Shakespeare's Biography

 

We know very little about the man who is named William Shakespeare, and anyone who tells you differently is mad.  Record keeping 400 years ago was inconsistent at best, and very few official documents still exist.  Shakespeare, while a prolific writer for the stage did not keep a journal, letters, or much else in personal writings.  The information that follows comes from Bill Bryson's mercifully brief and soulfully witty biography of Shakespeare, Shakespeare:  The World as Stage.

The facts are these:

--He was baptized on April 26, 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.  It is merely a tradition to say that he was born on April 23; birth certificates were not kept, only baptismal records.  April 23 is an important date for a few reasons:  (1) it is St. George's Day and (2) it is the same day Shakepeare died in 1612.  Poets, dramatists and dreamers all love symmetry.



Shakespeare's Birthplace

--His parents were John Shakespeare and Mary Arden.  His father was a glover, a whittawer and a politician.  John was elected to any number of posts from ale taster to high bailiff, sort of the mayor of Stratford.  Late in his life, John was accused of wool trading and usury. He dropped out of public life.  Mary was the daughter of a farmer who had 8 children:  4 boys and 4 girls. 









Sketch of Anne Hathaway



--In late 1582 he married Anne Hathaway; she was pregnant.  The marriage license does not exist.   Likewise, very little is known about Anne.  Her tombstone reads that she was 67 years old at the time of her death in 1623, making her 26 years old when she married the 18-year-old Shakespeare.  An older woman...hubba hubba.







Susanna and Judith Shakespeare

--His first child, Susanna, was born in May, 1583. 



--His twins, Judith and Hamnet, were born in Feburary, 1585.

--He dropped out of sight for 7 years.  During these "lost years", Shakespeare must leave his new family for London (a four-day walk or 2 days on horseback), join an acting troupe as an actor, begin writing plays, and become successful enough as a playwright that a retraction and public apology was necessary for a poorly veiled critique published in 1592.

--Robert Greene attacked him in print from Greene's deathbed in 1592.   As one of his last acts Greene (a poet, novelist and sometime playwright of some considerable merit at the time) wrote a pamphlet, entitled Greene's Groat's-Worth of Wit, Bought with a Million of Repentance.  Describing the folly of youth, the falsehoods of make-shift flatterers, the misery of the negligent, and mischiefs of deceiving Courtesans.  Written before his death and published at his dying request.  Other than having a title nearly as long as the work, the Groat's-Worth's main thrust was for Greene to honor his own life and proclaim a dying man's rage at those who had wronged him.  In it he slams Shakespeare as being a hack, and warns his fellow playwrights to be wary the "upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers".  Greene felt Shakespeare stole all of his good ideas from others...which is true.  But Shakespeare wouldn't steal anything from Greene for another 15-20 years (Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale is based on Greene's novella Pandosto.).  A public apology to William Shakespeare was issued by the editor of the pamphlet shortly after Greene's death.

--He wrote 38 plays, probably.  We have no idea how many plays Shakespeare wrote, or when he wrote them.  For some of them, we know they have to be written by a certain date because of a record of when they were performed, but we have no idea if they were new plays at the time or just revivals of favorites.  Slightly over 200 plays exist in written form from Shakespeare's lifetime.  This is a minuscule number when you consider that plays were written for specific acting companies, and these companies would do 5 or 6 different plays a week.  A hit play (Shakespeare surely had many) could be performed up to 10 times a year.

--While the theatres were shut down for the plague, he would write poetry.  The plagues closed the theatres shortly after Greene's death for nearly two years.  In April 1593, Shakepseare published the narrative poem, Venus and Adonis.  The Rape of Lucrece was published the following year.  These long poems (nearly as long as his shortest play,The Comedy of Errors) were two of the three poems he wrote with the intent of having them published; the third was his 1601 poem, The Phoenix and the Turtle. 



William Kemp, the clown for
the Lord Chamberlain's Men

--He was a member and part-owner in the theatre troupe, the Lord Chamberlain's Men.  It was rare amongst playwrights to be closely associated with just one troupe, but after the theatres re-opened in 1594, he worked almost exclusively with this troupe.  There is no record of how much money he was paid but conservative estimates put him at around 200 pounds a year at the height of his popularity.

 

--His son, Hamnet, died in 1596, when Shakespeare was 32 and Hamnet was 11.  Though their was no indication that Shakespeare was close to (physically or emotionally) the family in Stratford, several of his later plays (King John, The Winter's Tale) are fraught with emotional language concerning the death of a child.

Shakespeare Coat of Arms

New Place, Stratford

--In May, 1597, Shakespeare bought a house, New Place, in Stratford.  New Place was the second biggest house in town, and he ensconced his family there.  How much time he was spending with them there can be and is hotly debated.  It was also around this period that he bought a coat of arms in his father's name.  It appears that for the first time in more than a decade Shakespeare was concerned with his family.

--He didn't pay all his London taxes in 1597 and 1598. 

 



Globe Theatre

 --In 1599, he and 6 other members of the Chamberlain's Men were leased the land where the Globe theatre stood in London.  There is almost more known about The Globe theatre than Shakespeare.  The spot that the Chamberlain's Men leased was actually the second location of the theatre.  The first was across the Thames river, and had to be moved when the company could not secure a lease agreement with the land owner of the original plat.  Legend has it that the theatre was moved in a single night, December 28, 1599.  The theatre and its round shape were famous in the time; and the reputation of the place became "a theatre built by actors for actors."  A replica of the theatre today stands near the site of the second Globe location.

--He continued to make more of an investment in Stratford.  He bought a small cottage across the street from New Place.  He later purchased farmland north of Stratford.  In 1605, he bought a percentage of some graineries in three neighboring villages.

--The Chamberlain's Men were awarded a royal patent in 1603 by new King James I.  They became known as the King's Men.  This was the highest honor that could be given an acting troupe.  During the rest of Shakespeare's life they would perform for the king 187 times.  This was more than all other acting troupes combined.

Blackfriars Theatre

--In 1608, the King's Men opened the Blackfriars Theatre.  This theatre was, like the Globe before it, the trendsetter of contemporary theatrics.  The only difference was that the theatre was indoors.  This meant that theatre could go year round, increasing the money (and expenses) a theatre troupe could expect.  It also created the intermission, because candles used for lighting would have to be trimmed, or replaced.  A replica of the Blackfriars Theatre is a working playhouse in Staunton, Virginia.

--In 1609, Shakespeare's sonnets were published.  Thomas Thorpe, a man with no previous connection to Shakespeare, published them.  He had no printing press and no store in which to sell the books.  How or why Thorpe got the sonnets are as big a question as when Shakespeare wrote them or to whom they are addressed.

--He started writing with partners in his later years.  Pericles was written with George Wilkins.  John Fletcher was his partner on The Two Noble Kinsmen, Henry VIII and The History of Cardenio now also called Double Falsehood.

--In 1613, the Globe Theatre burnt down, and Shakespeare bought a house in London.  The house mortgage was also signed by three other men:  one of the members of the King's Men, another good friend and a local tavern owner.  It appears this was all done to keep his wife from inheriting the property if he should die.

--Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616.  He was 52 years old.  He changed his will shortly before death.  He left his wife Anne his "second-best bed".



A Second-Best Bed