the national spoken and written language. Shakespeare himself wrote with a vocabulary of roughly 17,000 words. He is well known for giving over 3000 words to the English language because he was the first author to write them down. Except for the writers of the Bible, Shakespeare is the most frequently quoted writer in English. Among the many phrases he invented were:

• 'eaten me out of house and home'
• 'neither rhyme nor reason'
• 'wild-goose chase'
• 'dead as a doornail'
• 'brave new world'

By the time he wrote his last play in 1613, Shakespeare had helped to create a new grammar and a much wider vocabulary for the early form of modern English. With his genius for poetic technique, he vastly broadened range of the English language.

Here are some of Shakespeare’s most famous lines:

·        Sonnet 18

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date".

·        Hamlet

To be, or not to be: that is the question" - (Act III, Scene I).

"This above all: to thine own self be true" - (Act I, Scene III).

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t" - (Act II, Scene II).

·        King Richard III

"A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" - (Act V, Scene IV). 

·        Romeo and Juliet

"O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?" - (Act II, Scene II).

"It is the east, and Juliet is the sun" - (Act II, Scene II).

"Tempt not a desperate man". - (Act V, Scene III).

"See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!" - (Act II, Scene II).

·        Julius Caesar

"But, for my own part, it was Greek to me". - (Act I, Scene II).

"Beware the ides of March". - (Act I, Scene II).

·        Macbeth

"Where shall we three met again? In thunder, lightening or in rain? When the hurleyburley’s done, when the battle’s lost and won. That will be ere the set of the sun". - (Act I, Scene I).

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair". - (Act I, Scene I).

"Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble." - (Act IV, Scene I).

"Out, damned spot! Out, I say!" - (Act V, Scene I).

"Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." - (Act V, Scene V).

·        Twelfth Night

"Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them". - (Act II, Scene V).

·        A Midsummer Night's Dream

"The course of true love never did run smooth". - (Act I, Scene I).

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind". - (Act I, Scene I).

Romeus and Juliet

‘The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet’ was the key source for William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It was translated by Arthur Brooke from an Italian novella (written by Matteo Bandello) and published in 1562. The poem ends very differently from Shakespeare's play; while Romeus and Juliet still die for eachother, the nurse is banished and Friar Lawrence leaves Verona to live in hiding until he dies.


At the start of the tale, Brooke adds an irregular sonnet summing up ‘The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet’:

‘Love hath inflamed twain by sudden sight,

And both do grant the thing that both desire

They wed in shrift by counsel of a friar.

Young Romeus climbs fair Juliet's bower by night.

Three months he doth enjoy his chief delight.

By Tybalt's rage provoked unto ire,

He payeth death to Tybalt for his hire.

A banished man he 'scapes by secret flight.

New marriage is offered to his wife.

She drinks a drink that seems to reave her breath:

They bury her that sleeping yet hath life.

Her husband hears the tidings of her death.

He drinks his bane. And she with Romeus' knife,

When she awakes, herself, alas! she slay'th.’

Shakespeare's Legacy

Shakespeare played a major role in changing English theatre, drama and also English language. Shakespeare himself wrote with a vocabulary of roughly 17,000 words. He is well known for giving over 3000 words to the English language because he was the first author to write them down. Except for the writers of the Bible, Shakespeare is the most frequently quoted writer in English. By 1613, Shakespeare had helped to create a new grammar and a much wider vocabulary for the early form of modern English. With his genius for poetic technique, he vastly broadened range of the English language.

Many of Shakespeare’s plays have been re-writ, adapted and even been made into films, documentaries and TV series. Shakespeare movies are so numerous with over 250 Shakespeare movies produced. Shakespeare film adaptations such as Baz Luhrman's "Romeo and Juliet", the Shakespeare inspired "Shakespeare in Love" and the more recent "Hamlet 2000", prove that Shakespeare films adaptations and movies retain their enduring appeal. As an example of Shakespeare's enduring popularity, sixty one film adaptations and twenty one TV adaptations alone have been made of Hamlet, the earliest being in 1907 and the latest in 2000.